Why did she just have to blurt things out like that? Why couldn’t she control herself?
If she’d been in a better mood, if she’d been calmer and hadn’t had so much thrown at her at once, she wouldn’t have said it. Or she would have been nicer. She would have said something like, I know what you’re trying to say is that you’d never leave this place, no matter how bad it got, because you wouldn’t leave me alone to deal with all this. And I love you for it. And I’d never abandon you either. In this messed up childhood of ours, at least we have each other. Instead, her mood had gotten the worst of her. Instead, she acted selfish, and snapped.
She sat up and could see the hurt etched on his face. She wanted to take it back, to say she was sorry, but she was just too overwhelmed. Somehow, she couldn’t get herself to open her mouth.
In the silence, Sam slowly stood up from her desk chair and exited the room, gently closing the door behind him.
Idiot, she thought. You’re such an idiot. Why do you have to treat him the same way Mom treats you?
She lay back down, staring at the ceiling. She realized that there was another reason she snapped. He’d interrupted her thoughts, and he’d done so just at a moment when they were turning for the worse. A dark thought had crossed her mind, and he’d cut her off before she’d had a chance to resolve it.
Her Mom ‘s ex-boyfriend. Three towns ago. It had been the one time her Mom had actually seemed happy. Frank. 50. Short, beefy, balding. Thick as a log. Smelled like cheap cologne. She had been 16.
She had been standing in the tiny laundry room, folding her clothes, when Frank appeared at the door. He was such a creep, always staring at her. He reached down and picked up a pair of her underwear, and she could feel her cheeks flush in embarrassment and anger. He held them up and grinned.
“Dropped these,” he said, grinning. She’d snatched them out of his hands.
“What do you want?” she’d snapped back.
“Is that any way to talk to your new step-dad?”
He took a half step closer.
“You’re not my step-dad.”
“But I will be—soon.”
She tried to go back to folding her clothes, but he took another step closer. Too close. Her heart pounded in her chest.
“I think it’s time we got to know each other a little bit better,” he’d said, removing his belt. “Don’t you?”
Horrified, she tried to squeeze past him and out the door in the small room, but as she did, he blocked her way, and roughly grabbed her and slammed her back against the wall.
That’s when it happened.
A rage had flooded through her. A rage unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She felt her body heating up, on fire, from her toes to her scalp. As he approached her, she jumped straight up and kicked him, planting both feet squarely on his chest.
Despite being a third of his size, he flew backwards through the door, cracking the wood off its hinges, and kept going, ten feet into the next room. It was as if a cannon had blasted him through the house.
Caitlin had stood there, trembling. She had never been a violent person, had never so much as punched someone. Moreover, she was not that big, or strong. How had she known had to kick him like that? How had she even had the strength to do it? She had never seen anyone—much less a grown man—go flying through the air, or shatter a door. Where had her strength come from?
She had walked over to him, and stood over him.
He was knocked out cold, flat on his back. She wondered if she’d killed him. But at that moment, the rage still filling her, she didn’t really care. She was more worried about herself, about who—or what—she really was.
She never saw Frank again. He broke up with her Mom the next day, and never came back. Her Mom had suspected something happened between the two of them, but she never said a word. She did, though, blame Caitlin for the breakup, for ruining the one happy time in her life. And she hadn’t stopped blaming her since.
Caitlin looked back up at her peeling ceiling, heart pounding all over again. She thought of today’s rage, and wondered if the two episodes were connected. She had always assumed that Frank had just been a crazy, isolated incident, some weird burst of strength. But now she wondered if it was something more. Was there some kind of power inside of her? Was she some kind of freak?
Who was she?
Chapter Three
Caitlin ran. The bullies were back, and they were chasing her down the alleyway. A dead end lay before her, a massive wall, but she ran anyway, right towards it. As she ran, she picked up speed, impossible speed, and the buildings flew by in a blur. She could feel the wind rushing through her hair.
As she got closer, she leapt, and in a single bound she was at the top of the wall, thirty feet high. One more leap, and she flew through the air again, thirty feet, twenty, landing on the concrete without losing a stride, still running, running. She felt powerful, invincible. Her speed increased even more, and she felt like she could fly.
She looked down and before her eyes the concrete changed to grass—tall, swaying, green grass. She ran through a prairie, the sun shining, and she recognized it as the home of her early childhood.
In the distance, she could sense that her father stood on the horizon. As she ran, she felt she was getting closer to him. She saw him coming into focus. He stood with a large smile, and arms spread wide.
She ached to see him again. She ran for all she was worth. But as she got closer, he got further away.
Suddenly, she was falling.
A huge, medieval door opened, and she entered a church. She walked down a dimly-lit aisle, torches burning on either side of her. Before a pulpit, a man stood with his back to her, kneeling. As she got closer, he stood and turned.
It was a priest. He looked at her, and his face filled with fear. She felt the blood coursing through her veins, and she watched herself as she approached him, unable to stop herself. He raised a cross to her face, afraid.
She pounced on him. She felt her teeth grow long, too long, and watched as they plunged into the priest’s neck.
He shrieked, but she didn’t care. She felt his blood course through her teeth and into her veins, and it was the greatest feeling of her life.
Caitlin sat straight up in bed, breathing hard. She looked all around her, disoriented. Harsh morning sunlight streamed in.
Finally, she realized she had been dreaming. She wiped the cool sweat from her temples and sat on the edge of her bed.
Silence. Judging from the light, Sam and her Mom must have already left. She looked at the clock and saw that it was indeed late: 8:15. She’d be late for her second day of school.
Perfect.
She was surprised that Sam hadn’t woken her up. In all their years, he’d never let her oversleep—he’d always wake her if he was leaving first.
He must still be mad about last night.
She glanced at her cell: dead. She had forgot to charge it. It was just as well. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone.
She threw on some clothes from the floor and ran her hands through her hair. She normally would just leave without eating, but this morning she felt thirsty. Unusually thirsty. She went to the fridge and grabbed a half gallon of red grapefruit juice. In a sudden frenzy, she tore off the top and gulped it right from the container. She didn’t stop gulping until she’d downed the entire half gallon.
She looked at the empty container. Had she just drank all of that? In her