Chapter 7 – After School Ambush – Holly Hayfield

Lilith and I went our separate ways after leaving the library. Now I needed to focus on phase two of the plan. It was one thing to convince her to spend time with me. Convincing her to join the student council would be another. That was the next part of the plan. Unlike Val, I needed to be smooth about how I interacted with people.

Lilith was intelligent, as far as I could tell. The way she proactively distanced herself from others said something about her character. She was preemptively trying to avoid trouble. Her guarded role of librarian assistant was no doubt added security. Her defensive posturing felt unnecessary.

As the last living relative of Judith Meredith the school administrators would naturally prioritize her safety. This made me wonder about why she was so defensive in the first place. Was it because of Val? Was it because of Black Brittney? Or maybe there was someone else.

There was no shortage of time for me to think about this. My ride was later than I had expected her to be. I told her I’d visit the library for about an hour, but now it was approaching a full second hour.

“She’s late…” I said to myself.

She was never this late unless something happened. She wasn’t just a parole officer. She worked regular shifts as a patrol officer on top of that. The last time she was late was because she pulled someone over on the way. That was likely the case now.

I huffed out a sigh. There was nothing I could do about it but wait. My mother wouldn’t be home from work for another hour or so. Calling her was out of the question. For the time being the best option was to wait.

Typically I waited for my ride near the staff parking area. This way she could bypass the bus-loading area and the other guardians picking up their students. The parking lot was nearly empty now that most of the teachers and students had gone home. I sat down on the sidewalk ledge and looked down at my cell phone. I’d just check my emails while I waited.

That’s when I heard two people talking from a short ways away. They were quiet enough that I couldn’t hear specifically what they were saying, but I noticed them suddenly stop. At first I didn’t pay that fact too much attention. I was still waiting on a message to appear on my phone with some sort of update for me. It wasn’t until I heard their footsteps approaching me that I turned my head to see who it was.

“You’re still here?” Candace asked.

I immediately stood up. It was Candace and her friend Leigha. Leigha was an abnormal member of Black Brittney’s group. All I knew about her was that she was close with Candace in some way. When Candace wasn’t with Black Brittney she was with Leigha.

They took a step towards me with each step away I took. They looked at each other and then back at me. Leigha flanked me on one side as Candace continued walking forward. They were trying to box me in against the school wall behind me. Avoiding their trap was going to require vigilance.

“What’s wrong? She’s only asking you a question.” Leigha said.

Candace was the one closing in on me first. She reached out to grab me. I barely sidestepped the attack. As I dodged it I jumped back, being sure to evade Leigha’s reaching distance as I did so. It wasn’t clear how serious Leigha was about attacking me. She still had both of her hands on her cell phone after all. Either way, this was a bad situation to be in.

There was no one in plain sight and I wasn’t sure which direction to run. Maybe I could run into the school to escape? The way Leigha was furiously texting made me suspect that they had another member inside the school. If I ran off the school campus there was no telling what they would do to me if they caught me. Also, I had to think about where I could communicate my location by text.

“What are you being so shy for? Are you scared of me?” Candace asked.

Her sadistic smile appeared on her face. There was a certain look in her eyes to accompany it that gave me the creeps. Her eyes were practically glowing. It was like lust. Instead of something sexual she wanted to do something violent. It was literal bloodlust.

She finally had me in a situation without Black Brittney to hold her back. If she caught me she could do whatever she wanted with me. The thought of that terrified me. She’d kill me if she got her hands on me. I couldn’t let her get that opportunity.

“My ride will be here any minute!” I said.

“So what…? Is that supposed to scare us?” Candace asked.

Candace made another lunge at me. I ducked under it, kicked off, and sprinted as fast as I could. I didn’t look back to see if they were following me. I assumed they would. I wouldn’t run out of space to sprint anytime soon. The school property was grandiose in size.

The school’s fencing bordered the school perimeter almost one square mile. This mega structure of a property was not merely a school, but a full-sized park. The school was the centerpiece of the design, being surrounded by nature on all sides. The woods became thicker and thicker further away from the school building. It wouldn’t be unheard of to enter the woods and go missing.

