Dark Dreams

THE DREAM BECOMES REALITY

I stared at Jay, unable to make a sound.

I was experiencing a rollercoaster of contradictory emotions. I didn't know if I was terrified, happy or furious.

"What happened?" he asked me, letting the stool fall from his hands. "Kiki was worried, she found me and told me you were missing. I heard someone yelling as I passed the locker room and when I saw the door was locked from the inside, I got suspicious that something strange was going on so I ran to the back entrance."

I didn't know what to say. A few minutes earlier, he didn't care about me at all.

"And then I saw Cooper flinging himself at you like a madman and... well, I hit him with the first thing I found," he said, shrugging. "What happened? Was he trying to hurt you?"

At those words, I couldn't hold back my tears.

It was like Cooper's hands were back around my neck and he was trying to squeeze the air out of me again. I threw myself into Jay's arms, hoping he wouldn't reject me.

"Oh, Jay," I said, crying, "You have no idea how scared I was."

In response, he returned my embrace and pulled me to his chest. For a moment, it was as if nothing had ever happened. I closed my eyes and imagined I was at the Halloween party where he'd given me my first real kiss. I nuzzled my nose in his soccer shirt like a puppy looking for affection. I was lost in his smell. I clung to him tightly with my still-weak arms.

"You have to tell me what happened," he said calmly, placing his hand on the nape of my neck.

I heaved a sigh that signaled the end of the fairytale moment and my return to sad reality.

I stepped back, releasing myself from his sweet embrace.

"Cooper tried to kill me," I said softly.

I witnessed what happened next like a ghost, dissociated from my body. Upon hearing my story, Jay hurried to call the police and an ambulance. Cooper was taken to hospital on a stretcher, while police tried to disperse the crowd of curious students.

Having joined us, Kiki swung between anger, expressed as arguments with gossipy students, and concern, repeatedly asking us if we were ok. I dismissed her so she could go to class, promising to call her that evening.

As usual, rumors spread quickly at Union Hills and people were already saying that I'd staged it all to divert my attention from my mother's theft.

Yes, the theft. Another of Katrina's stunts.

I decided not to say anything to Jay about her. I didn't want to make any more mistakes and I'd sworn that I'd do whatever it took to make her pay. If what was said about revenge was true – that it's a dish better served cold – then I would wait until the dish was ice-cold before throwing it over Katrina.

As far as Urban Skull was concerned, I decided to do the same and keep the incident secret. Knowing that he could see us all, and film us too, made me paranoid. At the same time, I didn't know why he'd helped me and what that meant for the future.

I was sitting in the open back of the ambulance, which was parked near the gate, with Jay by my side. The rescuers had wrapped me in a woolen blanket and given me a hot chocolate. They'd checked the red marks on my neck and verified that I hadn't banged my head too hard. They said I had to be taken to the hospital to make sure there was no brain trauma.

The police also said that they couldn't question me and Jay without our parents present and that we would be summoned to the precinct. One officer took photos of my neck, while another made numerous calls.