incorrigible

“I’m fucking sick of this!” I screamed, red in the face as I stared down my mother.

She blinked, staggering back as if the words actually hit her. Glancing over at my dad, she opened her mouth. I waited for her to say something, but she just stared at the ground. My dad spoke up. “Don’t speak to your mother like that, Hayden,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked uncomfortable; it was never him that started yelling or scolding me. It was usually my mother doing both.

The anger slowly drained from my muscles. The two of them stood across from me, avoiding eye contact and breathing deeply. I willed someone to say something. I was ready to argue, ready to defend myself. “You can’t treat me like this,” I said finally, hoping to add some fire to situation.

My mother’s head snapped towards me. “Hayden, what do you expect? You come home from school with bleeding knuckles and we get a call from the principal saying you got into another fight! We can’t just let you go off doing whatever you want!”

“I was defending my sister!” I yelled. “People have been making fun of her so bad she had to go stay at grandma’s for the week! What do you expect me to just sit back and watch while people call me sister retarded? You’d wanna kick the shit out of them too!”

Sighing, my father sat down at the kitchen table. “People are going to be mean, and you can’t fight everyone. It’s a lesson you’re going to have to learn. What do you think’s gonna happen when you have a boss and he says something you don’t like? Are you going to kick the shit out of him?”

“Is that the whole reason you wanted to fight them, Hayden? Are you sure it’s not because of Calvin?”

My face flushed. I felt red hot all over. “Shut up!” I screamed. My parents froze, and looked at me in horror. “That’s not my fault.”

They were silent for a moment before my father spoke up. “We know it’s not your fault honey. That’s why we want you to go to therapy. We think it would help you deal with a lot of your anger.”

“Have you ever considered that maybe I don’t have an anger problem? And that maybe it’s you guys just making everything worse?”

My mother brought her hand up to my face. “Don’t you dare blame this on us! You think we’re the ones who made you get in trouble with fighting? You think it’s us that caused you to fail your classes? You’re not living a very desirable life, Hayden! It’s not our fault you’re a failure!”

“Honey,” my dad warned.

But it was too late. The words had been said. I looked at my mother with contempt. At a loss for words, I shook my head. I felt like I was supposed to cry but there were no prick in my eyes or a lump in my throat.

Wordlessly, I turned and ran up the stairs.

That night I heard my mother and father yelling. And there was a lot of crying, from both. I was so sure that I should have felt guilty. But I didn’t. I didn’t feel anything, I don’t think. I just wanted to fall asleep, but I wouldn’t let myself. My mind was empty but buzzing at the same time.

Needless to say school was terrible.

I was falling asleep on my hand in chemistry. The deep, smooth voice of my horrifically elderly teacher wasn’t exactly helping, either. I continuously shot my eyes open in a half-hearted attempt to stay awake. Whatever empty buzzing that was in my head last night was gone. And it kind of pissed me off.

My eyes were fully closed when I felt something hit the side of my face. I flinched, eyes flying open. There was a crumbled up paper on my desk. Turning my head in the direction it came from, I heard snickers.

Of course, it was the lovely Morgan Jean and her lovely friends that solely served the purpose of being extra bodies to back her up. She winked at me, waving. Great.

With a feeling of dread, I slowly opened up the piece of paper, careful not to rip it. A hot rage boiled up as my eyes flickered over the words. I wanted to punch that dumb bitch in the fucking face.

In one swift movement I gathered my things and stormed towards the door. I threw the note in the trash and make sure to turn towards Morgan and flip her off. This just fueled her, as she smirked.

Everyone stared at me as I walked out the door. No one said anything, just watched as I marched on, alone.

There was no way I was going back to any classes. But I certainly wasn’t going home. There really was no place for me to go. This occurred to me once I reached the parking lot of the school.

I didn’t have a car, I couldn’t walk anywhere worth walking to. Defeated, I took a seat on the curb and stared. Tears worked their way up to the corner of my eyes, but I blinked them away; there was no way I was going to break down in front of school.

Gimme two weeks and I’ll make your sister kill herself. Don’t fuck with me again.

It would have made sense to storm down to the office and hand this in, but I am not a reasonable person, and maybe that’s what my parents meant when they said I have anger issues.

The anger inside me was dying down. The heat inside me was being replaced by the cold outside. I shivered in my short sleeved t-shirt. In my wrath, I didn’t bother to stop and get a sweatshirt. Unfortunately, I didn’t think when I was pissed.

Defeated, I stood from my spot and stretched my limbs. I was about to turn and leave when I saw a tall figure walking my way. He was talking on the phone, with a hoodie pulled over his hair and sunglasses. His voice was voice was low, rushed, and angry. Once he saw I was staring, he whispered something into the phone and abruptly ended the call.

“Can I help you?” I asked as he approached, trying to be at least polite. He looked like he was in a pissy mood, and I wasn’t about to make it worse. That would make me damn hypocritical.

He finally reached me and a ran a hand through his black hair anxiously. Biting his lip, he glanced around. “What the fuck are you doing?” he snapped, turning his attention towards me.

“Excuse me?”

He stepped closer to me and put a tight hand on my shoulder. I tried to pull away but his grip was like iron. He yanked me towards him, and I stared up at him. “You just fucked everything up. I don’t…I can’t…Shit.”

“What?” I exclaimed, trying to push him away, but before I could make contact he grabbed both my wrists with one hand.

He had some big fucking hands.

“What are you doing out here? You weren’t supposed to leave until two! Jesus Christ now I have to push everything forward and I don’t have enough time. Fuck!”

With that he realized me with a push, and I was officially terrified. I didn’t even look back before putting one foot in front of the other and trying to get the fuck out of there. I didn’t make it very far, however, before his arm snaked around my waist and pulled me close.

