It's back. Holy Christ, that demon is back. How did it find me? What does it want? Why is it just staring at me?
Though my feet slow at the sight of the devilish interloper, we pass a tall post holding up stadium lights. On the other side of the wooden column, it vanishes. The pressure releases me, but my heart is hesitant to resume its normal pace. Though it's gone, my eyes remain fixed upon where it stood. How did it disappear so quickly? Hell, was it even there at all? My head swims in a dizzy mess and a chill runs through me from head to toe.
Elliot catches the look in my face, that cold terror and perplexity, and stops. The back of her hand rises and holds itself in a gentle press to my forehead.
"You okay, Ash?" she asks after a moment. "You're pale as a ghost."
"Yeah," I nod, plastering on a small smile. It waivers with the bolt of ice that ripples through me. "Dyn-o-mite!"
"Liar." Her lips sour into a downturned and narrow-eyed disapproval. "Come on, let's get you home before you pass out or throw up everywhere."
"I'll be fine," I protest.
She pulls my arm despite my groaning. She leads me back past the visitors' bleachers and parks me at the chain link fence. She leans me against it, pointing her index finger at me.
"Don't go anywhere," she commands, a serious look on her face. "I'm gonna run and grab the car and pick you up at the gate down here. Understood?"
"Yes, ma'am," I salute, though the action makes me lightheaded again.
Elliot vanishes into the crowd. The blaring instruments from the field swell in my head, the percussionists pounding their rhythms into my cranium. A quick glance at the stadium lights is even too much; just a flash of them leave spots in my eyes. In between the remnants are specks that dance to and fro. The fence's pattern makes itself known on my back, feels like it digs through my shirt and sinks into my skin right between my shoulderblades. It burns there and spreads its heat throughout the rest of me. My shirt sticks to my flesh, a sick suffocation.
I need to get out of here. I need to cool down. I need to throw up. I know Elliot said to stay put, but my head is going to explode if I don't move quick. I'm sure she'll understand. If not, well then oh well. Too bad, so sad. I'll deal with that bridge when it's time to cross it.
Pushing off from the fence brings immediate regret. My head swoons and sends me in a tizzy. One moment, I'm on my feet. The next, my knees quiver and buckle underneath me. In the split second of the change, I'm certain the faceplant into the grass will end up knocking me out. Or, at the very least, it's gonna hurt like hell. But the ground does not assault my face. I don't even fall to my hands and knees. I stop midway, landing on some solid thing. It holds me up with no effort; maybe it's that trash can? But I thought that was tucked away in the corner, not here near the goal post.
"Hang in there, Lunk," a familiar snark comes. Without any strain, Sera leads me onward toward the gate, her arm around my middle and mine around her shoulders. Her hair is pulled back into that deep rich red ponytail she wore the first time we met, and she wears the same black jacket from the bonfire. Even with my lightheadedness, she looks good. "I got ya."
"Thanks, but I'm okay," I tell her, doing my best to keep my voice steady. The staggering dizziness, though, betrays me and my little ruse.
"Says the sailor with no sea legs," she chuckles.
"I can walk. I just tripped, that's all."
"Wanna bet?" she asks. "I'll let go right now if you want. I've got no issue letting you embarrass yourself. It'd be funny."
YOU ARE READING
Incinerate
על-טבעיWhen Ash Woodward moves to a new town before the beginning of the school year, he makes it his goal to befriend anti-social track star Sera von Abaddon. As Ash traverses his new life with his new friends, mysteries arise as to who Sera truly is. But...
