The Devil's Prey (The Demon Within) (3 page)

‘S
ummer, can you hear me?’

‘Ethan
, she has gone into shock.’

‘We need to call Lauren
.’

‘She cannot come down to school
!’

‘Well
, what do we do?’

I felt paralyzed
, almost the same as when Lucy had escaped my body. It brought back memories of that horrible night, and the pain that had almost killed me.

‘Ethan
, I can read her mind. She is thinking about what happened that night.’

‘Summer
, I need you to hear what I am saying, ok?  You will be fine. He is not here. None of them are! You are safe. I won’t let anyone hurt you, understand?’ I felt Ethan place his hand on mine, and my heart jolted at his words. I wanted to trust him, but my memories played before my eyes, and they looked so real. I kept looking straight ahead.

Then I saw him
standing in the distance- a tall, dark figure I knew all too well. Ethan turned around to see what I was looking at. I took a few steps back before I fell to the ground, and I started scrambling backwards.

‘Leave me alone
!’ I cried into the empty space.

‘Summer
, no one is here but us.’ I could hear the worry in Amanda’s voice, but I could also see the devil take a step forward, so I pulled a lambo in my hand.

‘Summer
, what are you doing? We are at school! Someone could see you!’

I didn’t care. I threw the lambo
, but it went straight through him. I got up and ran away from him, a blue light glowing in my hands.

‘Ethan
, do you think you could make the school not see Summer?’ I heard Amanda’s breathless exclamation behind me.

‘No
, but I can make them not see the blue light.’ I knew they were running after me, but as I looked over my shoulder, I could see that the devil was in front of them. How could they not see him?

‘L
eave me alone!’ I yelled again. I had made my way into the cafeteria, where everyone was still having lunch. They all went silent when I came bursting through the doors. I threw the blue light towards the window, and it smashed into a billion pieces. Kids were screaming. Frantic now, I threw another blue light towards where the devil was standing, right in front of the jocks’ table, but the light just passed straight through him. I ran out of the cafeteria, and I bumped into Amber in the doorway.

‘W
atch where you’re going!’ She turned away, and I heard her gasp the moment she saw the cafeteria.

I f
elt power running off my fingertips. I looked down to see a blue light in my hand, and I closed it straight away. I tried to reach out to Amanda, but her mind was closed off. I sat down and leaned up against the wall, where I felt like I was going to cry. I put my hands on my head, which throbbed like I had been run over by a car.

‘A
re you ok?’

I looked up to see Mr. Timberwood standing over me
. ‘Yeah. I am fine. Just a headache.’ I’ve never been a good liar when I’m upset, but I tried to sound as convincing as I could.

‘I think your friends are looking for you
.’ At that moment, I saw Amanda and Ethan down the hall.

‘L
ike I said before, if you ever need to talk to me, you can.’ There was something about Mr. Timberwood that seemed familiar, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. He put his hands in his pockets and walked into the cafeteria, which sounded like a jungle. I sat where I was, and Amanda and Ethan came running over.

‘S
ummer, what is going on?’ Ethan’s gentle voice soothed my ears, but his eyes said something else.

‘I don’t know what is going on with me anymore
.’ I felt tears well up in my eyes, but I refused to let anyone see. I heard the bell ring for the next class, which I knew I had with Ethan.

The last lesson of the day
seemed to drag. I did not say a word to Ethan during the whole lesson. I just drew all over my page. When the final bell rang, I was glad it was over for one day. I heard people whispering as we left, but I kept my head down and went to my locker.

At my locker
, someone had drawn all over it- saying I was crazy, that I’d tried to kill my mum and myself, and that I should be locked away rather than being allowed on school grounds. I knew who had done it. It wasn’t hard to guess. Amber. I ignored it, collected my books and left. I knew I had to wait for Amanda and Ethan, as they had to do a final check in at the office, so I waited by the car. People walked by me with disgust on their faces.

‘D
idn’t your mother ever tell you not to take drugs?’ Amber said from behind the car.

I looked down at my feet, avoiding looking
at her face.

She made her way around the car, stopping beside me.
‘But then again, that wouldn’t surprise me. You followed in your mum’s footsteps. Let’s just hope you don’t kill Ethan like your mum killed your father!’

T
hat was it. She did not know a thing about what my father gave up, what I’d been through, and she ought to have known better than to insult my mother. I clenched my fist into a ball and punched her right in the nose.

‘Y
ou don’t know a thing about what I have gone through, or what my father gave up for me!’ I shouted. I could see her nose bleeding.

‘Y
ou bitch! You broke my nose!’  she yelled back at me.

Amanda a
nd Ethan appeared then, with the principal right behind them. ‘What is going on here?’ she roared.

‘I was just walking by
, and she attacked me. She broke my nose! I told everyone that she was crazy!’ Amber was playing the innocent card, and I was going to cop it from both Lauren and my mother.

‘Y
ou come to my office now,’ the principal ordered. She walked back into the school, and I followed behind her. I walked past Ethan, who looked at me, ashamed.

‘
Amanda, she started it. She insulted my mother and father.’
I mentally reached out for my friend.

‘
I know.’
She sighed as I walked past her.

When I was in the principal’s
office, I sat down and waited while she got a glass of water for herself. ‘I am not happy, Summer. First day, and I already have to deal with a suspension.’

I looked into her e
yes. ‘No, please don’t. She started it.’ The principal raised her hand at me, and I stopped.

‘I don’t know what has come over you today
- the outburst in the cafeteria, and now hitting another student for no reason.’ Her expression was disappointed.

