An Evil Mind

“Oyyyyy! You coming to the show or what, numbnuts?”

I stand, shakily. I shoot one last look back at the cafeteria. The choker of thorns around my neck is gone, now. He’s gone. I’m safe. For now. Diana stands with me, and I smirk at her.

“On a scale of one to duh, how much do you like music?”





-6-

3 Years

47 Weeks

1 Day

Emel Hall is a massive glass and wood contraption built by rich wrinkly alumni who wanted to see their name on something large and impressive before they kicked the bucket. The music majors and people who like Bright Eyes too much hang around here pretty much 24/7, and they’re the ones who put this whole thing on. It’s a battle of the bands type of deal; handfuls of grungy college kids with aspiring indie bands performing on a stage to a likewise college crowd. Alcohol isn’t allowed, but people sneak it in water bottles and flasks, laughing and sloshing about like waterlogged pirates. With trust funds. And essays due the next day. Not that pirates wrote essays. But if they did? it would be about singing parrots and knife-fights and fat booty of the not-woman kind, or possibly simultaneously of the woman kind and the treasure kind, because, well, pirates.

“Hold this for me. Take pictures of me on it. I want to see my own awesome live in Technicolor.” Yvette shoves a phone into my hand. Diana, looking a little lost but sweetly excited, giggles.

“Are you in a band?” She asks. Yvette looks at her like she’s just seeing her for the first time.

“U-Uh, yeah. Um. Major Rager.”

“It’s not that good of a party,” I correct. “There aren’t enough people getting naked.”

“Major Rager is the band name, dork,” Yvette nudges me. “I’m late – we’re next. If SOMEONE had been answering her phone instead of making me run around campus looking for her –”

“I told you! The government is listening to everything I say. I’ve switched to smoke signals.” There’s a pause. “Their texting plan is obscenely cheap. And arson-y.”

Yvette rolls her eyes and wades through people towards backstage. Diana and I watch the current band shred the hearts of the crowd as their lead guitarist rips out an ear-rending solo.

“She’s cute,” Diana shouts to me.

“Not as cute as me!” I shout back. “Wait, who are we talking about again?”

“Your friend. Yvette’s her name?”

“Oh, yeah. She’s my roommate. I sort of infect everything I touch like that. She’s going to get even cuter as my spores take over her body and turn her into my willing minion.”

Diana giggles. I pause.

“I’m not actually that evil.”

“I know,” she says. “Evil people don’t cry as much as you do.”

I didn’t used to cry so much, and I want to tell her that, but I realize the story would be too long. You could fit it in, like, at least three books. So instead I contemplate whether Diana meant Yvette’s cute in the general adorable girl way or the ‘hey baby, you’re 2 cute get in my bed’ way. The sudden vastness of where I am hits me just as the enormous exhaustion of an emotionally draining day decides to punch me. It’s a one-two combo and I mumble an excuse and stumble through the crowd, finding relief outside, where people smoke and the music isn’t quite as shouty. I hug my knees to my chin and watch the moon rise over the quieting campus. This is my home now, but it doesn’t feel like home. When does it start to feel like home?

“When you start feeling safe,” a voice cuts in. My ears know it before my eyes do and I suddenly regret coming out here, coming to this school, and living in general.

Nameless smiles down at me, hands hooked casually in his jean pockets. He is tall and wrapped in shadow and my fingertips go numb. He sits beside me, the paralysis creeping from him in static waves and flooding me up to my eyes.

“But you’ll never feel safe here, will you? Not with me around.” Nameless looks at me, straight on in the eyes, and some deep part of me curls in on myself, waiting for the inevitable hurt.

“Why?” I manage through tight lips.

Nameless shrugs, brushing hair from his eyes. “My aunt and uncle – Wren’s parents – are here in Ohio. Mom felt better about sending me here where there’s family. I wanted to go to UCSD, but, you know. You can’t have everything you want in life always. And even if you do get it, you might regret it. But you know that already, huh?”

He smiles at me, all teeth, and I start shaking, my legs and my arms and my neck quivering uncontrollably.

“Real sorry to hear about your friend,” Nameless sighs. “He prodded at my firewalls for the longest time. Annoying bug. What was his name? John? Jake? Whatever, he’s gone now. He hasn’t poked me for months, and your high school’s records showed he stopped coming towards the end. Must’ve sucked, finally finding a boy stupid enough to f*ck you, and then having to watch him slip from your fingers.”

Nameless laughs, and quickly, too quickly, pats my shoulder. My panic tenses every muscle without my permission and, like it’s being pulled by marionette strings, my leg juts out and kicks him square in the side. He makes a winded coughing noise, and the genial mask he keeps up fractures to shards, the smile turning cruel, the jovial light in his eyes twisting to malicious offense.

“You little bitch –”

His hands reach for me, and I’m ducking, but neither of us get to move any further, because someone steps between us.

“That’s about enough of that.”

And I recognize this voice, too.

Dark jeans, a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Shoulders I know – shoulders I slept against a long time ago. Tawny, gold-brown hair sticking up in the back. It’s an illusion, it has to be.

“And who the f*ck are you?” Nameless sneers.

“I’m hurt you don’t recognize me, Will. All that prying into our school records, but no prying into my photos? That’s lazy of you. Lax. I’d almost call it a mistake.”

I see Nameless’ eyes go wide, but he quickly adopts a neutral face, a smirk tugging at his mouth as he stands up, his full height almost level with the newcomer’s.

“We’re all here, then. Fabulous. The party can finally start. It’s about damn time,” Nameless sneers.

He looks at the newcomer, and then me, before turning and walking away down the well-lit sidewalk. Like a spell, the paralysis lifts when he’s out of sight, and I gasp for air.

“Shit, shit, rancid shitmonkeys!” I stand and brush myself off, willing the trembling to stop. It’ll take hours. And it’s not just Nameless that’s causing it.

Jack Hunter turns to face me.

It feels like years, but it’s only been months. A few months. He looks so much older – lines around his eyes that didn’t used to be there. His face matured somehow, the sharp angles of pubescence rounded off in a handsome, hawkish way. His eyes are the same frigid, clear blue, brows drawn tight.

“Isis, I –”

I pull my fist back and punch him. His head snaps to the side, and the people around us go even quieter. Someone murmurs ‘fight’, but no one moves. Except Jack. He slowly turns his head to me, a red welt blossoming on his Legolas-high cheekbones. I expect rage to ice over his eyes, but it never does.

“Isis,” he repeats, softer now.

“Who the f*ck do you think you are, running off like that?”