Dangerous Designs Read online

  ***

  Three days later Storey had had it with Bankhead High School, her supposed friends, and especially her teachers. They weren't horrible. They were worse - at least today when any and all distractions were unacceptable.

  Couldn't they see she was busy?

  Her artwork demanded her attention.

  "Storey, please stay after school so we can talk. Again." Mr. Madison, the history teacher, said. "again."

  A twitter rippled through the room. Storey ignored him, flicking a look of disgust across the room in general, she refocused on the design she had to get down. She called them doodles. Other people called them freaky. Not that she cared. She'd been drawing since she could hold a pencil. She wasn't about to stop now. She couldn't. In a small corner of her mind, she knew that wasn't normal. That same corner of her mind knew this drive, this insane need to draw above all else was seriously wrong.

  But it didn't matter.

  With a toss of her shoulder length hair, she bent her head to deepen the inside edge of a curlicue.

  She heard the teacher's heavy disgusted sigh. "All right, everyone. Read over the next chapter and do the first ten questions for practice. We'll go over the answers tomorrow. Class dismissed. Except for Storey."

  Damn. She needed just a few more moments. The pencil warmed in her hand. She quickly readjusted her grip and sketched faster. The amused looks in her direction didn't deserve acknowledgement.

  The room emptied in a crush of movement and excited chatter until only silence filled the room – and the scratch of her pencil.

  Mr. Madison strode down the aisle of desks until he stood before her. His hands burrowed deep in his pockets as he rocked on his heels. "Storey," he snapped. "Put down that pencil and talk to me."

  Disgusted, Storey tossed the pencil down and slouched back so she could see him. Tall, almost droopy, his normal placid face had pulled in on itself as if a lemon had been shoved inside. Wrinkles furrowed his brow as he glowered down at her behind his seriously thick glasses.

  "You've been in my class for six weeks. You hand in all your assignments and you did well on your test. You're often distracted, but these last few days... I just don't get it. It's like you're off in your own little world." Frustration twisted his face tighter. Storey watched in fascination as the skin folds unfolded then folded back up as he spoke again. "Why can't you pay attention?"

  This again. She shook her head. "I can't. That's why I draw." Irritation took over. "I've already told you that. I have trouble focusing." Closing her book with a snap, she stood up. "It's not just your class. It's all my classes."

  His shoulders slumped and some of the anger drained from his voice. "Have you spoken to a doctor about this?"

  "I've been on every kind of drug there is since first grade. Nothing has worked. Now I don't take anything. What's the point? I have two years to go, then it won't be a problem anymore." Bending down, she grabbed her backpack and put away her sketchbook and homework. Straightening, she stood up and waited to see if he had anything to add.

  "You have a future. You're smart, a hard worker – at least in the short term, but don't you want to do more – be more?"

  His words haunted her long after she'd walked out of the building.

  "Of course, I want more, damn it. Who'd want the little I have?" she said to the empty sidewalk. Sure, she had her mother, somewhat. She had no siblings, for which she was both sad and grateful at the same time. They would have been company, except then they'd be in her same situation, and she wouldn't wish that on anyone. Who'd want to be the kid of the poor single mom despised by the rest of the community? It's not that she thought there was anything wrong with her mother's choices, but being a practicing Wiccan and owning and running a small candle shop in a redneck town like this one, well...not fun.

  She kinda liked the emptiness of the skeleton community left at Bankhead. Except for the limited options in friends and boyfriends, of course. The traffic was calm, there were no lines at any stores, and nothing bad ever happened. Of course, nothing good happened, either.

  The twenty minute trip home she managed to cut in half today. Her latest doodle had its claws into her. True, that was an odd way to describe this gnawing inside, but it felt right. After finishing a picture, she usually experienced an incredible sense of satisfaction and release. That part felt good, the actual creation part – not so much. These last few days, there'd been no satisfaction. In fact, the creation process had been so much worse. Past driven. Tormented might be the better term.

  Her mother believed she'd outgrow her weird artistic bent, become a real artist eventually. A large rock went flying into the creek at her side as she contemplated that concept. How did you outgrow something that was a major part of yourself? It's not like she could outgrow a leg, or her hands. They were just as much an integral part of who she was as was this compulsion to draw. Although she would admit it had gotten much worse lately. A fact that was starting to make her seriously uneasy. Being an artist was fine with her, being obsessive about it – not so much.

  "Hey, Storey?"

  Storey spun around. A tall streak in black walked up behind her. She frowned and reassessed her first impression. Not a man, a teen on the brink of adulthood. And one oddly familiar. Right. The frown lightened as she placed him. He was the new kid at school. A rare enough event that caught even her attention. She'd caught a glimpse of him in the morning, navigating through the hallways. Tall and slim, dressed in black from top to toe, even his short hair matched, giving his white skin a bleached look in contrast. He'd make a perfect vampire.

  She couldn't help but grin. "Hi." For the life of her she couldn't remember his name. Her artist's eye locked on the square jaw, deep forehead and blazing blue eyes. His face would be hard to forget.

