Teenage Bones

There's A Fine Line Between Wrong And Right

Esmé Peter's POV

"Are you even old enough to fucking drive!" I hear Tyler scream right by my ear. 

"It's not if I'm old enough, it's if I can do it well, asshole!" A young female voice responds, and my body jerks around. My eyes open and I'm laid on Tyler's lap, looking at a fifteen-year-old drive a large car. 

Then I hear a machine gun, which I swear I'm imagining and Tyler ducks, seeing my eyes open and looked slightly less freaked out. His lips are on mine before I can take another breath.

"Don't do that again." He says to me, then looks out the window, harshly ducking again. "He's still on our ass, Lily!"

"I'm driving, you fuckwit!" Lilly cranes her head back and shouts towards Tyler, rage pulling her features.

I begin to feel sick. Really really sick. Like, break something, sick. My stomach cramps and I swallow rainwater and something sludgy.

"Can you not mind control him to shoot himself?" Tyler screams back, peering over the top of the seats to see where Pete was, only to miss a bullet by centimeters and let it hit the front passenger seat's headboard. If there was someone sitting there, that would've hit their skull. Pete was going to kill us all. He was going to kill Tyler.

"Don't you think I would've thought about that years ago!" Lilly screeches, swerving the car onto a motorway, bullets hitting the road beside us. My stomach cramps painfully, worse than it ever has before and I sit up, throwing up rainwater onto the car floor. The stabbing pain pulsates, getting worse each time, worse than repeatedly twisting the knife. I scream, feeling the car swerve dramatically. 

"Should I drive!" Tyler shouts, fury obvious in the tones of his voice.

"That wasn't me! That was your girlfriend, twat! Knock her out if she's gonna kill us!" Lilly yells back, highly irritated.

 Another cramp rips through me, making me scream. My ears are invaded by breaking glass as the windows implode, showering my face with glass just as bullets bite the back of the car. My lips are then covered with Tyler's wrist and I bite down, hard. In response, Tyler screams in pain and quietens sooner.

"Are you seriously doing 'that' right now?" Lilly yells, "this isn't a very romantic time!"

"Read my mind, Lilly!" Tyler yells back, sounding in pain. The blood then flows steadily down my throat, lighting all the right spots and making me want for more and sucking harder. The cramps turn to desire as Tyler's eyes stay focused on looking at Pete behind us. I want to grab Tyler and tell him to get his head down because if Pete can get a shot on him, he will. He will kill Tyler.

Tyler's hissing makes me detach myself from him, jumping back and missing a bullet that shoots between the two front seats. Tyler checks me over with his eyes, visually asking if I'm okay and I nod, wiping my mouth. I peer out of the blown-out window to see that we're on a bridge and  Pete is in the car directly behind us, dressed as a surgeon with a minigun hanging out of the window. Focusing on his car, I clench my hand into a fist, popping all of the wheels. I tried to make it swerve over the edge of the bridge but all that happened was a small misdirection. Thinking fast, I look at the car next to him and I swipe my hand, making the car knock into Pete, ending in both the cars going over the bridge. I heard a splash when they hit the water. Turning around, I allow myself to slouch and relax. Tyler looks at me in disbelief. At first, I don't know why. Then I think about the innocent person I just probably killed.

Lilly's voice rings from the front, "run now, worry later."

_*_

Lilly dropped us at the house and says she'd be back tomorrow to collect us and take us somewhere safer. Tyler won't so much as look at me and waves Lilly away while she hitchhikes with a stranger. The house looks quiet, dark and dull like nothing happened to me. Tyler starts walking toward the house. I'm feeling nauseous and dizzy but I don't quite feel sick, so I ignore it.

"Ty, please say something." 

He stops and turns around. Tyler looks shattered, dark circles under his eyes and dried blood on his wrist. The blankly sour expression he has lets me believe he's not happy with me. "What do you want me to say?"

"Maybe start with why you're looking at me like I'm a different person."

Tyler walks toward me, getting very close to my face, "do you know how many people were in the car you 'waved' off of a bridge?" Tyler's voice has gone cold, cutting and furious. 

I shake my head. 

"Let me tell you. There were two parents and a kid. Were. They are dead." His fingers press into the back of my shoulders and bruising them. "You killed a whole family- or worse, left just one of them alive. That's why you look different to me now."

Tears burn my eyes and make my vision blurry. Out of anger, I hit his arms, getting him off of me and stepping back. "If I didn't do that, we would've been killed!"

"So why not mess with the car? Fling the car over the bridge?" He says and guilt and a sick feeling settle itself in my chest and stomach. I know he's right.

"Call Starr." I surprise myself as it comes out in a pissed tone of voice like I'm ready to kill his ass. "Call her now. Or Elijah." When I mention Mr. Clarke, Tyler's jaw visibly flexes and his fists clench. "Do it."

"Why?" 

"Because at that moment, I was thinking of you. I wasn't strong enough to target the single car and push it over and that was the only thing I could do. I am sorry I did it like that, but I won't be punished for saving us three." My voice turns hard as a light cramps in my stomach belts me and I fight to not gag. "Either call one of them or give me enough money for a hotel."

His face changes and softens like he was seeing a puppy pee on the floor and apologize for it afterward. I am not apologizing for saving us. His hand reaches into his pocket, fishing out his wallet and flipping it open, taking out a fistful of fifty-pound notes and puts them in my hands. Cupping my jaw with his hand, he kisses my forehead. Then he turns on his heel and disappears into the house.

_*_

I walked five miles to the nearest village with a small hotel that costs a hundred pounds a night. I paid for four nights and made my way to a small room with soft yellow walls, a plain double bed, a clean ensuite and a small window looking over the village. Right now there was the perfect sunset lighting the silhouette of the buildings and making the clouds look soft. The cramps weren't bad and I felt generally okay, so in despair of no familiarity and killing a whole family, I curl up under the covers and sleep.

It took Hope and me forty minutes to pin sheets to the ceiling and fan out the corners, placing weights over each corner and making the sheet look like a tent. Hope hangs fairy lights around the inside of it and places pillows, duvets and blankets all over the floor of the inside. Once in, we eat food, giggle about jokes, fantasize and tell each other about our favorite dreams.

"I just want the power to change things, you know? There's no point in being alive if you aren't important." Turning her head to look at me, blue orbs find my uneven ones. "What would you do if you had superpowers?"

"I would try to be a superhero. Protect people who can't protect themselves. You know?" She nods at my thinking, looping her fingers in mine.

"Wouldn't you treat yourself though? Secretly rob a bank or let your identity out so people can shower you with love?" She kissed my nose, making me laugh quietly and my cheeks ache.

"No. I think the whole point in being 'good' isn't being treated when you do good deeds. Although a bubble bath once in a while doesn't sound crazy if I'm being stabbed every Thursday night." Hope let out a bubble of laughter, entrancing me in her emitted beauty and wondrous smile. She's gorgeous.

"I miss you, Esmé." She suddenly sobs, gripping my fingers.

"Hey, I'm right here!"

"No, you're not. I'm dead and you're a completely different person now." The words jolt me like every single one hits. Her smiling face is now pale and unmoving, her eyes a matte, her skin cold, and the fairy lights have turned themselves off.

"Hope, come back!" I'm shaking the body next to me but shes not moving. My chest feels like it's midway caving in and my sobs begin to echo in my ear. Hope's skin is greying. Her eyes flicker.

"I thought me dying gives you the chance to hook up with my brother?"