Dreams

Chapter 8 - Some Things Are Meant to Stay Secret

Katie

Everyone is staring me down, wide-eyed and gaping. "It's not what it sounds like!" I quickly say in a panicked voice.

"Then what was that girl talking about?" Amber growls. Oh my gosh I'm going to explode if I see Emerald one more time- I get out from under the desk without responding to Amber.

I hop into the chair and check the security cameras.

"She's down the hall," I report. "I'm going in."

This time, Luke doesn't offer to go with me. It's fair; I've put him through enough already.

I snatch my flashlight from the desk. Amber begins to stand up. "Don't even think about going with me." I say.

"I don't want to stay here with these people," Amber looks at Liam, Kyle, and Luke.

"And I want to help you, Katie. I don't want to leave you alone with that girl who's looking for you. I don't want you turning out like that demon she summoned." Amber gives me a nervous smile.

Although, she had a determined edge to it.

I smile back. "Well. . . okay." She fist pumps into the air. "BURN IN HECK WHILE YOU'RE AT IT, AMBER!" Kyle calls as we walk out the door.

Amber turns back to glare at him. We close the door behind us. "Operation Danger is in action," Amber mutters as we look over an edge.

"Our goal is to reach Mrs. Catherine's office." I tell her. "In there is everything we need to know about this girl."

"Why would Mrs. Catherine have files on her?" Amber asks as we walk down a narrow hallway. "She's my cousin." I mutter angrily and Amber gasps.

"WHAT?!?" Amber cries and I shush her in an instant.

"Look, what happened was that she was a dreamer, she wandered into the woods one day, was in there for a month and then she came back with demonic powers."

Amber blinks in confusion. "Wow. Okay." She looks ahead of us. "I know a shortcut to the office. I don't think you know it, considering how you took your precious time with Luke." She nods to the other side of the middle school. "It'll take us straight to the High," Amber notes. "Sign me up," I say.

She takes me down a winding hallway. "Here we are," She chimes after a minute or so.

"That was QUICK!" I chirp. "That's why it's called a shortcut, sherlock." Amber rolls her eyes at me.

Amber nods to Mrs. Catherine's door and we head in, me cautiously waving my flashlight about.

The door closes behind us as we start flipping through Mrs. Catherine's desk files.

"I bet there will be more information online, too," I tell Amber. "I can hack into the school again; this time I can get any files they might have on Emerald."

"Emerald?" Amber repeats, sounding far away. "Yeah, that's her name."

I open the gray computer on Mrs. Catherine to find out it's already on the school homepage. "That's good," I mutter to myself. "But what if you get in trouble for hacking again?" Amber asks nervously.

"And what are they going to do about it?" I start sassily. "Suspend me? HA!" I proceed to start hacking the firewall.

Amber understands my sarcastic tone. "Well, fair enough." She watches as I spam random letters and numbers into the system until it opens up. "

Good. This can be our extra source," I start and I begin to start looking through the physical files.

"But what we need to start with is this." I pick up the file titled 'Emerald Lilligan'. The thing I find strange though is that it is way lighter than I remember.

"Huh," I mutter. I open the file. There is only one paper. I pick it up, but the second I do it fades into black and in bloody letters is the word HELP.

Amber gasps behind me. "What the heck?" She whispers in a terrified tone.

Blood is splattered all over the page and a knife forms on the paper. Like, a REAL KNIFE. Shaking, I pick it off the paper.

Blood splotches instantly form on the knife and Amber cowars away behind me. My hands shake uncontrollably.

I flip the knife around and on the other side, written in blood, are these exact words straight down; This was all your fault.

The black paper in my hand disintegrates into pure ash. The ashes fall onto Amber's fancy golden sneakers and she yelps in terror.

"Get it off, get it off, get it off!!" She panics quietly as I focus on the bloody knife in my hands.

The messages keep switching; Why would you do this?-What did you do?-Where are you?-I hate you.

I keep watching the messages until finally; It's all your fault I was cursed like this.

I drop the knife and it just barely misses my foot. "O-okay. Let's check the online files." I act like nothing happened although Amber is shuddering in fear and stammering; "W-what t-the f-fr-fri. . ." I open the files.

"She obviously hasn't touched these babies," I shoot a smile at Amber who nods along.

"Now would you look at this?" I go through Emerald's files until I get to where I want. "Here's why she left the school. Here's where stuff gets good, kid."

I turn to Amber with a smirk as she glares; she's three months older than I am.

"Now. It says here that Athena Lilligan had lost her daughter for days. Sounds about right." That's what my aunt briefly explained to me.

"Athena Lilligan told us that her daughter came back after a month, scratched up and bleeding out everywhere. . ." I trail off.

That's not what my aunt told me. . .

"Oh my gosh." Amber breathes behind me. "But. . . My aunt told me that she was perfectly intact but simply out of her third grade mind."

I read on.

"The girl was screaming and crying and bleeding out everywhere in the house. But Athena states she never took her daughter to the hospital; she simply left her there as a punishment. Emerald would shriek and cry about how badly her soul hurt but her mother. . . but her mother didn't care. Oh. Oh my gosh."

Amber is shaking her head behind me.

"Emerald had said many and many times over that the woman she saw in the woods had cursed her and tried to kill her with demons. Eventually, with all of this so-called 'crazy talk', Athena locked her daughter up while she was dying. Athena told us that it's been nearly two years; she hasn't opened the door. Not once. She hasn't heard anything from it since the first year. She assumed Emerald had died. We keep this information to ourselves; Athena would be in jail if we told anybody."

"It's for the greater good, Athena has told us many, many times. We think so too. We will not let demons inside this school. We are not losing any more kids to a demon infestation; we thank Athena with all our soul."

I take my hands off the computer. "What the heck?" Amber mutters joylessly behind me. "Are the teachers part of a secret organization or something?"

"What do they mean by losing MORE students to a demon infestation? Has the school dealt with a demon manifesting before? Whatever."

I sigh and get up. "Amber, let's get out of here. We'll eavesdrop over the teachers from now on. I promise."

I look up to see Amber trying to open the door. A look of panic is streaking across her face and she's frantically trying to open the door. "What's going on?" I ask her as she turns around hurriedly.

Then Amber shrieks; "IT'S STUCK! IT'S NOT OPENING!"