Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Locker ❯ Chapter 5 ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: What's mine is mine, what's theirs is theirs. I don't own these characters and would very much not like to be sued.

Chapter Five:

"You shouldn't have brought that up!" I could hear my voice as from a long way off, and I was screaming at him, something I never do to Solo. "You promised you wouldn't! You _promised_!"

Solo looked so guilty. His head bent forward a little, and his mouth was pressed together into such a tight line that both his cheeks were puffed out and I could see his double chin.

"You promised," I said again, only this time I started off down the sidewalk and didn't even hear the horn honking behind me as Aunt Hilde drove up. I stopped in my tracks and turned to see Solo standing there, torn between running after me and jumping into the van. So I wheeled around and climbed inside, and he climbed into the front next to Aunt Hilde, and neither of us spoke to each other all the way home. I know Aunt Hilde noticed, but she was too tactful to say anything. Instead she just directed questions at each of us about how our days had gone, and didn't try to make us chitchat. Once we reached the house, I headed straight for my room while Solo hung around in the garage, pretending he'd lost something under one of the car seats.

I closed my door and locked it and threw myself down on the bed. And then I shut my eyes and tried to blank out Solo's accusation, but it kept echoing over and over in my head till I thought I'd scream.

_"You remember…you smelled it once before…"_

"It's a coincidence, that's _all_ it is. It doesn't have anything to do with anything. The stupid door on the stupid locker was just stuck, and I shouldn't have gone to school on an empty stomach-"

Tears filled my eyes, and I buried my face in my pillow, trying not to remember but not being able to help it. That night two years ago…lying across my bed and trying to study for a test…that sick feeling in my stomach, making me weak, making me nauseated…and that awful stench-every nerve, every sense, every heartbeat screaming, on fire, twisting with pain and premonition…

"Solo," I whispered.

I'd gone into Solo's room that night. Sick and horrified, I'd gone straight into Solo's room, and I'd held him, and then the doorbell had rung.

I could still remember the sound of that doorbell shrieking and shrieking through our house that would never be the same again.

_"I'm afraid there's been an accident…"_

And I'd held Solo all through the night and then later all through the funeral, wondering what would happen to us now that both our parents were dead…

_"You remember…you smelled it once before…"_

"Oh, God."

The sound of my voice got through to me somehow. I raised my face from the bed and stared at my door, and then I got up and went across the room and opened it, knowing Solo would be standing there silently in the hall.

He was.

We looked at each other without saying a word, and he came in and perched on the foot of my bed while I locked the door behind him.

"Does Aunt Hilde know?" I murmured at last.

"She knows you're upset, but I didn't tell her why," Solo said. "Maybe she thinks it's just nerves."

"Maybe that's all it is."

He gave me his most Soloish look, and I withered beneath it.

"Okay," I gave in. "So what _does_ it mean?"

"The boy." He screwed up his face, deep in thought. "The one who disappeared. What do you know about him?"

"Just his name. Wufei something."

"He'd probably be easy to find out about. There must be newspaper articles."

"Come on." I sighed, flopping down on my back beside him, folding my arms beneath my head. "You realize we're getting into weird things here. You realize-"

"That is _not_ what I'd call a normal locker," Solo reminded me sternly. "Maybe you stirred up something that's been wanting to get out."

"And somehow…I connected with it?" I mulled this over for several seconds. "A feeling of fear-no, that's not right-_terror_-from an old locker in an old school-most likely because I was so _nervous_ about being there." I cast him a reluctant glance. "Okay, so let's say you _might_ be on to something. _Might_ be," I added grudgingly. "Whose terror did I connect with? Wufei's? Or just mine?"

Solo furrowed his brow. "Both maybe."

"Quit going psychic on me, Solo."

"_You're_ the one who's psychic. I'm just trying to make you think. Listen. What did those other kids do when you almost passed out?"

"Quatre and Heero? They kept me from falling on the floor! They stood there and watched me make a total fool of myself!"

"I mean"-Solo sighed loudly-"did they say something like, `Oh, no, not that haunted locker again!'?"

"Haunted locker?" I propped myself up on my elbows and gave him a scathing look. "That's the best one yet, Solo. As if I didn't have enough my mind right now without-"

"You knew when Mom and Dad were killed. You knew the exact second it happened, even though we were miles away. You can't deny that."

