The Genetic Code

Chapter 14

Juliette

I stare at my phone screen, frowning. The text message I had received nearly a week ago lies static on the screen, as if taunting me. I hadn't received anything since then, so I've been trying to forget about it... But how can I?

The entire week I've been constantly on the alert, observing everyone around me, looking out windows, checking empty classrooms. Students who saw me must've thought I was some paranoid maniac or something. If only they knew.

This... person... individual... entity seems to know all my secrets, the ones I've been trying so hard to keep buried over the past thirteen years. Not only that, but that entity is tracking and watching me now, and is threatening to expose all my lies and secrets sometime, someplace, in some form, all of which I haven't got a clue. That's the scariest part — the terror of the unknown. I have no idea who this person is, or how much they know. What if it isn't only one person? How many people know? I need to find out. But I have no way to. A minute after sending those texts, the number was deleted. What am I up against?

The worst part is that I can't talk to anyone about this. I'm all on my own. I can't ask anyone for help or advice, I just have to follow my own bad decision-making, which is never a good place to be in.

At the present, my bad decision-making tells me to ignore it. As long as I don't get any more foreboding text messages, there's nothing I can do about it, so I should just forget about it, and continue living my messed up life as it is. I have so many other things to worry about right now that I don't have any time or energy in surplus to stress over my impending doom.

This treacherous camp, for example, which I'm leaving for in less than five minutes.

"Juliette! Are you ready to go? The car's ready," Mom calls from downstairs.

Ah, sounds like my death knell.

"Ready!" I answer, shutting off my phone, and leave my room with my duffle bag over my shoulder.

***

Several school janitors help to load our bags into the baggage compartment of the luxury coach bus.

I look around, and find that everyone around me has a luggage, if not two, rolling on the pavement. Neon-colored, encrusted in jewels, completely covered in luggage label stickers from countries across continents and hemispheres... you name it. I'm the only one standing with an old, much too overused duffel bag that's just barely holding on while waiting for retirement, and a shoe bag attached to the strap by a carabiner. Other students detect this too, and give me weird stares, or worse, a look like 'I expected this from someone like her'.

The only other person that I notice without a huge luggage as if they're going on summer vacation is Sterling, who shows up with just a grey backpack. Miss Kamilah also notices this and frantically asks him where his bag is. He gestures casually to the backpack slung on his shoulders.

"How could you possibly have everything in that tiny pouch?"

He seems unmoved by her state of frenzy, speaking with ease, "Don't worry, Miss K, everything I need is in here. It's just a three day camp, not Siberian war."

He grins smugly at her huff of agitation, and moves to the bench by the side to take a seat while everyone else is busy making sure their multiple bags are loaded into the vehicle safely and without a scratch. He plugs in his earphones and closes his eyes, folding his arms across his chest, and leans back on the bench, appearing tranquil.

A boisterous group of students arrive together, led by a guy with peroxide blonde upswept hair and an outstanding air of asshole-ness that I can sense from here. He has a slimy grin slapped across his face as he parades through with his large gang of followers, girls and guys alike, who trail behind him obediently — a far cry from the guy I saw sprawled across the basketball court under Sterling's foot yesterday, though he still has the patches of green and purple on his face to prove it, looking like he's gone through a meat grinder.