Andromeda

Chapter Seven

Somehow, Anna had avoided waking anybody up with the outburst of her sudden nightmare, and she was glad for that. She was in no mood to receive another lecture from Lynn, or put up with the constant nagging and jeering from Abigail. Nevertheless, she carried the stress of the dream with her all the way to school the next day. She hardly said a word as Lynn drove the three of them to school, preferring to stare quietly out the window as they drove through the already busy town center.

Lynn pulled into the circle in front of the high school where dozens of cars and buses were cycling through to drop off students. When the car came to a stop, Anna cast a quick sideways smile at Lynn before slipping out of the passenger seat.

“Bye, Mom!” Abigail said as she exited the car behind her.

“Abigail!” Lynn called after her. “Do you have your book report?”

“Yes!” Abigail answered in an annoyed voice.

“Ok, have a good day, sweetie!”

Abigail waved as Lynn drove off with Daisy before running to catch up with Anna.

“So!” Abigail said cheerily. “Where’s this boyfriend of yours? When do I get to meet him?”

“You don’t,” Anna responded, not willing to entertain her teasing. “Just go to class and leave me alone.”

“Why?” Abigail pressed. “Are you embarrassed by him? He’s a nerd, isn’t he?”

“No!” Anna said, offended. “Now go away!”

“Anna, hey!”

Both Anna and Abigail turned to see Jason catching up with them.

“Oh no,” Anna muttered to herself before quickly putting on a smile.

“How’s it going?” Jason said as they walked through the doors into the atrium.

Anna opened her mouth to answer but was immediately cut off by Abigail chiming in at her side. “Are you the boyfriend?”

Anna shot an angry and horrified look at Abigail. “Shut up!” she gasped before returning her attention to Jason, a cold wave sweeping across her body. “I’m sorry. She’s my sister, and she was just leaving!” She grabbed Abigail’s backpack and pushed her ahead.

“No wait!” Abigail purred. “I have questions! Is it true she beat you at Lacrosse?”

“Go!” Anna shouted at her. Abigail let out a giggle as she turned and skipped toward the nearest stairwell. “Sorry,” Anna repeated to Jason. “She likes to poke fun at me because she has nothing better to do.”

“It’s okay,” Jason laughed. “My little sister’s the same way. So, where are you heading first?”

“Biology,” Anna answered. “I have a lab to finish today.”

“Nice,” Jason said. “Mr. Todd’s labs are always fun. So, see you in homeroom, then?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Anna replied awkwardly, waving to him as they parted ways in the atrium. Anna turned down the hallway leading to the B-Wing. Thanks to Jason, she had already forgotten about the horrific dream of the night before, but her thoughts were interrupted when she was suddenly shoved from behind. Anna gasped as she stumbled into the lockers along the wall. She spun around angrily to see what had happened, thinking somebody had slammed into her without paying attention to where they were going, but her heart sank when she found herself face to face with Tamara.

“Hey!” Anna exclaimed. “What’s your problem?”

“You are my problem!” Tamara hissed in rage. “I told you to stay away from Jason! Why am I hearing that you asked him out?”

“I didn’t, you idiot,” Anna shot back. “He asked me out.”

“Oh please,” Tamara scoffed. “Why would someone like him bother with a broken wretch like you?” Anna was already becoming overwhelmed by anger, but Tamara was only getting started. “I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, but you better call off your little date with him or else!”

Anna lowered her head and laughed obnoxiously at her demand. “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said, stepping up into Tamara’s face. “I intend to go out with him tomorrow, and if that pisses you off, then that’s just a bonus.”

Tamara’s face twisted into an unbridled hatred that Anna had yet to see. “I’m warning you right now!” she screeched. “My mother is on the school board and my father is on track to become a state representative. I can make your life a living hell if I want to!”

“Oh really,” Anna mocked her. “And this is?”

“Don’t play with me!” Tamara took a hostile step closer and shoved Anna on the shoulder.

Just then, a wave of anger swept through Anna’s veins that she had never felt before. For a moment, she thought it was strangely similar to the sensation that occurred in her arm just before experiencing a seizure.

“Don’t you ever touch me again,” Anna growled. “I’m not threatened by you.”

“Yeah? What are you gonna do about it? If you even think about putting your hands on me, I can get my mother to have you suspended. Nobody would ever take those hick parents of yours seriously. So go on and make a move, hoe!” With that last verbal assault, Tamara threw her hand out to shove Anna again, but she was instantly caught off guard by what happened next.

Anna’s right arm shot up and caught Tamara by the wrist before she could make contact with her. Tamara’s expression flipped in the blink of an eye from her arrogant, top-of-the-world demeanor to a look of pure astonishment. Anna only stared her down with the eyes of a predator, unaware of how hard she was tightening her grip around Tamara’s wrist.

“Let go of me, you psycho!” Tamara cried unnecessarily loud as she tried in vain to pull Anna’s hand off her. The hallway was filled with dozens of students who had all stopped to watch what was going on. Anna’s grip was becoming stronger by the second. She stepped forward and forced Tamara down onto her knees. Tamara was almost crying in pain.

“Please,” she gasped, no longer able to put on her victim facade. “Let me go!”

Anna was not even listening to her. She was all but out of her mind as she stared down at Tamara locked in her inhumanly powerful grip.

“I,” Anna hissed in a voice that hardly felt like her own. “Am not. Threatened. By you!”