My struggled was short lived. He pinned my arms to my side and rested his chin on my shoulder. “From this moment on,” he whispered in my ear, “you obey me.” That was the last thing I remember before he put a damp cloth over my mouth and I felt my eyes close shut.




I generally pride myself on my strength. I was decently smart, an average student, and pretty enough. I was empathetic towards certain people and a monster towards others. Overall I was pretty ordinary. But I was strong. I’ve fought girls twice my and dealt with a whole lot of shit. If there was one thing I could be proud of, it was how tough I was, inside and out.

But I felt neither of those things when I woke up. I felt physically exhausted, as if I got hit by a bus. My limbs ached and my head was pounding. And I wanted to cry as soon as I took in my unfamiliar surroundings. It was a windowless room that belonged in a hospital; pristine with crisp white sheets and untouched white walls. I instantly began to panic. It was eerily silent, and I couldn’t handle it.

When I hopped off the bed, my legs were wobbly but I quickly regained my balance. I feared the floor would squeak under my weight but it stayed silent as I crept towards the door. Hesitantly, I reached for the knob, praying that it wasn’t locked.

I was almost expecting it to be, but was pleasantly surprised when it opened with ease, silently. I knew I had been kidnapped, the signs were obvious, but this was a sign that my attacker probably didn’t think this through.

It became clear I was in someone’s house. The room I was in was right next the stairs, which didn’t creak either. So far, escaping was easy.

The stairs brought me to a front hall. There was a door, right there, that led outside. There were voices drifting from down the hall. I recognized the low one, from the man that was one the phone. The other one was slightly higher, but definitely still manly.

It was too easy. I was dazed, confused, and unaware of my surroundings. The only thing I knew was that I needed to get the fuck out of there. But it seemed so simple that I assumed it was just a really, really realistic, elaborate dream.

Still, right then it seemed to be the only option I had. I sped towards the door and grabbed the knob and twisted it.

I realized suddenly it wouldn’t be as easy as I thought.

An alarm when off throughout the house, loud and piercing. Instinctively, I flinched covered my ears. The noise was god awful.

“You didn’t lock the door?” the higher voice called over the alarm. He sounded incredulous.

The alarm stopped before the other person spoke. “No point,” he replied simply.

I stood there, next to the door, waiting. I wasn’t sure for what, and somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking holy shit I should really run, but my feet were frozen into place.

It wasn’t long before I heard two sets of footsteps coming my way. The unfamiliar man came first. He was tall with skinny legs, elfish features and brown hair. He grinned at me, as if he found my situation amusing. But the man from the parking lot appeared behind him, and he looked pissed.

His sunglasses were off, and his eyes were a deep brown, and his hair had a blond streak going through the front. “Out of my way, Alex,” he said, pushing the other man out of the way.
He stepped towards me until he was standing close. He grabbed my chin and forced me to look up at him. “Don’t do that again,” he said sternly, locking his eyes on mine. “You already fucked up today enough, I don’t need any more trouble from you.”

“Ah c’mon, Jack, you gotta be at least a little nice to her,” Alex said, clearly very amused by the situation.

I was not. My heart was hammering in my chest. I couldn’t possibly find anything about this situation remotely positive. “Where the hell am I? Who the fuck are you people?” I questioned, trying to push myself away from this Jack guy, who seemed to be in control.

But he just pulled my face closer to him. “Don’t ask questions. You’re not gonna like the answers. For now, you’re to do what you’re told until things are secure,” he said, his eyes trailing away from me as he released my face, turning his back on me.

If I wasn’t so terrified and pissed, I would have found this situation ridiculous. “No! You better tell me what the fuck is going on! Take me home!”

Jack froze and tensed. “Ohh shit, you’re in trouble,” Alex said, somehow finding humor in this.

“Alex, shut the fuck up,” Jack snapped at his friend as he turned back towards me. Wordlessly, he wrapped his hand around my hair and yanked it, pulling me towards a living room and throwing me on a couch. My head throbbed as he stared down at me. “Do you remember what I told you? Before I brought you here?”

I was silent. I knew what he wanted me to say, but I refused to say it. He seemed to sense this, so he knelt down to face me. “I’m only going to ask you one more time; what did I tell you?”

I saw no reason to obey him, but honestly I was afraid of getting hurt. After a second of contemplation, I said through gritted teeth, “To obey you.”

Jack stood and narrowed his eyes at me. “Don’t use that tone with me ever again, but that’ll do for now. So, when I tell you to not ask questions, that means you shouldn’t ask any fucking questions. Understand?”

Locked jaw, I nodded. “I’m sorry Hayden I didn’t hear you. Do you understand?”

I was temporarily thrown off by how he knew my name. “How do you-“

“Do you understand?”

His tone was deadly. “Yes,” I said gulping.

“Good. As you’ll soon find out, obedience will be rewarded, and opposition will be punished, until we both establish trust.” I opened my mouth to speak, but his look silenced me. He nodded in approval. “If you obey in the next few hours, you will get answers. Understand?” he asked as if it was a challenge.

I had learned my lesson. I nodded.

“Good.”

Alex reappeared. “Hey Jack, we gotta go. Call is in thirty minutes.” He glanced down at me, and then back at Jack. “She’s gonna be tough. You sure you wanna do this?”

Jack’s shoulders tensed and he glanced down at me. I was surprised at his expression. He didn’t look pissed or hateful, but it was almost a loving expression. He looked at me like he cared about me, which I considered impossible. “Never been more sure,” he said, looking back at Alex. “But if we gotta go, get her bags. I’ll meet you in the car.”

His sidekick or friend or whatever obeyed, disappearing down the hall. There were loud footsteps as he stampeded up the stairs. Jack returned his attention to me. “You’re gonna be happy with me Hayden, I promise. Just wait.”

Notes