Call Me Viccy

Chapter 1: Goth Girl

Oakdale High School

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Seriously?! What a load of crap. Oakdale high school is the place where all my worst fears came true, my own personal hell. Well, that might just be me exaggerating. It's my Senior year of high school. One last year of books, bad broccoli, and bullies. When I say bullies, I don't just mean your average 'run of the mill' bully. I mean Charlotte Rivers. With her golden blonde hair and icy blue eyes, just like her soul, she practically gets away with everything. She's head cheerleader dates the football QB Tyler Simmons and has a 4.0 GPA. Sounds so cliche, right? Well, the last part isn't really true. 

You see that's technically my GPA. I've been doing and correcting most of Charlotte's work since Freshman year. She doesn't pay me or anything, though that would be 100 times better than the real reason I do her work. She has blackmail on me. Some pretty good blackmail too. She caught a picture of me nude. Now I know what you're thinking. Why the hell would I take a nude picture in the first place and how did Charlotte Rivers get it?! Well, I didn't. I would never do something so reckless. Charlotte has some pretty good sources. And by sources, I mean photoshop wizards that she flirted with. I have no idea why she would target me in the first place. It's not like I had some personal vendetta against her, well I do now. Alright, enough talking about the ice queen. Let's get back to reality. And not the good kind.

“Hello?! Hey! Ugh...GOTH GIRL!!!”

“Huh?! Oh right sorry Charlotte.” Seriously, I thought we were done talking about her.

“Are you gonna start or what?”

“Do what now?”

“Ugh, you never listen. You should get hearing aids since you appear to be deaf. That's why you're at the bottom of the food chain and I'm at the top, dumb***! The novel project, goth girl!”

Geez, someone must be on their period. Ah, there she goes making her sick face.

“Yuck, just looking at you makes me wanna barf.”

And the Oscar goes to.

“Anyway back to me. I have to write a novel about romance for our big Senior project that's due by the last week of school. And by "I" I mean "you". “

“Oh right, that. I'm on it.”

Every year at Oakdale we have a big project for our grade level that helps to raise our GPA at the end of the school year, and looks great on college applications. This year our English teacher, Mr. Freeman, said that we have to write a novel with at least 30,000 words. To pick our genres he made us pick one from a hat while closing our eyes. At the end of the year, each English class will vote on the number 1 novel from their class after each student presents, then the entire school picks the top 3 out of the 10 English classes. If you make it after that, a group of professional writers will pick the winner. The prize is $10,000. I'm genuinely hoping that I'll win. I have a pretty easy genre. Mystery. If I do win then I can finally buy that old food truck that my neighbors have. Its engine is broken, however, my dad used to be a mechanic before he started working for this hotshot CEO at CarCross (basically just creating new designs for cars), so he can easily fix it up for me. And once he does there's only one thing left to do after cleaning it up. Turning it into my mini bakery! I'm obsessed with baking. I make something new every weekend. This week is a raspberry white chocolate cheesecake. Just thinking about it is making my mouth water. Wow, would you believe that? The day is almost over. Somehow I've managed to survive another day of Charlotte Rivers. 

“Alright, I’m gonna head home now and start on your project. You should have it back a day before it’s due, so that gives me about 7 months.” I lied. I always do Charlotte’s work after mine. I know that sounds risky in case I don’t finish in time but I always come before a bully, especially this b***h. I’ll just start hers around May, so that gives me a month.

“Good. I better have at least a B. If I don’t you should just stab a knife through your disgusting heart. And if you're still alive by then and not burning in hell, I’ll kill you myself. Got it?”

Usually, the things she says to me or behind my back don’t really get to me. But this time it did. I felt my eyes watering. It’s not allergy season and I’m not allergic to anything. Oh, wait. I’m crying. How is this happening? I’ve never cried a day of my sad, pathetic life. I don’t know what came over me. It’s like I just gave up. It was only for a second but I saw a feeling of remorse come across Charlotte’s face. Then she went back to looking disgusted at the sight of me. The bell rang. She sighed as if she were annoyed by something, most likely me, then she sped out of the classroom. I was the last one left. I was just sitting there. I couldn’t move. It’s like I was paralyzed by my own fear. I had a bad feeling, but it wasn’t about Charlotte. 

