Chapter 119 – Playing Sick – Silver Brooks

The burden of convincing my mother to let me go out fell entirely on me. Perri’s plan to tell her that I was studying with a friend wouldn’t fly. Not only because that was unbelievable, but because I had used that excuse many times before with poor results.

Instead of framing it as trying to get permission to leave, I decided to frame it as getting her to ignore me. That usually wasn’t hard to do unless there was something going on, or Addison was intentionally causing trouble for me. As far as I could tell, this was a normal day for my family and the perfect opportunity to try something new.

My mother came home late in the afternoon, sighing heavily and kicking off her shoes after a hard day of work. I was waiting for her near the door in my pajamas, with my blanket carefully wrapped around me. My mother gave me a passing glance but was inclined to ignore me and walk right by me as if I didn’t exist.

“I haven’t been feeling well…” I said, trying to sound pained and subdued.

“But you still went to all of your classes, right?” She asked.

“I went to the nurse’s office towards the end, but-…”

“And what did she say?”

“She said that I needed to get some rest and…”

“Then go back to bed and get some rest.” She said in an exasperated tone, like I was an idiot for bothering her with this.

Just like that, we were done here as far as she was concerned. She walked into the living room and collapsed onto the couch. She was particularly disappointed to see that I followed her into the living room. She stared at me blankly for a moment, as if trying to decide something.

“Are you pregnant?” She finally asked.

“What?! No! How could I even-…”

“Have you been doing drugs?” She asked.

“No…”

“Then what do you want from me?”

“I was just going to say that I may not come down for dinner. I’m planning to go straight to sleep.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

She stood back up and walked over to me slowly. I flinched back at her sudden change in behavior. She raised a hand and placed it against my forehead.

“You’re only a little warm. It’s just a cold. Nothing to worry about,” She said. “Now if you’re done bothering me, I’d like to get some rest too. I had to deal with a troublesome elderly couple and my patience for the day has run dry.”

I nodded and backed away from her, retreating to the comfort of my room. When I opened the door I found Casper crawling in through the window, her body halfway inside. She didn’t notice me as I hurriedly closed my bedroom door behind me.

“Casper!” I said in a hiss.

She looked up at me as she was climbing through and fell forwards, hitting the floor head first. The thump sound was so loud that I wondered how thick her skull had to be for that to happen. Considering how often she fell head first trying to climb through my window the answer had to be very thick.

“Sylvie…?” My mother called from downstairs.

“I’m okay! I just tripped on my blanket!” I shouted through the door.

I turned back to Casper and went over to help her up. She examined my pajamas and the blanket wrapped around me as I helped her to her feet.

“Are you sick or something?” She asked.

“No… Not really. I just needed a way to convince my mother to ignore me for tonight.”

“Ah…” She said, nodding in understanding. “Hey, did Perri tell you about-…!”

“Of course she did!” I nearly shouted at her, “Why do you think I’m going through the trouble of pretending to be sick.”

“You’re a genius!” She said.

“You’re an idiot!” I laughed, “A stupid, lovable idiot!”

She took that as her cue to pull me into a hug. She pulled away and took me by one arm, ushering me over to the window.

“Come on, let’s go together!”

“I’m not going in my pajamas!” I protested.

“Fine,” She said and let go of me, “I’ll wait right here for you to get dressed.”

“No,” I said, “You’ll wait outside.”

“Fine,” She said.

She started walking towards the door, probably just to tease me. I turned her back towards the window and she promptly went out. She waited outside, peeking back in through the open blinds. I gave her a wide smile before promptly closing the curtains.

There was no time to be picky about what I wore to the party. I picked out a casual black shirt and matching black skirt. I wore black knee socks, boots, and gloves, completing my dark look. The last piece was the silver key necklace that I usually wore to school. Additionally, I decided to take my school bag with me since my phone, wallet, and make-up were still inside it.

Casper and I waited until we were further down the road to hop onto our skateboards. When we finally did I felt a sudden rush of freedom and excitement, having managed to sneak out without a fight. I couldn’t help but to shout excitedly as we rolled downhill. Casper decided to join in for whatever reason. She was howling like some sort of wild animal which made me laugh hard.

The party was being held in an abandoned warehouse on the edge of town. This place wasn't uniquely chosen for this single party. It was actually a popular building for teenagers and young adults to throw ragers and raves.

The place was smack dab in the middle of a dead manufacturing district. The zone hadn't been active since the jobs were sent overseas in the late 80s or early 90s. The police rarely came patrolling the area and so it was a rampant target of abuse. All of the shadiest things that happened in our town happened here, far away from any main road with streetlight cameras.

Naturally places like this attracted a lot of unusual or unsavory types. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when Perri’s high school party turned into something much larger than she told me about. She must’ve considered the possibility when she chose this as the location and didn’t care. After all, she was quite famous here as a rookie DJ.

