WICKED REFLEX

Chapter 4: The Way Beyond

"I'm home, mom!"  Sam shouted as she came through the front door, dropping her stuff down onto the kitchen table.

"-No! Take it up to your room!" her mother shouted back.  "Dinner's in the oven and Harmony called!"

As usual, she was working on a cross-stitch project in her craftroom.  

Sam sighed and picked up her stuff, carrying it up to her room, where she plopped down onto her bed.  This far removed, she could almost believe that none of what transpired today had actually happened.

She picked up the phone and dialed Harmony's number.

Her dad picked up and she interrupted the line abruptly with a "...GOT IT DAD! IT'S FOR ME!"

After her dad hung up, Harmony immediately dug in.

 "Okay, you're going to tell me exactly what's going on, because Jerome told me that you were actually the first person there with Stacks, who is dead now by the way!-  And then you lied about having your period and Heather James saw you at the park with the new boy.  ...Did he poison him for you? Burnouts do that, you know.  Are you guys, like a thing?"

Sam sighed.  "No. We're not a thing. I didn't poison him and neither did he, but I did meet with Nick at the park... He also saw what happened.  It was a bit much for me alone, you know? Seeing a man die like that.  So, I left and talked to him since we were both affected.  It helped."

"...Really?" Harmony replied, skeptically.

"Really."  Sam replied.

"-You didn't make-out with him on the park swings, like Heather said."

"Oh my god, Harmony. She obviously lied."

"Okay, well maybe she didn't say making out... But she -BEN GET OFF THE PHONE!!!-" Harmony said, hearing the tell-tale clicks that indicated her friend's brother was listening in.

"BEN!"  Sam repeated. The phone gave a vague little click in the silence. 

"-Hold on."  Sam put the phone down on the bed, marched down to the kitchen where the main house phone was and took the cord back to her room.

"-Sorry about that.  My little brother can be a booger."

"That pest is the biggest evidence that you were adopted." Harmony replied with a laugh.  "Anyway, Heather didn't say you were making out exactly, but that you were holding hands... and that you two were like, -all huddled up really close."

"He prayed with me."

"Prayed?!  Girl, quit playing. You have never been religious."

"Seeing a man drop-dead in front of you can change that, okay?"  Sam hated lying to her friend, but the less she knew the less danger she'd be in.

Harmony huffed on the phone.  "...Fine.  You wanna keep this low frequency for awhile, I get it!  I don't blame you. Kyle might just kill this boy, if he knew."

"Kyle has zero say.  We haven't been together in months."

"That's not gonna stop him and you know it."

Sam pinched her nose.  That was all she needed, Kyle crossing paths with Nick and getting himself hurt...or worse.  She'd have to talk to Nick.  Given what happened to Stacks, who knew what he'd do to Kyle.  

"He'll have to get over it eventually Harmony, but please just do me this solid.  If Kyle asks you about any of this, tell him the school counselor assigned him to me, since he's new. -Okay?  It's all very innocent."

"Sure. -Whatever. I'll lie for you."  

Sam rolled her eyes.

" -But if he offers you any drugs?  Just say no." Harmony added.

They both laughed.  "Not in a million years, girl."

///

Sam studied for a bit before turning in, but her sleep that night was anything but restful.

At first she dreamed of Mr. Stacks. Of the moment when his eyes stopped seeing and rolled up inside his head.  The queer little jiggering step he took backward, like an awkward dance move before he fell over dead.