Stalker - Clarissa Wild Page 0,4
isn’t a lot of money. At least, that’s what they tell us. Sometimes I wish I had more toys to play with, or friends who don’t want to steal everything that belongs to me.
I rush after him, skipping stairs to catch up. He’s downstairs in the dining hall, trying to hide behind the other kids and use them like a shield.
“Give it back,” I growl.
“No, why would I? You don’t deserve it,” he says.
“It’s my toy. You have your own.”
“I don’t have enough,” he says, holding Phoenix with both hands, almost tearing off his head.
“Stop, you’re breaking it!”
“So what?” He pulls harder. “Are you afraid? Miles is afraihaid, Miles is afraihaid!” He’s chanting now, pissing me off so much that I want to hit him. Everybody starts laughing when they see my angry face.
“Miles is a loser!” The more he says it, the more the group joins in, and soon it’s all I hear.
I can’t take it anymore. I want my toy back, and I want them to leave me alone.
When my patience runs out, I push the kid he’s hiding behind so hard they both tumble on the floor, and then I grab the kid and punch his face repeatedly. The toy drops from his hand as he tries to block the attacks and prevent my fist from coming down, but I’m too quick.
“Fight, fight, fight!” the kids around us yell.
I keep punching and kicking, letting all my rage out on him.
“Stop!” he yells, but I pay no attention to his screams.
All I can think about is the blood pouring from his nose and the teeth flying around the room.
“Nobody. Touches. My. Toy,” I growl, hitting him in the face with each syllable.
“Please! Stop!” he begs, scratching my arms.
“I hate you!” I scream. “I hate all of you!”
I punch him so hard that my knuckles hurt, and I see red in front of my eyes. All I can think about is kicking his ass so hard that he’ll never be able to steal from me again. This is the last time that he’ll taunt me, the last time that he’ll tease me, the last time that anyone will ever try to hurt me again.
After a few minutes, the caretakers come and drag me away from him before I’m able to grab Phoenix. “What is this? How dare you assault a boy like that!”
“He stole my toy,” I say, folding my arms while staring at the toy.
“I don’t care what he did. You put your hands on him. We. Don’t. Punch. People.” She keeps tapping on my nose after each word, as if it’s supposed to impress me.
But all I can think about is killing the kid lying on the ground, bleeding, pleading for help.
The caretaker sighs roughly. “Here we go again.”
The whole room is quietly staring at me as she drags me out the door and up the stairs.
“You had to do it again, didn’t you? You just couldn’t keep your hands off him.”
“He keeps bullying me.”
“What did I just say?” she says, gazing back at me with a look that could kill. “We don’t touch other kids in here, Miles. You should know that by now. I guess it’s time for you to learn that lesson the hard way.”
She pushes me into my room. “I don’t want to hear any sound coming from here for the next few hours. Got that?”
I sit down on the bed. “But what about dinner?” I look at the clock, it’s almost six, and my stomach is growling.
She makes a face. “Bad kids don’t get food.”
And then she slams the door shut.
I run to the door, banging on it with my fists. “Wait! You can’t do that! I’m hungry!”
“Maybe you should try being friends with the kids first. Maybe then you won’t be so hungry,” she muses through the door.
“They don’t want to be friends with me. None of them do. They only want to tease me.”
“Maybe it isn’t them. Maybe it’s you,” she sneers. “No wonder your parents left you here.” She clears her throat, and then I hear her clicking heels as she walks down the stairs, leaving me upstairs all by myself.
My fingers scratch the wood as I sink to the floor. I try to think of happy things, but I come up empty. There’s nothing happy about this place, and I don’t remember a single day when I wasn’t in here.
Alone in my room, without a toy to play with and only the ticking clock as company, I waste