In fact, Perri was at the front of the room, operating the mixer with the help of her older brother. Her brother worked in music at the professional level and often showed up at things like this. From what little I knew of him, he was actually a lot like Perri. I got the feeling that a lot of his attitude and behavior rubbed off on her while growing up.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Perri waved me and Casper over to the front of the room when she saw us walk into the building. She handed things over to her brother and ran over to us. She launched herself into us, putting one arm around each of us and pulling us into a tight hug.

“You made it!” She said excitedly. “I guess you managed to think up a convincing excuse to get out!”

“Yeah, something along those lines…” I said, returning her hug.

“I hope we’re not too late!” Casper shouted over the music.

Perri let go of us and pulled back.

“Nope! We’re just getting started! Oh! Silver! There are a few people I want to introduce you to! Come on!”

I had little say in the matter. Perri was pulling me away before I could answer. She brought me to a number of people in such quick succession that I was hard pressed to seriously take away anything from each conversation. It was increasingly clear that these weren’t serious introductions, but more like she was showing me off to her friends outside of our school.

Even Casper caught on to this and decided to walk away, opting to hang out with some of our girlfriends. I would’ve preferred to join them but Perri apparently wasn’t done. She dragged me over to her brother to reacquaint me, but it wasn’t necessary. He said he remembered me due to my nickname and the silver streaks in my hair.

After that I thought we were done running around, but apparently not. She pulled me over to the middle of the dance floor along with Jin and someone I was unfamiliar with. It took a while for me to get into the spirit of dancing. I was feeling whiplashed after being pulled all over the place by Perri.

Eventually though I started having fun. Casper came back over and started dancing with us. She pulled me close as we were dancing together but Perri pulled me away while laughing. Several of our girlfriends were surrounding us, joining in the fun. It felt nice to be surrounded by people I was familiar with in a sea of strangers.

Suddenly someone wrapped their hands around my waist and pulled me from behind. I freaked out momentarily until I saw who it was.

“You actually showed up!” Naomi said with an evil grin, “I was afraid you’d be locked up all night.”

I laughed and started to say something but Naomi dove in for a surprise kiss. I turned my head a little and the kiss landed on my cheek. Normally that would be ‘the hint’ that I wasn’t in the mood. Most people in our group would get it but sometimes Naomi could be persistent.

She wasn’t satisfied with that and clearly wasn’t afraid to show it. She held onto me closely and started kissing me down my neck, which was unusual between the two of us. I laughed at her excitement and didn’t really fight it. At least, not until I noticed an upset Perri standing off to the side.

Perri pulled me away from her rather roughly. Naomi, having not read the situation, pulled me back while laughing. Perri wasn’t smiling or laughing like Naomi was. Naomi probably thought this was another flirtatious game. So the next time Perri pulled me away, she stood in front of me and pushed Naomi away by the shoulders.

“Back off!” Perri shouted, “Can’t you see she’s not interested in you?”

A few of our girlfriends stopped dancing and gave us curious looks. Naomi looked utterly confused.

“What?” Naomi asked innocently, “We’re just playing around a bit. Silver doesn’t mind-…”

Naomi started to reach for my hand but Perri slapped it away. Naomi cringed back, more in surprise than pain. Our girlfriends that had been watching curiously on the sidelines suddenly took up aggressive postures. Naomi was coming to terms with things only after carefully studying Perri’s intense expression. She rubbed the hand that Perri slapped with an intense look of her own.

At this point I decided that things needed to cool down. I stepped between them, hoping to disarm the situation.

“Let’s not fight among ourselves. Please…” I said. “It was just a little misunderstanding… There’s no need to be so-…”

Naomi grabbed me and pulled me back, obviously daring Perri to do something. Perri took a step forward and was immediately blocked by all our girlfriends that had been watching. Jin appeared from seemingly out of nowhere and stood by Perri’s side. It wasn’t just Jin either, a number of other girls stood by Perri in her defense.

Naomi had been so confident at first, but that confidence drained as more and more of our girlfriends noticed what was happening and took Perri’s side. Naomi let go of me and I rushed back to Perri. I struggled to pull Perri away from the site of the standoff, trying to defuse the situation.

“Please, Perri…” I said. “Let’s dance some more.”

Begrudgingly, Perri stood down and turned away from Naomi and the others. She nodded at everyone that came to her defense and slowly the situation deescalated. Perri put an arm around me and walked away. I breathed out a massive sigh of relief. That had almost turned into a massive disaster.

I wanted to try cheering Perri up but she wouldn’t even look in my direction. I had never seen her so upset.

“I need to go to the bathroom.” She suddenly said. “Don’t follow me.”

