The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (10 page)

Chills ran up her
spine.

In a second, she was off,
running back to her house and the security of her family, her mind
made up. If her Dad was mad at her, so be it. It would still be
better than being near the shriveled man and the mutilated kitten
he’d held in his hand.

From the other side of the
fence, the gnarled, ancient-looking man spied Mikalah’s retreating
form through a crack between two of the planks. Absently, he
reached into another pocket within his voluminous, soiled robe. The
terrified body of another kitten trembled within his misshapen
hand.

“
Soon, little brat, you
will be ours. Soon, we will tickle your special parts,” he said
through mushy teeth, the tiny pops and crackles of the kitten’s
breaking neck-bones punctuating every syllable.

His vile laughter carried
on the wind.

A storm was coming, unlike
anything witnessed upon this wretched world.

~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼
}>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

Near the Corner of Vincent
Ave & Yosemite Drive

Thursday, November
18
^th
,
4:07 pm…

He couldn’t help the smile
spreading across his face when his eyes fell upon her pacing figure
as she walked back and forth at the convergence of the two streets
ahead of him. She’d been waiting for him as she usually did when
their practices ran short and they had extra time on their hands.
It didn’t happen on a regular basis, but when it did, it was
something he’d always looked forward to with more than a small
degree of excitement. He liked spending time with her. She was a
cute, older girl who didn’t look down her nose at him or treat him
different because of his youth or his color.

Her name was Hyun Jin
Kwon. She was a tall, athletic Korean-American with a broad face
and almond-shaped eyes - not slanted as one would expect. She had
dark, luminous irises about wide pupils, piercing, intent, as if
she were always looking for truth, even when she was kidding
around. She was tan for an Asian, her skin being more golden and
less translucent than what was typical of the Chinese or the
Japanese. Her hair was straight and long, and very fine, hanging to
the middle of her back, colored somewhere between chestnut and
nutmeg. It often changed hue in the play of the light or in the
clutch of the odd wind. As usual, she wore nothing but brand names,
sporting the latest VATA Brasil Supplex active wear pant and tank
top under a matching sweater vest, more for show than a garment
worn to ward off the cold.
Expensive!
On her feet, she wore the
latest version of the Sketchers Shape-Ups, though her thighs and
butt needed absolutely no such toning that he could see. That was
Hyun, though. She had to have the latest in fashion. She had to
look good, while she wore it too.

Her parents could afford
it, he mused. Her father was a lawyer at one of the top firms in
Los Angeles and her mother was a neurosurgeon at UCLA Medical
Center, one of the top brain hospitals in the country.

Derek Benson found his
smile growing at the thought, but then his smile froze in place
when he realized he wasn’t all that different from her. He liked to
wear brand names as well. Only not the flashy, glamour-girl stuff
Hyun wore. Like her, too, his parents could afford it. Both of them
had high paying jobs as well.

His one vice, if he had
one, was his shoes, which today were the brand new, limited edition
of Kobe Bryant’s,
Black Mamba
basketball sneakers. They had set him back three
months’ allowance. So, the more he thought about it, it probably
wouldn’t be a good idea to make too much fun of the girl, even if
she did look like a Hollywood celebrity. He looked down at himself
and realized he was wearing a Nike Air sweat suit.
Ah, I better keep my mouth shut,
he decided on a whim.
Okay, okay, I’m a fashion whore, Jeez!

Ahead, he saw Hyun had
stopped pacing. She was looking back at him with a slanted smile
etched on her face. Derek felt a little embarrassed under her frank
gaze. It was her newest thing, straight-forward appraisal… of
him.

The boy was aware his body
had begun to change over the course of the past year. It had
altered from the boyish frame he used to have to something else.
This being his third year in competitive gymnastics – he’d begun to
fill out, his muscles becoming more defined. Though he wasn’t tall
for his fourteen years of age at five foot five, his shoulders were
beginning to broaden, his back expand, and
real
man-like definition was
beginning to shape the rest of his body - biceps, pectorals, quads,
calves, and on and on.

He absently patted his
short-cropped hair, trying to shake the feeling of being under a
microscope. His gentle, slightly rounded African-American face
bunched up with a small grimace.
Crap,
this girl should buy a ticket or something
, he thought. He breathed heavily through his broad nose,
then his thin-lipped mouth in exasperation. He kept his eyes on the
girl, though, to show her, he could stare back just the same. He
readjusted his backpack on his shoulder, and brought both hands up
to touch the sides of his head, checking by feel to see if he had
any naps Hyun might’ve noticed. His palms brushed against his ears,
plastered to the side of his skull as if glued, so close, in fact,
the lobes extended no more than an eighth of an inch outward. His
brothers and sisters constantly made fun of him because of them.
They said when he was a baby, their mother had ironed them that
way, because, at birth, they’d stuck out like
Dumbo’s
ears. They’d said it so much
he was almost immune to the blow against his
self-confidence.
She’s not looking at my
ears anyway,
he contained an inner
smirk.
She’s checking out my hot ass
body.
He kept the joke to
himself.

“
How was running ‘the
gauntlet’ today?” kidded Hyun sarcastically, referring to the
cul-de-sac at the back of the High School. The area Derek traversed
each day, trying to get through it before Kimberly’s jealous,
asshole of a boyfriend showed up. Every day he tried to avoid
another hurtful confrontation.

