The Broken Ones

Chapter Five

It was dark as Valeriana waited at the bus stop. Valeriana subconsciously fiddled with her bag and pulled at the hem of her floral skirt. She was the only person at the bus stop; one small figure sitting alone at the bus stop. The metal bench was cold. She could feel the harsh coldness of it against her legs; even though she was wearing stocking.

She needed to be at Edinborourgh University at 8 am for her Ecology and the Environment lecture. She would be taking a bus and a tram to university. The bus came at 6:48 am, which was five minutes away.

It was cold, Valeriana thought to herself as she pulled her light green cardigan even more tightly around her. It was still autumn in Melbourne meaning it wouldn't usually get light until at least seven am. There was still the occasional day when it was light around six-thirty, or it would be almost seven-thirty, and it would still be dark.

Valeriana ran her fingers through her long red hair. She had been in a hurry this morning so she hadn't had time to tie it back into a high ponytail like she usually did. Instead, it hung loose, reaching her lower back.

It wasn't like Valeriana was actually alone. The bus stop was positioned right outside a Cole's supermarket. Despite it being very early in the morning there were about twenty cars in the car park. Valeriana had figured that in the rare chance that something did happen to her as she waited for her bus; there would probably be security footage; also Valeriana is hard to forget.

She knew she stood out from the crowd. It wasn't like she was incredibly beautiful or anything but Valeriana had a lot of distinct features that cause her to stay in people's memories. For starters, there was her long bright red hair, which could easily be seen in a crowd of brunettes, blondes and black hair. There was also her extremely pale skin. Some of her former classmates would be compared it to the colour of paper, or they would ask is she was secretly a vampire. Last of all there was her size. Valeriana was tiny. Just last year she had been asked if she was in year seven. Before Valeriana could even answer Faith told the kid that Valeriana was actually in year twelve.

The bus screeched to a stop in front of Valeriana. She fished her myki out of her bag's front pocket. Valeriana slowly climbed onto the bus. She pressed her myki against the myki reader and waited to hear the two beeps to confirm she had touched on correctly. As the familiar beeps sounded, Valeriana began the walk to the back of the bus.

She didn't thank the bus driver as she boarded not because she was rude but because talking was hard for her. It was a psychological problem. A side effect of her social anxiety disorder.

Valeriana had a stutter. Every psychologist Valeriana had ever visited had recommended that she go to speech therapy. Her parents, however, refused to take her. The way Killian and Elizabeth Engel saw it was that there was nothing wrong with their daughter's stutter. It was just a unique quirk that made her Valeriana. After all, Valeriana had suffered from selective mutism up until she was fourteen; which was one of the main reasons her parents saw nothing wrong with the stutter. As they would tell every psychologist; "She may be stuttering, but at least she is actually talking to people outside of her family."

The bus ride was long. It quickly became packed as more people boarded the bus. The majority of the psychologists Valeriana had visited as a child had been surprised to discover that she didn't suffer from claustrophobic. It was the opposite really. Valeriana loved crowded places. It always seemed strange to everyone else, but it made perfect sense for Valeriana. After all, it is easier to go unnoticed in a crowd.

The bus ride took about thirty-five minutes. The bus pulled up righting up to Harendale shopping centre.

Valeriana picked up her bag and exited the bus. She wasn't the only person from the bus to board the tram.