The Pariah of Levon, 4

When Devin woke, she was sprawled across a tweed couch. She heard flurries slip against the window pane. The blustery wind rapped on the walls. She felt the cabin creak. Her eyes went first to her stomach, where her dress was crimped and bloodied. Pain tore through her abdomen. Paper towels were pressed haphazardly to the wounds. Blood was seeping through.

Her heart rushed as she recalled the events of a few hours before. In lieu of fear, she was immersed in a mild haze of anxiety. It was as though she’d emerged from a deep dream, and was still unsure of whether it had actually occurred.

Eventually, she was able to evaluate her surroundings. The walls were made of polished logs. The living room felt cramped, but consisted only of a fireplace, couch, and wooden chair. Behind the couch, there was a black and white-tiled kitchen. Blaire was sitting at the table, quieted none by the zip-ties on her wrists.

“Shay. Trit. Someone, untie me,” Blaire deadpanned. “For the love of Pete. There isn’t anything I can do to her. You have the knife, and she’s too incapacitated to provoke me enough to strangle her.”

It was meant to be a joke, but nobody laughed. A somber mood immersed the room’s inhabitants. Three of the boys sat in the living room, the other of whom was leaning against the fridge. His arms were folded, fingers tapping his elbow.

“So now you’re done being heroic?” Devin saw Blaire rub her nose. A smudge of dirt dotted her left cheek. “Figures it’d be after you decided to get us killed.”

“Nobody’s getting killed,” the boy in the kitchen said.

“God, if Devin heard your Moaning Myrtle eyewash, she’d probably wish you killed her when you had the chance.” It was Angel Boy. The deep, croaking intonation of his voice was distinct. His back was propped against the couch. He sat on the floor, one leg bent to his chest. There were scraggly holes in the knees of his jeans. He was meddling with a yo-yo string.

“Should have put Blaire in the closet and left Delaney out,” Angel Boy said.

“She’s awake,” said the boy in the wooden chair. It was Brian Shay. Even through a squint, Devin could place his half-drunken eyes, downy hair, and stubbly chin. His shoulders shifted as he nodded towards Devin. Prying eyes turned to Devin’s unmoving figure.

“You feeling okay?” the boy by the fridge asked. He was tall and burly, with thick brows and dark sideburns. Devin immediately knew him to be Triston Lois, nicknamed ‘The Bear’ for his appearance and fierceness on the football field. Off the field, however, his close friends called him Trit.

Devin could hardly bear to answer the question. She was hurt, afraid, humiliated, and bewildered by the circumstances.

“No,” Devin murmured through her teeth. “Unless by ‘okay’, you mean nearly dead and feeling like you’re trapped in a lightless void where answers are meaningless, and words are lies, and my best friend is a murderer.”

As if unimpressed by her pretension, Angel Boy sent the yo-yo careening across the floor in a ‘walk-the-dog’. It flew from his fingertips, and then sprung back. Shay and a boy wearing leather exchanged glances. Trit’s jaw fell dumbly.

“You were the one who told me to turn off the flashlight,” Angel Boy remarked. He continued to play with his toy. His tone sounded familiar to Devin. It was only when the boy turned his head that she recognized him. Cassius Pink. The boy who corrected Ms. Kalick’s pronunciation during roll call. Devin once heard him say that the next person who called him ‘Cass-ee-us’ would either assume a similar fate to Julius Caesar or cause him to assume a similar fate to Cassius Longinus.

Of course he’d used fewer words, and it had been a mere mutter in the hallway, but Devin remembered being surprised by his whimsy.

Blaire rolled her eyes and swept the black sheen of her hair over her shoulder. It was starting to frizz. “She’s just confused.” She turned her gaze on the boys. “Just as I’m assuming you were when you chose to betray us.”

“We weren’t confused,” the boy in leather retorted. His voice loudened. “We realized it was wrong.”

Devin’s head pounded. She was sweating.

Blaire forced a sardonic laugh, but her face was void of satisfaction. Her mouth tipped in a disturbed frown. There were bags under her eyes, violet like the sky when it stretched into dusk. “Don’t act like we wanted to kill her, Drain.” She dragged her hands into her lap. “Besides. You of all people shouldn’t be teaching me the difference between right and wrong.”

The room was silent. Blaire blinked, surveying the room.