My plan was to lose them in the woods. I had a fair head start given my powerful take-off. That likely wouldn’t be enough for me to completely lose them. They watched me enter the deeply wooded area. Running wouldn’t be a viable strategy this far out into the woods. The land was uneven and largely undeveloped this far from the school.

There was a slight exception to this fact close by. Someone had introduced me to a place here in the woods on the first day of school. There was a small clearing within the woods that had a bird bath surrounded by brick tiling. This area was incredibly obscure as no one ever had a reason to come out this far. I’d be relying on the fact that I knew this area better than they did.

I hid behind a tree while trying to catch my breath. I heard Candace and Leigha breathing heavily before I found them. The shade provided to me by the thick trees made it easy to keep hidden from them. I peeked out to get a look at them. I stayed close behind the bush in front of me.

Leigha was using her cell phone’s flashlight to try to flush me out. Candace had picked up a stick somewhere along the way. She was using her stick to beat down the tall grass that surrounded the area. Once they noticed the bird bath they looked at each other slyly. They probably knew that I had to be hiding here.

I was crouching in the darkness with my eyes on them. They were talking about something but I couldn’t make out the words. Candace turned in my direction. I knelt down and sat behind a tree. I was hidden safely in the darkness. She began to turn away.

For a moment I thought that was the end. Suddenly my phone let out a cheerfully loud ringtone. I received a text from my ride wondering where I was. As I began responding, I could hear someone in the bushes just beside me. Candace appeared just as I pressed send.

“There you are. Are we done playing hide and seek or are you going to run again?” Candace asked.

She grabbed me by my arm and pulled. I struggled to break free. To reinforce her hold on me she clutched the bulk of my hair near the back of my head and yanked me from my hiding spot. My resistance weakened as she pulled me back to the bird bath. Once she had me where she wanted me she tossed me to the ground. My phone rolled out of my hand and I smacked into the ground. As I tried to crawl away from her she pinned me down with her heel by stomping on my lower back. I cried out in pain. She laughed in turn.

“Just like before, huh? I didn’t get to finish having my fun with you before Val showed up last time. She’s not going to show up this time, is she? She made me look stupid in front of Brittney and the others all because of you. You…” The venom in her voice was audible.

Leigha picked up my phone and looked at the screen.

“Maybe Val is here. It looks like she told someone that she was at the bird feeder in the woods. She sent out a text for help before we caught her.”

Candace laughed.

“You really think someone is going to find you? Maybe they will. We’ll just have to make this quick then. What a shame. I was hoping to take my time with you.”

Candace didn’t waste a second. She picked me up by my hair and threw me into the concrete bird bath. I only managed to keep from hitting it head-first by grabbing hold of it to stop myself. Candace took advantage of that to dunk my head beneath the water. The bird bath was full of off-color rainwater mixed with leaves, grass, and whatever else the wind had blown into it.

I struggled and fought to pull myself away. I managed to get only small breaths before Candace forced me back down into the water. I wanted to scream but if I did that I’d only succeed in drowning faster. Candace was either incredibly stupid or she was really planning to kill me. She pulled me out of the water by my hair just as I felt like I was going to pass out. I gasped for air as she laughed maniacally.

“Who was it? Who did you text? Was it Val? Does an annoying goodie two-shoes like you have friends at this school? Tell me who it was.”

I was still struggling to catch my breath. In my brief seventeen years of life I had never come so close to drowning. I couldn’t answer her question even if I wanted to, yet I was so afraid of going back under that I legitimately tried.

“I… I…!”

I couldn’t even manage a sentence. I coughed up water as I tried to speak.

“Fine then, we’ll do this your way.” She said.

As she dragged my head back to the water I realized she didn’t even want me to answer. She just wanted to kill me. This time I fought even harder than I did the last time. She pushed on the back of my head with both her hands. I fought to hold myself up using the bird bath itself to hoist myself up. Slowly she was defeating me in this battle of strength.

When holding myself up was no longer an option I tried to loosen her grasp by clawing into her wrists with my fingernails. It hardly even felt like it was affecting her. I tried twisting her arm, pulling her arm, kicking her legs, anything to loosen her grasp. Nothing was working. I could feel myself beginning to pass out. My limbs were going numb and my useless resistance had stopped. Candace pulled me out and let me fall to the ground coughing and gasping for breath.

