His Dark Words

01 | The Thief

"I can't believe you took the wrong backpack," Alex says, rolling his dark brown eyes so wildly you'd think he'd never made a mistake in his life.

"How do you know it's not yours?" Vanessa frowns. "It looks exactly the same to me."

But before I can answer Alex playfully grabs the faded, denim backpack out of my hands and starts to rummage around inside of it.

"Hey, quit it!" I try to wrestle it back from him, but Alex is tall, skinny and quick. He can keep it just out of reach whilst still announcing his discoveries to anybody in earshot.

"Protein bars ... a chewed-up charger ... three packs of gum: un-opened ... a Jul, tut, tut! He's a bad boy, this one!"

"How do you know it's a boy?" I stop my useless dance to get the bag back and cross my arms in irritation, blowing my short, wavy brown hair away from my face in a huff.

"My superior skills of deduction!" Alex's angular face is too smug to bear.

I make a last-ditch attempt to snatch at the bag strap, but he is still too quick. "Uh-uh-uh!" He shakes his head. "What's the magic word?"

My cheeks flush with anger and I ball up my fists. I'm just about to lose my temper completely when Vanessa walks up behind Alex and jerks the bag from his grip.

"Hey!" Alex rounds on her.

"It's for your own good, Alex, I don't want to see Harlow beat you up in front of the whole school. Besides if you two fall out then I'll have to find new best friends!" She flips her long, black braids over her shoulder and holds out the backpack at arm's length. "Frankly, Harlow, I might have to find new best friends anyway, this bag is totally tragic!"

I tilt my head to one side. 

It is definitely the same backpack I have but this one is covered in grass and (hopefully) mud stains and generally looks like it has been dragged through a field backwards.

"It's a good bag! It's just for holding books and stuff, does it really matter?" I draw my dark eyebrows into a frown across my pale forehead.

Vanessa screws up her pretty, dark features in disgust and lets go. 

I dive for it, catching it before Alex can even think to move.

Vanessa laughs. "What, are you worried it's gonna get dirty?"

"No, but it still belongs to someone." I scowl at her. "How would you like some stranger throwing your stuff around?"

Vanessa shrugs.

"By the looks of the stuff he's got in there, I don't think your boy cares much about his property." Alex sighs, shouldering his own knapsack.

"You can't know it belongs to a boy, you just can't!" I reply stubbornly. 

It's always like this with Alex, always a fight. I know it's just as much my fault as his, but I just can't seem to drop it and let him win.

Just then the bell rings out over the quad. We all look towards the old, red-brick buildings. 

What am I supposed to do with someone else's stuff?

"Ergggggh, Algebra! And I can't even copy off your notes now, Harlow!" Vanessa moans. 

She starts off in the direction of the Winslow building. Ms. Clare is brutal when it comes to showing up to class late, but I stay put. I want to search through the bag, tear it open and dump everything out on the floor, but it feels so wrong, like breaking and entering ... how else am I supposed to find out who's got my bag, though? My plain, apparently hideous backpack that has all my notes in it, a few really expensive textbooks and the only pen I really, truly love. If you haven't guessed by now, I'm a super nerd, but seriously if you find a pen that you care about that much then you have a really hard time accepting that it's gone!

"Size 14's"

"Huh?" I look up to see Alex looking back at me over his shoulder, his messy, brown hair almost completely covering his eyes. He looks just like a young Adam Ant, which is totally the look he is going for; he's obsessed with anything pre-1990.

"The running shoes inside. That's how I know it's a dude."

The curiosity is way too much for me, I pull open the zip and peer inside. 

Shoes, gum ... charger, no laptop, no textbooks ... no books at all except ... I reach inside and pull out a battered notebook. I quickly thumb through it; it's almost completely full, but I can't see any name written anywhere. The writing is scratchy, angry even, the kind of writing you'd expect the find carved into a desk at the back of a classroom.

"A journal?" I murmur thoughtfully.

Maybe this can help me find the boy it belongs to, but it definitely won't help me through AP Algebra. Just then I catch sight of a desperately written phrase that makes my blood freeze. I stop and stare at it.

"Harlow! Come on!" Vanessa's voice carries out over the quad to meet me.

"I'm coming!" I quickly slip the book back into the bag and run over to join Vanessa.

We barely make it to class in time. Ms. Clare is standing at the front of the room, eagle eyed as always. We file in with the others, thankfully not the last through the door and collapse into our seats, breathing hard and totally ill-prepared for one of the hardest classes at Mont Michel Prep. 

All through that painfully long class I find my eyes drawn inescapably back down to the dark volume peeking out of the book bag. 

Who does it belong to? 

How can I find him? 

And why did he write inside those pages that he wants to die ... ?