I packed up my bag and left. I was speed walking, trying to keep up with the flow of everyone, so I wouldn’t get pushed over. Ah! There is it. My bike. I usually travel to and from school this way. It’s so much easier than struggling to keep my headphones in while trying to drown out the sound of people on a bus. I grabbed the rubber handles of my purple bike and began to wheel home. Ugh, there’s that feeling again. It’s like the closer I am to my house the more this feeling grows. I had to stop to catch my breath and think for a moment. I grabbed my water bottle from the side of my bookbag and took a few sips. I continued to ride home. I felt a wet drop on my cheek, but this time I wasn’t crying. It started raining. It was really coming down. I didn’t have an umbrella on me, so I had to hurry. Once I finally got home I shoved my bike in the garage, so it wouldn’t rust and ran inside. Dad wasn’t home yet. I guess he’s working late today. After taking my boots off I started walking up the stairs but before I got to the top there was this creaking noise coming from the front door that alarmed me. My mind began swarming with a million thoughts. Is there an intruder? Are they trying to rob me? I’m gonna die! I wish I hadn’t stopped taking karate. Do I still know how to do a roundhouse kick? Maybe I can use that then hit them with something heavy like a plate. The door opened. I closed my eyes waiting for them to attack. 

“Victoria? What are you doing?”

Oh, thank god. It’s just my dad. He must’ve been late coming home because of the rain. 

“Sorry, I was late the traffic was crazy at my job because of the rain. We have this new boss who’s been giving us extra work too so that just adds to my slow day, but the good news is we’re designing a new car that’ll be first shipped out in Japan once the model has been completed so we’ll make a lot of money on this sale. Gosh, I’ve just been going on about my day without asking about yours. How was your day honey?”

Besides being told to kill myself and being called a dumb*** it was ok for once. 

“Uh, pretty good dad. We’re starting our Senior project today. We have to write a novel. Mr. Freeman made us pick our genre out of a hat. I got mystery which is an easy pick for me since I’ve been writing my own stories about mystery basically my entire life. I still need to find a good plot though.”

“Wow, that sounds pretty cool. Looks like we both have new things to work on.”

“Yeah. Oh, and not only is it just our project it’s also a competition between students. All of the English classes who are in Senior year will vote on the top novel. The school then chooses their favorite top three and if you survive all of that, a panel of famous writers will pick the winner. The winning prize is 10,000 dollars! If I win I’m gonna use it to buy that old, broken down food truck that the Wells’ own.”

“You sure seem to have planned everything out.”

My dad slowly formed a smile on his face. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him genuinely smile instead of faking it. It’s been like this since mom died. She passed when I was really young when I was about 3 or 4. Dad told me when I was about 8 that she died in a car accident. Never having the chance to know my mom has been slowly draining me my whole life. I’m turning 18 in a month soon and old enough to know that the world is not perfect, I mean have you met Charlotte? What terrifies me to my core is the fact that I can drive now and can possibly suffer the same fate as my mother if I’m not careful. That’s why I haven’t asked for a car yet and just use my bike. I overthink too much, geez. I went from talking about my dad smiling to my mother’s death. Two opposites.

“I’m gonna go pick up some dinner, what do you want?”

“Really? You know what I want dad.”

“Tacos it is.”

He grabbed his keys from the dining table and left. I watched from the window as he pulled off making sure he didn’t crash the car into the mailbox again. He was gone. I sat on the couch for a second deciding on what to do while I waited. Starting on my novel would be good. Let’s see…

The Murder on Baker’s Field: Chapter 1

Baking is supposed to be easy. Bake some cookies, or a cake if you will. I’m not supposed to be involved in a murder investigation. Not only am I involved, but I’m also the main suspect. I’m on trial for something I didn’t commit. Why would a small business owner have to kill someone? Well, at least that’s what I think. Everyone else has some kind of a motive for me. Money. Greed. Some kind of deal. Gosh, how the hell am I supposed to get out of this one?

Ok, so maybe I wrapped my love of baking in there. Yawn... I’m so tired right now. My eyes kept on closing, so I decided to stop and take a nap. By the time I wake up dad should be home with the food. 

