Killer

Sienna | 10 years ago ,-1

Sienna 10 years ago ,

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THE NIGHT IS STILL, with the stings of a winter’s kiss. I take in the crisp air, as my fingers burn from the effects of its nakedness exposed unduly long to the harsh stagnant weather. My feet, though wrapped in boots, wail for heat.

“I’m not getting my hide turned for this Sin, Papa is going to be ten shades of mad if we get caught.”

“We won’t, next week is my birthday, you promised,” I remind Natasha as she picks the school’s lock. How she learned that in less than two days was beyond my understanding.

It’s dark, and since we were out after curfew, neither of us had any cellphones or torch lights. We went on a whim. My Uncle Marcus was home, and when he was around, he kept his eyes on us constantly. We had to make it so Mason and Kylie were ‘occupied’ so my Uncle didn’t get suspicious.

“I know, but Ky is already in deep s**t, after she knocked Dexter,” Natasha whispers as she pulls the chain from the gate.

“He deserved it,” I respond without bothering to lower my voice.

“No one deserves to get run over Sienna, Ky could’ve killed him,” She babbles as we open the gate and I pick up the backpack, we packed weeks ago.

“He cheated,” I declare a bit too loud, considering where we were. Tonight was the night to prank the football players at Liston High Public School. I’ve always wanted to be part of the action, but my cousins never allowed me to. Which sucked, but this year, no one was going to stop me.

“She dumped him,” Natasha hisses, and we both duck down as a light flashes too close to us.

“Come on, that’s Mason,” I grab her hand as I secure the bag on my shoulder and we run, with our backs bent, keeping close to the school walls.

There were perks to attending Liston High Public. I would have liked it here, but my uncle insisted we attend Private School. Which meant it was prankster night, and since it fell a week before my birthday, I insisted we prank the teams tonight. They wouldn’t suspect a thing.

“Come on,” Mason calls out as we near them.

“We could hear you whining from here. Could you have been anymore softer?” Jace Stone says to Natasha as we make it to the school’s back door.

Jace Stone was my cousin, Kylie Bray’s brother. Long story short, her mother married his dad and they pro-created, not just one, but three children. When my mom passed away, Kylie’s mother, Hunter, looked after me for a month.

My uncle took her passing worse than I did, and I was her daughter, her only child. Jace was the only one who pretended to be nice to me. I didn’t miss staying at the Estate during that summer. Their sibling rivalry didn’t extend to swearing each other, but apparently beating the crap out of one another was ‘as usual’.

Considering his father, Hector, had 6 children, add in my cousin Kylie, and he was a father of more than a half a dozen of the world’s population. There was so much male testosterone in that house.

I felt sorry for Jace since he was the youngest boy and often got the brunt of his eldest brother, David’s anger. So, when he knocked on my room door and offered to take me with him, I was running down the stairs like a puppy following its treat.

Well, it was like that going out with my cousin Mason, Jace and their friend Sabastian Delroy. A treat. The three of them would take me to all kinds of places. My favorite was the woods on the Estate.

We’d climb the trees and wait for the birds to show up. Natasha wouldn’t tag along when Mason was around, and since he was always around, it was just me and the boys.

After I left the Estate, those days left with me. I spent all my time with Natasha, or Kylie. Mostly Kylie, since Natasha preferred spending her weekends at the mall and I preferred mine on a motorbike, off riding in the forest.

Kylie’s best friend Diamond joined us when she got away from her books, which hardly happened, but I looked forward to the days when she did. It made it more memorable. I loved Dakota, or should I say Diamond, since that was what people called her.

Why she changed her name was beyond me, and I didn’t bother asking. She didn’t say too much to me. Not for my lack of trying to talk to her, but Diamond treated me as she would a very distant friend.

I didn’t mind then and don’t mind now. Because I still enjoyed spending those hours with her.

It was a shame that Kylie was finishing her last year, and off to Washington to study. I wouldn’t get to see any of them.

I guess it was going to be mall weekends, with Natasha and her friends from now. I didn’t have any other friends, since everyone in the school feared my family, or feared me. I couldn’t help that fate, even if it slapped me in the face. I had a temper that unrivalled most people in the school.

Natasha had a few friends, but mostly she hung out with Victoria Stone, Jace’s youngest sister.

They were both 14 going on 15 and I was 15 going on 35. We were all worlds apart except for tonight. Natasha and I agreed. She wouldn’t admit it, but she loved the thrill of sneaking into the school.

“I have the spray and sour cream. Did you girls bring the hair remover?” Jace asks, as he unzips his black fat bag.

Mason bends down and his deep brown hair hangs over the torch light he remembered to bring. He rummages through his brown leather bag, making clinking noises. Both the boys are wearing black cargo pants and a dark t-shirt. I can’t tell if they are charcoal grey or black.

But if I am going to remember this story long enough to journal it, I need all the details.

“Yup, let’s do this,” I say, feeling the excitement rise as Natasha hands all of us the hair remover bottles.

“So, the boy’s locker room is on the bottom floor. Go right, and then the 2nd left. Mason and Sin will do the showers, and Natasha and I will head for the lockers,” Jace says as he zips up his bag and slings it over his shoulder. I do the same with ours.

