[Fiction] The Slow and Steady Corruption of Our Dear Ms. Thompson

[Dareholic]

Nicely done, please continue.

[iSpuds]

Beth was reluctant to discuss those bones, but she soon gave in, only to tell me to avoid her ex-boyfriend like the plague.

"Because...I think I saw him with Whitaker before she died," she said. The tremble in her voice was one I'd never heard before. Beth was scared. Real scared. And it only made sense; she lived on the same floor as Thomas. Though things were still tense, they still passed by each other every day, exchanging a few terse words before going about their business.

"Shit, Beth!" I hissed. "Why didn't you tell the cops?!"

"You think I want to find out first-hand how that chick died?" She buried her face into her hands. "If they didn't catch him right away, like hell I'd want to be crucified as soon as I got back!"

She paused for a moment, and sighed. "Tom was a whole lot of shit, but I didn't know he was fucking mental."

"Wasn't he, though?" I clicked my tongue.



>>>>>Keep alert and walk in groups.

It was the first time I'd ever paid any attention to those cautionary posters tacked to the school's bulletin board in the main hallway, but the words stuck in my head. At the end of the day, the front doors parted and I was found leaving with the rest of the high school girls, alert as ever for any sight of the weasel in the red hoodie.

I spotted Ness at the front gate, waving to some girls as they left, leaving her on her own. I caught up to her.

"Your mom isn't here, yet?" I asked.

"She'll be here in a few. Her boss had her working overtime again."

"Again?"

Ness' was a single mother who worked well and hard to keep food on their table and a roof over their heads. It was hard to believe that she'd let her daughter attend a school like St. Maria, but Ness insisted, guilted by the burden she posed on her mother.

I patted her head and took post next to her, watching her twist her hair nervously. It was obvious she was scared, especially since she'd never had to wait alone for her mother to pick her up.

"It must be a really late job this time," I said, checking my phone. It was already half past five and her mother's battered white station wagon was nowhere to be seen.

"Her boss keeps working her to the bone." Ness sighed. "I'm not stupid, though. I know exactly why she does it."

I nodded, signifying that she didn't have to say anymore. Ness' mother was a Haitian refugee, having only entered the United States when she was a toddler. She led a hard life, gained permanent residency, and married an Italian salary man only to be left high and dry with a newborn child and debts to pay.

They adjusted pretty well and were mostly alright now, but that didn't count for the prejudice that occurred on a daily basis at her shitty desk job. But, if she knew what was good for her, she'd just keep toiling away under the thumb of her boss, Ms. What's-her-face, until the day she died.

I solemnly shook my head when the sound of an engine came sputtering down the street. Ness gave a relieved sigh as her mother pulled up. I tried hiding my face in the evening shadows, but it was too late. She'd spotted me.

"Vanessa!" she woofed at her daughter in her thick accent. "Did I not tell you not to be near that girl?"

"Mom!" Ness crossed her arms defensively over her chest. "I keep telling you, A.J. is not a bad person!"

"You don't know the things I know!" she snatched her daughter up by the arm and guided her into the car like the mother hen she was.

It was enough. It was enough to hear Ness defend me from her mother--from anyone, really. But her mother was right. She and I crossed paths at the wrong place and the wrong time more than just once, and she knew what I was about, in the past.

"Don't you touch my daughter again!" she snapped, before ducking under the roof of her car and speeding away.

I held up my hands apologetically and shrank away from the scene.

"Yeah." I sighed. "Ness ought'a listen to her mom."

I continued down the block, kicking my feet at the pavement as I thought. Since when had I become so sorry for myself? I was spoiled by my high school life. I thought it would have been a new start, but I had already made a name for myself, and it wasn't A.J. the Ordinary High School Girl.

"Well, fuck all of it!" I shouted, an indignant grimace spread across my face as I roundhoused a nearby recycling bin and watched its contents scatter at my feet.

The rustling from a second set of feet startled me.

I spun around.

It was gray and black with the eyes and fangs of a demon, shrouded in a black mask and white whiskers. It hissed at me and then skittered away, disturbed at the fact that I'd interrupted its nighttime scavenging.

Sighing at the stupid raccoon, I turned back around. I need to stop fucking around and go home, I thought.

"Pfft, that was funny!" A man chuckled in front of me, stopping me in my tracks.


When I looked up, I was staring into the two-inch barrel of a Ruger SP. .38 Special. And a maniac at the trigger.

[iSpuds]

My mouth drew up into an uneasy smile as I slowly raised my hands and surrendered. No use screaming. People around there made a point to play ignorant.

"What are you, a kindergartner?" I quipped. "Gentlemen don't laugh at girls tripping over feral pests."

"Oh, that ain't what's funny, sweetheart." Tom reached forward and twisted my arms behind my back, rendering me useless as he prodded my jaw with his gun. "What's funny is how you thought for a minute that you'd be able to escape all the shit you started in the past."

He walked me further up the street to the block right before my house, then steered me off to the left where we passed by a few more houses before approaching a large apartment complex.

"Beth's out," he said after punching a passcode into the keypad at the front door. "It's just you n' me tonight, baby."

I cringed at the implications of that sentence as the automatic door eased open and granted us entry.

We took the back stairs. Tom said no one except maintenance ever used them. He kept the gun poised under my chin and guided me upstairs to the third floor.

"Do you even know how to use that thing?" I shuddered; either answer would have been dangerous.

"Keep mouthin' off and you'll find out, princess," he growled as he kicked open a door that led to a wide hallway. There were rows of green doors with gold plated room numbers to either side of us, and Tom led me to the one that read 397.

I recognized the number as the one for his apartment, so it only confused me to watch the man knock three times on his own door. Didn't he have a key? And who was waiting for him inside?

"I was asked to bring you here for a little get-together, see," he said as we waited for the door to open.

"So...this isn't about Jamie Whitaker?" I asked.

"What about the bitch?" He spat on the floor. "If you know about it, then all's I got to say is she got what was comin' to 'er, the little cocktease. She'll walk it off."

Walk it off? I thought. Didn't you fucking kill her?

After a series of thumps, clicks, and rustles from behind the door, it eased gently open. Tom pushed it the rest of the way with his foot. I felt my knees buckle as I realized just what sort of get-together Tom meant.

And, boy, was it a blast from the past. I watched my old life stare me in the face. It was six feet tall, green-eyed, brown-haired, and all sexy as I remembered.

He smiled behind his cigarette and took a few steps closer, leaning in to get a better look at my face. Then, he blew a puff of smoke, and snuffed out the light on the jacket of one of his two guard dogs that stood posted with assault rifles at either side of the door.

"Well, well, well." The demon called Jessie chuckled as he clapped Tom on the shoulder. "You done well, Thomas. I'll absolve your debt, just like we agreed. This little chiquita here is more than worth it."

[Dareholic]

Two post in one day, what a treat. keep it up.