Chp 3

The school served an abysmal lunch, as they all do.

They presented Seneya with deep-fried fanfare of dubious origin that made her stomach knot. The prospect of a fresh vegetable, fruit, anything raw clawed at her growing hunger. So, She’d satisfied herself with a plastic bag of celery sticks and an apple that constituted a ‘salad.’

Seneya thought about sitting at one of the tables, but the voice in her head wouldn’t be quiet. She couldn’t trust herself not to respond.

Her instincts told her to talk to an adult, tell them, but she thought she could wait it out. Maybe starvation finally caught up with her, and the voice just its byproduct. She justified many things, but it ended with her and a stolen pocket full of food huddled in a hallway outside her next class.

Every bit of the food disappointed her. The celery had a chemical aftertaste, but she choked it down. The apples mashed soft under her teeth, weeks from their picked date. While she welcomed the sweetness, it tasted overpowering. She bit and chewed with shaken desperation, and it went down easily.

“I can take you to your people.” The voice had an apologetic note to it.

“Take me.” Seneya pleaded. Tears stung her eyes and she sniffled, wiping over her face with the backs of her fragilely thin hands.

“How do we get to the other side of this forsaken land?”

“Bus, train, walking, plane, take your pick.” Seneya wilted.

“Get your things together tonight. I don’t want anything bad happening to you.”

She steeled herself through a history class and gym, even though the voice forbid her from doing too much in gym class. The jogging and playing were for other people to do, not for Seneya.

The coach, Mrs. Jackson, seemingly in agreement, had her sit on the sidelines.

All three classes packed into the gym, bundled together to save the precious school finances and meet their ‘minimum exercise requirements.’ Despite their penny pinching, the gym appeared surprisingly well cared for. A glossy court glinted back the newly caged lights as sneakers squeaked and leaped about.

Seneya found her way over to nearly new benches with barely enough room for her legs between rows. She tucked her lanky limbs to herself and sighed—trying, and failing to look small. With her height, she stood out as a girl. She couldn’t be small and unnoticeable.

Seneya never really made friends, nor did she try. Since they moved her every few months, it became pointless to make those connections, and she drew into herself. Even her therapists, caretakers, and caseworkers all revolved with enough regularity that she was surprised she hadn’t been revolved out, herself. The thought of that seemed to resonate with her… rotating bodies.

“You really look unwell, Kacie. Take a seat,” Mrs. Jackson said, patting the bench.

“I’m glad it’s not all in my head, then,” Seneya said, scooting a little closer to her coach. Then, she tugged at a lock of her hair nervously.

“You know, you can talk to me, right? You can talk to any teacher or the guidance counselor.” She put a nearly-orange and tanned leathery hand on Seneya’s shoulder and gave that ‘I’m paid to pretend like I care’ look that Seneya had grown accustomed to.

“I didn’t know humans came in orange.” The voice muttered.

Seneya bit down on her tongue hard enough that she tasted the salty iron flavor of blood. She choked back the first genuine laugh she’d had in longer than she could remember.

“Kacie?” Mrs. Jackson tilted her head.

“Bit my tongue!” Seneya winced as she tried to distract herself from the moment. But then, Mrs. Jackson gave her a dubious and confused look.

“Don’t be so nervous. Just relax for a while.” She patted Seneya on the shoulder a few times, and the jostling of her body sent sharp pains down her back. The scar tissue beneath her tattoos twinged.

It’s going to rain.

-

“We don’t have a plan,” she whispered to herself when she got home that evening. The threshold creaked beneath her feet as she crossed it, going straight to her bedroom.

“You have to trust me,” the voice said.

“Not a chance,” She muttered as her feet padded over the hallway runner and into her sparse bedroom. Seneya stepped in and locked the door, looking around. She looked down at her feet and screwed up her eyes—she hadn’t even had a chance to add a single personal touch to the room.

She rifled through her things and hiding spots to pull out her money. She’d saved quite a bit from birthdays and allowances—four-hundred dollars, to be precise. She stuffed the money in her pocket and went about her room snatching things up.

