What She Left

chapter one

dedicated to tyrelliot because she's my soulm8 :')
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seven months later

five twelve p.m., september nineteenth, two thousand and sixteen

two three three five morris lane

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    Click.

She aims the pistol in her hand at the wall, cocking her head and studying the way her slim, pale fingers contrasted with the shiny black metal. She likes the way it feels in her palm, her fingers curled tightly around it.

     Squinting one eye, she squeezes the trigger and imagines the noise, the kick, the bullet shattering the window. The gun clicks loudly. It's not loaded.

Bailey Alicia Nikitis likes to consider herself smart. Smarter than most other seniors at Stone Ridge High, smarter than her teachers, even. She knows how to shoot a gun. She knows where the school's security cameras don't reach.

Bailey lowers the gun when the door swings open creakily, the bottom scraping the wood floor. That door has scraped against the floor for as long as Bailey has been alive. There's a curve of scratches that follow the path of the door. She likes to rub her toe on it absently when she stands in the doorway, watching, thinking, planning.

Her mother smiles as she lets the door slam shut behind her. It fades into a thin-lipped frown when Aleece Nikitis sees what's in Bailey's left hand.

     "Put that away. You know you're not supposed to have it out." Bailey regards her with scrutiny. She's her mother's golden child, incapable of fault, so she knows Aleece is serious.

Bailey suppresses a sigh and dips her head. "I know, it's new."

Her mother nods. "Don't be taking that out again, you hear me?" Her mother's voice has an edge to it that Bailey's not used to hearing.

"Yes," Bailey mutters, and when she sees Aleece raise an eyebrow, she adds, "Ma'am," to the end, louder than necessary.

She leaves the room without another word, placing the pistol into its slightly battered, used case, and snapping the locks shut. Bailey Nikitis is tall, tall enough that she doesn't have to stretch to reach the top shelf of her father's closet to replace the gun.

      In fact, she takes pride in her 5'10 height, tall enough to not be overshadowed by the boys in her grade. It makes her feel stronger, more powerful. Her height is the one thing she's grateful to her father for.

Aleece smiles when her daughter enters. "I wasn't meaning to be harsh, you know that," she tells Bailey. "Even though you're taller, I'm still older and wiser."

Bailey understands that even with her smile and reasonable words, there's a edge, a warning in her tone. But she already knows better than to cross her mother, despite her standing as the favorite child. Or her father. Or anyone in her family, for that matter. Surprisingly, Bailey is the least dangerous member of this screwed-up family. She plans to change that soon.

She hears the scrape of the front door rubbing against the wood floor and slips out of the kitchen, not in the mood to put up with her father. Entering her room, she narrows her eyes at her sister, Marianne, flopped on the bed with her phone loosely held in her fingers. "What are you doing here?"

Marianne glances up with a faintly disdainful look. "What were you doing with a gun?"

Bailey only shoots her a glare before settling in her desk chair in front of her messy, cluttered desk. "Are you staying here tonight?" The disapproval was clear in her tone.

"Nah," Marianne flicks her phone off and lays her head back on the pillow. "I'm staying at Jace's."

"Can I come?"

"No." Bailey knows better than to ask why. At twenty-eight, Marianne comes in and out of the house whenever she wants, the other half of the time staying with her on-and-off boyfriend Jace.

Marianne lazily flicks her hair out of her face. "James wants to know how you are."

Bailey tenses immediately. Despite her sister's relaxed demeanor, both of them know what those words mean. "Why doesn't he come himself, then?" Bailey practically spits out the words.

"You know why," Marianne says in an almost reprimanding tone. She's right; Bailey does know why.

"Tell him I won't say a word to his sorry ass unless he comes to see me himself."

There's a pause. Then, "I'll tell him," Marianne sighs.

She's ruined any semblance of a good mood Bailey had been in. Bailey moodily picks at her chair and refuses to look up. "Does Dad know you're here?"

"No," her sister replies, once again tapping away on her phone. "I'm planning on keeping it that way, too." She rolls over to face her sister. Bailey sometimes forgets Marianne is eleven years her senior.

Bailey gets up, shoves her older sister off the bed, and flops down in her place on her stomach, her face buried in her pillow. A minute later, she glances up to see Marianne disappearing out the window, her worn brown combat boots hitting the ground lightly and retreating without a sound. She's gone before anyone but Bailey knew she had been there.

That's how Marianne has always worked. She doesn't listen to anyone but herself and follows no rules but her own. Bailey knows that comes with being no one's favorite child, and for a moment she wishes she was the forgotten child Marianne has always been. Her mother barely let Bailey out of sight.

     Sometimes Bailey likes the attention, the feeling of always being watched over and loved. But there was always those times when the others were allowed to go on their own and Bailey was stuck, squirming, under her mother's firm gaze.

She has no homework left and nothing to do, so she thinks. Her thoughts drift to the school, the the kids, to the gun in the closet. The shiny black metal against her pale skin, her bright blonde hair. Of blood staining the grounds, grass, sidewalks, walls. A bloodbath. Students, teachers, everyone screaming. Being feared. Being respected.

She falls asleep and dreams of chaos.