  A lopsided grin slipped out, fascinating her.

  "I'm Eric. You probably don't remember me. I just started at school today." He fell into step as she continued on her way.

  "This is your first day and you know my name."

  "I recognised a fellow artist in the first class we shared and..." the lopsided grin deepened, "your name would be hard not to know after the number of times I heard a teacher call it out today."

  "Oh." Heat crawled up her face. Her stride stretched out, making him increase his pace to keep up.

  "Sorry. Didn't mean to upset you."

  Surprised, she shot him a quick sideways glance. "You didn't. Everyone knows I spend most of my time caught up in my art. Getting yelled at is no big deal."

  The grin flowed in her direction. She watched, captivated at how his face changed with his moods. Her fingers itched for pencil and paper. His voice was striking too, gravelly with a sense of humor lurking just beneath the surface.

  "What? Am I wearing my lunch on my face or something?" He swiped his chin self-consciously.

  Her eyes widened. "Sorry. I didn't mean to stare," she muttered and walked even faster.

  "Hey slow down, we're not racing anywhere. And you're tall, but I'm taller."

  Confused, she slowed down, sliding a sideways glance his way. "What does height have to do with it?"

  "That I can walk as fast as you, I just don't want to."

  Yeah, he was weird. "You don't have to walk with me at all." She couldn't help but point that out. Give him a chance to beg off and go his own way. It was kind of hard to believe he was still there in the first place.

  "I know. I want to."

  She snorted. "And why would you want to do that?"

  "Because I like your artwork. It's unique, dark."

  This time there was no holding back the look of disbelief. "And you like dark?"

  "Yup. It's cool." They came to a corner. "This is where I turn off. I live just down there." In spite of herself, Storey looked in the direction he pointed. Not the most affluent area of town, still it wasn't loser city like where she lived. He lived close to the old mine.

  "See you tomorrow." He waved and walked away.

&
nbsp; Storey crossed the road, watching as his lanky frame disappeared in the distance.

  What was that all about?

  A horn blasted her. She jumped and spun around. Crap. She'd stopped in the middle of the intersection like a love-struck teenager. With an apologetic smile, she jumped out of the way of the vehicle and finished the trip home in irate confusion. What the hell was going on with her these days?

  Once inside, she stormed up to her room. Flinging her backpack onto her bed, she pulled out her sketchbook and her new pencil and threw herself down on her purple coverlet to stare at her latest drawing.

  Cool. Dark. Unique. His words. There was nothing cool about it. Terrifying. Crazy. Disturbing. Any and all of those worked and so much more besides. She stuffed her newest pencil behind her ear and tried to see something that was good in the picture. Coiling snake-like lines and lattice intertwined, showing a door, broken and abused, as if someone had pounded on it for a long time - and had given up.

  Tucking the pencil into her fingers, she started shading the broken slat on the top corner. It didn't look quite right yet. But how could she know? She'd never seen this image before.

  Not that she had a model for any of her psychotic art, except from her own mind. Is that what disturbed her so much? Her subconscious spawned this stuff. Was she crazy? She felt it most of the time. Lord knows, everyone else agreed. Except her mom. And Jeff had never appeared to notice. At least he'd never said anything about it to her.

  Since he'd moved, she'd buried herself deeper into her art to help deal with the pain of his leaving and the loneliness. Only in these last few days had she'd realized just how deep she'd gone.

  Her pencil shifted to inking the edges of the lattice on the right. Thickening it, darkening it, smoothing the top piece and dropping the bottom down lower. Time ceased to exist as she fine-lined and perfected her image.

  "Storey? Are you in there?"

  Storey reared back with a jerk, looking around to see her mother poke her head around the door.

  "Hi, honey." Her mom pushed the door back and walked in, her long metallic orange dress swirling around her legs, her brown hair bouncing off her hips. "What are you doing?"

  Draw. Storey. Draw.

  "Nothing." Her standard response to her mom's standard question.

  "Oh, that's a nice picture."

  Storey raised an eyebrow. Nice? That's the last thing it was. Typical of her mom though. "No Mom, it's not nice. It's not anything."

  "Oh, honey. Don't be too hard on yourself. You'll work your way through all this. Soon you'll draw nice pictures."

  Come finish me. Draw, Storey draw.

  Storey closed her eyes and let her mother drone on. She would no matter what. Finally, she interrupted the flow by asking, "Did you want something?"

  Her mom stopped, her mouth open, and cleared her throat. "Oh, yes - dinner's ready."

  Opening her eyes again, Storey wrinkled up her face. "I'm not hungry."

  "That's not fair." Her mother's voice changed, cajoled. "You don't even know what's for dinner."

  "It doesn't matter." Storey rolled over to her belly and continued with her drawing. Her mother gave one of those heavy sighs she was so good at before withdrawing.

  Come play with me, Storey.

  Storey glared down at the artwork. "I'm here. I'm here. What do you want from me?"

  Draw. Just draw.

  Storey fell back under the creative spell.