Girls Can Play Dirty Too

Chapter 1

  It was getting harder and harder to breathe.

 In.

 Out.

 In again. But it was like for every breath she took, they took two more away.

 It was a constant struggle for her to remain alive. Fire burned hotter and hotter in her lungs, and blood spilled from her leg twisted leg and soaked into the dirt packed ground. It was like they wanted to rip out her heart...the very core of all of the secrets she had to hide. The coughs hacked up could only do so much for noise, because no words or screams or anything seemed to bubble up inside of her throat.

 Thing got dark. Things got very black, black as night without the illumination of stars, as a wave of more spastically caustic pain wrapped around her limbs.

 Then she lay still, for they knew they'd done their job. Her arms and legs and chest stopped moving, clothes ripped into tatters, and flesh as salty as the ocean and sweaty as a runner's. She took one more shaking breath.

 Just one more. Her last.

                                                                                              ***

  Clara tapped her pencil on top of her marble laced desk while waiting for class to start. Her mind was a whirlwind of thoughts, of all the statistical numbers and letters of algebra she'd had studied and studied for, because the test that day would be rough, she knew. With an oh-so-dramatic sigh, she rolled her eyes at Josh Hughes, who was copying off some poor guy's homework. He thought he was the typical cliché jock, but the world didn't work like clichés. He was just some jock who was really good at playing football...and who was terrible, terrible, at school.

 "What's up with you, Clardy Cat?" he spat, leaning back in his chair and easing his pen down.

 Clara shrugged with a frown.  "Try doing your homework for once, Hughes. Then maybe you'd actually get into a college worth checking out your football skills."

 Hughes sneered, though pain set in around his chocolate eyes. They were Freshmen, ninth graders who had four years to think about college. "Right, and while I'm at it, why don't you try buying a better attitude worth getting a guy to look at you?"

  Clara turned away, eyes burning. The insult stung, although Josh had said it with ease. Her clothes were modest; she wasn't one to show of lots of skin. Especially not when it was October, and the whether was always rainy in Seattle, Washington.

  Mrs. Robbins eventually entered the classroom. Her hawkish features were sharper than normal, as they always were on the day of tests. Clara continued to go over the numbers and formulas inside of her head.

 The test went really well. All of the formulas were there, as if right in the front of her brain, and as she put her pen down to finish, the clock struck three--

 Clara made a rule for herself. She always put her phone on vibrate and looked at the clock until it was three. Every Friday at exactly three'o'clock she would get a text from her, telling her when they would meet up again or that she couldn't meet up because she'd have business to do.

 Algebra let out at 3:15, and Clara was beginning to get worried. She still had fifteen minutes before her after school club, physics, and she thought she could stop by her locker and grab her books. She scrolled through her phone one last time as she made her way to the locker halls, and then gave up with a panicked sigh.

 She never failed to miss a letter of a text. Every Friday. Every. Single. Friday. At. Three.

 Clara opened her locker, and as she did, a small, folded up piece of paper fluttered from its interior and to the tiled ground, as if been slipped in through the slots. She unfolded it.

 She read the typed letter thoroughly. Three times. And nearly dropped her book bag.

 THE MEETING TREE AT NINE TOMORROW. IT'S IMPORTANT.

 She knew it was her, and felt suddenly sorry. Had something happened? Why hadn't she texted? Was she in any sort of trouble? Could Clara help her?

 Clara sighed, leaning heavily against the locker frames.

 This was going to be bad.

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 Hey guys! Thanks for reading! And make sure to vote and wanna know who 'her' is! Tell me in the comments what you think is going to happen! :)

                                                                                     Emily