Page 35 of Revenge At Raleigh High
My brother hammers at the buttons on the game controller in his hands and a strafe of gunfire shoots across the T.V. screen. The loud rattle of sound is unexpected and makes me jump. That’s what I tell myself. My heartrate isn’t through the roof, and my palms aren’t sweating out of nowhere because the sound mentally dragged me, kicking and screaming back to the halls of Raleigh High, the day Leon killed eighteen of my fellow students.
“Mom doesn’t mind waiting for me when she comes. Just chill out,” Max snaps. “I’ll have to wait a whole week to finish otherwise. I’m not stopping just ’cause you wanna go hang out with your stupid boyfriend.”
Whoa. Max has never had an attitude like this with me before. When the fuck did he get so mouthy? “I have a lesson to teach. I’m not trying to rush off with Alex. He’s working tonight, so you can stow that crap right now. Get your shoes. Get your bag. We’re leaving.”
He ignores me.
I am not in the mood for this bullshit. I’m not hanging around the Richmond’s place a second longer than I need to, either. I can’t just pull the plug on the game console like I would at home, though. That wouldn’t be fair to Jamie. It’s not his fault my little brother is being a little asshole. Poor Jamie slowly lowers his controller, biting his lip anxiously as he looks back at me.
“It doesn’t matter if we have to wait,” he tells Max. “I won’t play without you, I promise.”
On the screen, a gruesome looking monster with jagged teeth leaps out, thrashing with horrifying claws. The scene in the game flashes red, the controllers rumbling in the boys’ hands.
“Shoot, shoot, shoot!” Max hollers. “It’s killing you!”
Jamie looks torn. He frowns at the game, then hangs his head, choosing not to play. The screen goes bright red, and then a scrawled tag appears in white lettering. The words ‘Game Over’pulse on the screen, and Max lets out a furious yell. “Jesus, Silver! Look what you’ve done. Why the hell do you have to ruineverything?”
He jumps to his feet, throwing down his controller. The handset bounces off the chair he was sitting on, the plastic making a cracking sound, the batteries flying out of it. Jamie’s mouth falls open, forming a perfectly round O. He doesn’t make a sound, despite the fact that my shit of a little brother has probably just broken one of his controllers.
“Right. That’s it.” I lunge for Max, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck. “You’d better hope that still works or you’re gonna be paying for a new one. Move, before I pick you up like a baby and carry you out of here.”
Max rips himself out of my grasp, spinning on me, his face beet red. “God, Silver. You’re such a fuckingbitch!”
I’ve been called the darkest, harshest, cruelest things over the past year, by people I thought were my closest friends. None of that hurt as much as this, though. I feel like I’ve been slapped. Max hurtles past me out of the back room, his footsteps ringing out down the hallway. The front door slams closed a second later, but I can’t seem to make my legs function in order to after him.
What…the…fuck?
My eyes are stinging like I just rubbed soap into them.
“Sorry, Silver,” Jamie mumbles quietly. “It was my fault. I wanted to start another campaign.”
“No. Don’t worry. It’s not your fault at all. Max is…he’s…” I don’t know what Max is. He isn’t acting like my little brother, that’s for sure. “Tell your mom I said thank you for having him over, Jamie. I’m sure he’ll see you at school tomorrow. Unless I murder him in his sleep tonight, that is.”
I grind my teeth together so hard as I head for the door that a tension headache begins to pulse behind my right eye. That little fucking piece of—
The thought is cut short when I turn a corner in the hallway, and collide with—
Fuck.
WithHalliday.
Her bag crashes to the floor, and her phone goes skidding across the mahogany floorboards. Tubes of makeup roll out of her bag, pens and her diary tumbling out onto the ground. For a second, she just stands there, staring at me, eyes wide, surprise all over her face. I try to marshal my own horrified expression, but then I look down, at where her thick winter coat has fallen open and I see what she’s wearing.
A skimpy bikini top, barely more than two triangles of navy-blue material attached to a few pieces of string, and a pair of kick shorts so small they barely cover the top inch of her bare thighs. Again, for the second time in less than a minute, I find myself thinking the same thought.
What…the actual…fuck.
She sees me frowning at her outfit and quickly covers herself, wrapping her knee-length down jacket around her body, cinching it at the waist. Before either of us can say anything, Mrs. Richmond emerges from the living room. “Oh, Silver, I’m sorry. I thought you’d left.” She looks from me to her daughter, a tentative smile spreading across her face. “Oh, it is nice to see you two side-by-side again. I—I know things have been difficult amongst you girls lately, but honestly, my heart has been breaking that you had such a falling out. Looking at the two of you now, gosh…I have to say I hope you’re on your way to working things out.”
Halliday doesn’t breathe a word. She quickly looks down at her feet, breathing deeply. I don’t really knowwhereto look.
“You’re off to work, sweetheart?” Mrs. Richmond asks.
“Yeah. I’ll be late if I don’t leave now,” she says sullenly.
“It’s so nice of them over at The Rockwell to make an exception for Halliday. They don’t normally let people waitress until they’re eighteen. They must have known how good she’d be. And they’re generous with their wages, too. When I was waitressing fulltime, I barely brought home a couple of hundred bucks a week. Halliday’s earning three times that, aren’t you, Sweetheart?”
Um…Waitressing? I’ve been to the Rock, and I know full-well there are no waitresses. If you’re brave or hungry enough to order food from the kitchen, you have to do it at the bar and collect your food from the service hatch when they call your number.
