She tucked a lose strand of colored, brick red hair behind her ear and crouched behind the bushes behind the large, lonely house that stood away from all the others. Her clothes were dark, a pair of tight black flares and a black tanktop. She wore a lot of black mostly because she was always hiding from somebody, or everybody. On a normal day her hair was long and grotesquely dark blonde. She hated it with such a passion that one day she took a pair of scissors and came within a split second of cutting it all off, up to her ears. Instead, he stole a bottle of dark red hairdye from a store in her local mall and dyed thin red streaks into her hair. The store was out of black dye.
She peered forward and reached behind her for her large backpack. It wasn't there. She turned around and glared harshly at her best friend. Then, she hit her, hard, on the shoulder. "I told you to keep the bag behind me. Stay fucking focused, Jenn." She growled and pulled the backpack so that it was in front of her.
She used the term best friend very lightly. She made friends wherever she went but none of them were as loyal as Jenn. Jenn followed her and went along with her schemes because she didn't know what else to do or where else to go. She sighed, wishing she wasn't sitting in the dark behind a bush filled with unknown creatures and excited crickets. "Can we hurry? The bugs are getting really frisky." She asked, almost begging to get it over with.
Once again, she tucked another out of place red strand behind her ear and grabbed the bag. She opened it and looked inside. "Dammit, Jenn, you broke some."
"How do you know you didn't break them?"
She glared and pulled out a handful, handing them to Jenn. "Put them in your pockets. And you have to be faster this time."
Jenn sighed and looked up at the large house. "Who lives here anyway?"
"Who cares." She shrugged. The truth was, she didn't care. She knew very well who lived in the house and that was one of the many reasons for what she was going to do. Another perfect family, another perfect house, and another seemingly perfect existance. Weren't they reasons enough?
She reached into the bag and grabbed a handful of eggs for herself. Then, wincing in disgust, she wiped a handful of broken egg goop onto Jenn's pants. "Remind me not to let you hold the bag next time."
Jenn cringed and looked down at her new pair of jeans. Next time she would wear old clothes. Next time. She stood up next to her best friend, once again feeling overpowered by her. Jenn was average in every way, especially height. Being only 5'6, her friend was at least 6 feet tall. It was another reason why she was always hiding. Kat was always out of place.
Jenn, wanted to be as fast as possible, took her entire handful of eggs and threw them at the house at once. They splattered mostly on the front door with a few on the steps. Kat rolled her eyes and took great joy in throwing the eggs, one by one, at various windows, doors, and even one on the large welcome mat on the front step. "Welcome this." She growled as she threw one more. "See, it's a release. Don't you feel good now?" She turned to Jen and smiled.
Jen shrugged. "Yeah. Great."
They sauntered off back to the bushes where they would hide for a few minutes to make sure nobody was coming. However, their plan didn't go as they expected it to. Kat saw them first, bright blue lights flickering against the house. "Shit..." She recognized them quickly. "Shit, Jenn, go..." She pushed her friend out of the bushes.
"What?"
"I SAID GO! RUN NOW BEFORE YOU GET CAUGHT!" She pushed her again and watched as her best friend, probably her only real friend, ran off into the woods. Then, when she saw the police car turn around the corner, she ran across the street toward the direction of her own house. It wasn't the smartest move, but perhaps she wanted to be caught. Before she made it across the street, she tripped over her shoelace and fell flat onto her stomach in the middle of the street.
The police officer watched from his car for a moment while she laid there, on her stomach, with her face on her arms. She didn't move. He knew she wasn't hurt but he didn't know why she wasn't moving. Taking precautions, he waited another moment before getting out of the car and walking over toward her. He knelt down next to her but she still didn't move. "Miss, did you do this?" He asked, referring to the omlet of a house across the street. She didn't answer. "Are you hurt? Did you break anything?" She still didn't move. "Ma'am, is anything broken?"
"Just me." She whispered, but he didn't hear her.
"Miss, I'm a little confused at what your name is. You wrote the word 'KILL' on this form but..."
She stayed perfectly still and smiled at the police officer. She still hadn't said a word to him. But it was beginning to be harder to stay silent, she was surrounded by police officers, all staring her down like she was a criminal.
"Her name is Katerina." A voice came from behind Kat. She glared at the wall, recognizing the voice. It was her brother. "Her initials are K-I-L-L. Katerina Inise Lilly Landers. That's her name on her birth certificate."
"Charming." The female police officer who brought him in, muttered. "Seargant Dapp, this is the young ladie's brother. Here's here to take her home."
The officer nodded. "And he's paid the bail?"
"No. It's already been paid."
Kat gave her brother a dirty look. Her younger brother came to take her home. Great. "I can get home on my own, Lars."
He laughed. "Right." He sat down in the chair next to her.
The officer that had picked her up tapped his pencil and stared her down again. He lost the competition when he looked down at his paper. "Right, Miss Landers, I have a few other questions."
"Shouldn't she talk to a lawyer first?"
He shook his head. "The family who's house she vandalized aren't pressing charges. They're the ones who bailed her out. All they ask is that she go to their house tonight and clean off the eggs. We'll still need to ask some questions just to find out exactly what she did, and if there was any damage done that we aren't aware of."
Kat rolled her eyes.
"Katerina..."
"Kat."
"Kat." He emphasized on the 'T'. "As I was driving up, I saw another person running into the woods. Was this an accomplice?"
Accomplice. She loved the word. It made her feel so important. She had an accomplice. She laughed. "You were seeing things."
"I'm sorry. I distinctly remember seeing a blonde girl running into the woods."
