Lacey
...I knew that hadwriting. I KNEW that handwriting.
I also knew that blood turned brown when it dried, the color of the words on the perfect square of clean white paper I held gingerly between my thumb and forefinger.
But why Alli, my ex best friend and the happiest person on Earth with the weirdest handwriting, would write me a note in blood, I did not know.
Ron
Lacey didn't usually talk to me, although we were parteners in science and sat together in Calculus.
But now was obviously an exception.
She ran up to me just as I was getting on my bike to ride home from school. She was pale, paler tha those kids who sat with that new kid, Lexi, at lunch. It was like she had seen a ghost.
"Ron, Ron, help..." She trailed off as she got close to me.
Me, ever the gallant gentleman, replied "I'm not going to do your homework if that's what you want."
She glared, but quickly reverted to her 'seen-a-ghost' expression. "I got this note in my locker from Alli," she said.
"Alli?" I was new last year and didn't know much about the girl social scene. In a high school of 3000, it was very, very difficult to do so.
"She was my best friend. We broke up three years ago...
"...nothing from her, and then this note." she finished.
"I don't see what's so wrong with a little bit of contact," I said. "If the note's so unusual, then show it to me."
I wish she hadn't.
Lacey
"I don't know what to do," I whispered.
Ron shrugged. "I've heard of something like this at my old school. Kids getting those notes shoved into their lockers, disappearing for a few days, and then coming back, but different. Way different." He lowered his eyes.
"Do you think... Lexi... Maybe... Oh, I don't know what to do!" I wailed.
Ron frowned. "Just relax."
I snorted. "Easy for you to say."
He raised his eyebrows. "Are you scared?"
"No."
He smiled in obvious relief.
"I'm terrified."
In record time, he vaulted onto his bike and pedaled away furiously.
"Ron? Ron? Why..." Then I turned around.
Lexi.
She was blocking my path to the bus, standing there boldly with all her Gothy glory.
I glared. "Why did you get Alli to put that note in my locker?"
Her eyebrows raised past the top of her tinted glasses. "What note?" She said in an odd, singsong voice.
I was furious. "Do these words sound familiar to you?" I grappled with my backpack zippers as I tried to pull out the note.
"What words?" She said innocently, a small smile on her face. But I saw her eyebrows start to crinkle into a delicate frown.
"Read this!" I flung the note at her. "Keep it. There's no way in hell I'd want that in my pocket."
Lexi caught the crumpled up paper with surprising agility and began to unfold it, so I pushed past her towards the buses while she was distracted.
"Wait!" I heard. I quickened my pace.
"Lacey! Hold up!" Four more buses to go, three more buses to go...
"I'm serious! Please!"
I broke out into a full-tilt sprint and squeezed through my buses' closing doors. As I turned to get into a seat, the bus started moving. But I could still hear her voice waft over the sound of the roaring engine.
"I can help!" Sure, you can. I'd really want help from the person who could change Alli so drastically, who made her write those two words. Even now they were still spinning in my head.
"You're next"...
...