We head into the school, grateful they don’t have an alarm. Once we reach the door, Natasha giggles, and I squeeze her arm, snorting. I knew she would enjoy it.

Mason hands me the torch as we split up. I hand him my hair remover, and we collect the shampoo bottles around the open stalls.

We take a while to empty some shampoo out and pour the hair remover into the bottles, but by the time we’re done shaking them, Jace and Natasha are back, and help us put the bottles in the shower stalls.

“Are we all done?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I respond to Jace’s question and we run out of there like our feet are on fire.

We get to the gate and close it with the new lock and leave the key in the hole.

“I can’t believe we did it,” Natasha muses, shell-shocked, but high on adrenaline as we walk closer to the end of the road to get to our cars. I see something, or someone, in the shadows of the trees move. The shadow is dark, and I instinctively grab Natasha’s arm, “What...” Her words die as she sees it as well, a man.

Jace curses, and Mason stops dead.

“I told you not to do it,” A deep distinctive voice says as he walks closer to us. Blonde hair, cropped short, with army pants and a dark t-shirt tells me exactly who it is, but even if I didn’t know, all I need do is hear that voice.

“I said it was part of growing up okay, what’s the big deal?” responds Jace as the rest of us stand there.

He comes into the street and now all we can do is see him, and his blue eyes that glare at his brother.

“Leave them alone, Kevin,” says another voice, a female voice coming from behind us, and I feel instant relief at the sound of approaching footsteps.

“Go home, Kylie,” Is the response she gets from her brother Kevin. I never understood their relationship, but I got the sense they were closer than either would admit. Kylie moves her long, lithe, stopping only when she’s right in front of Mason. Her legs slightly parted, hips jutted out to the left.

“You the one who should go home, I had my eye on them since they left. Nothing is gonna happen to them, though I can’t say the same about you big brother.”

“Why is that?”

“Momma cooked, and she waited, and waited, and Kevin, her boy didn’t show up.”

“And?” He responds, and I know Kevin Stone enough to know what he means is he doesn’t care. He can’t, because Kevin Stone doesn’t have those kinds of emotions. Caring is an emotional response to someone else’s actions.

“You wouldn’t wanna see momma cry now, would you? Michael was there,” She announces, with that hint of questioning buried in her tone. I am not sure why Michael’s presence is important enough to be announced but Kevin finally moves his lifeless eyes, to stare at Natasha and it is here, under the nights sky, that I see a glimpse of something in his view.

I’m uncertain the glimpse is good or not, but it is gone. I learned very early in life to spot a fox, and I learned later on to spot a ghost, and Kevin Stone has always been the latter.

“Go home Kevin, I’ll make sure they all get back safe and sound,” Kylie assures him.

“No, I’ll make sure they get home, and then I’ll go,” He smiles suddenly, but it’s icy, and for a split second his eyes land on me, and my heart beats a million times faster as fear creeps in. Kevin Stones attention is not something needed or wanted in my life right now. I didn’t even know he was back on this side. He was older now, more rusty around the edges.

“You can go with Sienna, I’ll get the rest,” He says before turning his back on us.

I’m not sure why that hurts like a sucker punch to the gut. I’ve always felt like an outcast when I was younger. My mom insisted I attend a private school when she was still breathing, the kids didn’t like me as much as she hoped.

But I didn’t want her to worry, so I pretended I was the happiest kid on the block. But when I came to stay Liston Hills, I never felt that way. Even though I was the scariest girl in school and I lacked any desire to be nice, I had my cousins and the Stone family too. It was like we moved in a circle of our own, untouchable, respected, desirable but never exclusively liked.

And at times, when he came around, I had Kevin. Regardless of our age difference, we had a few moments over the years. Some were bad ones, others were good, but mostly it ended with me running away. But sometimes when he looked at me, it sent a shiver down my spine, a reminder that he knew.

“Come on Sin, it’s almost 1 am, I’m sure we still have time for a quick ride. You game?” Kylie grins as she asks me the question, and I stare at her brown chocolate eyes that screams of an innocence I’m not sure I ever possessed.

My mother once said innocence was a rare gift to receive upon birth, but the lightest to lose its way. Deep down she knew mine slipped from my grasp years before I even understood what it was.

“I’m always game, Ky, Ky,” I wink and smile as she groans at the mention of the nickname she got from Diamond.

We take less than 15 minutes to get home, and another 10 to grab the keys for the garage and get our gear on to ride.

“We should totally use those new helmets Papa bought,” suggests Kylie, as she goes to grab them, handing one to me. I don’t mention how angry Uncle Marcus is going to be when he finds out we took it without permission. We knew they were ours but I gathered yesterday, any gifts bought would not be handed to either of us. I was still in trouble for swearing Ms. Drier, and Kylie was in major s**t for knocking her ex-boyfriend, Dexter Kent.

I push my bike out of the garage as Kylie saddles hers, before following suit. She has on a black biker jacket, and I have on a yellow and blue one.

Our helmets were the same, since Uncle Marcus got them for us and he never treated the kids differently. A car pulls up next to us as I’m securing my gloves, strapping the Velcro tight around my wrists as my curiosity has my face scrunching up.