I struggled to answer, to tell the truth, to make up an excuse, anything, but all I could do was make a strangled noise in the back of my throat. I could feel the teen's glare on the back of my neck, and I feared that she was going to kill me in cold blood. Then, she sighed, released my neck, and moved her death grip to my wrist. I took a huge gulp of air and then glared at the girl, who glared back and said, "don't even think about trying to run." She was a full head shorter than me, but the look on her face, a look so dangerous I was afraid to move an inch, told me that she was not someone to mess with.
I took a deep breath and tried to speak, but my voice came out in a frightened squeak, as if I were a mouse and she was a cat, ready to attack at any moment, and all I could do was delay the inevitable. "I...I was driving home," I said, in response to her previous question. "I saw you climbing the fence. I...wanted to know what you were doing." I said the last part like a question, hopeful that she would reveal her intent in climbing the fence to begin with.
She did not, in fact, do as I had hoped. Instead, her glare deepened, and she scowled at me, her hand still gripped tight around my wrist. "What," she whispered harshly, "What makes you think that what I'm doing is any of your business?" I took a deep breath, then gathered my courage to make my voice sound normal. "I didn't think that it was any of my business." I frowned, trying to justify my intense curiosity. "I just...I just always wanted to know what was behind that fence, and you were climbing it, and I thought maybe you would know."
Her glare turned to a look of bewilderment, and she glanced back at the fence that had been such a mystery in my life for so long. Then, with her eyes relatively softened, she looked back at me and sighed. "I would tell you, but I don't trust you..." I was about to make a noise of annoyance, but she glared at me and then continued talking.
"And...I think that if you were to know the truth...you would wish you could forget it."
YOU ARE READING
Glass Houses
Science Fiction"They built up all these lies like glass houses, too dangerous to move around in, but at least that house kept me warm at night. Now I lay in bed shivering with fear of the very people that claimed to protect me, to protect us all. The windows in...
