“Miss Cross? Is everything all right?” her teacher, Mr Salt, tore her from her daydreams. Nora blinked away her musing and gazed at her teacher in confusion.
“What do you mean sir? I’m fine.”
“Then would you mind telling me the answer to the question I just asked?”
“Um... pi?” Nora offered. The class erupted in fits of giggles and Mr Salt’s bulgy red cheeks turned pink, then red.
“No, Miss Cross, the answer was most definitely not pi. I suggest you pay attention and study hard or you’re not going to pass the test tomorrow. Do you understand?”
“Aye aye captain,” Nora gave him a two-fingered salute that turned into an obscene, one-fingered salute the moment Mr Salt turned his back. Suddenly Nora felt goosebumps rise on her skin and a shiver rocketed down her spine as she got the sensation she was being watched. She looked over her shoulders at her classmates but they were all either passing notes, listening to their iPods or scrambling to solve Mr Salt’s equations. None of them so much as glanced in her direction. She was being paranoid.
“Miss Cross?” Mr Salt interrupted again. Nora looked at him, her face a question mark. “As fascinating as I’m sure you find the back wall, please keep your eyes to the front.” The class laughed at her for the second time in five minutes, but she barely noticed. She was too busy trying to get the damn eyes right.
At last, the bell rang for the end of the day and students pushed and shoved one another in the hallway, moving like a wave towards to door. Once they’d broken free of the school grounds, the students fanned out, sometimes pooling in little groups to laugh and talk. Nora just wanted out of there. She just wanted the day over with. Not because it had been a particularly bad day, but because she’d never been so eager to get to sleep. She was thinking about what her dream-self might say to Alec should she ever dream of him again when she saw a familiar figure leaning against the school sign.
His hair was messier than he liked to keep it and here were shadows under his eyes. He was a mess and knowing that he was a mess gave Nora a sense of satisfaction, like a small island amidst the ocean of fear that man stirred up within her. A smile split Connor’s lips as he saw her approach.
“Nora, hey,” he said, going for a hug but Nora pushed him back with all the strength she could muster.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing showing up here?”
“What?” Connor asked, looking hurt. “I used to pick you up from school all the time when your mother was busy working.” Nora fought the urge to shudder at the memory of him picking her up from school, when he took her home to the empty house or sometimes in his car if he got impatient. Behind Connor’s beautiful face there hid a monster. A beast of greed and violence.
“Stay away from me,” Nora warned Connor before pushing past him and heading desperately in the direction of home. He grabbed her shoulder sharply and she felt a jolt of pain.
“Nora, don’t be unreasonable.” He squeezed her shoulder tighter and tears sprung in her eyes. “You’re coming with me.”
“No!” Nora jerked her shoulder free of his grip and started running. She heard him curse loudly behind her, but she didn’t look back. Her backpack thwacked against her back, the spine of the novel she was reading jutting into her painfully. But she ignored it. She had to get away. She heard the roar of an engine and glanced back to see Connor following her in his car. She couldn’t go home. He couldn’t find out where they lived.
Nora suddenly turned right, darting across the road. Connor’s car only just missed running into her as she ran across but she didn’t falter. She had to get Connor as far away from home as possible.
Her breathing became laboured and her lungs began to burn but still she kept running, memories flashing through her mind of exactly why she was running. There were five years of reasons; five whole years of reasons to hate and fear Connor, reasons to scream when he went near her, reasons to wake up screaming from horrible nightmares.
Out of the blue Nora tripped over on the pavement and was sent skidding across the concrete. Her palms, knees and the left side of her face burned with pain and when she touched her fingers to her face, they came away with a light smear of blood. She rolled from her stomach to her backside, checking to make sure she only had light injuries. But that had given Connor enough time to swerve into a hurried parking space and get out of the car.
“Nora! Do you see what happens when you panic? You’re being so irrational!” He grabbed her by the arms and hauled her up, his arms slipping down to hold her tightly around the stomach. Nora kicked out at him but she kept missing and only succeeded in making her knees bleed more profusely. People stopped and stared but nobody moved to help her. “Get in the car!”
“Help!” Nora begged, trying not to cry. “Help me please!” But still, no one would help her.
“She gets like this when she doesn’t take her medication,” Connor explained to the passersby as he threw her into the car. She fell onto the gearstick, the wind temporarily knocked out of her. He got in the driver’s side and tore off at top speed as Nora managed to get herself into a seated position. She tried the passenger door but it was child locked. What was I going to do if it hadn’t been locked? I could hardly leap out of a moving car.
“I don’t know why you do this to me, Nora,” Connor said, shaking his head as if he was the victim and he hadn’t just kidnapped her. “I love you. I love you so much it hurts. And it cut me so deep when I came home to find you all gone. You didn’t tell your mother, did you?”
“No,” Nora growled. “That would’ve shattered her. She had enough reason to leave without me telling her what you’ve been doing to me since I was twelve.”