“Did you think we actually wanted to do this?” Blaire asked, incredulity spiking her tone. “You do remember when he talked, right? You remember when he told us misfortune would befall us if we didn’t fulfill the pact?”

“That was two years ago,” Trit said softly. He shook his head. “We were naive back then. To think that anything would actually come of this. Heck, he probably ain’t even real.” From the expressions of the other boys, Devin could tell Trit’s was the popular opinion.

Blaire raised her voice. Tears flooded her eyes. “Don’t say that! Don’t pretend that you didn’t hear anything. That we weren’t visited. That you weren’t as afraid to back out of this as we were to kill her.” Her voice wavered.

Devin shifted on the couch. A wave of pain ran ragged through her diaphragm. Involuntarily, she groaned. She tried to sit up, but found the very motion difficult. She was suddenly possessed with rage. She couldn’t believe that Lane would befriend her and then attempt to kill her. Not only this, but the murder had taken two years to plan, and Devin had been oblivious.

Cassius flicked his head back, sensing movement. “Hey,” he said. “You shouldn’t move.”

He spoke like she was stupid. Maybe she was. The thought ignited a reckless nature that even Devin was not aware she possessed.

“What the hell is going on?” Devin asked. Her voice did not sound like her own. She caught sight of her reflection in the fireplace. Her brown locks hung in strings to her shoulders, and eyeliner blotted her cheeks. Her dress was tattered at the neckline. She pulled the hem over her bust.

The room wallowed in silence.

“Why did she try to kill me?” Devin cried, pointing an unsteady finger towards the closet, where Cassius said Lane was. The door didn’t shake or wobble, and there was no indication of struggle from within.

“That’s a long story, Bo,” said Cassius.

“I’ll give you the long-story-short,” said boy in leather. Devin realized it was Drain Thomas, ex-boyfriend of both Blaire and Lane. “Sophomore year, the six of us were at Paul Hanger’s for a sleepover, and we were messing around with a spell book we found in Mr. Hanger’s den. Mr. Hanger’s dead, y’know. Anyway, shit happened, and we ended up making a deal with the Devil. He tells us he’ll make us immortal, s’long as we sacrifice someone to him. A girl. By stabbing her to death.”

Paul Hanger. The name sounded oddly familiar. After a moment of thought, Devin realized that she had seen the name on posters in school; the laminated ones with cream borders. They advocated raising money for the Hanger family. Or, what was left of it, anyway. Paul had allegedly committed suicide last year. Devin’s entire class had attended the viewing. According to rumor, Paul’s mother had found him wet; strung up by the shower head with an extension cord wrapped around his neck.

The booster club paid for his name to be engraved on the moulding above the locker room door. Trit had a ritual where he’d slap the moulding before he went in to change for gym class.

Devin guessed it was a sign of respect.

She once heard that giving excessive attention to victims of suicide only encouraged other kids to sway in the same direction. Apparently, fame was a motivating factor for a lot of people. But Devin supposed that a rule like that didn’t seem so important when the tragedy showed up at your own doorstep.

At Paul’s name, the room went uncomfortably quiet, but Devin could not settle. “Why me?” she demanded. She was trying not to cry. Crying made her stomach hurt so bad she could not breathe. “Why not some other girl?”

The wind howled. Sleet dug into the glass like teeth; obdurate and unyielding. Devin saw Cassius shiver; the hair at his nape bristling. He stretched his shoulders like a cat, as if shrugging off the chill.

“You’ll have to ask Lane about that,” Blaire offered from the kitchen. It was the first time she’d spoken in awhile. Her tone was cutting. Devin’s muscles clenched at her voice. It was the same voice she’d used when encouraging Lane to kill her.

Devin recalled her own desperation. Her mind was suddenly drawn back into the struggle--her flailing about on the ground, nails finding flesh as Blaire thrust her into the snow. She remembered Lane plunging the knife into her skin. The unspeakable pain as it squished down through her epidermis.

And in an instant, Devin’s few minutes of calm--of denial--fled with her rationality. She began to hyperventilate; lungs expanding and contracting--growing and shrinking with her breaths. Everyone in the room was an enemy; they were all murderers who were trying to kill her. Like cats, they cunningly awaited the moment to pounce and gut their prey.

