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Chapter TWO: Run Away
James awoke to shouting; an immediate thought came to him: Red Eyes! Quickly he jumped from his bed and ran out of his room; others had done the same garnishing weapons at their sides. They soon found that there was no real cause for alarm; for it was just Darien shooting the beer cans out of the hands of the cadets.
No one wanted to argue with her for her aim was as good as Commandant Jenkins was and he did not want beer on the military grounds in the first place.
James shook his head, and plucked the rifle out of her hand. She gave him a sad face, which she knew he could not resist, and he handed the rifle back then shooed her off to bed.
Darien gave him a bright warm smile and pushed her long brown hair away from her face. Never once had she cut her hair because she did not want to look completely like a boy, though she did enjoy wearing boy clothes and acting like one around the cadets.
Instead of going to bed as she was bid, she went up to Commandant Jenkins room and plopped herself down onto his couch next to him. He was sleeping and Darien knew all to well that he would never notice that she changed the channel to watch cartoons.
No one else had a television so often times Darien was left in his room to watch while everyone else was busy.
Jenkins soon woke up to see her watching cartoons; he rubbed his face, “Hey Darien why don’t you go to bed?” Darien looked over at him and stared into his light brown eyes. She then looked back to the television, “Darien, go to bed.” Shaking her head she stood up ran to the doorway and grabbed the rifle then promptly wandered down the hallway.
Jenkins walked over to the door and watched as she climbed out the window. He had seen her do this before and did not think anything of this, though this time was dark and she could have slipped.
After a moment of watching he suddenly shook his head realizing what she was doing. “Darien!” he yelled running to the window. By the time he reached the window, she was already on the roof.
Jenkins hit the wall and ran down the hall to the stairs. James stopped him, “Have you seen…”
“She’s on the roof! Your kid is driving me up the wall…” Jenkins yelled in a fit.
“My kid! I took her in and you said she could stay so I adopted her…if she goes out there Red Eyes will go after her!” James yelled pointing out the window.
Jenkins sighed, “This just isn’t working, if she were a boy there wouldn’t be as many problems…”
“You don’t know that…”
“She needs a mother, you know things will change in a few years, what then James, what then?” Jenkins asked shaking his head.
“Then we’ll be without the only person who has given at least some joy to this dreary place, without her do you know how many of them would be out there drinking. Right now, they fear her, only the new recruits drink and they give it up fast with her around. Most of them think of her as a little sister…”
“What if they didn’t? What then? James I want to send her to an all girls school I would pay for it,” Jenkins said loudly.
James looked down, “I don’t want to send her away. I could live at the farmhouse with her…”
“No! I’m sending her away, it isn’t safe here…we can look at schools this month, I honestly don’t care about the cost, it’s just important that she’s safe. I don’t even like the fact that she carries a rifle…”
The door to the stairs opened, it was Darien. She glared at the two then walked down the hallway.
As soon as she was out of sight, they went back to their arguing, “You told her to carry a rifle just in case Red Eyes came or something weird happened!”
“Oh, I guess I did…”
“And that girl is a genius she learned algebra when she was five and she’s in calculus again, I can’t just send her away to some private school where she will be teaching the other kids, she’s ten for goodness sake! I can’t just send her away! She’s my daughter, don’t do this!” James shouted.
Jenkins took his arm tightly, “Get a hold of yourself man, Darien just needs to learn other things she…we all love her, but she can’t live here forever. Besides, I did the same for you.”
James pulled his arm back and glared, “Did the same, what did you do that was the same?”
“I put you through your last year of high school…”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
Jenkins was suddenly confronted with the fact that he had not told him, “Your father is dead, he killed a baby and himself while driving drunk! I let you keep Darien because I felt that letting her out there would get her killed by some loony who had a few too many, or by that damn demon. Besides you seemed happier when she was around,” he said.
Frowning James walked to the stairs and walked down to the second floor where his room was. However, Jenkins soon heard a crash, “James?” He ran down the stairs and found him unconscious, “James! Hey I need some help over here!”
Cadets came running from their rooms as Jenkins yelled out orders.
Darien heard everything until James asking, “What are you talking about?” She did not want to be sent away, nor did she want to be a burden on them any longer.
She was unsure of what she was going to do or where she was going to go, but she knew she had to leave.
Quickly she ran to her room and threw together a few things, which included clothing, extra bullets for her rifle and the stuffed bear she had received from all of the cadets for her second birthday. She slung the bag over her shoulder and tied the bear to her back. Checking out the window, she climbed out down the drainpipe and to the yard. She then climbed over the wall.
She was out of everyone’s sight before anyone realized that she was missing, early the next morning when she did not show up to her classes. Though no one thought anything of it until Jenkins returned and said that she had not gone to the hospital with them.
Jenkins became worried for there had been a sighting of Red Eyes the night before and if she had tried to follow them to the hospital she was surely already long dead.
After three days of searching Jenkins declared that she was dead.
There was a small funeral, which Terrence attended, held in her room a week after James was let out of the hospital. Once the stuffed animals, flowers, and a carved memorial had been laid on her bed Jenkins locked the door declaring that the door would forever remain locked in memory of Darien.
 Flamegirl88 · Thu Mar 01, 2007 @ 01:27am · 0 Comments |
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