She treated it the same as any other time they moved her from one home to the next, giving her maybe ten minutes to pack her things.

An insistent knock tapped at the door; Rhonda laid down in her bedroom at this time, probably taking her afternoon nap. Gary didn’t get back home for two hours. So, the knocking could only be Preston.

Seneya shut her eyes and took a few deep breaths.

“It’s the boy,” the voice said in a sharp whisper this time—quiet and weak.

“No, duh.” Seneya muttered before turning to the door and calling out, “What’s up, Preston?”

“I was seeing if you wanted to come down to the basement and watch a movie.”

Seneya’s hackles raised, making her tattoos twitch.

“And what is so important down there that you want me to come watch with you?”

Preston hesitantly paused, shuffled, and fiddled with the knob, “I… I dunno. I was… Watching a movie, I guess?” He disengaged, shuffling his feet nervously.

“I told you last night. I’m not feeling well,” She pulled her hand across the top of her vanity, stopping as she looked at the open and empty drawers.

“Still on your period?” He whined.

“Yes!” Seneya snapped.

He didn’t respond for a long minute.

“He’s still out there.” The voice in her head warned.

“First thing in the morning, we’re leaving.” Seneya steeled herself as she grabbed a pair of socks from the floor.

“Who is in there with you?” Preston tugged on the doorknob again.

“Nobody!” Seneya shouted, throwing the socks to the floor. Her anger peaked, and with it, something inside of her seemed to pulse in waves.

“Open up, then!” He stomped his foot, and the sheer defiance of it made her rage flare.

Defiance?

She couldn’t say why she did it, nor why the urge overcame her, but she crossed the room in a few quick steps and jerked the door open with a click of the lock. She boiled with anger she couldn’t explain. Preston dared to give her an order, a peon, like him. She’d never felt that way before.

Do you not know who I am?

Wait… I don’t even know who I am. The hell?

He moved his way to muscle in past her, butting his shoulder into her chest on his way. She didn’t yield, and he spun from the solidness of her form, like running into a brick wall. Then, her eyes narrowed, filled with her intense rage, startling him into stumbling back away from her.

Preston puffed up, ready to retaliate in anger that rose to match her own. Instead, he halted, eyes widening as she threw her door open the rest of the way and gestured inside.

“What’s wrong with your eyes?” He moved a foot back.

“Nothing. I’m merely giving you the authority to come and inspect my room since you’re so demanding!” Her voice grew steadily louder as he shouldered inside. Then, she stepped back into the hallway, putting distance between them.

He looked around the empty room and made a quick sweep around before looking under her bed.

Bristling at the thought, he growled, “There was a boy in here!”

“There wasn’t anyone in there. It was just me. Why does that matter?” Seneya raised her voice but kept her tone calm and sharp.

“I don’t like you being around other boys!” He shouted back, and Seneya let a mask of coldly calculated blankness pass over her face.

“As if I’d hang around you?” She quirked a single brow up in a graceful twitch. Something about her body language had shifted. Her jaw steeled itself, and she managed to produce the most disdainful gaze she’d ever concocted as she met Preston’s eyes.

“I- I saw you first. I was nice to you! I just wanted to kiss and touch you a little!” His eyes darted about nervously, trying to reconcile the words that came from his mouth. Finally, he closed the distance between them with a few steps, trying to intimidate her.

“I’m underage, and I don’t like you!”

“Nobody has to know!” He pleaded with an angry whine. A door clicked from somewhere down the hall, so quiet that Preston didn’t hear it, but Seneya did as she lifted her chin. Her posture alone made him second-guess himself as he reached out to grab her arm. Stiffening, she slapped his hand away.

“I am asking nicely that you do not touch me,” she said with acid and warning. Her lip curled, and he reached out like a brazen ass one last time.

She grabbed his reaching wrist and squeezed. Then, he screamed in a short shout before she released him and pointed away from herself.

