"Adam! Get off! What the hell is wrong with you!" It wasn't a question. He laughed and sat up, looking around as his little sister threw her blankets back. "Lex, you over slept, it's almost eight." She sat upright, icy blue eyes popping out of her head, like a hamster being squeezed too hard, blonde hair messy only on the top of her head. "What! Why didn't anyone wake me sooner? Get out!" She kicked him off her bed as she rolled out herself, and shoved him out the door, slamming it behind him.
Alexia dashed to her closet, and got dressed faster than she thought imaginable, then pulled a brush through her long hair and threw it up in a ponytail. She grabbed a black hooded sweatshirt off her desk chair, and her school bag and raced downstairs throwing it over her head. Her mother was at the door at the base of the stairs with two bags, one an insulated lunch bag, the other a small brown paper sack. Alexia stopped at the bottom step and grabbed her shoes. "You need to hurry, Adam went ahead to ask the bus driver to wait." She smiled up at her mother briefly,
"Thanks Mamma."
"You're welcome baby. There must have been a power outage last night. None of us was up on time. Your lunch is in your lunch bag, the paper bag has some heated poptarts to help tide you over till lunch. I lost track of time or I would have sent Adam up to wake you sooner."
She rose, book bag over her shoulder, and took the bags. She kissed her mother on the cheek and raced out the door calling behind her, "Thanks!" She ran down the walk and onto the sidewalk, racing through mud puddles in the rain, trying to make the bus at the stop a block away. As her foot went through a large puddle, a concealed hole twisted her ankle. She stumbled forward, in an attempt to stay out of the mud, she lost hold on the bags in her hands. She prevented herself from hitting the mud, and her lunch would be safe in the lined lunch bag. She couldn't, however, say the same for the poptarts that were now soaking in a steadily sinking, paper bag. In hopes she picked it up and looked inside, but the food was ruined. She grabbed her lunch and jogged the rest of the way to the bus.
"I am so, so sorry! Thank you so much for waiting." She said to the driver as she tossed her breakfast into the trash by his seat. The driver nodded to her and she found a seat. Opening her lunch bag she dug around. A sandwich, and an apple, along with a bottle of water. She sighed and grabbed the apple. It would have to suffice. She sank back against the window and watched the rain outside as the bus got on it's way to the next stop.
The bus filled up, laughter and friends meeting up for the day. None of her friends were on her route, and her older brother was at the back with the rest of his little group. She shrugged it off, they were close, but they weren't friends. He was her brother after all. As she looked out the window something flashed, just briefly, in her vision. She wasn't even sure what it was, just, something red on the street that shouldn't have been. Her nose twitched, was that burning rubber? Must have just been a sports car playing stupid in this weather.
She felt a weight beside her and looked over. Beside her sat a boy her age with sandy brown hair and green eyes. He was grinning wickedly at her as she raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Nathan Wagner had been a thorn in her side for years. "Hey preacher girl. How's Daddy?"
"I wouldn't know, I see him about as much as you see your mother."
He held up his finger to show he had a point to make. "Ah, but the difference is that my mother still at least talks to me. Your dad disowned you, right?"
"Yeah, what of it? Are you trying to get under my skin? Because it's not working. I hear it more often than not, and most people aren't creative enough to try anything new when it comes to insults."
"No, I'm not. I saw him leave the house in a damn near rage this morning. Really I just wanted you to know that tt was a really shitty thing of him to try and ostracize you to his own parish."
"Yeah, well, what can you do? He thinks he's right, and I know I am. I get it though. He's a bigoted preacher who doesn't believe in anything other than God and the Bible. So when one of his own household tells him she thinks his beliefs are wrong,.. Well it was only a matter of time. This is America, I have the right to chose whichever religion I want, and he is threatened by it. Like I said, I get it, it reduces his authority, doesn't it? How's it make him look to his flock if he can't keep his own daughter in the eyes of God."
