For Love of Evil - [Roman Godfrey/Hemlock Grove]

-3-

"Of all the days to enroll me in school, you pick the day some girl gets mauled to death... Nice." Lyra scoffed, gazing out the passenger side window.

She brushed her long black hair off her shoulder, still feeling the phantom bite marks from the nightmare last night.

She trembled at the thought, closing her eyes as she saw the boy's face behind her lids; his angelic features burned into her mind as if they had been branded there.

His eyes were round and wide, a greenish grey with full lips that appeared to pout. Blood covered the lower half of his face as he gazed down at her, hovering above her between her thighs, telling her to "go to sleep."

"They think it was some sort of wild animal." Lyra's mother spoke softly, biting into her bagel as she multitasked.

There were too many things going on behind the wheel, Lyra wondered how Mary did it all. Holding the wheel with one hand, she watched as her mother took a bite of her bagel, then a sip of coffee. All the while, rummaging through her purse to find her cell phone that had not stopped buzzing since they left the house five minutes prior.

"Luckily, I have no reason to go into the woods." Lyra chortled, trying to make light of the situation. "I mean, what idiot does that anyway?" She didn't know the girl who had been killed, but then again, she didn't have to.

Lyra sensed things about people, and by the looks of Anita Parker, she had been doing something she shouldn't have been doing that night. Just by looking at her picture on the television that morning, Lyra could see that there was something off about the girl. There had been a darkness that lingered in the photo the media had shared with the town of Hemlock. As if the girl had been dabbling in darkness for quite sometime.

Perhaps it was the influence of someone else; perhaps it was simply peer pressure. But the news coverage had said she had been alone the night of the attack, which only left Lyra feeling that the girl had been doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing.

That, or the media had information they didn't want the public to know about. At least, not yet.

"If it were up to me, you'd be staying home for another week. But your dad..." Mary groaned, setting her styrofoam cup of coffee back in the cup holder. "Your father insisted you go to school today."

"It's fine. But honestly, when are you gonna stop letting that guy run your life, huh?" Lyra chuckled, joking about the fact that her father was not only strict with her, but with her mother, his own wife.

"'Til death do us part." Mary winked at her daughter as they pulled up to the curb at the entrance of the school. "You have a good day, make lots of friends." Mary waved as Lyra grabbed her bag, tucking her raven colored hair behind her ear that nearly looked blue in the sunlight.

"Yeah, I'll have a decent day and try not to kill anyone." Lyra winked before closing the passenger door, strolling up the steps to the old school.

She had already missed first period; next class was her most dreaded, calculus. Lyra comprehended the words of great poets with ease, but when it came to numbers, her brain scrambled to find an answer that simply did not exist. She was shit at math, to say the least.

Lyra entered the classroom, 108 Mrs. Wilson. The teacher was already in the middle of a lesson when Lyra entered, standing in front of the chalk board, stopping in the middle of her sentence.

"May I help you?" Mrs. Wilson asked, turning to face Lyra. She wore a simple cardigan with pin straight yellow hair, her long skirt reminding Lyra of something someone from the Pentecostal religion would wear.