12:00 am

Yawn… That felt like an ok nap. Not the best though. Probably because I fell asleep on the couch. I looked at the time on my laptop. What? Is the clock broken or something? I walked into the kitchen and checked the time on the microwave. 12:00 am. Wow, that sure was a long nap. That’s weird. I don’t see any tacos. Dad must be upstairs. He probably didn’t want to wake me. “Dad?”. Hmm, he’s probably asleep. I walked upstairs and into his room. His bed was empty. It looked a little lumpy though because of the thick covers. I yelled his name again. “Dad?!”. I started to get worrisome. It doesn’t take that long to grab some tacos. Maybe he just ran out of gas or something. I went back downstairs and practically turned every light on while heading down. I grabbed my phone and decided to call him, But before unlocking my phone screen there were pop-up notifications. 5 missed calls from dad. Now I’m really worried. I tried calling him. Voicemail. I called him again. Voicemail. And again. Voicemail. I felt like I was gonna pass out. Was something wrong? Is he in danger? Am I in danger? My body just started moving towards the front door. I couldn’t gain any control over it. I grabbed my bike and started looking for my dad. The first obvious place to look was at Tasty Taco. On my way there I heard ongoing sounds of sirens. Red and blue flashes. Something was wrong. I saw my dad’s blue car from a distance. The noises and sirens were surrounding it. I dropped my bike and ran over to his car. As I got closer smoke began to tumble towards me. “Ma’am you shouldn’t be over here,” a man said to me. I looked in his car anyway. His face...it was gone. The only thing left of him was his teeth and dried up blood. I screamed, along with tears streaming down my face. I opened his car door and put my arms around him. He was dead, but I still wanted to protect him. I don’t know what from, but I felt as if he needed my warm embrace.

“Ma’am? Ma’am?!” 

*Sniff* “WHAT?!” “What the hell do you want from me?!”

“I am so sorry…”

“Victoria. My name is Victoria.”

“Victoria. Are you related to the victim?”

“Yes. He is- was my f-father. I know this is gonna sound crazy, but is there any chance that he’s still alive?”

“No, I’m so sorry. I should introduce myself. I’m Phineas Jones, but you can call me Finn. The lead detective on this case.”

“Detective? I don’t understand. He wasn’t murdered. He died in a car crash.”

“Unfortunately that wasn’t his cause of death. There’s a bullet wound in his right shoulder. It looks like he tried pulling it out, but couldn’t manage to. He bled out before the car crash. Your father was being targeted for some reason, Victoria. I know this is a bad time to be asking questions, but are there any enemies that your father had?”

I can’t believe he’s actually dead. He’s dead... He’s dead... He’s dead. The more I say it in my head the more it sounds like fiction. My body began to shake. Why is this happening? Who would kill my dad? He barely knew anyone except for Daniel Rivers.

“No. He didn’t have many friends anyw-”

“Victoria?”

My body continued to shake. It shook until it couldn’t anymore. Suddenly I became unaware of everything around me. I then fainted.

Ugh, my head. Where am I? My eyes slowly began opening. I looked down. What the? I was wearing a hospital gown. My body felt sore from laying in the uncomfortable hospital bed. Suddenly something strange happened. My face felt wet as if the ceiling were dripping. I looked up. There were no cracks or holes to indicate any leakage. I wiped my face. Oh. I was crying. For just a moment I forgot about everything. My dad wasn’t dead. Charlotte wasn’t being a b***h. It’s like I was finally at peace. The door to my room opened. The person, whoever they were, closed it behind them.

“Victoria! It’s good to see that you’re awake.”

W-Who is that? My vision was a bit blurry from going in and out before it had finally adjusted.

“Detective Jones? What are you doing here?”

“I came to see that you were alright.”

My stomach felt weird. Not the stomachache kind, but different. Like it was in knots. I looked at Finn. Well more like staring. His eyes are so dark they almost look black. And his hair, man. It swooshed to the side like a chocolate swirl. And he looks even hotter with those glasses. Woah, did I really just think that in my head? Somehow for me, that’s even worse than saying that out loud. Great, now I’m crushing on Detective Jones. He probably has a wife and 3 kids at home. What is wrong with me? My dad was just murdered in cold blood and I’m crushing on this guy I don’t even know. I do need something to occupy myself so I don’t have a mental breakdown. I mean come on, my father is dead. He was here one minute and gone the next. I need to stop thinking about that. It's weird, isn’t it? The less you try to think of something the more you do. Okay, time to occupy myself. I guess it could be my turn to play detective now.