"Yeah but to tell everyone in the church to turn away from you because God has?" Nathan shook his head. The previous Sunday, her father has told his parish that since his daughter had turned her face from God, they too were to turn their faces from her. He proclaimed that since she willing went into the arms of Lucifer himself, she had denied Jesus, and so God would deny her and all who consorted with her. She had not been present at the time. She had stopped attending church three months prior, choosing to believe that you can worship privately, you did not have to be in a church. Some weeks after that, she had moved away from Christianity completely.
Nathan leaned over, grinning again, "So. Tell me. Are you really a Satanist?"
"Not that I didn't consider it," she replied rolling her eyes, "but no. I am what you would call a Pagan. There is a world of difference, but the fact that the myth of Satanism was based on Pagan beliefs to get more Christian converts, it is really common to think they are one in the same. Pagans believe in magic, and reincarnation, but most importantly it is nature worship, with multiple deities."
He was quiet for a moment and then nodded, "I see." He was silent again, and Alexia went back to looking out her window. When Nathan spoke next, she could tell he was slightly uncomfortable, and yet knew it came from their childhood friendship. He still worried about her. "Lex, after we...after you and I stopped being friends...did things...y'nno, improve at all with your dad?"
She sighed keeping her eyes focused on the outside world. "You know he and I never once saw eye to eye. We have never been close, we never bonded. Even when I was little, as you remember, we fought constantly. He was a stubborn prig, and I was obstinate. I have always felt as if he hated me. I never knew why, I did everything I could think of and yet, I was never good enough. He never treated Adam like that. Never Lilly, or Becca. Just me. Straight A's? Adam already had that. Jr. Varsity team? Why wasn't I captain? President of the student council, archery, and chess clubs? I was just an over achieving show off and pride is a sin." She shook her head and looked at him. "Do you remember the year we played baseball together?"
He whistled at the memory, "Oh yeah, I remember. I remember you and your bother riding to games and practices with us because your dad left for the day and took your mom's car keys as well. He said it was sinful for you to be playing sports with boys."
"Things never improved. As as I got older, after you and I grew apart, they just got worse because I rebelled against him. I stood up for myself. I took solace in my activities and friends and the good book. But as I got older I realized what a crock most of it was. Oh don't get me wrong many of the morals still apply today, but unless Jesus was a straight up wizard, I sincerely doubt he walked on water. Had to be a sand bar. Moses didn't part the Red Sea, it was just low tide, and they were far enough a head of the Egyptians not to get caught in it when the tide returned. You know, things like that. But that wasn't even what turned me away. It was the hypocrisy. It was the book telling you to do one thing, then later the exact opposite. I started to doubt and question things. I was no longer at peace with my religion and so I sought a new one. One that was older and less demanding of my full obedience. You and I both know I am not obedient, whatever else I may be."
Nathan nodded in agreement. "I get it. I am also sorry that because of your dad, you'll be the talk of the school for a while. Your choices should be kept as yours alone. He shouldn't have shunned you for them either but welcomed you. Judge not lest ye be judged. He'll get his."
"That karma is a bitch, that's for sure. But I don't hate him for it. I have never hated him actually. I've always been hurt that he never accepted me though. I never knew why. I don't blame him, I can't because I know right now he is scared of all the new things that I am introducing to his world. And before that even started? I don't know. But I don't really hate him, I know he will get whats coming to him eventually, and for that I pity him. We barely spoke before all this started, now he won't even acknowledge when I'm in the room, he asks my mom why there is an empty place set at dinner when I'm sitting there. He has enough hate for both of us."
"It's gotta be hard not to be bitter, though."
"It is. But that's alright. I do it knowing that if I can keep that from my heart, that poison won't affect my life. Besides, I know it would make me a better Christian than him. And I can't resist the irony in that. It's the best revenge of all." The bus pulled to a stop in front of the school and Alexia rose, climbing over Nathan to get into the aisle.
"Hey! Wait!" He called after her. "Doesn't doing that for vengeance defeat the whole purpose though?" She looked back at the confused boy over her shoulder, grinned evilly, and left the bus.
As she moved through the crowd of teens entering the high school she saw a group in the corner of her eye, tall men with curved dark horns coming out the sides of their heads. She did a double take, thinking it wasn't Halloween yet, but they were gone. She blinked and went into the school confused.
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