She continued to protect Jenn. Jenn didn't deserve to be questioned. It wasn't her idea and she wouldn't even have been involved if Kat hadn't raked her into it. "Well I guess she got away, didn't she?" She smiled.
"Right. Well, are you willing to clean off the house."
"No. They have hands don't they? Tell them to clean it themselves. Or get their butler to do it." She grinned.
Lars kicked his sister under the table. He hated being the mature one. "She'll do it. Should I take her there?"
The female officer, still standing in the doorway, spoke up. "That won't be necessary. One of the residents of the house she vandalized is here. He said he'd take her back so that she can clean it off. The terms of the agreement are that Katerina clean off the eggs. Which means, she will be supervised. The rest of the family is busy so he volunteered to be present while she cleans it up."
Kat stood up and straightened her tanktop. "Ooh goody."
The male officer stood up also. "And his name?"
"Something Hanson. I'm not sure..."
Lars blinked and looked at his sister. "You egged Hanson? What the hell is wrong with you, Kat?"
"I don't know, why don't you ask 'something Hanson'." She patted her brother on the back, grabbed her backpack, and walked out into the lobby of the police station.
There he was, smiling, with his hands in his pockets. Her stomach turned at the sight of him, smug, rich, and obviously one of the in-crowd. "Hi." He nodded at her. "You ready?"
She shrugged. "Whatever."
"Want me to take that?" He asked, motioning toward her backpack.
"Does it look that heavy?" She asked, throwing it over her shoulder. She followed him out to his car, or whoever's car is was and sat silently, staring out the window.
"So what's your name?" He asked, looking over at her.
"Watch the road, stud."
"Sorry." He sighed. This was going to be more difficult than he thought. "Do you live around here?"
"Yes."
"Oh." He nodded and ran his hand through his newly cut hair which his younger brother still made fun of him for. "I'm Taylor, by the way."
"I know who you are."
"Oh." He said, for the second time. "They didn't tell me your name. My parents bailed you out... they signed the papers." He trailed off, trying to get her to tell him what her name was. She was definitely one of the prettiest girls he'd ever seen, but also one of the most difficult to talk to.
"That's nice."
He sighed again and pulled up the long driveway that led to his house. He noticed that she rolled her eyes when she saw it. He didn't know what to say to her or if it was even safe to talk to her. She looked like she was about to pull out a chainsaw and hack off his head at any moment. She had that look in her eyes, a look of anger, frustration, and most of all, hate. He'd never seen that look in anybody before.
He jumped out of his car and ran to her side to open the door for her, but she already got out, slammed the door, and dropped her backpack with the remaining eggs onto the driveway. She heard a crack. "Fuck." She muttered, glaring at the bag.
Taylor blushed. "Ok well, there's a bucket of soap and water and sponges on the porch. I can help you if I want."
"Wouldn't that take the heat off of the punishment?" She asked, smiling at him.
A smile. Yes! He almost let out a "woohoo" but it faded away when her smile faded away. She rolled her eyes and her black boots thumped on the pavement as she made her way to the steps. She reached into the bucket, grabbed a sponge, and slopped it onto the front door. Taylor watched from the driveway as she wiped the egg off of the whole front door in 30 seconds. It was going by faster than he thought. He'd have to work fast if he wanted to be able to find out more about her. "So you still need to tell me your name." He called.
She didn't look at him, instead, she threw the sponge into the bucket, grabbed another one, and wiped off the window. "You need to bite me." She muttered. One window finished, she quickly wiped down the other one.
"So... did you have help with this?"
She turned around. "Why would I tell you that? So you can tell your parents and they can tell the police? I'm not going to do that."
"I just thought..."
"Well, don't think, Taylor." She glared at him. "Whatever you think about me, whatever your pretty little head has in mind about me during these ten minutes that you've known me, you're wrong. Everything you've learned traveling the world and being perfect and happy has nothing to do with the way I live. Accept that and back the fuck off."
He blushed again. He wanted to tell her that maybe she was judging him unfairly also. Appearances weren't everything. Houses weren't everything. "When you're finished I can take you home."
She dropped the sponge into the bucket. "I'm finished, and I can walk." She sped passed him and threw her backpack over her shoulder, wincing when she realized there were raw eggs coming out of the zipper.
He almost laughed. "Then, let me walk you home."
"Don't you have a family to get to? Don't you have a perfect existance to live? You don't have to waste your time walking me home. It's not far."
He followed her into the street. "My family is out to dinner and I don't have a perfect existance, so if you'd kindly shut the hell up and stop being such a brat, I'm walking you home. It's safer."
She sighed. "Whatever."
They walked in silence the whole block to where her house was. He didn't get it. She lived in his neighborhood, she had a big house, a two car garage, and flowers in the front yard. How could she egg his house when hers looked almost the same. "You live close."
"Genius."
"I just mean..." He paused and stopped in her driveway. Then, he couldn't hold it in any longer. "What is wrong with you? You stand in front of my house and bitch about my perfect existance when you live a block away from me in a nice house. You could be a freakin model, you have a brother that cares about you, a friend that for some reason comes along with you on your trips of insanity. Then you protect her from being in trouble. Yet, you spout the ideals of a non-conformist and expect me to feel sorry for you when really all you are is a juvenile deliquent.
"I'm so glad you see it my way." She smiled, tucked a strand of brick red hair behind her ears and gave him one last comment. "Tell your parents I said thanks for bailing me out." Then, she disappeared into her house.
Taylor shook his head and walked back home, feeling emotionally drained and utterly confused.
Stories
Never Again
Kat, Jenn, and Lars
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