Devin’s stomach wrenched with pain as she stood to her feet. She was dizzy; head swimming. Drain’s arched eyebrows went belly-up as Devin fell to her knees.

“Where the hell is she going?” Blaire asked. Devin couldn’t breathe. She felt Drain’s calloused fingers grope for her arm. Devin whipped her arm backwards in a hurry. Her hand hit home, smacking skin. She scuttled away, vaguely aware of the distressed whimpers coming from her own lips. A cacophony of voices muddled in her ears. She skinned both her knees before her feet found the floor. Her hips seemed to knock against everything in the cabin before she reached the door. Adrenaline burned in her thighs and calves. She could feel the murderers in hot pursuit.

Devin shoved the door outwards, and was met with a blast of frigid air. Once she stepped outside, she was immersed in a whirlwind. Ice pelted against her face. Her bare feet were submerged in snow six inches deep. She was cast off-balance, and stumbled face-first in a snow drift.

The world was upside down. She cried out in pain, from both the scalding cold and the relentless burn in her abdomen. “Devin.” The voice was in her ear again. It was Angel Boy. Her hair was tangled in her teeth; soggy and knotted. “Hi. You better help me get you up, before you do Delaney’s job for her.” Warm hands lifted her roughly by her underarms, coaxing her to her numb feet. With his help, she trudged back to the door, surrendering to her murderers. Devin could see Cassius’s face through the blizzard.

“C’mon,” he said. “Before you freeze. Stop going insane and get inside.”

Devin was ushered into the house. Cassius yanked her along. Her cheeks were raw from the scattered ice pellets; her scalp was chock full of the things. She was terrified. As soon as the two of them entered the house, Devin ripped her body from Cassius’s grip and retreated to the corner of the room, grabbing a candelabrum from the mantle on her way. She clutched the candelabrum in her hand, wielding it like a baseball bat.

“Don’t come near me,” Devin warned, voice breaking. Tears stuck in the crevices of her face. “Stay the fuck away.”

“Bitch thinks she’s gonna deck us while we’re not looking,” Drain marveled. Devin hated him. She hated all of them; cursed their apathetic stares as they watched her build a weak defense. She hated them like she would snakes who readied themselves to land a bite on her. They had that look in their eye. The look reflected their drawn conclusions and a keen patience. It would only be so long before they struck.

What she couldn’t figure was why the boys had stopped Lane from killing her in the first place.

“Calm down, Drain,” Trit rationalized. “You’d probably pull the same jazz if you were stabbed in the gut by the people you were holed up with.”

Their voices were echoes. Each sound was a shot to the wall shielding Devin’s unchecked terror.

“We didn’t stab her, we saved her!” Drain shouted. “At this point, her gratitude is a little overd--”

With haste, Devin sprung from the wall and charged at Drain, shrieking. He was stunned, and threw his hands up to shield the blow. Devin swung the candelabrum in an arc, aiming for his face. But she was tackled subsequently by both Trit and Shay, one of whom drove a shoulder into her chest and the other of whom knocked the weapon from her grip. Cassius stood by the window, unmoving.

Pain wracked through her torso. She collapsed to the ground for the second time in five minutes. Tears came. She heard Drain’s irritable exclamations muffling from above. Her stomach seared with unimaginable anguish.

“Hey,” Trit said, looking sympathetic before Devin conked out.

_/\_

“Looks like Lucifer’s having a hissy fit out there. That or a field day, with the snow going like that.”

Devin’s eyes shot open. She was on the tweed couch. She saw Cassius at the opposite end of the sofa. He was lounging across its arm, gazing out the window. He didn’t look at her.

“I know you’re awake.”

The room was pitch black aside from a light in the kitchen. It was like a yellow beacon. Devin shifted on the couch. She was even more aware of the intense pain in her abdomen. She felt groggy. Her eyes flitted to the stove clock.

“Power went out about fifteen minutes ago. It’s about midnight.”

Devin finally spoke in a hoarse whisper. “Then where’s that light coming from?”

“Some lamp Shay found in Uncle Blake’s chest. It’s battery-powered.” He didn’t whisper, but kept his voice low.

“Who’s Uncle Blake?” Devin groaned, still coming to her senses. “And why does he have a lamp in his chest?”