“Go. Away. Stop trying to come in on me in the shower. Stop trying my door at night. Don’t ask me down into the basement for beers again, and do not ask me to get in your car with you. I’m far more likely to break your hand next time you even think of trying.” She said every word in succinct and calm tones, stiffening her posture as he held his wrist and eyed his chances.

“But I thought we were friends, and I was nice to you.” His voice came back in a whimper.

“So, is this what ‘friends’ do in your world? I’ve not touched you. I’ve avoided you. I’ve given you zero inclination that I am interested in… in….” Her lip curled into a snarl, and he couldn’t decide where his eyes should have been looking, her teeth or her eyes. Something about them seemed predatory.

She gestured her hand up and down at him, pointing to all of himself.

“Little one, back down and blink your eyes a few times.” The voice rang clear in her head. She stepped back immediately and blinked a strange dryness from her eyes as the voice demanded.

She shook her head a little and took a deep breath. She felt tired and weak all of a sudden, watching Preston take a step back from her. He took another step, then ran, feet pounding the floor.

Seneya glanced back down the hall and met Rhonda’s fearful stare with her own cold gaze. Her mouth hung open slightly. Then, as expected, disbelief and anger crossed her reddening cheeks.

“Go to your room, Kacie,” Rhonda said in low sharp tones.

Seneya didn’t have to be asked twice. She slipped back into her room, locking the door.

Sharp whispers and angry words came from beyond her door.

“Gross.” the voice muttered.

“Agreed.”

Seneya went back to packing her belongings and straightening up her room. She kicked a few items of dirty laundry into a basket and began to rummage through things to decide what to leave behind, just like she did with every move.

“Kacie?”

Seneya stood up in alarm.

“Yes, ma’am?” She called out as she moved to open the door and peer cautiously outside.

Seneya tilted her head at Rhonda’s fidgeting and nervous posture.

“I came in here for something….” Rhonda said, her eyes glazing over.

“Preston?” Seneya straightened herself.

“Yes!” Rhonda’s expression went from delight at having remembered the word to a sudden scowl. Rhonda’s rich mix of anger and disappointment went on display, from her furrowed brows to her curling upper lip.

Seneya showed no emotion in response, just calm coolness.

“You already know what I’m going to say, then?” Rhonda exhaled sharply through her nose.

“That this home isn’t likely a good fit for me?”

Rhonda nodded slowly, her eyes drifting off again like she kept chasing and losing a memory. She shook her head. “I’m going to go call your caseworker tonight.”

“Yeah. It’s probably for the best.”

Rhonda turned, walking away, and Seneya locked the door behind her.

Rhonda brought a plate to her around dinner time, a spread of things that she couldn’t eat. Seneya stared at it with disdain before scraping it off into the trash.

-

The next morning, Ronda didn’t even speak to her at breakfast.

Seneya had her things packed and money at the ready. She knew of a bus stop a mile from the school, and her mind laser-focused on that fact. She needed to escape. Common sense and caution didn’t enter into it, and everything seemed half-concocted, at best.

“You’re skipping steps, little one. You’re better off waiting another day if you’re going to be so brash,” The voice insisted.

“You said if I got out, that you’d take me to my family.”

“If you can’t get out, then there’s nothing I can do. If you fail this, it’s going to cost us precious time. You’re sick.” The voice hissed in her mind, and she had to shake her head to clear the urgency of it.

I’m sick in more ways than one if I’m having this conversation with you.

She kept her head down, her voice low, and limited her words to small whispers between classes. Other students started to notice her, teachers too. Concerned looks tilted her way.

“You’re becoming careless!” the voice insisted.

She sighed a raggedly and meddled her way through a miserable lunch, and her last two classes.

Her stomach cramped with hunger, making her weak, and she wasn’t thinking straight.

She made a bus her first goal, any bus that would get her as far away as possible.

“You stand out too much. Tuck your hair away, something,” the voice persisted, and Seneya didn’t have a coat or anything with her, no hat, nothing.

“Nobody’s going to pay attention. It’s just red hair,” anxiety welled within her. The fear of going back home crawled because she knew an angry Preston, and another move lay in her near future.

