CHAPTER ELEVEN
[11]

song: friday i'm in love by the cure

THE AUTUMN DRESSED HERSELF FOR THE COMING SEASON, donning her most vibrant hues. She has swept into the streets and woodlands of the small town of Wayward, Oregon with a humble boldness that invites the eye to see more than they otherwise might. Jack-o-Lanterns lined the front porches of neighboring houses, hanging skeletons and makeshift graveyards filled their front lawns.

The halls of Wayward high were not much different. Fake cobwebs hung from locker to locker, orange and black streamers fell from the ceilings. Daisy hung her head low to avoid knocking them down.

While it had been a week since Jenna Silvey was killed, the tension still lingered in the fall breeze. Some people didn't know what to do with themselves, wondering if all the Halloween festivities were almost a bit insensitive.

Yet, people persisted that things carried on as normal— as Halloween was a big deal in Wayward, they spent the entire month of October celebrating, not just the 31st.

"Hey." Jen says, joining Daisy at her side as she walked down the hall. "You're going to Fall Fest with me tonight, right?" She asks.

Daisy frowns. "I told Tommy I'd go with him." She says, pushing through a group of people who decided to have their conversation in the middle of a hallway.

"Cool." Jen nodded. "He can come along."

Daisy laughed lightly. "I think he wants it to be just us two."

"It's 'just you two' every night, now." Jen rolls her eyes, then tugs on Daisy's arm. "Come onnn, we go together every year. This is our thing." Jen whined.

Daisy nodded, knowing Jen was right. "Okay, okay." She says. "I'll talk to him."

Jen smiles and continues walking as normal. "Good." She says happily. "I'll see if Jo can come, too."

Daisy's heart skipped a beat. "Uh—" She began, trying to word this right. "Don't you want it to be just us two?" Daisy asked.

Daisy loved Josette, and she didn't mind if she came at all— it was Josette's counterpart she was more worried about. Although Daisy and Kai sat together in first period every day, they hadn't spoken at all since that night. It was complete, painful, silence for forty-five minutes a day. Daisy couldn't tell if he was feeling just as awkward as her, or if he was using the silence to torture her.

"You mean me, you, and Tommy?" Jen raises an eyebrow.

Daisy swallows, knowing there was no way out of this without hurting Josette's feelings. "Yeah." She shook her head. "Never mind."

—

It was dark enough for the owls to tuck in, but the stalls and booths set beyond her vibrated under the moonless night. Most people wandered from stall to stall, purchasing funnel cakes and skewered meat.

Faint music could be heard from beyond the tall gates with the occasional happy scream suddenly piercing the air. Closer to the entrance and the massive structures of the rides could be seen: a rollercoaster, a big wheel, a Helter Skelter. Below, younger children stood watching, eating their sweets and snacks.

Daisy shoved her hands in her jacket pocket, the crisp autumn air finally getting to her as she walked beside Tommy, her boots kicking up dirt as she took each step on the temporary carnival grounds.

"We'll be riding that." Tommy says, gesturing towards a ride that could've been mistaken for a medieval torture device.

"No we will not." Daisy says. Daisy was daring, but not when it came to carnival rides. If it got put together in one day— then she had about a ten percent chance of survival.

"There's Jen." Tommy says, turning the direction that they were walking towards the ticket booth, where Jen, Jo, and Kai, stood in line.

Daisy's heart beat increased as they got closer. There was no reason to be awkward. She kept telling herself. "Finally." Jen says. "We've been waiting for you guys for like ten minutes."

"Daisy had to make sure her outfit was okay." Tommy smiled, Daisy gave him a stern look. She then turns back to Jen who asked for five tickets at the booth, before she distributed them amongst everyone.

As they walked in together, Daisy and Tommy stayed side by side, same with Jen and Josette, Kai lingered behind everyone, following them wherever they went— clearly not by choice.

"Let's do this!" Josette says, gesturing towards a carnival booth focused on throwing pins at balloons. The group turned directions, approaching the booth.

"Tommy has to win Daisy a prize." Jen suggests.

Daisy snorts. "Not a problem." Tommy says, with sarcastic confidence. He hands the booth worker a dollar in exchange for three darts, and everyone take a step back as he gets in position.

"Don't embarrass yourself, now." Jen adds.

"Always so supportive, Jen." Tommy says, squinting an eye to aim the dart at the balloon he wanted to pop.

