Freaks

19- Sacrificial Mission

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The gunfire echoes, the loud thud of his body, when she turned around, when she saw his head. When it struck her that he, Malakai, was dead, and the air was not invited into her lungs. She can hear her heartbeat in her head, her heavy breath, her scream. Choking on horror is like—

"Harper." The teacher says for the third time.

She blinks, aware of the room again, aware of her environment. Luka's hand is on the back of her shoulder, she turns to him and then to the teacher who waits for her.

"Are you feeling well? Can you read the next paragraph, please?"

"Oh." She looks at the book, "Uhm."

Don't look back.

She bites the inside of her cheek as the words on the book don't even register in her brain.

Luka's finger points to the beginning of a paragraph, "Start there."

His voice sounds muffled, she can't focus where his finger points, she feels as she did in the truck, as she did with her mother, sick, not the same, not who she was just yesterday.

She extends from her seat, suddenly dizziness kicks in and she scurries out of the classroom, into the hall. She stops in the middle of it and checks her right hand where she got a good scratch from the brick wall.

"Harper." Luka says behind her, "What's wrong?"

She swallows her dry mouth, it doesn't help. He turns her around by her arms, examining her, "Why did you come to school like this?"

She shrugs and her eyelids feel heavy.

"Trying to distract yourself, huh?"

She doesn't respond. Her heart is rapid against her chest but her brain acts otherwise.

The teacher comes through the door, interrogating them. Harper feels her eyes start to close and her head drifts but Luka holds her head back up, "Hey, stay up."

She supposes the teacher saw her fainted look and went back into the class to call up the nurse. She rests her head on Luka's shoulder and rests her eyes, she almost feels like sleeping there until the nurse comes out of nowhere behind her and starts messing with her face and asking her questions.

Her teacher comes around from somewhere and hands her a small plastic coffee cup filled with water. She takes a sip and all of the blurry voices become clear, another and dizziness fades away, another and she can think clearly again. One more but it doesn't help anything, not the fact that he's dead and she witnessed it.

She's able to walk to the nurse's office with a linked arm through Luka's. Inside, Jackson sits with an ice pack on his knee.

"You can go back to class now, Luka, thank you." The nurse says before he steps a foot through her door.

He eyes Harper as she sits down slowly, gives him a small smile, then he takes a sly glance at Jackson beside her, then bolts away.

The nurse hands Harper a bigger foam cup filled with water, "You were dehydrated. Has this happened to you before?"

She shakes her head, "No."