"Stop it," I muttered, turning over so he couldn't see my face. "How would you remember, anyway? You were too little."

"I remember," he said softly.

We both went quiet then. I could hear Aunt Hilde in the kitchen below us banging pots and pans and chopping something for dinner, and outside my window a tree branch scraped gently against the glass.

"If it happens again, you won't be able to ignore it," Solo challenged me. "If it happens again, you'll have to admit you've picked up on something. If it happens again-"

"It won't," I cut him off and swung my feet over the side of the bed. "Do you mind? I've got homework to do."

I hated ending it like that. I glanced over my shoulder and watched him trudge across the floor. He paused with one hand on the doorknob.

"If it happens again," Solo said reasonably, "what if something happens to _you_?"

I felt a chill go through me, deep and piercing. Somehow I managed to laugh.

"You're so silly, Solo. I thought Aunt Hilde told you not to watch all those scary shows on TV anymore."

"The reason I watch them"-Solo gazed back over his shoulder at me-"is to keep alert to every possibility."

_Dad's favorite expression…how did Solo remember that?_

My heart clenched a little, remembering the wink Dad always used to give me when he doled out advice and I just looked at Solo, not really sure what to say. He shut the door behind him, and I wandered over to my back window and stared out.

At one time the backyard must have been beautiful, with all its trees and shrubs and even what looked like a small plot of garden in one corner beside to storage shed. Someone had been nice enough to mow the grass before we moved in, but weeds still marched along the fence and choked the flowerbeds where a few sorry tulips had managed to stick their heads through. A dream for Aunt Hilde, I thought-she'd be spending hours and hours out there trying to turn the place into some sort of exotic paradise.

I let my gaze roam slowly to the neighbor's backyard on the right. I could see only part of it-a doghouse and some apple trees-but there was no sign of movement anywhere. It made me realize that no one had come over to welcome us since we'd been here-but then again, we'd only shown up late Friday night, and the weekend had been taken up with trying to settle in and run errands and stock up the refrigerator. _Still…you'd think in a small town where everyone's suppose to be so curious about you…_

Restlessly I moved to the other windowpane, turning my attention to the neighbor's house on the left. One second-story window was practically opposite my own, yet it was hard to really see because of the huge old oak tree in our side yard. Its trunk was at least ten feet around, and its missive branches spread out so far, I could easily crawled out and perched on them. There were more think heavy limbs stretching all the way across the fence to the upstairs window, making a kind of bridge between the houses. Sliding open the sash, I let the cool air blow across my cheeks as I stared out into the lengthening shadows of late afternoon. We were suppose to have screens put on the windows, but they'd had to be special ordered and hadn't come in yet, so I could hang out as far as I wanted. Squinting, I tried to see if anyone was visible in that window next door. For one second I thought I saw curtains moving, but I couldn't be sure.

_"If it happens again, what if something happens to you?"_

I tried not to think about what Solo had said, but I couldn't help it. He has such a wild imagination, and he always tries to sound so mysterious when he's offering words of wisdom-but this time it really got to me.

_Come on, Duo, give it a rest. I mean, look around! What could be more peaceful than this boring place?_

Peaceful…

A little town where nothing ever happens.

_And when Aunt Hilde decided it was time to move again, I closed my eyes and moved my hand back and forth over the map, and watched my finger land right on this spot, just as surely as if some invisible force had grabbed it and slammed it smack down on top of this town._

"That's not true," I mumbled. "It _seemed_ that way, but I could have picked anywhere. Anywhere at all."

Shivering, I closed my eyes and just stood there, feeling the breeze on my cheeks, listening to it sift through the oak leaves and sigh around the eaves of the house.

And then…slowly…my skin began to prickle.

Eyes wide now, I drew back into my room, hands clenched tightly on the sill.

_Someone's watching me._

I knew it just as surely as I was standing there, could _feel_ it, hidden and silent and cold-_so very cold-eyes without emotion-without feeling-empty…_

"Aunt Hilde," I whispered, but of course she didn't hear.

No one heard as I stood there, too terrified to move-trapped by something I couldn't even see-

"Aunt Hilde!" I screamed.

From faraway I heard a muffled voice and then footsteps running up the stairs.

But I didn't need Aunt Hilde now.

I knew that whoever had been watching me was gone.

-TBC-