From Heaven and Hell by Lori Lucifer (top 100 books to read txt) 📕

“Hey Jess, you look flushed. Are you feeling okay?” My friend Rebekah whispers in her helium pitched voice. I fan myself with a piece of paper and nod. She leans away and smooths her ponytail. I want to rip it out. I totally didn’t even consider bringing a hair tie. I feel like I’m going to die. I look up at the board and realize that I’m supposed to be taking notes. I grudgingly take the pencil out of my hair and put my pencil on the paper. At first my name looks weird: Padlý Anděl. After blinking a few times, it just gets worse. Najít další Angels. I close my eye, pressing them into my skull. Everytime I open them, something new is different with my surroundings. By the time I raise my hand to go to the nurse, everything is ten times more vibrant and twenty times more shaky.

“Yes Ms. Newman?” Mr. Arch asks me. His face glows, making me squint.

“Can I go to the nurse? I feel horrible.” I mumble. He examines my face, then nods.

“Go ahead. I hope you feel better.” I wobbly stand up. The room shifts the wrong way and I fall to one knee. Everyone turns to look at me. I raise a hand, shielding my eyes. All of their faces are way too bright. I squeeze my eyes shut.

“Jessica? Are you okay?” A voice asks me. It sounds like a crowd of people shouting. I hear the voice again right before I black out;

“Voda”

I stop running and bend over, gagging my brains out. I am so out of shape. The only reason I'm not obese is because I walk everywhere. I take my slightly damp hair out of it’s ponytail and run my fingers through it.

“Mari, you’re already winded? We just ran for at least three minutes.” Ariel scolds. I huff at her.

She laughs, her silky caramel hair bouncing above her shoulders. I tie my ratty hair back into a knot and start jogging. I breath in the smell of fresh cut grass and oncoming rain. I feel my hair tickle the back of my neck. Ariel smiles at me and runs ahead. I stop when I feel a weight on my feet. I look down and see nothing. The heavy feeling starts crawling up my legs. I kick out a leg, trying to get the feeling to leave. The feeling crawls into my stomach. All of my muscles clench and I freeze. I see Ariel turn back and see me. She starts jogging back towards me.

“Mari! What’s wrong with you?” She asks, slightly annoyed. I try to yell at her, to get help, but my mouth won’t move. The heaviness enters my head and my vision starts to darken. I hear a thousand voices say a single word;

“Příroda”

I hate class. That’s why I’m sitting on the roof of the school instead of attending Math. I hear a door below me squeak open and the hushed giggles of a couple of girls. I crawl to the edge and look over to see two of my friends, Esme and Micah. Esme has the basic scene hair and a septum piercing. Micah has dreadlocks. Above them I whistle a tuneless song. They look up and smile. They head around to the latter that runs up the side of the building. Since Esme is tiny, Micah helps her up onto the bottom rung. I move out of the way so they can climb up. Esme pulls out her small compact mirror and checks her bangs. I roll my eyes and toss Micah a cigarette. She pulls out her pink and purple lighter. I play with the hem of my shirt. Micah blows out a puff of smoke at me.

“Has anyone seen Met today?” Esme asks us both. Micah shrugs.

“I thought he said he was coming today” I say. Met is Esme’s boyfriend. They’ve been dating since freshman year. We’re juniors now. He skips school a lot to work at the tattoo shop. He’s a tattoo artist. He did my first tattoo, an upside down cross on the back of my neck.

“He said he was, but I haven’t seen him in any of our classes.” Esme huffs. Micah grins at her with black lips.

“Maybe he’s planning a surprise for you.” She sings in a sweet voice. Esme’s head shoots up.

“He better not be! He knows how much I hate surprises!” She stands up and fishes out her phone. She dials and walks away from us, fist clenched.

Micah looks at me and makes an over exaggerated angry face, then blows smoke out of her nose. I laugh. Micah likes messing with people. I look out over the parking lot and a gust of wind blows my hair everywhere. I suddenly feel lightheaded and my elbow gives out underneath my weight. I slump onto my side breath out. My vision starts swirling. I hear Micah’s voice in the distance. A booming choir of voices speaks one word before I lose consciousness.   

“Vítr”

I can feel the grimace on my face as I glare at Sasha. He laughs as Nikki says something. His stupid hair flops over the back of his stupid neck. I used to have a huge crush on Sasha. Than I found out how much of an asshat he is. I tap my pencil on the edge of my table. Next to me I can see Gabriel getting pissed off by the sound. Just as Sasha opens his mouth to say something back to Nikki, I snap the pencil and fling one half at Sasha’s head. It skims his cheek and he yells in surprise. He looks at me with wide eyes.

“What the hell Lzzy?” He stammers. I shrug and lean back in my chair, my anger settling. The teacher looks up from his desk.

“What's going on?” he asks. Sasha points at me.

“She’s insane. She just threw a pencil at me, a-and it drew blood!” He yells. I roll my eyes. I did not throw it that hard.   

“You’re such a pussy Sasha.” I say bitterly. He balls up his fists.

“Leave him alone you psychopath!” Nikki says as she rests her hand on his arm. I stand up, hearing the screeching sound of my chair moving back. Nikki and Sasha move back. I shove my hands into my pockets and head to the door of the class. The teacher isn’t talking. Or moving. I stop, inspecting him. He just is sitting there, staring at where I used to be. I look back at Sasha and Nikki. They haven’t moved from there places either. I pivot, surveying the whole room. Everyone is frozen. The entire room is silent. I choke as a heat suddenly shoots up from my chest into my lungs. I fall to my knees and clutch my neck. The room starts to shimmer and I slump onto my stomach.

“Požární”

Publication Date: 05-14-2015

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