“You make it sound like such a bad thing, Nora. I love you. You know I love you. I’ve always told you that.”
“That’s not love, that’s twisted.” Connor slammed his fist against the dashboard so hard it made Nora jump.
“I do love you, Nora. My precious Nora. I thought you’d believe me after all I’ve done for you. Maybe you need me to prove it. Is that it? I have to prove it to you? Fine. I’ll prove it.” Connor turned the wheel sharply, turning into an abandoned car park. He killed the engine and unbuckled his seatbelt. He reached out a hand and stroked the graze on Nora’s cheek. She whimpered at his touch and he slapped her. “Stop it! Stop acting like I’m a monster.”
“Stay away from me! I hate you!” Nora sobbed, shaking the doorhandle, trying to get away. Connor slapped her again. Then his hands moved to his belt buckle and Nora knew what was coming. Save me, someone, please... save me, she thought hopelessly. Then something was pushed up against her fingertips, something thin, cool and metallic. The crowbar Connor always kept under the seat. As Connor pushed up her school skirt, Nora curled her hand around the crowbar and then slammed it down onto Connor’s head. In the moment of shock that followed, Nora tried again in vain to open her door. Connor was swearing angrily and nursing a bleeding head wound, but his words were slurred. Then Nora heard something, a faint, nearly inaudible click and she tried the handle again and this time the door miraculously swung open. She grabbed the crowbar and bolted from the car, tearing across the car park as fast as she could. She heard Connor screaming her name but she didn’t care. She’d fought back and she was free.
**
It had taken all the restrain Alec had not to rip the bastard’s soul from his body then and there. Though he wasn’t allowed to interfere, he had nudged the crowbar close enough to Nora that she could grab it. Then he’d turned off the child lock on the door so she could get away. Once she was gone, it was so tempting to rip out his soul, but after hitting him with the crowbar, even though she had take it with him, Nora could’ve been blamed if Connor dropped dead. He watched the guy beat the steering wheel angrily and try to take off after Nora. But Alec had thought of that and let all of the air out of one of the prick’s tires. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“That was a risky move.” Alec looked to see Ridley standing there, his arms folded. “And not permitted, since you interfered in mortal matters.”
“Could you have stood back? He wasn’t going to kill her so I didn’t mess with the balance of life and death. What if that was Olivia? Would you have let someone hurt her? What would you have done?”
“I would’ve ripped their souls from their bodies and then torn their very soul to pieces,” Ridley replied without hesitation.
“Exactly,” Alec nodded. “So I practiced restraint.”
“Yes but I have been with Olivia for centuries. You only laid eyes on this girl yesterday. How can you be sure that this is anything more than an infatuation?”
“Because I have never felt anything like it.”
“Just because it is a first love,” Ridley said grimly. “Does not mean it is a true love.”
“Thank you for your sagely wisdom oh Ridley, King of the Hackneyed Speeches,” Alec retorted. “I would give anything to be with that girl. I can’t let anything happen to her.”
Ridley moved towards Connor, who was slumped across the driver’s and passenger’s seat and reached for his chest. Alec grabbed his wrist sharply.
“He’s at death’s door, it’s my job to collect his soul.”
“If he dies people will blame Nora,” Alec replied through gritted teeth.
“Well she hit him with the crowbar. Logically she is to blame,” Ridley snarled, jerking his wrist free.
“Don’t let her suffer anymore than she already has.”
“You should back off now,” Ridley warned. “Before you’re the one making her suffer.” And in a flurry of butterflies, he was gone.
**
Nora felt on the verge of collapse by the time she reached home that evening. She quickly slid the bolt home on the door as soon as she stepped through it in case Connor had followed her. Miss Donald sat in front of the television; Keith lay on the floor crayoning outside the lines in a colouring book. It seems mum dealt with the electricity. Nora slipped into her bedroom and hid the bloodied crowbar beneath the bed.
“You’re late,” Miss Donald said bitterly when Nora left her bedroom. “I expect to be paid for the extra three hours.”
“Of course,” Nora replied. She took out the money Cynthia had given her to get dinner and placed it in Miss Donald’s pudgy, waiting hand. “That ought to cover it.”
“I suppose,” Miss Donald harrumphed. “’You look like a mess, girl. Can’t you make an effort to look decent?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow Miss Donald. On time, I assure you,” Nora smiled, ushering the obnoxious old hag to the door. As soon as she closed the door behind Miss Donald, Nora locked it and slid to the floor, finally getting a moment to cry.
“What’s wrong Nori?” Keith asked, approaching her warily, as if approaching a wild animal. “Is it my daddy? Is he a bad man?”
“Yes Keith,” Nora sobbed. “I’m afraid your daddy is a very very bad man.”
“Am I like my daddy?” Keith asked. The look of fear and concern on his face broke Nora’s heart.
“No,” she said, gathering him into her arms. “No you are nothing like him at all.”
