Tremble

“Like what you see?” Asher asked the girl as her eyes climbed over his features, her eyes taking in the fitted shirt that hugged his chest and the angle of his chin before she took in the angles of his cheekbones and nose, her eyes momentarily glancing at his thin upper lip and his full bottom lip. Her bright brown eyes bore into his shadowy grey ones.

She cleared her throat and looked away from him, turning her head back toward the class and glancing through her peripherals at him. She turned her head toward the already-intimidating boy as she answered his question. “I have a boyfriend, sorry.”

Asher chuckled softly, the sound was like a melody to Kaden but she would never admit that, especially not to herself. He turned his eyes toward the teacher as she began to talk, but kept his head inclined towards Kaden. “I don’t remember that being the question, sweetheart.”

Kaden’s eyebrows rutted in soft confusion, building aggravation as her eyes flicked toward the handsome boy and then back towards the teacher. Only briefly before finding the teacher, she stared at the back of Callum’s head. “No, I don’t.”

“I can call your bluff. Did you know that any sort of skills you possess at lying are the worst I, personally, have ever seen?” Asher had leaned in just a tad closer as his lips became mere inches from her ear, his breath washing down her neck and her shoulders scrunched up to protect the sensitive skin.

She squirmed away from his breath and pushed herself into the counter connected to the table. She tried to focus on what the teacher was talking about. The topic of discussion was how alcoholism connects to domestic violence and adultery. She flipped the light switches down and asked Callum to pull the projector screen down as well.

The opening credits started to roll for the movie This Boy’s Life. Kaden leaned over and whispered quickly with defense and insult sticking thickly to her voice. “I wasn’t lying. I have a boyfriend and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“What your little boyfriend doesn’t know can’t possibly hurt him.” Asher whispered back slowly as he flipped to a new page in his sketchbook and picked through his bag for a sharpened pencil. It was a mental annoyance when his pencil was dull, he couldn’t work with it.

Kaden turned her eyes toward him, her petite body looked microscopic compared to his tall form, and this fact alone sent tremors of fear down her spine. How could he know he wanted her so badly? He didn’t even know her and he barely knew her name. Boys want what they can’t have. Kaden thought for a moment as she tucked a stray lock behind her ear, her eyes forced to stare at the screen instead of the stroke of his pencil.

She wondered how long her teacher had been showing this film, by the looks of it, Leonardo di Caprio looked only about ten years old, maybe older. Compared to how he looked now, she suspected this film was ancient history. She wanted to fill her mind with dumb thoughts, silly pondering thoughts so her eyes didn’t sneak a peek at what the boy beside her was drawing. She wanted to, she was well more than tempted to, but there was a sense of fear that echoed through her at the thought of his last drawing. If this one was anything quite similar, she was sure she didn’t want to see it.

When her eyes flicked to the side for a moment, she saw Asher glancing repeatedly at her. His eyes would glance down at the strokes his fingers made and then look back up at her with whole intention. He paused for a moment as his finger smudged the growing picture, his teeth sinking down to bite and drag a part of his lip into his mouth as he smudged some more. Kaden watched from her peripherals with subtle fascination as well as uncanny fear. She wanted to speak up and say something, but every time she felt she had the courage, it slipped away as his eyes grabbed hold of hers.

She finally decided that she was going to ask him what he drawing, demanding to see it and tear it to shreds since she was positive that whatever his sweeping fingers were creating, she was a part of it and that pushed a chill up her spine. “Don’t speak, stay like that.”

Her tongue ghosted against her lips and her eyes tried to pull away from his image, but there wasn’t any such luck with that. She was mesmerized in a way that she wouldn’t ever admit. The way his eyes stared intently at her, it pushed a tremble up her body in waves and shocks.

“Part your lips… a little more – stop.” His voice was a slow whisper, but it grew a growl on the last word. Kaden felt obligated to comply and let her mouth to slightly hang open as she looked between his face and the projector screen.

Her eyes looked at the clock. The five minute warning bell rang four and a half minutes ago. She watched Asher’s fingers smudge at the picture and the sweeping methods of his pencil continue in a sped-up fashion as his eyes glanced at the clock as well. Right when the bell rang, he ripped the drawing from the sketchbook, folded it quickly and drew a quick bow on it before he pushed it towards Kaden and walked away with his items under his arm.

She glanced at the drawing and looked up as Callum started to move his way back towards her. She felt fear lodge into her stomach, she was so compelled to look at the picture but so afraid that her boyfriend would see it. Torn between the two, she picked up the picture and pushed it into her bag, her fingers feeling over the satin-soft paper and retracting her hand as Callum reached her.

She circled her arms around his neck and hugged him for a quick second as his arms reached around her waist to push her into him. They pulled apart and tangled their fingers together, heading for their shared locker before he’d walk her to her class. As much as she loved spending time with Callum and being in his presence, she wanted nothing more in this moment to unravel the picture and see what horrors lay behind it.

“Did you see the way he looked at you?” Callum grumbled as his hands clamped around hers with a tight squeeze.

