I Walk the Line ♤ (gxg)

chapter 4: closed lips

August's breath hitched in her throat.

She must have been hallucinating, she thought to herself. First she had freaked out about a stranger in class, and now she was hearing voices.

Her thoughts of self-doubt were put to rest when someone appeared from her bathroom. She at first didn't recognize who it was, perhaps from her vision being clouded with anxiety, or maybe because she was finally seeing the person in full form.

It was the woman she had just seen in her classroom. She was strikingly tall as she leaned against the frame of the bathroom door, arms crossed, along with her long legs that were clothed in tight black pants. Her raven black hair hung loosely down her shoulders, her green eyes staring right at the petite girl still laying on her bed, frozen. She almost wanted to laugh at how pathetic the girl looked, and she wondered how she couldn't have managed to keep up with her the previous night. She had gotten a clear look at her before, but now she looked even more frail and helpless.

"W-What..." was all August could manage to whisper. Her eyes were wide open, blinking hard every few seconds to make sure this woman was really standing in front of her and wasn't just a floater in her vision.

The woman's lips spread open as she laughed, revealing pearly white teeth that looked pointy at the ends. "W-What," she exaggeratedly mocked her, uncrossing her arms and leaning up from the doorframe as her smile disappeared.

Her sudden movement alarmed August, so the girl looked over at her nightstand for anything she could use to protect herself. Deeming a hairbrush a smaller version of a baseball bat, she quickly grabbed it and pointed it towards the woman. "Don't c-come any closer..." She inwardly cursed at her voice for trembling so, as she wanted to defend herself from the murderer in her room.

The woman didn't react at first, just staring at the girl with a blank expression. But then her face broke as laughed, again revealing her nearly haunting teeth. Through her chuckles that rang in August's ears the way an evil villain on a Disney movie's did, the woman said, "Do you really think I'm scared of your little makeshift dildo?"

The forwardness of her remark made August's cheeks burned, and she knew that they were visible. The woman's words angered her and almost made her want to cry at the same time. Nevertheless, she held the hairbrush up. She tried to think of some quick remark, as sarcasm was usually her forte and could possibly show the woman that she couldn't be so easily messed with, but her brain was completely blank and her mouth utterly speechless. She just tremblingly held the hairbrush up towards the woman with a determined expression.

"Aw, did I embarrass you?" the woman mocked, starting to walk closer to August's bed, her boots clicking on the wooden floor.

"Get the fuck away from me!" August screamed. Her own voice shocked her.

But the woman ignored her, stepping closer to the bed until she was at the very end, sitting down on the edge. Her eyes never left August. It was like they were locked in on her, incapable of being pulled away. She stared at August's face, at her scrunched eyebrows, at her eyes that so obviously showed her fear, and her lips that lay slightly parted as her quick breaths moved between them. She could see her chest moving up and down with fright, and the hairbrush she held so tight that her knuckles turned white tremble in her grip.

"I don't think I can do that," the woman slowly spoke in a low monotone. She was sitting scarily still, and the amusement previously in her voice and face had left, being replaced by a blank seriousness—the one August was met with in the classroom.

"I-I think you should do that," August stammered, but put a firm emphasis on her words even through the trip-up. She wasn't going to let this woman kill her the way she killed that man last night. She was going to at least put up a fight.