“Victoria?”

“Huh?!”

“Umm, you’ve been staring at me like you’re undressing me with your eyes.”

“Oh my gosh! Heh. I’m so sorry I was lost in thought and-’

“I was just kidding. Figured you needed a good laugh after the trauma that you’ve been through.”

“Yeah, thanks for that. It’d help if we could talk about you more. Give me a reason to not think about the fact that my dad was just murdered.”

“Oh, of course. But after this, I really do need to ask you some questions.”

“G-Got it. So how long have you been a detective for?”

“Well, I’m 22 now, so for about a year and a half.”

He’s 22?! Wow, he’s only four years older than me. No way he has a wife and kids at that young an age. Unless he was one of those teenage boys who slipped up and got his girlfriend pregnant.

“So what does your girlfriend think about you being a detective at such a young age?”

“Oh, I don’t have one.”

Thank goodness.

“We split after I got accepted into this college for future leaders who wanted to be on the force. It was halfway across the country. I wasn’t gonna give up my dream job just to please her. And she didn’t want to move with me. She had a life back home and she wasn’t gonna give it up. I was thinking about doing it long-distance and seeing how that was gonna turn out. But before I could tell her I found out she was f**king this douchebag named Kenny Thorn. That was the deal-breaker.”

“Wow, that’s one hell of a story.”

‘I know right?”

“So how are you a detective at such a young age?”

“Funny you should ask that.”

“Really?”

“No, people ask me all the time. I’m practically a baby. I skipped 2 grades and graduated high school when I was 16. Got accepted into college and did that for 4 years. Then I started looking for a job. Lots of people were skeptical because I was so young, but soon I finally got accepted by the Oakdale force. And I’ve been doing that for as I said a year and a half now. I was ecstatic when I got this job. I had been looking for one for 6 months and then I was just in. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“So you're like a prodigy or something.”

“If you wanna say that, yeah”, he said that with a cute smirk on his face like he was trying to look mischievous in a way.

“I actually skipped 6th grade but I have an awkward birthday so no one really notices. I guess we’re both prodigies then.”

“Hah, you wish.”

I didn’t even realize until I looked in Finn’s glasses reflection, but I was smiling. The whole time I was smiling. I’ve never met anyone besides my Dad who could make me smile for such a long time, especially under these grim circumstances. Ugh, my stupid vision keeps on blurring in and out. My eyesight is like a cheap phone camera. *Clack Clack Clack Clack*. My head turned in the direction of the door of my hospital room. I heard footsteps coming down the hallway headed this way. There was a window next to the door but the blinds were closed so I wouldn’t be able to see who it was then. The footsteps grew louder and as they got closer the clacking sounded like it had multiplied. There were two people coming to this room. The door opened. My vision had cleared. Oh no. It was none other than Charlotte Rivers. Probably to pester me and then put me in jail. She probably thinks that I’m the one who killed my dad. That’s strange. Her dad was standing behind her. Charlotte began to open her mouth like she was going to say something, but I noticed that her dad kicked her a bit. Then what he said blew my mind.

“Hey Victoria, I’m so sorry about your father. My condolences. He was the funniest guy at the office. Definitely my favorite employee. I noticed that I was his emergency contact person. 

That’s interesting. You’d think your own father would put his daughter as his emergency contact person, but no. It’s just some guy from the office.

“Gosh, when I got that call about H-Henry...I didn’t know what to do. But then I got the call about you. I knew I just had to come right away. I have some news that I’d like to tell both you and Charlotte. I’m sure you both will love this since you guys already go to school together. Alright, I’m just gonna cut to the chase. Victoria I’d like you to come and live with me and Charlotte.”

We didn’t know this yet, but what Charlotte’s father had just said would change both our lives forever. For the greater good. And after he did Charlotte and I looked at each other and we both yelled at the same time.

“WHAT THE F***??!!” 

“WHAT THE F***??!!”