Dark Dreams

CONTRADICTORY FEELINGS

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.