Bladed Wings Read Free

Timothy spun around and searched, splashing through the water, but he was alone. The water was clear. There wasn’t a body. Water dripped from his clothes, his hair was messed up, and he couldn’t see proof of what just happened. Confused, freaked out, Timothy stumbled out into the hall.
                  And there stood three of the students from his class.
                  “What happened?” Amy asked. Her forehead crinkled as she looked like someone who wanted very much to laugh.
                  “I need to get out of here,” Timothy said. He jogged down the hall back to the emergency exit. He passed the spot where the guy with the spikes disappeared. There weren’t any burns. There wasn’t any evidence that something happened. He pushed through the door and ran to his car, wet and itchy, without any explanations.
     
                  “Dude, you okay?” Jeremiah asked as he slid into the seat across from Timothy. A mostly full soda sat in front of Timothy, his reason for sitting in a fast-food restaurant. “You’re soaked.”
                  “I’m—” he stopped, swallowed, “I don’t know.”
                  Jeremiah tilted his head, “What happened?”
                  “I, uh, I tripped.”
                  Right after he escaped the church, Timothy got in his car and drove to the McDonald’s a couple blocks from campus. He called Jeremiah because he needed to talk. Timothy thought that if he said this out loud, maybe it would make sense. Jeremiah was the guy he’d known since high school, his roommate for a year and a half. When he got there, the words choked in Timothy’s throat. He couldn’t speak without sounding insane.
                  He couldn’t say anything.
                  “Did you take some pills, maybe the ones without a label?” Jeremiah suggested.
                  “I don’t know what happened,” Timothy said again. That was so true, because he thought about it and it still didn’t make sense. There weren’t any bodies. There weren’t any burns or blood or anything else to prove he wasn’t crazy. “No, dude. I just, I didn’t get enough sleep.”
                  “Enough sleep?” Jeremiah asked with two words, and the right tone to promise there was no way he’d believe Timothy.
                  “Yeah.”
                  “Did you do something stupid? Something stupid with say—a neighbor? Maybe the one with that curly brown hair, the neighbor you’ve been fawning over for way too many months?”
                  “No.”
                  “Interesting.”
                  “What?”
                  Jeremiah squinted, lost in calculation. “You sound sincere, like maybe you didn’t do something wildly bizarre. I mean, I can’t hear any deceit in your voice. No rapid-eye movement or shallow breathing, but then you’re soaked. You really look like the aftermath of a romantic comedy gone horribly wrong. Did you try to sing at her window only to get knocked into a fountain?”
                  “Nothing,” Timothy decided he’d say. “Nothing happened. I’ve just been having a bad day.”
                  “Did she break your heart?” Jeremiah’s version of compassion.
                  “Nothing happened. Not with her.”
                  “Well, you want to go somewhere and get some real food? I’ll even pay, because I’m always up to hang out with people who have no idea how to lie.”
                  “I’m not lying,” Timothy said though he knew Jeremiah wouldn’t believe him. Timothy didn’t want to call this denial, but he didn’t have any evidence. Without proof, he couldn’t get in trouble, and he wouldn’t break his life to prove a delusion. So he could let it go. Aside