The Eyes

Chapter 8

I had always been able to sense danger. It was how I knew to stay away from certain people and activities. When I was younger, I thought everyone had the same senses I did.

To me, all the kids in my sixth-grade class should have known to stay away from Mr. Howard, the school's creepy teacher that had a fondness for twelve-year-old girls; but no one sensed his instability until he got arrested for looking up one of his student's skirts.  The same thing happened when I was 13. I thought everyone knew not to mess with the neighbor's scary guard dog from down the street, but I quickly realized that not everyone had my senses when two of the neighborhood kids ended up in the hospital with dog bites. In all honesty, my ability to sense danger wasn't anything like a superpower; I didn't have any flashing lights or alarms ringing in my head. My power was an itch, nothing more. Whenever someone or something was dangerous, I felt an itch in the back of my brain. I don't exactly know how it works, but that itch has saved me numerous times from dangerous situations, and I knew I could bet my life on it.

I don't feel the itch right now.

I know for a fact the man standing in front of me is dangerous. Power radiated off of him like no other. Knowing this, I couldn't for the life of me understand why I wasn't getting the familiar feeling of danger that I had felt so many times before.

His eyes were yellow.

There was no denying what I saw. This man, Parker, had yellow eyes, and they were the same hue as the ones I saw that night in my grandma's room. I quickly came to the conclusion that he couldn't be trusted. In an effort to get away from him, I mumbled incoherently about no longer feeling hungry and walked out of the lunch line and down the hall. I was thankful he didn't follow me. His presence was overwhelming and with him around it was hard for me to breathe. I decided to walk to the library to catch my breath. In the library, I saw Jared reading on his kindle.

What a little bookworm.

I sat next to him and he raised his head when he heard me take a seat. His eyebrow raised in a silent question. I couldn't blame him, the library was never my forte. I trusted Jared immensely, not because we were super close, but because I knew Jared was like me. He didn't have many friends, and if I told him a secret, it would do him no good to tell anyone else. He also was one of my only friends, and I knew if I told Mandy, her whole friend group would know by morning. She would never break my trust on purpose, but that girl could never keep a secret. It's one of the things I've just accepted about her. I refocused my attention on Jared and blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"Something is wrong with Parker." I stare at Jared seriously, hoping he understands this is important to me.

He looks at me, unflinching. "Please be more specific, there could be a lot of things wrong with him. I'm going to need further information to talk to you about it." I honestly had forgotten how technical Jared was, he looked at most things like an equation he had to solve, and in his perspective, I had not given him enough variables to work with.

"His eyes are yellow!" I whisper-screamed at him, trying to avoid trouble with the librarian. I knew Jared might think I was crazy and I really didn't want to lose one of my only friends at this school, but there was nothing else I could do. So many factors weren't making sense and I could not deal with them without talking to somebody.

Jared's eyes widened but not in surprise. "Oh really?" he said flatly. "That's interesting."

"Interesting? Are you serious? Is that all you have to say? There's something seriously wrong with that Parker guy and you think 'interesting' is the appropriate response?" I'm a second away from screaming, library be-damned.

"Stay away from him Jane. If you stay away from him then it doesn't matter what color his eyes are." Jared looks at me so seriously it makes my breath hitch. He had never looked at me like this. I had always thought Jared was a serious guy, but his eyes have a hardness to them I have never seen before.

He knows something.

Jared, sweet, small, innocent Jared is caught up in all of this. I knew then that something was terribly wrong. I itched my arms in discomfort. Trying to piece together all of these inexistent clues. I looked at Jared in a brand new light, staring into his cold eyes, trying to find a semblance of the warmth that used to be there. I was rewarded with nothing but a blank stare.

This man was not my friend.

"Screw you, Jared." I had never been that frank with anyone, but the rage I felt was indescribable. He acted like Parker having yellow eyes was normal. He acted like I was overreacting, like my fear was immature. He deserved every bit of that insult.

His eyes widened in shock but before he could say anything I rushed out of the library and then out of the school. There was too much going on and it was only the first day. I needed to get my bearings before I could walk back into that place.

As I walked out of the parking lot and onto the sidewalk, I remembered I had other classes to go to and thought about turning back. I quickly shrugged my shoulders in indifference.

I was not going back to Bayside today, and besides, it was only syllabus week.