Unleashed

Chapter 2

Hours later, the muted hum of an engine and thumps of car doors closing pulled Elly out of her book, and she glanced at the clock.  6:03pm.  She laid the book spine up on her bed and walked upstairs to see who Vic had brought home.  The smell of fresh, hot pizza made Elly’s stomach growl as she made her way to the kitchen, where her stepsister and at least two of her friends were laughing and giggling.  As she came around the corner in sight of the kitchen, the three girls sitting around the island glanced between each other and smirked, their eyes sparkling with the secrets they held.  Elly rolled her eyes.

“I don’t care what—or who—you’re gossiping about, Vic.  I just want some pizza for dinner and then I want to be left alone in peace to read my book.  Okay?”

As she moved to the cabinet to grab a plate for herself, one of Victoria’s friends snorted, but cut off abruptly when Vic gave her a sharp look before looking at Elly with a big, bright, fake smile.

“No problem.  Wouldn’t want to get in the way of such…riveting Friday night plans.  We’ll just be hanging out up here,” Vic responded.  Her friends gave Elly the standard “you’re-such-a-loser” smirk, which was about as much interaction as she ever got from any of them.  Elly didn’t even bother to try and figure out their names—partly because Vic went through friends like some girls went through handbags and designer shoes, and partly because no matter who Vic was hanging out with, they always treated Elly like chewed gum they’d found stuck to the bottom of their sneaker.

“Have fun,” Elly told them as she grabbed a few slices of pizza from the box and a couple breadsticks from the paper bag on the counter and put them on her plate to take downstairs.  She didn’t pay any attention to the whispering that started up as soon as the girls thought she was out of earshot.  Back in her room, she alternated between bites of delicious pizza and carefully turning the pages of her book with the edge of her pinky so they wouldn’t get greasy fingerprints all over them.

Not long after she’d polished off the last slice, her phone started buzzing.  She glanced at it and saw it was time for her evening dose of medicine, so she grabbed the bottle from her nightstand and shook the bottle of juice she’d grabbed earlier.  There was still enough to wash down the pill, so she popped one into her mouth and washed it down, then marked in the app on her phone that she’d taken it.  For as long as she could remember, Noel had been drilling it into her head that she had to make sure to take her medicine twice a day, every day.  Apparently, as a young kid she had shown signs of narcolepsy, and the specialist Noel had taken her to see about it said that the best way to keep from suffering from some of the more disruptive symptoms was to make sure that she took the medicine every twelve hours, so that there was a constant level in her system.  Of course, it didn’t keep her from getting sleepy and sometimes even dozing off at inopportune times—hence her difficulty staying awake in some of her classes.  Noel also wouldn’t let her get her driver’s license because of it; she claimed she was worried about what might happen if Elly were alone behind the wheel and became suddenly sleepy.  It was kind of hard to argue against that.

Elly turned her attention back to her book, but it felt like the spell had been broken and she had trouble becoming immersed in the story again.  Frustrated, she grabbed a bookmark from her nightstand and flopped back on her bed.  Heaving a sigh, she got up and grabbed her Chemistry folder from her bookbag and pulled out the worksheet that was due Monday.  Maybe she could get a little bit of homework out of the way.

The next thing Elly knew, she was peeling her face off of her desk, blinking and squinting the sleep out of her eyes.  Her head seemed to throb with a foreign heartbeat as she reached for her phone to see how long she’d been out.  As she checked the time, she realized that the throbbing she thought was a post-nap headache was actually the thumping bass of music being played very loud for just three high school girls.  Suddenly feeling more alert, Elly grabbed the plate from her pizza dinner and opened the door to her bedroom to head upstairs.  With every step she took, the noise crescendoed into a deafening roar, until Elly felt she could barely hear herself think.  As soon as she opened the door separating the basement stairs from the main floor of the house, the full force of the cacophony seemed to slap her in the face, along with the stench of booze and dozens of sweaty bodies.  Every room was teeming with people, and everywhere she looked Elly saw red solo cups that sure didn’t smell like they only held soda.  Elly stalked to the kitchen, where she found still more strangers surrounding the island, which looked like some kind of strange glass mountain range from all the bottles crowding its surface.

Elly tossed her plate in the sink and then turned and elbowed her way back through the crowd in search of her sister.  She finally spotted Victoria in the living room, where all of the furniture had been pushed up against the walls to make an improvised dance floor.  The stereo system was based in that room as well, and it seemed to Elly that the bass was practically a living thing, vibrating in her throat and making her heart skip beats wildly.  She shoved into the writhing mass of bodies towards Victoria, who was focusing all of her attention on the tall, muscular guy dancing in front of her.  Somewhere in the back of her mind, Elly gagged at the way Vic was giving the guy sultry looks and was practically rubbing herself all up against him—she’d clearly already had enough to drink.  Elly grabbed her arm.

“Vic!” Elly yelled over the music.  “What the hell are you doing?”

Victoria tried to shake off Elly’s grip and glared at her.  “Having a party,” she said, a slight slur to her words.  “What the hell does it look like I’m doing?”

“Are you an i***t?  Mom will kill you when she finds out.  And how the hell did you get all of that booze?”  Elly shot back.

“It’s none of your bees wax,” Vic responded indignantly, “and my mom isn’t going to find out!”

The boy Vic had been dancing with cast a glance up and down Elly, and she resisted the urge to hit him for the way his gaze lingered where it shouldn’t.

“Babe, who is this b***h?” he asked Victoria, his gaze still south of Elly’s face.

“God, Brian, stop staring at her boobs,” Victoria whined, “She’s nobody.  Just some stupid orphan my parents were dumb enough to take in.  She’s practically the help.”

“So, she’s your sister?”  Brian’s two brain cells seemed to be working especially hard.  Elly rolled her eyes.

“Only by law,” Victoria sniffed.

Elly cut in.  “I hate to break up this lovely conversation, Vic, but you’ve got to shut this down.  What if someone calls the cops?”

“Argh!  You’re such a loser Els!”  Victoria screeched.

“Look, hate me all you want, but I am not going to take the fall for this when something goes wrong.  Either you shut it down, or I will.”

Victoria glared at Elly, suddenly seeming less tipsy.  “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Watch me,” Elly replied, and pushed back out of the crowd towards the kitchen.