“Okay, so, now let me get this straight,” Zac said, grinning deviously. “You fainted?”
Taylor glared at his brother.
“It hurt,” he said indignantly.
“Hal didn’t faint! And she’s even a girl!” Zac replied incredulously.
“Well, thanks a lot!” Hallie said, laughing, and then wincing in pain. The
bullet was still in her side, after all.
“Have you ever been shot?” Taylor demanded, staring at Zac.
“Nope, can’t say I have been.”
“Well then don’t sit there and proceed to make fun of me because I fainted.
I’ll have you know that I’ve never been in so much pain in all my life. And it also
didn’t help that Hallie was sticking her hand on top of it and pressing on it.” He
looked over at his room mate in the bed next to his, clad in the same drafty, open
back gown.
“If I hadn’t done that, you could have bled to death. Would you rather have
been left as a little fountain in the middle of the Potter family room?” Hallie picked
up a plastic glass from the end table beside her bed. “You little wimp,” she muttered
before sipping on some water. Zac laughed hysterically.
“See? Your own girlfriend thinks you’re a weinie!” Taylor looked over at Hallie
lovingly.
“But Hallie loves me,” he said, grinning at her with two black eyes and a
swollen lip, but still the most gorgeous thing that Hallie had ever seen.
“Yes, honey, I do,” she said, extending her needle filled left arm out to him
and grasping his hand in hers.
“My God, you two need to be shot,” Zac muttered, then, realizing what he’d
just said, smacked his hand over his mouth. “Oh my God, I didn’t mean that!” he
insisted. Hallie and Taylor simply laughed a little and then looked up as their room’s
door swung open. In hobbled Isaac on crutches, clad in a pair of shorts, an open
bathrobe, and with a sock covering one foot and a cast the other. Bandages covered
his flat tummy and stitches decorated his forehead and neck.
“Tay! Turn on the TV!” he said, taking the crutches out from under his arms
and hopping to the chair between Hallie and Taylor’s beds.
“Why?” Taylor asked, reaching for the flipper on his bed by his leg.
“Just do it. And it’s channel five,” he said. Taylor flipped it to that channel
and his eyes widened at what he saw. Hallie gaped at the television screen.
“This is just like a scene from Scream or something,” she said.
“In this A frame house behind me, terror unfolded just two nights ago for
three area teens as one of their own turned on them. Here, eighteen year old Carly
Maris, who was known to her friends as Noelle Carson, attacked five people, killing
two and injuring three.
“Wielding a knife, Maris brutally murdered two young children, Gabriella and
Gavin Potter, and attacked her boyfriend Isaac Hanson, who survived. After
knocking Isaac’s younger brother Taylor unconscious with a lamp, she attacked his
girlfriend, young Halina Mitchell. During the scuffle with Mitchell, Maris was stabbed
twice as Miss Mitchell attempted to defend herself. It’s been said that Isaac Hanson
was the one who made the call to police, alerting them of the situation. When the
police officers arrived on the scene, young Isaac was found in the master bedroom
of the house, weak from loss of blood, yet alert. Taylor and Halina were both
holding down a vicious Carly Maris.
“One may ask why did Carly do this?” the female anchorwoman said, holding
her microphone right beneath her chin. “The answer was obtained easily from Maris
in an interview earlier this morning.” Noelle, er, Carly then appeared on the screen,
battered, but apparently in good condition. She sat behind a large table of
microphones in an orange prison jumpsuit and shackles.
“Whenever I was four years old, my father was sent to prison for a crime that
he didn’t commit. There has been no evidence to support the theory of his guilt or
innocense. Hallie’s father, Mr. Graham Mitchell is the lawyer that got my father
convicted. I’ve lost my father. I don’t think that it’s fair that I lost my father and
didn’t do anything to deserve that and yet Hallie and her daddy got to be together.
So, I decided to take the matter into my own hands and make things a little bit
more fair.” The camera man zoomed in on Carly’s face as she looked around at the
people before her, convinced that what she had done was right and just. She was
definitely a very disturbed individual, that’s all there was to it.
The anchorwoman reappeared on the screen and looked intensely, maybe
even honestly into the camera, a stern, serious expression on her face.
“Our prayers and condolences go out to the victims of this tragedy and their
families,” she said, and then the station’s logo appeared and a commercial began
playing. Taylor turned off the TV and looked around the room at the silent people.
“I still cannot believe that this all happened. It’s like a movie. Only, none of
the main people died.” He looked over at Hallie whose eyes were quickly tearing up.
Isaac noticed this and placed his hand over hers, carefully avoiding the needles, and
squeezed it. She looked up at him and grinning grimly.
“She’s going to be locked up, isn’t she?” Hallie asked, just above a whisper.
Isaac looked down at his broken foot. He was still in modorate shock that his
girlfriend had stabbed him, attacked Taylor and Hallie, and killed two children. Well,
ex-girlfriend would be the more correct term.
“Of course, Hal. She attacked five people and killed two of them. There’s not
a chance that she’ll be able to walk free. She’s going to need quite a bit of therapy.
She’s one messed up girl.”
“I sort of feel sorry for her. I mean, if her dad had been there instead of in
prison, I don’t think that this would have happened.” Taylor shook his head.
“Nah, she’s just got something wrong with her mentally. I mean, perfectly
normal people are missing parents or have them go to jail. Just because you’ve lost
that doesn’t justify attacking some people. She’s just a nut.” Zac nodded in
agreement.
“I should have known that she was crazy whenever she dated Ike for so long.
I mean, how can any sane person put up with that for so long?” he asked, gesturing
toward his oldest brother. Isaac smiled and shook his head.
“Oh just wait until I can run again,” he said. Zac stood up, ready to go and
smiling from ear to ear.
“I’ll race you to the cafeteria. I’m starving,” he said walking toward the door
and holding it open for Isaac as he struggled to stand up. Zac stood impatiently,
tapping his foot. “C’mon, Gimpy! I ain’t got all day!” he declared. Isaac grabbed his
crutches once he’d obtained balance and began hobbling over to Zac.
“You’re gonna think gimpy whenever I get finished with you, you little shit,”
he muttered as Zac raced down the hall laughing. The door slammed shut behind
him. Taylor looked over at Hallie and smiled deviously.
“What are you grinning about, geek?” she asked. He pushed his covers away
and then slowly slid out of his bed, wincing a little and then shuffling over to Hallie’s
bed, a mere two feet away. He lowered the rail on her bed and then climbed up onto
it with her, sliding beneath the covers. She giggled. “What are you doing?” she
asked. He grinned and put one of his arms around her.
“Well, I just figured that it would be a rare thing for our parents to allow us
to share a room with beds in it, so I should just take advantage of it.”
“I think that they agreed to it because they know we’re both injured and
won’t be up for doing much that involved vigorous movement,” Hallie said,
laughing. Taylor raised his eyebrows up and down.
“I would be up for trying, though. How about you?” Hallie smiled.
“If I only didn’t have a bullet in my side,” she said, shaking her head.
“I guess you’ll just have to settle for kissing me, then,” he said.
“Oh, I guess that’ll be good enough for me,” she said, smiling as his lips
touched hers. He leaned back a little and grinned at her.
