Dark Dreams (COMPLETED)

I need to know

During the days that followed that Monday, I avoided everyone and went back to being the same old lonely Sarah.

Which shocked no one. They'd only seen me with a friend for a few days; they surely thought that Kiki had figured out how boring I was. Instead, I was the one who was ignoring her messages. I couldn't bear even the theory that Dick was behind what had happened to me. I spent nights on the internet looking for a solution but, night after night, I realized that I couldn't do anything without my mother's presence.

But I was determined to get justice myself.

Someone had taken those pictures from classroom 999 and, if, as I thought, that someone was Urban Skull, I was on the right track.

"Do you want some?" asked Blaze, showing me a plate of steamed bananas. "You look pale, maybe you're hungry."

"Blaze..." I groaned, moving a vinyl by The Pioneers that a distracted customer had put in the wrong category back to its rightful place, "I'm always pale. I wish I'd been born in Jamaica like you, you're all so good-looking."

He laughed.

Then, grabbing a banana with a fork, he said: "You're never happy with what you are; it's a real shame."

Suddenly, the sound of a police siren assaulted our eardrums. Blaze fled and hid behind the counter as the front door was kicked open.

A girl with a black hat and a cell phone in her hand came in.

"Kiki?" I asked, stunned.

"You almost gave me a heart attack!" screamed Blaze, just poking his head out from behind the counter.

"I just downloaded this app that reproduces all kinds of sirens and I wanted to try it," she said, pointing her cell phone at Blaze like a gun. "I'm taking Sarah for a few hours."

"I can't let her out," he said, frightened. "Her mother is worse than a Rottweiler."

I imagined a Rottweiler with my mother's head; the comparison made sense.

"Don't make me angry," said Kiki, clasping her hands. "Otherwise, I could make a call..."

"No, no!" he pleaded.

She smiled, satisfied.

"You kids will ruin me," he moaned as Kiki dragged me out the door.

"So?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips. Her purple hair shone in the sun, giving it an almost mystical appearance. The scent of vanilla rose from her skin as if she were a living Yankee candle.

"What?"

"What's the problem?" she asked me, raising her voice.

I felt her eyes on my skin. No one could oppose a force of nature like Kiki.

"I don't know what you're talking about" I tried lying to her.

"Don't play dumb" she huffed, "I don't like lies."

A black limousine the size of my pool house was sitting in front of us. A good-looking, well-dressed man in his thirties got out the driver's seat to open the door.

"Make yourself comfortable, Miss Reynolds," said the driver.

"I suppose the only way to make you stop with these formalities is for us to sleep together," said Kiki, patting him on the back. "Isn't that right, Robbie?"

He looked down, widening his eyes. Kiki just couldn't help making people uncomfortable.

"You... you go around in a limo?" I asked once I was sitting on the comfortable, spacious black seats.

"Of course, sometimes I take the helicopter, but, you know, it makes a racket," she said, illuminated by the blue lights that dotted the roof of the interior. "And how can I download apps, if my hands are holding the steering wheel?"

I looked at her, unsure how to object to her logic, which was always meaningless.

"But we're not here to talk about that," she said, once the limo set off. She picked up a can of Sprite from the golden mini bar and downed it. "Either you tell me why you're not sending me unicorn emojis every morning as soon as you wake up, or I'm calling Principal Odette to get you expelled."

"You'd never do something like that to me," I objected, upset by the sudden malice in her words.

"Are you willing to risk it?" she asked, arching a perfectly-shaped eyebrow.

I couldn't tell her that I suspected her brother had drugged me and then taken advantage of me. It's not something you tell someone you're about to start a good friendship with. Above all, it's not something you say to an unpredictable girl like Kiki.

"Hi, Odette," she said on the phone. She'd typed the number in a flash. "You know my number by heart, so I don't need to tell you who I am."

I paled on hearing the principal's voice come out of the phone's speakers.

"I'm calling to tell you that..."

Why was I always surrounded by strange people?

"I think it was your brother who took me to that room," I blurted out in a quiet voice.

"I'm calling you to tell you that you look like the stuffed bird you have in your office," said Kiki flatly, looking at me.

"Why do you think that?" she asked me, hanging up on the principal. She was strangely calm.

I told her about the drug dealer and how Dick and I had spent the whole night drinking together.

"Dick isn't the only one who gave you a drink, you told me," she pointed out to me. "Saying that he was the culprit just because he deals is discrimination, aside from the fact that your reasoning is too stupid for someone like you, who I thought was smart."

I felt hurt by her words, which I decided to ignore.

"So, Dick... deals?" I asked, twisting a lock of hair in my hand.

"If you knew how many people are on drugs at your school, you wouldn't believe it," she said, pouring Dom Pérignon into a crystal glass. "For young people, being rich or poor doesn't change anything: we've all got problems."

"But..."

"I don't want to hear your convent sermons," she cut me off. Then she put her hands around her mouth and yelled, "Robbieee! Take me to Dark Oaks."

"What?!" I yelled, jumping on the spot.

"You have to learn that problems are solved by communication," she said, adjusting her hat as she stared into the distance like a cowboy. "Now let's talk to Dick."