This year was supposed to be different.
Oddly enough, that was the thought that kept repeating in her head as she listened to the laughter get further and further away. It was a new grade. A new school. A new year. No one knew her past or personality, the things she’d done or the things she hadn’t. This year was supposed to be different.
She’d screamed for a while, long enough for her throat to grow raw and her head to feel light. She would’ve continued, too, if the lights hadn’t gone out with an anti-crescendo of silence that took her cries with it. She’d opened her mouth to scream again and what came out instead was a sob.
That’s when she accepted that she was well and truly alone. Alone and trapped in a locker on a Friday night.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up in her throat, the sound choked by tears and something else. She licked her lips and the taste came away salty and metallic. Oh, right, she thought dully. One of the boys punched her in the nose and she’d let go of him out of shock—one of many mistakes she’d made that day. Another had slammed her fingers in the locker and she’d drawn them back out of reflex—yet another mistake.
Her fingers throbbed, now, and so did her nose. She was half-sideways and there was no room to turn so her legs twisted and her neck bent until her face was pressed into her chest and she could only breathe in quick, shallow breaths.
And she was stuck like this, until Monday at the earliest. No one would look for her. No one would even think to.
She was trapped. Alone.
This year was supposed to be different, she thought. And it would be. She made a decision that night, as the dark settled in and so did the cold and hunger. She made the decision.
That night, Alexandria Knight decided to commit murder.
ns 15.158.61.48da2