She looked at him and started to giggle, her hand tapping against her chest as she leaned into him. “Are you jealous? You are not jealous. Oh, Cal!” her arms went around his midsection as she hugged herself close to him. “There’s nothing to be jealous about.”

“I’m not jealous, I’m worried.” His arm came down around her low shoulders as she pressed her ear to the level of her shoulder. He held her close and pressed a kiss atop her head as they walked away from their second floor locker.

Her eyebrow perched up into an arch as she slapped his chest. “What could you possibly be worried about, dear? Why does that worry you? It’s not like he’s going to hurt me or anything.”

“He’s a freak, Kade. He’s a seriously demented, damaged freak. I don’t want my girl around that. I saw him just,” there was a pause as Callum thought of the word and emphasizing on it when he did, “staring are you when he got back to the seat. He would look down and then up, down and up. I’m not jealous, I’m really not. I’m just worried that he’s going to go all psycho killer on us all.”

She slapped his chest again as they rounded closer to her classroom, her hand hitting twice as hard. Her face was contorted between agreeing and disagreeing. She felt like she had to defend him, but at the same time, she had thought the same thing. She knew he scared her, and she didn’t have a particular reason to back herself up besides the picture he drew. Still, she felt like she had to defend him for they didn’t know a single thing about him except that he lived with his aunt because his parents wanted to get rid of him and that he lived in Australia. Which should have been enough for the girl to keep her lips sealed and just agree, but she didn’t think all the way through to that. “He’s not. You have nothing to be worried about, baby. I’m fine, you’re fine, and he’s fine. Nothing is going to happen, okay? Nothing bad is going to happen.”

Callum took the girl tightly into his arms, his lips caressing her cheek softly before he pulled away. She reached onto her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his lips before she retreated into the room. She loved being with him, being held in his arms, but right now she wanted to unfold the paper and see what Asher had drawn for her – of her.

She looked around at the still somewhat deserted classroom and pulled the paper out of her bag. She unfolded it and smoothed out the creases the best she could, careful not to smudge more than he wanted it to be. She stood over the picture as her eyes scaled over every small, significant detail and her hand pressed gently to the parted lips to stop the breath from coming out loud and jagged.

The picture was a perfect sketch of Kaden’s head tipped over Asher’s shoulder as his hand gripped her throat in strained, soft fingers, his thumb pushing into the pressure point beneath her jaw that forced her lips to part and her eyes to stare up at his face. His face was turned down to look into her eyes. His lips were parted as well, small smile lines in the corner of his mouth that brought the shivers over the girl’s sketched skin. A piece of her hair curled around her cheek and a few strands of his hair were over his dark eyes. Kaden’s eyes scaled over the picture until she found faded letters, forming perfect calligraphy that spelled “Soon”.

“Do you like it?”

Kaden spun on her heel and almost slammed her head against Asher’s shoulder, her eyes snapping straight to look up into his, instantly lost in the dark depth of the orbs boring into hers. His hand reached slowly to caress her neck before he laughed once and spun away from her. “I knew you would.”

“What is this?” Kaden demanded in a feeble voice as she wrapped her fingers around the image and held it up, shaking it slightly to get her point across.

Asher held his hands up for a moment, defense thick within the gesture. “Calm down, you’re going to smudge it.”

Kaden set the picture back down on the desk after carefully folding it, her eyes never leaving Asher’s while she executed the act. Her full lips became thin in a tight embrace, picking her bag up and shoving the paper deep into its confines. “Answer the question.”

He was only a couple feet from her as he leaned against the desk, his hands behind him to brace and grip against it as he slanted his torso and bent one of his long legs for comfort. His voice came out slow, like he wanted her to grip onto every word. “I don’t have to answer you anything, Kaden. That’s the beauty of it.”

People started to flood into the room as the two teenagers stared at each other, their eyes narrowed and willing the other person to blink or back down. What she was hoping Asher wouldn’t notice was the soft shake in her hands as she stared at him. All she could think was that a provocative, sexy, inappropriate picture was hiding inside her bag and the silent promise at the bottom of the page made her uneasy.

As more people filed into the room, the stronger the tension was between the two, the more their eyes searched through the others. She wanted to tell him to leave her alone, but she suspected that it wouldn’t be that easy. He wanted her to scream at him, exert some of the pent up energy she felt from the picture and aim it back at him. He wanted to see her body heat up and ignite the spark of anger and unnerving that laid dormant inside her. He could see her hands shaking as they lay limply at her sides, her eyes finally tore away. She sat down in her seat and didn’t look over at him for the entirety of the class. She couldn’t be bothered to give him what he wanted, and what he wanted was a reaction.

When she looked away from him, he wanted to scream, yell for her eyes to dare not look away from his. He wanted to pluck her petite form from her seat and slam her back against the wall, his hand at her neck as he controlled with one finger on which way her head would turn. Asher didn’t usually get attached to things, especially not people and especially not before he messed with their mind a little bit. And he hadn’t done that to Kaden – oh, but now he would. He would terrify her, and it seemed that the possibilities were endless on how he could accomplish that.