For the Hopeless

Chapter 4: Believe

Hayden glanced away from the window with a sigh. There wasn't much to look at inside the room, but outside, there was only snow. The flakes had picked back up, becoming heavier and falling much faster than they had been for the past hour. Now, all one could see outside was a wall of white, fluffy and blindingly reflecting the light that spilled from the warm side of the glass.

Madeleine watched the girl from nearby, frowning to herself as she watched her put her make-up-reddened lips to the butt of another cancer stick. She'd just turned eighteen, and already she was hooked to the sickening things.

"I really wish you wouldn't do that in my room," the younger of the girls commented, her voice soft. Yet it was clear that she meant what she said, and that she greatly disapproved of what Hayden was doing.

"I have no choice," Hayden replied with a shrug. She smiled to show white teeth that weren't yet stained by cigarettes, proving that she really didn't care what a nine-year-old thought. "Bailey checks my room now. She'll notice the smell."

"If she's checking your room because of it, she clearly doesn't want you to do it," Madeleine pointed out, watching as Hayden rose from the chair by the windowsill. "You should stop."

"She just doesn't want me to do it because she wants me to be like her." Hayden spun in front of Madeleine's full-length mirror, admiring her own slender figure. Her hair, just beyond shoulder length, whipped around her, a dark wave of luxurious brown. She worked hard on both her flat, toned stomach and her thick, soft hair. It was hard to figure out why she was throwing that all away by smoking. "She wants me to fight like her and help her to do all of her goody-goody bullshit."

Madeleine's frown deepened in confusion. "Don't you want to be like her? She's strong, and she helps a lot of people..."

"Maybe I don't want that," Hayden snapped, turning to face the girl Bailey forced her to treat as a younger sister. Her eyes were narrowed in such hatred that barely any of her sapphire-blue irises showed between thick black lashes. "Maybe I don't want to protect people. Maybe I don't care about being her kind of strong." She turned away in a quick, jerky motion, scowling at herself in the mirror. "Maybe I'm fine as I am."

"So you'd be happier if you got cancer and died?" Both girls spun to face the source of this new voice, stunned to find Bailey standing in the doorway. She was giving Hayden a death glare, a look dark enough to freeze even the self-proclaimed badass where she was. "Happier if you couldn't run anymore because your lungs have become so warped?" She took a step toward Hayden, predatory and threatening, and the wide-eyed girl fell back a step. "Happier if you had me saving your ass because you couldn't do it your damn self?" A second step forward, and Hayden had her back to the window she'd just been sitting beside, right next to her chair.

"Smoking won't cause all of that," she said in her best bitch tone, though both Madeleine and Bailey were easily able to tell that there was a hint of fear to it. "You'll never have to save me. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself." She drew herself up, stepping away from the window to squarely face Bailey. But the woman suddenly smiled, the expression nasty and knowing.

"Leave, then. Go find another place to live." She crossed her arms over her chest, still smiling that horrible smile. "Get yourself back and forth to school. Get your own money to buy your own clothes, your own food, your own cigarettes. And good luck doing that without someone learning about what you are. I know you, and you won't be able to simply go without practicing your witchery."

The look on Hayden's face, a mixture of hatefulness and shocked stupidity, told Bailey that she was right. She had the silly little teenager right where she wanted her, and the poor girl simply didn't have the wit to respond.