Life's Fear

Chapter Nine

"Warren, please be quiet," Kendall muttered, rubbing her temples as she sat at the table with a mug of exceedingly strong coffee in front of her and barely-eaten toast.

Warren was still in a bad state even though the storm had calmed down now, and it was just dreary and raining outside. He'd been up most of the night and required sleep, though he kept saying he would have nightmares if he slept so he was adamant to stay awake which was just perfect for us considering we'd all been up the majority of the night too because of him.

"I'm going to have to go down to the office," Dad informed Mum as she was imploring with him to stay at home on his day off. "I'm the head of this department so they need their boss in here. Plus, it shows good morals to turn up on a day off and dedicated to keeping our town a great place to reside in."

"It will just be a troubled kid," Mum said. "I've been thinking about it and with my experience, I believe I'm right. They talk about fear and darkness as if it's their friend when really it should be their enemy."

"Nonetheless," said Dad, downing most of the contents of his coffee in one go, "I need to go into work. They'll be counting on me to be there. I shouldn't be home late. As soon as it blows over for today, I'll be straight back home. I'll call you when I'm done."

Mum frowned in that way she did when she knew she was defeated but she would have preferred to have her own way. Dad was out of the house barely fifteen minutes later and Kendall was falling asleep at the table, completely neglecting her coffee that had ceased steaming by this point. Jesse had already left for work – his hours tended to alter every week, so he had to work today, but everyone else was stuck at home due to the horrendous weather.

"You feel any better?" I asked Max on the phone, though I was bursting to tell her Jason and I were talking about the darkness yesterday and he went and used that to deface an extravagant fountain.

"Not really." She sounded rough in the way people do when they've been drinking excessively the previous night and are feeling the consequences for their mindless actions the subsequent morning. "More graffiti; I saw it on the news. Blair, you should show the cops-"

I told her the anecdote. Afterwards, I perplexedly asked, "Do you think he'll think I think it's him?"

"That's a lot of thinking," she replied which caused me to roll my eyes, but then added, "I don't know. He might just hope you think it's a lucky coincidence. He obviously wasn't thinking you would think it's him otherwise he wouldn't have been so direct with it and used another topic other than darkness." To say she seemed rough and was still riddled with a bug, she was talking a lot. "This is even more reason why you should take that photo to the police."

"I can't do that. He's not doing too much damage."

"Except breaking the law."

"That could just be some technicality."

"Or not, Blair. I need to go. The storm kept me up last night and I need sleep. Mum won't let me have any chicken soup until I've slept for a bit. I should be in on Monday so see you then."

"Bye, Max. Hope you get better by Monday, because I can't face another day on my own."

"I'm sure you had some company," she said, and then hung up.

Initially, I presumed she was talking about Annabelle and Ryder and that I still had to tell her about the Leon situation, but once I'd put my phone on my bed, Jason popped into my head. She had to be talking about Jason. Was that a snide comment on her behalf then? I wondered.

Warren came running into my room later that day, tears streaming down his face like the rain cascading down my window. The first thing he did was jump on my bed and hide under my duvet. I was about to ask why until Mum came storming into my room, cheeks scarlet like Jason's spray paint.

"Warren, you need to eat otherwise you can go to sleep. You're acting like a baby, and you're supposed to be ten!"

Grudgingly, though he knew he had lost the fight once he'd been compared to a baby, Warren got out from under my duvet and made his way downstairs obviously to where food was waiting for him. Mum was about to leave when I said consolingly, "He'll grow out of it."

Mum sighed, but a smile flickered at her lips. "Like you grew out of collecting ribbons at that age?"

The ribbons were concealed somewhere on my shelf in a box – I had several pretty storage boxes. I'd finally realised I was a little too old to be collecting ribbons, and at that point when it dawned on me, I'd stuffed them away in a random box with my eyes closed. Then I mixed up the boxes and still to this day I don't know which box it was as I've never gone fishing for them. I had hundreds of them, I bet.

Mum said nothing else but there was still a smile on her face as she ambled out of my room, following Warren, who I presumed was downstairs in the kitchen or dining room by this point – wherever his food was, at any rate. When he would be older, he would realise the blunder in arguing with Mum. Dad you could argue with and he'd eventually back down, but Mum rarely did, and if that ever happened, she would be hysterically in tears.

It was in that moment when a text came through on my phone, vibrating louder on my bed than the actual ding! was. I knew there was no way it was going to be Max considering we hadn't long got off the phone from one another. And no one else typically called me...

Curiosity piqued, I picked up my phone to see an unrecognisable number had texted me.

Unknown: So, I know your locker combination and now your phone number. Any other digits I should be aware of?

Jason.

Of course it was. Was there nothing this boy wasn't ashamed to do? He breaks into my locker and places pebbles inside there and then he somehow finds out my phone number and texts me only to query if there were any other "digits" he needed to know... what is he going to do next? The thought actually sent chills down my spine with the unsureness of the extents he can venture to.

I didn't reply. But that didn't stop him throughout the day. Every so often I'd receive texts from him validating that he did have the correct number and if I would be devoid of Max's presence on Monday as well. He didn't even give up when I'd shoved my phone in my pocket before dinner and gone downstairs rather frustrated to a full sitting around the dinner table. Dad included.

"Has it gone?" Mum asked.

Dad ran a hand over his head and droplets of rain cascaded down onto the table. Mum stared intently at the wet splodges though she didn't articulate anything. Dad didn't even realise, though he stared at his hand and rubbed it on his trousers as he said, "Yeah," through his teeth. "This vandal will pay now. That fountain cost the council a fortune when it was built."

It hadn't stopped raining all day, and I presumed Dad had just got in.

"Such extravagance – was it really necessary?" Mum replied back, having fussed with Dad's plate and glass of water for long enough. He would be having his glass of wine later once Mum had left for spin class and he would retire to his study.

"It's tourism," he responded in the same dreary tone.

Mum rounded the table to her usual seat, picked up her knife and fork but stopped herself when the familiar ding! was produced from the pocket of my jeans. She stared at me, but when I turned my head, so was everyone else. It wasn't that loud, surely...

"What?" I asked, somewhat itching to get my phone and see what message was awaiting me, but hoping that there was a no phones rule at the dinner table so I had an excuse not to look at it until I was alone in my room. Sadly, there was not considering Jesse and Kendall could sometimes (always in Kendall's case) be tethered to theirs at the table.

Jesse stared at me much longer than everyone else did. He turned away from me first before I could, though he made sure not to say anything else to anyone for the duration of dinner, and nor did he corner me just as we were going up the stairs back to our room, either.

"You can see it after dinner," Mum finally said, beginning to dig into her meal, and that was that.

I didn't even attempt to race through my meal as that would have arose suspicion, and that was the last thing I needed especially with Jesse watching over me like a hawk. So I made sure I was not the first one to leave the table, as that was Dad and he was grumbling as he slid his chair away about "bloody hooligan will pay for vandalising the town".

Jason: Be awake at 3.