Daisy smiled faintly as she watched Tommy throw the dart forward, and right before it hit the balloon— the momentum from his throw practically dropped, and the dart fell to the ground. It was quiet for a second before Jen let out a giggle. Daisy looked at her and lightly shook her head, she didn't want Tommy to feel embarrassed. 

Tommy grabbed the next dart, focusing, aiming, and throwing it forward again, only to watch the same thing happen. It was a sensation Daisy had never seen before— there booth must've been heavily rigged.

Tommy gives the booth worker a frustrated huff, but the man didn't even seem to be paying attention. Tommy grabbed the last dart, throwing it forward for the last time. This time, the dart didn't just drop— Daisy could've sworn she watched it freeze in place for a split second before it fell to the ground.

"Come on, man." Tommy flails his hands out to the side frustratedly as he turns to the booth worker again. "What is it? Like magnets, or something?"

Daisy turns around. "Did you guys see that too?" She asks. Jen looked pretty oblivious to what was happening, only hiding a smile at Tommy's defeat. Daisy's eyes fall over to Josette, who was sternly whispering something to her brother, who had a pleased look on his face.

Daisy turns back around. "Let's just go get snacks." She says, pulling Tommy away from the booth and moving on.

Tommy put his arm around Daisy's shoulders as they walked, he then glanced behind him, and then turned back around. "Why is he here?" He whispered quietly.

Daisy glanced to see who he looked like, catching a glance at Kai who looked bored as he lingered behind. "He's Josette's brother." Daisy responds.

"I don't bring my brother to everything I do." Tommy scoffs.

Daisy swallows. "I know, I think their parents make them stay together a lot of the time." She shrugs.

Tommy glances behind him again. "I don't like him." He says. Daisy continues walking, not wanting to further the conversation. She then hears someone hollering for Tommy over by the Helter Skelter. She looks up to see Mark and the rest of Tommy's friends, one of which were puking into a trashcan as they'd just gotten off the ride.

"You gotta do this, dude." Mark says in between laughs, walking over to Tommy. "Steve's been blowing chunks for ten minutes."

Tommy laughs loudly and Daisy widens her eyes a bit as his overexcitement at puking. "Holy shit." He laughs, he turns to Daisy. "You sure you don't want to ride it?"

"Very sure." Daisy nods.

Tommy looks past Daisy to Jen and Josette, "Are you guys chickens too?" He asks, raising an eyebrow. Daisy lightly hits his arm and he laughs.

"Course not." Jen says, and she walks past Daisy with Josette linked to her arm. As Josette passes Daisy, she gives her a worried expression as she was most definitely a chicken.

Daisy watches as Tommy, Jen, and Josette catch up with Mark to ride the Helter Skelter again— and it didn't take long for her to realize who else stayed back.

"Alone at last." Kai spoke from behind Daisy. She inhaled sharply at his voice, then turned around to face him, eyeing him warily. While his eyes looked bored, he had a grim smile tugging at his lips. She clenched her jaw, trying to think of a snarky remark to say back. "I have something for you." He says.

Daisy was taken back for a second. At this point he could hand her the most bizarre, random thing she could imagine and she still wouldn't be surprised. "What?" She asks.

Kai looks around over his shoulder, then gestures for Daisy to follow him, already beginning to walk away from the crowd before she could protest.

The music from the carnival began to fade as they walked farther away from it. He walked over to an alley that lined a neighboring shop, and Daisy stopped following him as he came to a pause in the alley.

"Come on." Kai says.

She shook her head. "Show me what you have first." She said, she was risky sometimes, but she wasn't an idiot.

Kai scoffed, reaching in his jacket pocket to pull out a bag of pills. It was weird to be relaxed at the sight of drugs. She huffed, looking around before following him all the way into the alley that was a good distance away from the crowd.

"I told you I don't want to get high with you." Daisy says.

Kai sighs, putting them back into his pocket until he was ready. "These were expensive, and I'm offering these to you for free." Kai says. "At this point— it's almost rude to decline." He shrugs over dramatically.

Daisy raised her chin and examined him. "Are you trying to deal me drugs or did you just want to get me alone?"

Kai smirked faintly at her. "Why would I want to be alone with you?" He asked, cocking his head to the side.

