The Athena Effect

  ~

  “I knew it,” Phil said smugly.

  She tried to brush past him to get to her room, but he moved to block her. He was drunk, confrontational, and pulsing with an ugly brownish red. It was a dangerous combination.

  “Where’s Aunt Angie?” Cal asked, backing up.

  He advanced on her, a stinking cloud of sour frustration. “You little tramp! Now I know what you’ve been up to when you sneak out of here at night. I saw you with that punk.”

  “Did Angie get home yet?” she asked, her voice higher pitched with fear. He took a step closer, backing her to the door.

  He leered at her. “Do you put out for all the boys, or just those bikers down the street?”

  She spun around and darted back out the front door.

  Cal ran down the walkway and out into the dark street. She never wanted to go back into that house ever again. Her mind was racing, wondering how far away she could get with her money. She thought about the scary man at the bus station, remembering that the world was a dangerous place, full of predators. She set out down the street, not sure where she should go.

  She didn’t even have her knife for company.

  Cal was scared and cold, thinking that she probably should have taken her chances with Calvin and his brother. She headed back towards his house hesitantly, trying to work up her courage. Maybe he’d know what to do. Maybe if she gave him all of her money he would give her a ride back home on his motorcycle, and she could hide in her parents’ little cabin without anyone knowing.

  She was suddenly afraid that she could never find her way back to the remote place, panicking when she tried to remember the long, grief-filled ride to the sheriff’s house. Her memories were slipping away, and life back home was already starting to seem like something that happened a long time ago. She struggled to remember her parents’ faces, scared she would lose the last trace that remained of them.

  She closed in on Cal’s house to find that the party had gotten even louder. Slowing her pace, she crept past the motorcycles to peek in nervously from the shadows. A group of about ten people stood around a fire pit, laughing, drinking and smoking. All of the women had on skimpy outfits, their low-cut tops revealing a lot of cleavage despite the nighttime chill that was settling in.

  She scanned the crowd anxiously, spotting Cal’s shaggy head with a little gasp of relief. He was sitting in a plastic chair by the fire, draining a bottle of something. He looked up and smiled his crooked smile, and her heart leapt into her throat.

  A girl in a short skirt approached him, returning his smile and waving two more bottles in her hands. She handed him one and he tossed the empty over his shoulder with determination before reaching out for it. She flipped her straight blonde hair over her shoulder, and plunked down on his lap casually, playing with his hair while he drank from the second bottle, his other hand on her thigh.

  Cali’s face burned with a sudden flash of heat. She backed up, turned around and fled as fast as she could. She was stupid, she thought, going to him for help. She walked off into the dark night, looking over her shoulder anxiously, realizing that she was completely, utterly, on her own.