Devin heard a laugh trip up from his lungs, and he repositioned himself a bit. His silhouette was distorted in the moonlight. “I meant chest, like a treasure chest. Not the kind of chest filled with organs and stuff.

“And Uncle Blake’s my uncle. He owns this cabin.” He coughed. “Cabin’s pretty much all he owns, actually.”

Devin squinted to her right. In the kitchen, Blaire sat with her head cradled in her arms. Drain was stationed in a chair across the table, turning Lane’s knife over in his hands. He was quiet. Subdued. The sight of the knife made Devin’s stomach churn.

Devin contemplated saying nothing more, but was too confused by the situation not to vie for more information.

“Why’re we still here?” she asked Cassius.

“Because it’s a blizzard out there, and because we’re still figuring out what to do.”

“With me?” she asked.

He paused, then said, “We have to figure out what to do with Delaney. She tried to murder you. Unless you clam up, she’s probably going to end up with some kind of sentence. That’s if she doesn’t plead guilty on account of mental instability, or something.”

Devin tried bringing her knees to her chest, but gave up. “And you don’t think she deserves that?”

“I don’t know,” Cassius admitted.

“What if I run off and cry wolf?” Devin asked, knowing that running itself surpassed the extent of her ability.

“Then we won’t have anything to decide on, I guess.”

Devin exhaled. She rubbed her palms over her shoulders. The doors and windows were shut, but she felt cold.

Cassius had something in his hands.

“Where are the others?” Devin inquired.

Cass nodded his head off past the kitchen. “Trit and Shay are in the dining room. Playing cards, or something.”

“Why aren’t they asleep?”

“Because they’re afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of being punished.”

“Is Blaire asleep?”

“Yes.”

“What, is she not afraid?”

“People have different ways of dealing with fear.”

“And what about you?”

She tended to ask too many questions. She’d been born with a curiosity she couldn’t shake.

“I’m terrified,” the boy said.

Devin tried to move, eliciting an agonized cry from her own mouth.The pain of her wound seemed to spread through her limbs and fester in her veins. She pressed a shaky hand to her middle. A guttural sound escaped her throat. Cass turned his head towards her, but said nothing. Devin’s whole body was shaking. Tears sprouted in her eyes.

“When boys are terrified,” she managed, “they don’t play with yo-yos and gaze out the window.”

“What kind of boys have you been hanging with? Because all the ones I know are cowards, and good at pretending they’re not.” He shifted his knees, sighed.

“How about you?” he asked. “Got your escape route planned yet?”

Devin swallowed. “Finally beginning to accept the harsh reality of being outnumbered.”

“You don’t sound so mortified anymore,” Cass observed.

“I guess I’m like those boys you know.” She bit lightly on her own tongue, a habit that she’d acquired over years of forgetting the words she’d planned.

“Sounds like we’ll be waiting out the night together, then.”

“We won’t be doing anything together,” Devin refused.

“Well, why not?”

“Because you planned to kill me. Why else?”

“We backed out,” Cass refuted. There was a long pause. Devin felt his eyes on her from across the couch. The storm cavorted the trees outside. “If you don’t think I’m terrified,” he asked, “then what do you think I am?”

“Not human, surely,” Devin replied, appearing exhausted to the point of near indifference.

At this, Cassius laughed. It was the first genuine reaction she felt she'd provoked from him all night.

“Hey, keep it down over there, will you?” Drain complained, a glower veering in Devin’s direction.

“Can you tell him to stop acting so righteous?” Devin groaned hoarsely.

“He won't hear it from me.”

“Bitch is going crazy,” Drain mumbled, resting his head on the seat back and shutting his eyes.

“Don’t take it personally,” Cass assured Devin. “You mix hubris with mood swings, and you end up needing a rinse in the safety shower.” He leaned back, letting his right leg drape from the arm of the couch. He rolled his neck, popped his shoulder, and then settled.

Devin peered over the back of the couch. Drain ran his thumb along the serrated edge of Lane’s knife, as though he was measuring how sharp it was. Blaire sighed in her sleep, head tossing a bit fitfully. Chit-chat whispered from the dining room. Drain looked up, eyes alerted by the noise. Then he turned to meet Devin’s stare. Their eyes locked.

No sooner had their eyes met then Drain looked away again, sinking into his chair.

“Good to know,” Devin told Cass.