Emergence ~ Split

Chapter Nine

A few weeks later Casey was working through a large pile of school work she had to catch up on. Her u ncle quickly had her re-established at school, insisting that her injury was a hunting accident rather than any suicide attempt.

She was laughed off as being a hunting klutz.

It seemed all so long ago, she was questioning whether it really happened at all . Everything began to become a blur, only the occasional memories seeming to be real. But then thinking about how she got there was always impossible.

She had strange thoughts about the feel of Claire's thick blonde hair running through her fingers as she shoved her head back into the brick wall behind the school . Claire's eyes wide, and startled as she watched in fear.

Casey could remember the thrumming jolts of anger in her blood, making it easier to push an arm further against the girl's weak neck. Her breath was heavy as it lifted in her shoulders, her eyes glazed by a resentful passion and her teeth bared venomously.

Claire was begging, her hands held out in front of her in complete surrender. Casey push in harder , the girls hands narrowly avoiding her chest as she swallowed down the suffocating pain . "Please, Casey. I'm sorry."

Claire had been nice to her once before, back when neither of them knew each other. With a big hope to find friends Claire invited everyone from her art class to her birthday. Learning quickly that Casey shouldn't of been invited, with absolutely no hope of her ever being one of her friends.

Marcia and Claire always went too far. Throwing insults at her every second day, sending her over the edge at the mention of her father and her 'insanity', believing she was fucked because of stacking days of absence and mute presence each day she attended class . Casey feels the tight stretch of her freshly bruised skin pull along her shoulder after Claire had whacked her, offended by Casey's unusual retort to her own common ly cruel words.

Beyond that Casey only sees Dennis shoving Claire back into the wall. Then feeling the heavy weight of a screwdriver push into her own palm, before feeling its release.

She's sure its Claire as Dennis whispers secrets, worries and apologies into her ear. His hands warm against her flesh, his hips pushing against her stomach, burning her skin with each drag of his touch. A sickening press of his lips to her cheek, as she catches the thick distinctive smell of beer, lingering over each void word.

Her hands push against his chest, fighting him. He murmur s about her skin, beauty and purity. Foaming around her as she claws out from the soaking promises she knows he cannot make her. She wants to believe, she wants to know everything s going to be okay. She lets him go, snaking her arm around a screwdriver left lying around, feeling the rough handle grip as it slips in shape with her deathly hold.

With a bottled anger she blindly implanted the screwdriver into his thigh, catching him off guard as he doubles over in a crippling pain. Claire only had a few moments, running and running through the house, pushing against the familiar door and barrelling outside into the shed. Kicking over a crate and standing upon it, riffling through the boxes until she felt the cold sting of a metal gun. Shakily she returned to the house, her hands covered by the light ash of gunpowder.

She dropped the gun by the couch as she waited for the Beast to attack her, standing and waiting. Holding her breath with the gun loaded and aimed.

***

Casey was lying back in bed, dreaming of all the things she had forgotten when her Uncle knocked on the door, following quickly by shoving it open.

"Casey. Come here." He states, turning and walking back down the hall.

Her feet padded softly against the swollen timber as she hung her head lowly between her shoulders, expecting to be told to clean this and hose down that.