Secrets

Chapter 4: Xa

Ping. Ping. Ping.

Xa awoke with a start. Her alarm hadn't gone off yet......

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Her alarm went off. She wanted to hit Snooze so badly, but she had got an email. And she knew exactly who it was from.

Reagan.

Xa's little brother Cole was still asleep. So were her parents. It wouldn't hurt to look at the email....

Xa crept over to her laptop, which was sitting on top of a chessboard. Xa was good at strategy, and coincidentally she was also very good at chess. She picked up her laptop and, sure enough, the email had come from reagan@kowalski.com. She skimmed the letter, and came to the part about The Dark. Xa felt a shiver run up her spine. The rumours at school had been true. Her parents had been whispering about something. Xa had tried to eavesdrop, but she had felt too guilty to listen to anything. But she had heard the words 'Reagan' and 'The Dark' and 'Unsafe'. It made her feel worried, which was unusual. Usually, Xa's rule was that life was too short to worry. But this was different. This involved a friend, and if there was one thing Xa was fiercely loyal to, it was her family & friends. Reagan was like an adopted sister. Like, literally. Xa was glad she now had something to do, even if that something was worry for Reagan's life. There was a limit to how many online chess games one could play without one's parents noticing while eating the Hershley's kisses one had smuggled into one's room. One also got bored with reading Wikipedia articles to make sure one passed one's calculus test which happened to be tomorrow. Xa walked to the door and peeked through. She had to check something. Urgently. Xa tiptoed down the landing, skipped the second and seventh steps of the stairs (They had creaking floorboards) and didn't even breath as she passed Nila, the 22 yr old Australian cattle dog that had been in the family since Xa's mum was in her late teens.

Xa crept down the stairs to the basement. She stubbed her toe on a stray Lego piece and cursed.

"Goddamn Lego! I'm going to kill Cole!" she muttered under breath. Xa said this daily-no, hourly- but she never got around to doing so. He seemed to notice this, which gave him even greater pleasure to drive her to consider if a life in asylum was worth it. Reagan was lucky, and she didn't even know how lucky she was. Even Rico was lucky. His siblings were angelic. The only way to calm Cole down was with an iPhone, iPad or iPod. He was possibly the brattiest brat in the history of bratty brats. But deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, DEEP down, (Yes, all those deep's were necessary) Cole was actually nearly ok.

Nearly.

Xa reached the bottom of the basement and rolled up the worn rug. There was nothing there, apart from a five dollar note. Cole got jealous quickly, especially if money was involved in the issue, so Xa's parents kept the money under the rug. The money was used to call Reagan and Rico, since Rico couldn't afford Skype and Reagan stubbornly refused to use it. (Xa could almost hear her- "Why would I want to see your face through a screen? It would be weird. Plus, what if the orphanage noticed?") The orphanage had a strict no-electronic rule, which Reagan was already breaking by secretly using her Netbook and MP3. Reagan had to ask special permission to get calls, too. The staff were paranoid about bugging devices in the devices.

Xa had the same guilty feeling she had every time she came down to the basement to do this. But she knew it had to be done.

You see, Mr and Mrs Wane were convinced that Xa and Cole would never read a newspaper until they became 18. They believed that the current events happening in the world and saiid in the news weren't suitable for children (or teenagers, in Xa's case) at all. And they were right about that. The Dark were committing horrible deeds, that were hardly suitable for an adult. But Xa knew she had to keep up with the world. (Otherwise, she thought, I'll end up being a sad little hermit in a cave who creeps herself out) Which was exaggeration. But anyways.

Xa slid a loose brick from the wall. She peered in the hole, and sure enough, there was the daily newspaper in there. Xa's parents hid the newspaper, and they hadn't even stopped to think that Xa would be curious and clever enough to find the hiding spot. She read the headlines of the paper and fear pooled in her stomach. The actions of The Dark were becoming more and more threatening; killing people who they thought were even the slightest risk....like poor Martha. She had been one of the ten people in the current month who had been killed, or hurt, by The Dark. One man had commented that The Dark was really making a spectacle of themselves. Then he woke up the next morning to find himself in hospital with his legs chopped of; his family killed, and his home burned to the ground. He hadn't been able to cope. They had taken him away to asylum, where he had died two days later. It was stories like those that Xa's parents didn't want Xa reading, and it was plain to see why. And stories like those were the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Xa shuddered and recoiled in horror as she flipped through the newspaper. By the fifth page, she had had enough. She placed the newspaper back, put the brick back where it had been, picked up her five dollars and crept up the basement stairs and into her bedroom, tears streaming down her face while she went.

She hated The Dark. She had never hated anything more than she hated The Dark. She wanted to scream at them, hit them, make them know how much she detested every single one of them until there were none left. She wanted to strike back hard, show them that the world was mourning because of them. She wanted to give them a taste of their own medicine. She wanted to....she wanted to...... she wanted to kill them. Then their families would know what Xa felt like....

But then, reasoned a small voice in her head, wouldn't that make you as bad as The Dark? Wouldn't it make you a killer, someone who hated the world, someone who hated more than they loved, just like them?

Torn between the angry side of herself and the reasonable side of herself, Xa fell asleep again, battling a battle against herself that no teenage girl, or any human for that matter, should ever have to experience.