A sickening crack echoed off the walls of the hallway. Many students who were watching gasped in horror. Tamara fell to the floor, clutching her arm and screaming in a pain she had never known. Anna watched her writhe upon the floor, her predatory expression constant. It was not until several students rushed to Tamara’s aid that the reality of the situation set it.

Tamara’s face was ghostly white and tears were streaming from her tightly clenched eyes. The hand Anna had been gripping had gone limp, and there was no mistaking what happened as blood began seeping out onto Tamara’s good hand. Anna had crushed her wrist.

Tamara’s screaming continued to travel up and down the hallway as teachers began showing up to the scene, demanding to know what had happened. Most students did not know what to say, but all the fingers were quickly pointed at Anna.

Anna was too stunned to move. As she stared down at the now helpless form of Tamara, she brought her hands up to cover her mouth in horror. What had she done? She wasn’t even thinking about it. It did not make any sense. How could something like this be possible? No, her mind’s voice scrambled for some sort of reasoning, this had to be another nightmare.

Everything had gone hazy since the incident. Anna sat motionless just outside the principal’s office. It felt like she had been here for hours. She looked up at the window, where the flashing lights of a police cruiser were visible just outside. To her left, a single officer was standing in the path of the doors leading out of the office on either side, as though to keep Anna from attempting to run away. She could not blame him. The longer she sat here, the more she thought about the weeks she spent in county foster care before the Tuckers formally adopted her. Her heart raced at the thought of possibly being taken back, or to some place worse.

To her right, even through the closed door of the principal’s office, Anna could hear every word that was being exchanged.

“This is unacceptable!” a shrill voice was screaming in anger, which Anna knew to belong to Tamara’s mother. “I don’t want her suspended! I want her arrested for assaulting my baby!”

“You are not taking mine away from me!” Lynn’s voice fired back in an equally aggressive tone.

“Mrs. Tucker, please!” came Mrs. Hoffman’s authoritative voice. “Mr. Tucker, if you can’t control your wife, I’ll have to ask her to step out.”

“Spare me!” Lynn shouted. “I’m so sick of your double standard! You call yourself a principal?”

“Alright, that’s enough!” a male voice erupted over the others. Anna assumed it was the other police officer who had gone into the office with them to be informed of the incident. “Everyone needs to sit down and keep it calm. Nobody is going to be throwing out accusations. I just need a clear and concise explanation of what happened, coming first from the principal.”

A brief silence followed. Anna heard Mrs. Hoffman give a soft sigh before speaking. “I am just relaying what information was given to me by the students and faculty who witnessed the event. Apparently, Miss Tucker and Miss Summers were in an altercation that escalated into a physical confrontation-”

“And then she broke my daughter’s arm!” Tamara’s mother screeched.

“Quiet please,” the officer rebuked her.

“No! This should be an open and shut case! That girl put her hands on my baby and now she’s in the hospital! Somebody needs to be punished for this!”

Anna’s ears perked up when she heard James speak next. “You would really have us believe that a 16-year-old girl would somehow be strong enough to break a wrist with her bare hands?”

“Tell that to my daughter’s x-rays, you son of a bitch!”

“MA’AM! SIT DOWN NOW!” the officer roared. There was another penetrating silence that followed. Anna could hear the squeaking of the chair as Tamara’s mother sat down uncomfortably.

“I’m afraid she has a point,” Mrs. Hoffman put in. “As implausible as it may be, numerous students reported witnessing precisely that: Miss Tucker snatching Tamara by the wrist and proceeding to crush it in her grasp.”

“THAT’S NOT-” Lynn began before her voice suddenly dropped away, and Anna guessed that James was holding her back.

“I believe those same witnesses said that that Tamara girl started it and put her hands on Anna first,” she heard James argue, clearly the most composed of everyone in the room.

“That’s true,” Mrs. Hoffman agreed. “However, it doesn’t change the fact that a student of mine is now in the hospital. I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Tucker, but I will have no choice but to suspend your daughter until further notice. Now I am willing to discuss the terms of said suspension once we are resolved here. As for criminal charges, Mrs. Summers, that is not within my authority.”

“I know. It’s within yours!” Tamara’s mother responded to the officer, Anna assumed. “I want charges pressed! And I want her charged as an adult!”

“Mrs. Summers,” the officer replied, “she is a minor.”

“So what! Minors can be charged as adults! I’m perfectly familiar with the law!”

“Ma’am, minors can only be charged as adults for particularly heinous offenses; murder, rape, that sort of thing. This does not fall under that category. If you want to press charges, take it up with the township. For now, there’s nothing more I can do here but file the report.”

Anna returned her attention to the floor in front of her as the door opened and the police officer walked out, not looking back as Tamara’s mother continued to shriek in protest. He joined his partner and the two of them exited the school. The arguing within the principal’s office escalated the minute the police left. Anna was no longer trying to hear what was being said. She could not believe how quickly her life had turned upside down. It seemed that every day that came was bent on showing her how much worse things could get for her. First the seizure she endured yesterday, then the unprecedented night terror, now this. She replayed the sight and sound of Tamara’s wrist breaking over and over again, wondering what sort of strength could possibly have come over her to be capable of such a thing. She wanted more than anything to make everyone understand this, but it didn’t make any sense.

Anna was overwhelmed. Everything was ruined from here on out and she knew it. Amidst the incessant screaming coming from the office and the anguish that filled her heart at this moment, she buried her face in her hands and cried.