‘May I speak?
  She insulted my mother and my father. She said my mother killed my father, and I was going to do the same to...’I stopped there, because I knew suddenly that I was not going to win. Amber always won. It was just the way things went.

‘I will have to put you on a two
day suspension. I can get someone to give you your homework, but you are not allowed on school grounds.’ She took a sip of her water and grabbed her phone.

‘W
hat are you doing?’ I questioned.

‘I am calling your mother
.’

‘N
o, no, no- please don’t do that, please!’ But my mum had already answered the phone. I sat there and listened helplessly as the principal talked to my mother.

‘You may
now go,’ she told me after hanging up.

I got up and left the office
. When I got to the parking lot, I was surprised to see it was empty. I called my mother, but at first she didn’t pick up the phone. When she finally did answer, she said I had to find my own way home. I also rang Amy, but she did not pick up either. At last I called Lauren. It rang for a while before she picked up.

‘H
ello, Lauren speaking.’

‘Hi
, Lauren, it is Summer.’

I could tell from the pause on the other end of the line
that Lauren already knew what had happened, and was disappointed with me. Eventually she spoke. ‘If you want me to pick you up, I am sorry, but you have to learn.’ She hung up.

I was alone. E
veryone had left me. I screamed into the air, and in the distance I saw lightning, which seemed strange. It was still sunny and we had suffered a drought through the holidays. A few moments later, the rain started to come down heavily, along with my tears. With no other choice, I started walking home.

It took me almost an hour
before I got back to the house. I was dripping wet, my feet were aching and all I wanted to do was curl up in a hot bath. When I reached the door, though, I did not want to go inside. I went to open the door, but someone did it for me. There stood Lauren and Ethan, looking at me with disappointment.

‘Come in out of the rain
,’ Lauren told me. I did as I was told because I knew I was in so much trouble. I did not even make it six steps into the house before she was interrogating me. ‘So you wish to explain?’

‘Wh
at do you want me to explain?’ I did not mean for my response to come off with attitude, but it did.

‘Well
, what happened at lunch? You busting into the cafeteria, throwing lambos everywhere, and then breaking a girl’s nose?’ There it was- the look of disappointment I had been getting all day.

‘I don’t know what happened at the cafeteria
.’

‘Don’t insult my powers
, Summer. I can tell when you are lying.’ Our voices were getting louder, and the lightning outside cracked as it came into contact with the ground. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know what happened.’

I waited
uncomfortably as she stood, looking at me. ‘Ok, fine, so I broke her nose- but she deserved it!’ It did not sound as good as it had in my head, but I really didn’t care at that moment in time.

‘So what are you saying? Y
ou think you can just run around, hurting people that you don’t like? Summer, you are here to learn how to control your powers, and then you go and abuse that privilege!’

The
storm outside was getting worse, and so was my anger. ‘I did not use my powers. I just punched her. There is a difference- one is physical, the other is magical,’ I said with a sarcastic smile.

‘T
hat makes no difference, and you know it.’

I could see other fairies
poking their heads out of their rooms to see what the commotion was. ‘She insulted my mother and father. If you had heard what she said to me, you would calm your freaking undies!’ I saw anger rush across Lauren’s face. Ethan just stood in the background. Disappointment was written all over his face, and I didn’t need any special powers to see it.

‘I need
you to calm down,” Lauren said. “I don’t think you realize how disappointed I am in you. I was hoping for big things from you, and then I hear about this.’ She shook her head.

‘
You have no idea what I am going through!” I burst out. “In my head, and everywhere I look, I think I see the devil or Lucy, and I freak out. I feel like I am being suffocated!’ A strong gust blew the front door open, and the wind whipped through my hair. ‘I try to be normal, but all people do is stare and whisper like I am going crazy, which I am starting to believe! I am sick of everybody being disappointed in me!’ I yelled at Lauren. I could hear things crashing as the wind raged through the whole house.

‘You broke someone’s nose
, and used your powers in front of the whole school!’

‘Just stop
, will you? My mum is disappointed in me, you are, my principal, and Ethan is, too…and to top it off, everyone thinks I am crazy!’ The rain hammered down on the roof and the wind roared outside.

‘You have no right to address me like that
! You need to get it through your head that just because you are the last pure fairy doesn’t mean you can treat everyone else with no respect and get away with anything you like!’

That pushed
my button. I screamed at her and clenched my fists at my sides. ‘You think I want this? I was almost killed for being what I am! I hate it! You really think I want to be this? If I could, I’d give up being a pure fairy. I do not want it- I just want to be normal, to have my old life back! I am sick of people always being disappointed in me. I get tortured at school, I am writing in a language I have never seen before, and I just want everyone to stop and try to understand what it feels like to be me! To see what I see and feel the amount of pain I have been through!’

T
he rain had now turned into hail, and I could hear it crash on the roof. I took a deep breath and continued, ‘Everyone wants me to be the perfect pure fairy, but I am not! And I am just sick of everything fairy-related. I hate what I am, and if I could go back in time I would make sure I was never born, because I don’t like this life! I hate it with such a passion that you cannot even begin to understand! ’

I could see the hurt in Ethan’s eyes and the disappointment on Lauren’s face
, so I stormed into my bedroom and slammed the door shut behind me. Amanda was not in the room, which was good because I screamed and things went flying in the room. The wind burst my window open, blowing papers everywhere. I ran to my closet and started grabbing all my clothes, stuffing them into my bag. I needed to get away from here. I heard someone walking down the hall, so I grabbed my bag, jumped out the window, and ran.