She walked away on her own, heading for the bathroom in the back of the building. I thought about following her anyways to try talking to her about what happened but decided to give her some space. I wanted to go outside and get some fresh air anyways. The air inside the warehouse was filled with cigarette smoke.

I started to head for the main door but was surprised when I saw another group of mostly girls suddenly coming in. My eyes widened in shock when I saw Black Brittney at the center of them. She was standing next to a tall guy that I assumed was her boyfriend. Candace and all the others followed in behind her.

I froze in place.

“It looks like we made it in time!” Black Brittney shouted, catching everyone’s attention.

She grinned sadistically and all of her girls rushed into the room. Some of them were holding bats, chains and other weapons, I realized. This was some sort of ambush!

Jin and a few others met this challenge head on. Hell, it looked like they practically welcomed the fight. I, however, didn’t want to get caught in the middle of this. I took off towards the nearby side exit, hoping to avoid the brawl. I was sad to see that two girls detached from the main group and chased after me.

All I could do was run away as fast as possible. I left my skateboard inside and would need to go back for it at some point. I looked back to see two people chasing me out of the parking lot area. It was so dark out that I couldn’t see their face. Still, I had one slight advantage here. I knew this area well. It had many twists and turns that I could easily lose them in.

The warehouse was surrounded by several smaller buildings that were built close to each other. I ran into one of the empty spaces between buildings, hoping to lose them like this. I didn’t bother looking back. I just went from alleyway to alleyway until I reached a dead end brick wall.

Unfortunately one of the girls managed to find me. I assumed the other got lost in the run. Just one of the lights on the nearby building worked, but it was enough to illuminate this person’s face. It was Leigha. This was someone that I actually knew and could possibly appeal to.

“Leigha…!” I said as she walked into the alleyway, “I’m Sylvie Brooks… Do you remember me? We used to have a class together.”

She grinned at me and continued walking forward.

“Oh I remember you alright.” She said, flaunting her bat threateningly, “Why do you think I personally chased you here.”

The idea that she was targeting me specifically was unsettling. As far as I knew I had never done anything against her.

“What…?” I asked. “I thought we were on good terms back then?”

“I thought we were too.” She said in mock sorrow. “I tried again and again to get close to you but you kept spurning my every advance.”

Her voice became heated as she spoke. There was a certain passion in her words that she was trying to suppress and play off. The fact that she was walking closer and closer to me was unnerving.

“You don’t even remember, do you?” Leigha asked, repugnance flashing on her face. “I think that’s what pisses me off the most. You’re completely ignorant about how you stabbed me in the back by joining that bitch’s group when I already worked out a spot for you with Black Brittney.”

“That was a long time ago.” I said defensively.

She lifted her bat closer to her and caressed it as if it were a long lost lover. She studied it as if it were suddenly interesting.

“I know…” She said sadly, “If only you had just heard me out back then instead of casually blowing me off… Every time I tried to speak to you!”

She was beginning to shout and I began panicking inside. I tried to back away more but there was a wall right behind me. She focused her gaze back on me and gave me a look of such antipathy that I was sure I wouldn’t survive this encounter.

“I’d like to say that this is nothing personal,” She said, “But it really… Really is…”

She lifted her bat and struck me across the face before I could get my hands up to defend myself. I was violently thrown to the dirt by the force of the attack. I spat out the blood in my mouth and sat up straight. I lifted my hands to try defending myself. She seemed to relish the sight and held the bat above her head dramatically.

“Beg for mercy.” She demanded.

“Please Leigha…!” I cried. “I don’t want to fight you.”

She laughed.

“Of course not, I hold all the cards here.”

“Not all of them,” A childlike voice suddenly said.

“Who said that?” Leigha asked.

She pulled my bag away from me and reached inside. She pulled out the Nyx doll and gave it a hard look. The smile on the doll’s face was already lighting up, like it had been waiting for this.

“What the hell?” Leigha asked as she looked the doll over.

“Behind you.” The doll said.

Leigha turned her head to look behind her. There was a shadow of a person standing at the front of the alley. This person was wearing a custom designed black overcoat that covered most of her person. Her belt held a collection of knives and spherical objects that looked like bombs.

The Killing Cat lifted her head and put a finger over her stitched, glowing smile. The motion revealed two red eyes that pierced the relative darkness of the alleyway. The nearby light flickered briefly, causing the masked stranger to appear far more frightening than they already were.

Leigha wasn’t ready to be scared off so easily. She carelessly tossed the Nyx doll against the nearby wall and turned to fully face this stranger. She swung her bloody bat around for dramatic effect before leveling it threateningly towards the masked stranger. I lifted my hand to my bleeding cheek, having realized that blood came from me.

“You want Silver…?” Leigha asked confidently, “Come and get her.”