Shattered (The Academy)

Chapter 19: My Name Is Anxiety.

I can't stop staring at the moon.
I die of embarrasement inside. I can't stop thinking about them seeing this other side of me, but maybe they didn't. Maybe I was just too sleepy to remember... But who am I trying to fool? I was on the couch getting sleepy and then I woke up in my bed, with sissors in my hand and hair two fingers shorter.
Who got out? Elizabeth? Mina? From what Elizabeth told me, I don't think it's Mina. I don't think she cares for hair. Elizabeth might.
I sight. These two people are killing me.
It looks good, I try to tell me. Maybe I'm friendless now but I have a pretty haircut.
Tears start to form in my eyes. Maybe I'm being ridiculous, but the thought of them thinking I'm too wierd and getting away from me makes me sad. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is the end.
  I sob.
"This is why being alone is better" A voice echoes in my head. I know it's not Elizabeth inmediatly. This voice is hard, dry, rough.
It's Mina's.
"Mina?" I call her name, cuddling in my bed, in the darkness.
"Elizabeth let you go so far. And so did I" She snaps "People do this to you, Sang"
"How long have you been here?"
"As long as I can remember" Then she changes subjet "You won't be seeing these guys again. They're bad for you"
"They are good"
"They're boys" She hisses.
"How is that you can talk to me like this? You never did before. I never noticed here" I ask her, because I don't wanna talk about them anymore.
"You weren't really here" Mina answers "Besides, I never wanted you too. That was part of my deal with Elizabeth"
"You made a deal?"
"We made lots of them through the years"
"She said you were violent. What did you do?"
"I gave those people what they deserved"
"Give what?"
"I can't tell you. Deal terms"
"If you are stronger than Elizabeth, why is she the one making deals and you following?" Maybe I shouldn't provoke her or whatever making these kind of questions, but the words are aching in my mind.
"I don't want us to end up in jail. She offered me... something more passive revenge-ey"
"What do you mean?"
"Sometimes, I go out to play"
"By playing you mean... Do you kill people?"
She laughs. But there is nothing funny in it.
"No. If we end up in jail then all of you will be mad at me and it will be a nightmare. And I don't wanna go back to that place either"
  Her words let me sit up straight.
"Go where?"
"You don't remember, and I agree with Elizabeth is better off like this"
"Elizabeth is wrong about a lot of things, did you know? She is a thief and a liar"
"Of course I know" She snaps at me "But believe it or not, Elizabeth is better than what any of us will ever be. Including you. Now, stop talking. And stay away from those guys. Anyway, after Lake, I'm not sure they'll stay around. So stop being so goddamn pathetic and stop crying! You are worst than-"
"Lake?" I ask, alarmed "What do you mean Lake?"
And then I noticed something she said. Mina said All of you, not both of you.
All of you.
"Mina, is there someone else apart from the three of us?"
She keeps quiet for a moment.
"Mina"
"If you don't want one of those boyfriends of yours to wake up with a knife on their brains, shut the fuck off and keep going with your lonly and sad life. Brat"
Then she's gone.
Her threat makes me shiver and breathless. Would she really do it? Are there more of us? Inside me?
Anxiety comes and say hi while the moon seems like a perfect view all night long.

Kaylan's point of view.

