Watch Your Back!

• Melanie Sambrook, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2014

Watch Your Back!
‘Perfection.’ That was the word that instantly popped into anyone’s mind when they heard the name Victoria Black. And she was just that. Perfect. Midnight black hair, sky blue eyes, intelligent smile and the ability to make absolutely anyone like her. Except me.
She may be popular, she may be stunning, but I knew things about Victoria that no one ever would. I knew her secret. She knew I did and she hated me for it. The stares I got sent shivers down my spine. If looks could kill I would have been six feet under the day I discovered Victoria’s dark secret.
Everyone loved her. She was every teacher’s pet and the topic of all the boy’s conversations. If only they knew the real Victoria.
I was one of the nerds, unpopular, weird, scum. These were the names that didn’t hurt anymore. What did hurt was knowing the secret that could change so many lives and not having anyone to tell. Knowing that if I did, it was anyone’s guess, what Victoria would do to me. How she would make me suffer. Who she would hurt, just to destroy me.
I didn’t have many friends, but the ones I did, they were my everything, and they were all I had. For Victoria, taking them away from me would be the easiest thing she has ever done.
Now and then I would see the dark flicker in her eyes. She knew when I saw it and gave me the deathly stare that said ‘keep your mouth shut or else.’ And I knew better than to tell. I’d seen what she could do before. Some might say I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I just call it unlucky.
The warehouse was where I discovered her secret and where my life changed.
I was walking home from school and decided to search the warehouse for fun. I was wrong.
Victoria and her boyfriend were there too and I seemed to have walked into a heated argument. He said “It’s over.” That was the biggest mistake he ever made and his last. Her eyes turned pure black. I don’t know what she did or how she did it. She glared at him and he dropped. His legs crumpled beneath him and he fell to the floor. Dead. Victoria turned and stared at me. I bolted before I met the same fate.
It was all over the news. ‘Boy found dead in warehouse, cause of death-unknown’. But I knew and it was the reason my nights were filled with nightmares.
Everyday at school I avoided her gaze. But she always found a way to keep me quiet. Notes in my locker ‘watch your back’. Letters in my backpack ‘I’ll get you if you tell’. The threats kept coming but I stayed quiet.
I didn’t know how long I’d have this burden but as long as my friends and family were safe, so was Victoria’s dark secret.

By Mel Sambrook