“Stand up.” Candace said.

My lungs were so full of water that I couldn’t stop coughing. She gave me a slight kick in the ribs as encouragement. I tried to orient my body upright as I regained my breath, but it was near impossible. My strength had completely left my body. If she were to kick me with her full force I wouldn’t even have strength enough to defend myself. On that thought I tried to pick myself up like she demanded.

My arms shook violently as I pushed away from the ground in an attempt to stand. My attempt came to an early end as my arms gave way from under me and I plopped back onto the ground. Candace and Leigha laughed. They were truly something. Who could watch someone desperately try to stand and then laugh as they failed? They were hardly even human.

“Come on, up you go.” Candace said.

She took hold of me by pulling me by the collar of my school uniform. She realized just how weak my body was as she pulled me up. I could hardly stand on my own. She had to hold me steady by clutching my arm. Once I was finally standing in place she cocked her other arm back. Her punch was so slow that I saw it coming. My body was so weak that I couldn’t respond in time to defend myself.

She struck me across the face. Blood flew away from me as I flew backwards to the ground. The sudden surge of pain brought new life back into my body. I grabbed my nose and curled up into a ball. The sight of so much of my own blood on my hands sent me into a trembling panic. Candace let out a deep sigh and smiled.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that for,” she looked at her bloody knuckles and shook her wrist, “That must’ve hurt. It sure hurt me. Leigha, can you take a picture of this and send it to me? I’m going to make this my new wallpaper.”

“Sure. Why don’t you sit her straight up so I can get a good picture?”

“That’s a good idea. Come here Holly.”

I tried to crawl away as Candace walked towards me. It was useless. I was in no shape to put up any further resistance, but I tried anyways. Candace knelt down beside me and stared as Leigha pointed her phone at me.

“Wait, what’s this?” Candace asked.

Candace grabbed me by the leg and pulled down my sock. I fought to break free but she grabbed my leg with both hands.

“Holy shit, do you see this Leigha?”

“Haha! She’s got a tracking device on her!”

“Quickly, get a picture of this first! I want to show it to the girls. They’ll never believe this.”

“Alright, hold her steady.”

Candace held my leg in a tight hold. Leigha lined up the camera. A sharp crackling noise rang out through the woods like lightning across the sky. Birds flew off in every direction. Leigha’s cell phone was forcibly knocked from her hand and shattered into a thousand glassy pieces.

The three of us all looked up in shock to see someone not far behind us. Leigha stood up to move away from this quickly approaching stranger. Before she realized what was going on there was already a gun to her head. Leigha and Candace were frozen stiff. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Let go of Holly! Or else I’ll blow this bitch’s brains out, if she has any.” Angelica said.

Candace did as she said and stood up straight with her hands in the air. Angelica SLAMMED the butt of her pistol against Leigha’s head. Leigha went out cold and hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. Candace reached out for Leigha.

“Leigha…! You…”

Candace was intercepted by Angelica who caught her with one hand around her throat. Angelica pushed, and pushed her aggressively until Candace’s back was thrown against a tree. The pistol was now up against Candace’s head. For the first time I had seen true fear in Candace’s eyes. Despite what I thought about her earlier, Candace was human. It wasn’t the raw emotion on her face that gave this away, but the liquid that came trickling down her leg as tears swelled up in her eyes. Angelica didn’t let up even an inch.

“W-w-who are you?” Candace asked.

Candace’s voice was so high pitched that it was hard to believe it was her talking.

“I’m Holly’s close friend. You can call me Officer Morelli. She told me everything was fine in school but I see now that was a lie. Girls like you need to be taught a lesson.”

“You’re a cop! You can’t treat me like this!”

“This will be our little secret.”

I raised my hand out towards Angelica.

“Angelica… Wait… I….”

I could hardly speak. Angelica looked down at me, and then looked back at Candace in disgust.

“You did this to her, didn’t you? You like picking on girls who are smaller than you? I like meeting people like you, really. You and I are going to go for a little walk. You’d better march like your life depends on it.”