Sonny Buford, the bane of
my existence!

“
Ha, very funny,” he
replied with a tone as sardonic as hers.

She harrumphed, putting
her hands in her jacket pockets. She began to walk down Yosemite
Drive with Derek, retracing the steps she’d taken when she’d left
the girls locker-room (now called the North Gym) a few minutes
before. They were walking back toward the front of the High
School.

“
Well, how did it go?” she
persisted.

“
It didn’t go at all,” he
began quietly. “I think the bastard was late or something, because
Kim was just chillin’ by the rail all by herself, looking impatient
as usual…” He trailed off, not sure why he didn’t want Hyun to know
the amount of scrutiny with which he’d watched the moody, Emo-girl
from afar. He knew Hyun wouldn’t get jealous. He knew she didn’t
think of him in that way and neither did he, of her. Maybe, he just
didn’t want her to make a big deal out of it, or worse, make fun of
him. That, he wouldn’t allow, if he could avoid it.

“
So you got through
another day without him harassing you, which makes it now… what,
six school days in a row you’ve avoided getting into it with him?
That’s gotta be a record, right?” She went on conversing with
herself as much as she was with him.

“
I don’t know. I don’t
keep track,” he mumbled.

“
Bullshit,” she murmured
right back at him.

“
What bullshit, Hyun? I
don’t keep count, alright!” he spoke testily, louder than he
intended.

“
Well, well… a mite touchy
today, aren’t we?” she said smugly, looking at him through the
corner of her eye.

He just shrugged and kept
walking in silence.

She mimicked his behavior
for a minute, until she turned to look at him fully, her face
serious. “You do know this crap between you and Sonny has got to
stop someday, right?”

He clicked the roof of his
mouth with his tongue, then, “Yeah? And how do you suppose I go
about getting a crackhead to listen to me? How am I supposed to get
him to understand that I don’t want to
get
with
Kimberly? How am I supposed to get
him to leave me alone?” The vehemence had returned to his voice
once again. This was typical whenever this topic was broached. His
frustration was becoming all the more obvious as time
passed.

“
I didn’t say anything
about trying to reason with the guy,” clarified Hyun, voice
diminishing to make her point.

Derek frowned for a
moment. He turned to look at her, his step slowing a bit. “You want
me to fight him?” his tone was incredulous, pitched an octave
higher than before, lined with shock. “Jesus, Hyun, the dude is
twenty years old!”

Hyun laughed, which
confused Derek even more.

“
Yeah, Derek, you’re
right. Except he’s a pencil-necked, dweeb who weighs ten pounds
less than you do. I bet he hasn’t worked out seriously in like four
years,” she supplied. Suddenly, she grabbed him by the upper
portion of his right arm, giving it a firm squeeze. “You’re strong,
Derek, strong enough to more than defend yourself. Why do you let
this guy bully you?”

“
What am
I supposed to do, just walk up to the jerk and
wang
on him?” rationalized Derek,
his eyebrows raised in question, quite aware of her hand squeezing
his bicep.

She held on for a few more
moments, before she realized what she was doing and let him go,
hastily. “No, man, I didn’t say go all
Conan
on the dude. I said defend
yourself, aren’t you listening to what I’m saying?” she implored
with a frustrated gesture, her hands waving around. “I’m saying
when he bothers you again, when he tries something, just try
defending yourself. I guarantee you, if you do a convincing enough
job, he’ll leave you alone.”

“
He’ll just get some of
his drugged out friends together and they’ll all jump me when I’m
alone or something,” he responded, disagreeing with her.

“
Druggies are not
fighters, Derek. All they know how to do is get high,” she reckoned
with a shrug of her shoulders.

“
I don’t know, Hyun.” He
sighed. “I wish none of this shit ever happened, you
know?”

“
What
happened
? All you did was ask Kimberly for directions on your first
day of school, and he happened to see you do it. You didn’t
do
anything, Derek,”
explained the teenage girl. “He’s the one with the problem. He’s
the one who can’t control himself. He’s the idiot, not
you.”

“
Yeah, yeah,” his voice
was barely above a whisper.

“
All I am saying it this
crap is going to come to a head soon and you have to be the one
who’s prepared to do something about it,” she said, repeating her
stance.

He merely nodded and kept
his thoughts to himself, though his mind kept sliding back toward
Kimberly, her long legs and trim body, her dark looks and
foreboding carriage. She was always so judgmental and was sometimes
quite mean. But, Derek knew why. He knew the kind of duress she was
undergoing.

Hyun was right too though.
Only in more ways than the one she’d so blatantly pointed out to
him a moment ago. Sonny was a problem, and not just Derek’s, but a
problem to anyone whose life he touched. He was a loser with a bad
temper. Kimberly could definitely do much better than the likes of
him. She was pretty and smart (when she applied herself). And, he
was sure, if she
ever
got away from that douche-bag, the nice girl he knew resided
beneath the tough façade of hers would emerge. Her true beauty
would come forth.

He was sure of
it.

They walked on passed the
building housing the North Gym and the Girl’s Locker-room, passing
the softball fields, and were at the very front of the school when
Hyun finally broke the silence.