“Get lost,” Eve said, and delighted in the look of impotent rage that slapped over Lilly’s face, the look of stupid disbelief that clouded the expressions of Ali and Martina, who stood shoulder to shoulder with their self-anointed leader.
Eve tried to turn back to Rocky, but Lilly’s claw-like grasp tightened still further. The would-be queen of the school yanked Eve backward, pulling her away from Rocky and spinning her toward the threesome of waiting harpies.
Eve heard a noise erupt from within her throat. It wasn’t a scream, wasn’t a shout. It was more guttural than that, darker and far angrier. A rumbling growl that seemed to swell from deep within her, a noise she hadn’t known she was capable of making. In the same moment her hands reached up and trapped Lilly’s hand – which had slid around a bit from her upper arm and was now mostly holding Eve’s coat above her breast – the way Rocky had shown her. She pressed in with her hands, then jabbed her hands down and twisted.
A sharp crack sounded, a brittle k-chak with a wavelength that fit perfectly between the bass and treble of the music and so could be heard throughout the gym. Heads swiveled toward the sound instantly. Even before the screaming started.
Then it did start. The music cut off as Lilly started shrieking, staring at her arm. Her wrist and forearm hung strangely; there was no doubt that Eve had pulverized most of the girl’s skeleton in those spots. Worse, red-white bone stuck through the skin in several places.
French fries. Bones look like McDonald’s French fries with ketchup.
It was an insane thought, but it was what went through Eve’s mind the instant she saw the perfectly-manicured fingers of Lilly’s left hand wrapped around her right elbow, just below one of the jutting French fry bones. Blood flowed over the other girl’s nails, which Eve noticed had been painted with Hello Kitty designs. Now the Hello Kitty nails were Bloody Kitties.
I’m going mad.
Eve knew it was true. But she couldn’t get her thoughts to focus. Lilly’s screams were like a whipsaw, slashing apart her ability to think with violent, hacking cuts.
And worse, the one semi-coherent thought she was having, the one thing that kept intruding into her mind was this:
Bitch had it coming.
But that was wrong. That was just… wrong. No one deserved that. No one deserved what had just happened, what she had just done. Eve kept staring at the French fry bones in horror, at the bloody kitties, and felt like vomiting because –
(because I liked it oh dear God I liked it I loved it)
– she had never in her wildest dreams thought she’d ever be a part of something like this.
A commotion drew Eve’s stricken attention away from Lilly’s screams, from her arm that was twisted like a washrag that had been set out to dry. Ms. Green pushed through the silently standing students and into the small circle that had been created around Lilly, Eve, and Rocky.
The teacher took in the scene, then turned instantly on Eve. “What did you do?” she demanded.
Eve shrank into herself. Started to back away, her eyes feeling like they were the size of cantaloupes. “Nothing,” she said. Not true, she knew, but it was what came out. She wasn’t lying, not purposefully. She was just too terrified to think. Too frightened to figure out what to do. She needed a second. Needed a –
Ms. Green grabbed her roughly in almost the same spot Lilly had. “You’re not going anywh –“
Eve’s hand flashed out of its own accord. It smashed into Ms. Green’s chest, and Eve saw the old battle-axe of a teacher fly through the air, soaring over the first row of gawking students before smashing into a speaker stand and crashing with it to the floor. The speaker emitted a shrill shriek of feedback as though irate to be treated with such rampant disrespect.
Ms. Green did not say anything. Nor did she get back up. One of her legs was propped up on the speaker stand, a black orthopedic shoe half on her unmoving foot.
The speaker died or was cut off. Silence reigned in the gym for a short – though to Eve’s mind almost eternal – moment, then a student screamed. Another voice followed, and then the gym seemed to dissolve into a flowing mass of screaming, teeming students. They were all running for different places, galloping over and through each other in their panic.
Eve felt something tugging at her and had to choke down the impulse to react violently yet again.
What’s happening to me?
She knew, of course. Knew, but didn’t want to face it, even now.
“Time to go,” said Rocky, still pulling at her.
“I should stay,” said Eve, the idea that she should be there to explain things when the cops arrived itching at the back of her mind.
“There’s nothing for you here, Eve,” he answered. The words sank in. “Nothing for you here. Not anymore.” He pulled her again. Not like he was trying to pull her away from danger, but the gentle tug of someone trying to get her to join him. “Let’s go. Come with me.”
And she did. He ran, and she ran with him. Followed him out of the brightness of the dance and into the dark halls of the school, the sounds of the screaming students driving them forward. And over it all, Lilly’s screams and cries as she clutched her arms and bled on the rainbow-lit floor of the dance.