I wake up from my everlasting sleep all of sudden, finding myself staring at the moon. I know why I'm here: Because Sang got anxious. And when that happens, I'm here. That's me.
Why, why, why, why, why?
I breath hard, feeling like the oxygen reaches my lungs too late. I start to lose it.
"Oh, she already started" I hear Lake's cruel voice. Saying she doesn't like me is an understandment. Elizabeth never says anything, Mina thinks I'm annoying, Shannon...
"BREATH, LOSER!"
That's me. I am the loser one, the anxious one. I'm here to take it from her.
"Shut up!" I cry, hidding in a corner of the room.
"Stop it, Lake" Elizabeth gets in. She is like that big sister who only says something to stop the noise that bothers her.
"I can't bear sharing body with Kaylan!"
"None  of you are even out that often! Technically, you don't share!"
I know Mina is listening, because even when we are in, sleeping and waiting, we know what's happening. Except Sang, who doesn't see when we take over. Maybe it's because she is the original.
"And whose fault is that? If you just let Mina get out and kill whoever she wants she would calm down and we would be out more often! Besides, they are never gonna catch her"
"You are such a brat" She sighs.
All the voices mix in my head, making me sob. I stand up and change every book on the book shelves based on the abc.
"Look at her! She's starting with the books thing!"
I wonder why Shannon hasn't appeared and say anything on my defense. She does that. But even when she is aware of this conversation, we can't really come out when we like, only when Sang calls for us, like now (even if she doesn't know she calls us). Taking conversation part is the same. It requires something I apparently don't have, nor Shannon. Sometimes we can, but... This is confussing. And more when you know somehow Elizabeth and Mina can break all of this rules and we can't. Being out when Sang doesn't call for you is exhausting. Maybe that's why I sleep for so long after I take conversation when it's not my turn.
"Leave her alone, Lake" Elizabeth sights.
"If you  ruin it when I become a cheerleader, Kaylan, you are gonna be so dead..."
"You are never becoming a cheerleader!" Elizabeth shouts.
The voices are like a hammer hitting my head.
My hands shake, and keep on moving I go and organize all Sang's clothes for color. First the white ones, finishing on the black ones, which is only a shirt because she doesn't uses black. Thanks god she keeps all her room tidy. I can't handle dirt.
I just can't.
Being the girl with OCD is not easy.
"Well, at her pace, neither is she! Or any of you, losers!"
"Stop talking!" I cry.
The noise makes me feel so disturbed.
"I want to go out, Elizabeth!" Lake cries "I wanna have a life!"
"You want a life? You have no purpose! You want to live because you think you can go marry a prince and it's not like that!"
"I am a queen!"
"You are nothing!"
By that time I'm rubbing the kitchen floor with chloro. There are lots of infections in this world that kills people on a blink of an eye!
"At least I want to live more than Kaylan does! Look at her! I could be out there instead of her!"
"You and I both know you can't. Sang called for her"
There are these little stains that aren't removing!
I start to cry harder.
"Her reason to live is to handle it when Sang can't! If you let me out I can make her never feel anxious again!"
She's right. Maybe I'm not like Mina or Elizabeth because I never want to be out. Out here I feel so horrible. Scared. Nervous.
"Because she wouldn't be feeling it at all! It's just you!"
In the middle of removing the stains, a quiet but cold and sharp voice sounds, cutting them both out.
"If I keep hearing this again, I'm gonna kill the whole cheerleader squad. Do you understand?"
Lake gasps, then shuts down. She vanishes after Mina does.
"Are you okay?" Asks me Elizabeth.
I nod, my face red from crying and the panic growin in my chest! Why can't any of them remember to clean every eight hours and keep the objects symmetrically? Why, why, why, why, WHY????
"Kaylan" She says softly "Start counting"
I do as she says, never forgetting of  breathing. Not this time, anyway.
When I reach fifteen is when the air gets in more easily.  The air in my lungs feel good.
"You are not easy, honey"
"I know. I'm sorry"
"Don't. Why don't you try to sleep?"
I nod, heading to bed, curling up. Sometimes, with all the lying and bad attitude, I forget that as I represent Sang's anxiety, Elizabeth represents the protectiveness. Sometimes is harf to remember everything she does is for a reason.
  That was what happenes to Sang from the beginning: She shattered into pieces, and then we were born.
"Are you counting?"
"Yes" I say.
"Fine. Go to sleep now. Maybe tomorrow Sang will be her again"
They both could take over her whenever they wanted to. And they did for a while, fighting to see who reminded her for longer, who did good and bad. Elizabeth won making a nervous wrecking deal with ruthless Mina. I would never do that. But again, I would never do a lot of things.
"You want to live, don't you?" I whisper softly to her, holding tight to the pillow "Sometimes we can feel it. Mostly when you're with that boy. That's why it surprises me when you let her be out there instead of you. All the sacrifices you've made..."
After a pause, she says:
"Sleep, Kaylan"
Then she's gone too, like the rest. And my head gets empty, except for all those thoughts that spin around in my head all the time. They consume me.
I close my eyes.
Then I remember I haven't checked the locks. I stand up and run downstairs to check on the doors, windows and the  gas knobs. Everything seems fine.
Everything -SOMETHING MOVED OUTSIDE!
Panicking, I get down onto the floor after taking a pan, holding it tight against my chest.
A sound startles me out of sudden , and turning to look at it, I see a window is broken on the other side of the room.
  Something sinks in my chest.
Then I scream.

Nathan's point of view.

We all kind of freaked out after meeting Lake, but there was just one thing we were sure about: We wouldn't ler her unprotected. So now Kota, Gabriel and I wait here in Kota'a room, looking through the window to her house.
"Do you think she'd take it as harassement if we installed cameras in her house?" Asks Gabs.
"Probably" I tell him, not taking my eyes off Sang's house.
"We should do it anyway"
"We'll talk about this on a family meeting. We also need to get her a phone" Kota says.
He's the only one speaking to Mr. B right now. I can't blame him, but I don't like it.
"Do you see anything suspicious?" I ask.
Gabriel snorts.
"Like a psycho like that girl Mina? I don't think so, so far"
When Dr. Green told us what she had done (or this personality of hers) we were freaking out. She needs to get help now. And we are gonna help her. Someone like Mina out there is a danger not only to othee people, but to herself.
We are not having it.
"Guys?" Kota's voice tenses while he looks at her house "Something is up"
Gabe and I rush to his window in the same exact moment where someone breaks into her house by breaking a window. It's all so dark and the person is wearing black clothes.
Then we hear an echo of a scream.