“They’re going to pay attention.” She left the school grounds that day and walked away from the bus stop. She traversed the sidewalks down through the unoccupied parts of town to the city bus stop that made its way by the greyhound station.

“Try to get to Michigan or something first, then we can move from there.” The voice knew something she didn’t, and it sounded exasperated. Fortunately, she listened to her voice and approached a ticket counter with all the pain and anxiety she bore still flashing in her face. A bored-looking woman in her mid-forties with a very round haircut that matched her equally round face in a round bob looked back at her. Seneya saw that fleeting look of confusion on her.

“Calm down,” the voice whispered to her. Seneya couldn’t, and the lady narrowed her eyes before scheduling her for a bus several hours from then.

Seneya kept having to repeat herself on what she wanted until the woman handed her a ticket that wasn’t close to her original goal but would get her far enough away to be satisfying, for now.

Tickets in hand, she made her way over grease-stained and cruddy concrete towards a waiting area.

She huddled to herself and tugged her knees to her chest with shaking impatience.

The bus tickets cost nearly all her money, and she didn’t know where she would go from there, but it wasn’t Oregon, and that’s all that mattered.

She waited because she had nothing else to do. Then, as the dim light of evening came, so did the form of a sleek black car, a police cruiser, and a scruffy agent from the child protective services office. Seneya couldn’t even bring herself to run.

Fuck.

“At least you won’t have to deal with Preston anymore.” The voice huffed.

Seneya got her final strike. Her act of violence, the homes that kept turning her down, her age, and finally running away, no matter how brief of a trip, left her with one option—a permanent group home.

They told her it would be temporary, that Ronda had explained everything to them about her ‘little tiff’ with Preston. What had been a traumatic experience waiting to happen if it weren’t for Seneya’s proactive thinking and quick response, they chalked up to a ‘poor confused girl.’

Seneya was confused about many things, but how that situation turned out was not one of them.

She spent a night in a holding cell in a juvenile detention facility—hours with a therapist. She stared blank-eyed at a wall as the voice spoke to her in pleading tones. Seneya felt so tired, so much pain—every stressor and spike of fear and anxiety made her back jolt in shocking pangs.

There, she pleaded to a doctor that she hurt, that her head hurt, back hurt, and she’d been sleep-deprived, food-deprived. Finally, they made a temporary solution for her hunger, bringing her fresh fruit, what she had wanted, and a salad. She ate all of it as fast as she could, nearly sobbing with delight.

It made all the difference, and her caseworker saw a disconnect between her thin form, pale face, and shaken composure to the story that Ronda had told them.

They quietly let her know that Ronda wouldn’t be allowed to host any more girls because of Preston. Of course, she had no proof of what he’d done, but caginess on Ronda’s part and a quick interview with Preston and his insistence that she ‘wanted him’ put the doubt enough there that Seneya avoided any extended stay behind bars.

With a flash and a rush, they decided for her to attend a group home. To accommodate her, they allowed her to have her own bedroom ‘to start out with.’ Seneya had a long history of not being comfortable around others, and for the first time in her life, she thought she was being listened to and understood.

When it came time for those magic six questions, she stood stiff.

“Are you having any suicidal thoughts?”

No.

“Any thoughts of harming yourself or others?”

No.

“Any audio or visual hallucinations?”

…No.

“Nice.” The voice chuckled in her head.

“Any drug use?”

No.

“Pregnant?”

Hell no.

“Have you been sleeping?”

No.

That last question earned her a prescription for a sleeping pill. Seneya took it that night and found out that, beyond all logic, it did absolutely nothing for her. But the voice did everything for her.

“Need another story, little one?” the voice said in lilting tones.

“Please.” Seneya gave up fighting it. She relied on this part of herself, now.

He started talking this time, his words a song, and the song had meaning. The meaning had feeling, and not a single word reached her ears. In the harmony dwelled a language she’d never heard before, and tears welled in her eyes even as she went to sleep.