Daisy clenched her jaw. He was right, acid tabs were expensive— and hard to get in Wayward. "Fine." She huffs, holding her hand out.

Kai smiled, reaching back into his pocket and tossing her the baggy with tiny square sheets of paper inside it. After catching it, she quickly shoved it into her jacket pocket, and looked out both sides of the alley to make sure no one saw.

"I feel like there's a catch that I'm not hearing." She sighs, leaning against the opposite brick wall.

Kai shrugs. "No catch." He says. "But maybe after a few times you'll finally relax."

She narrowed her eyebrows at him. "I am relaxed."

He clicked his tongue and shook his head. "You think you're relaxed."

Daisy scoffed, watching him as he spoke. "Deep." She said sarcastically.

"There they are." Josette says, walking quickly over to the alley with Jen and Tommy behind her. Daisy leans up off the wall and walks towards them, Kai behind her. "What were you doing?" Josette asks, mostly speaking to Kai.

Tommy eyes Kai warily as Daisy walks over to stand behind him, reuniting on the dirt ground of the carnival— the sounds of laughing children and drunk parents refilling their ears.

"Nothing." Kai shrugged it off.

Daisy looked up at Tommy. "How was it?" She asks, raising her eyebrows.

"It was fine." Tommy says, his eyes falling off of Kai and back to Daisy. Kai scoffed, and Tommy snapped his head back to look at him. "I'm sorry— do you have a problem, man?" Tommy says, narrowing his eyes at Kai and taking a step towards him.

Daisy swallowed, waiting for Kai to take that smug expression off his face before Tommy did it for him. "None at all." Kai sighs happily.

Tommy took another step towards Kai. "I don't like your fucking attitude, dude." Tommy says.

Daisy didn't like the way he was speaking, the way he was trying to make himself feel big. She pulled her hand out of her jacket pocket, latching onto Tommy's arm to pull him back— the acid tabs falling out of her pocket with her hands.

"What are those?!" Jen whispers, pointing to the ground with wide eyes.

Daisy quickly leaned down to pick them up off the ground, shoving them back in her pocket and looking up to see Tommy's angry expression. "Where'd you get those?" He asked with narrowed eyebrows.

"Doesn't matter." Daisy swallows. "Why don't you go get me a coke?" She suggests quickly, trying to change the subject.

Tommy's angry expression falls off Daisy and he turns to readjust it on Kai. "Are you selling my girlfriend drugs?" He asks, anger fueling his voice.

"Well technically I didn't sell them— I gave them to her for free." Kai shrugs lazily.

Daisy didn't even realize what was happening before she heard a loud smack, and Kai was stumbling back. Tommy threw his body weight behind the fist that edged closer to Kai's face for the next punch, it hit his jaw with such force blood pooled into Kai's mouth, knocking him down onto the ground.

At that point, Daisy was on top of Tommy, pulling him away from Kai with as much strength that she could muster— but it was difficult when he was an entire foot taller than her and had more muscle in his arms than Daisy did in her whole body. Josette stood frozen in fear, unsure of what to do, but her hand was covering her mouth as her body rejected movement. 

Kai didn't fight back, just took the punches with a smile on his face— only making Tommy angrier. Tommy pushed Daisy off of him, making her stumble back a bit at his force. Tommy bent down, grabbing onto Kai's collar and shaking him.

Daisy's eyes widened at what was happening in front of her. Should she intervene again? Or would that make it worse? She didn't know what to do— she didn't know how far Tommy would take it.

Tommy shook Kai and got in his face. "Don't fucking speak to her again—" He yells in his face. "Don't even look at her!"

Daisy held her breath, hoping to keep herself from screaming into tears. Kai didn't seem fazed, instead— he smiled, blood covering his teeth as it poured down from his nose.

Tommy brought his fist up to hit him again but Daisy lunged forward, clutching onto his body and yanking him off of Kai with every ounce of energy she had left. She almost toppled over as Tommy's weight fell onto her, but he got his feed on the ground again and panted heavily.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Daisy shouts, watching as his eyes stayed glued on Kai.

Tommy directs his attention to Daisy. "Fuck him." He spits.

Daisy turns back around, Josette was sobbing— helping her brother up to his feet. Kai's movements were slow and weak, much like Daisy's were only a few days ago. He wiped the blood off his lips with his thumb and scoffed.

She turned back to Tommy, fury raging through her lungs. "Take me home. Now."