Excerpt from “A Girl Called Hero”
“I saw you.”
Hero jumped.
“I saw you,” a small girl beside her repeated. “In the woods last night.”
Hero’s eyes grew wide as Relle leaned over toward the interloper, a petite blonde in black leggings and a black sweatshirt. “We do not know you,” Relle smiled, “and you did not see us. You might be thinking of someone else.”
“Fine. I didn’t see you.” The blonde pulled a pair of large, buggy sunglasses over her eyes and sat back, crossing her arms.
“Great. Good luck with whoever you’re looking for.” Relle leaned back and pulled Hero toward her end of the bench.
Hero felt the bench shift this time as the body neared her. “But if I did? If I did see you in the woods last night?”
Relle peered over her own sunglasses and narrowed her eyes. “What did I just say? I don’t know what you were talking about. We weren’t in the woods last night.”
A few people had begun to gather and the girl raised her voice. “Okay, Relle Blake and Hero Creekmore. I didn’t see you in the woods last night tearing into some boy with your ghoulish little teeth and claws." She bent her fingers and laughed. "That was someone else. My. Mistake.”
Relle whipped off her sunglasses and leaned over Hero once again. The latter winced as the former shoved her back against the bench to get closer to her antagonist.
“Hey! Shh, shh! Shut the fuck up! What do you want, Blondie?”
“Nah. I don’t want anything. I don’t need anything from you.” As she got up Hero noticed her the dirt under her nails and the length to her ears.
Her hand flew to Relle’s shoulder, but Relle had already seen. She grabbed Hero’s hand and pulled her up.
“No, no. You come here, little girl.”
The blonde turned to Hero and Relle and smiled. She had the same lupine grin as the girls. She turned and took off sprinting, across the park and through into the woods.
“Bitch!” Relle spat. “It’s gonna be like that? Let’s go, Ro.”
The two sprinted after the third, and as they chased through the morning mist Hero laughed with exhilaration and anger. And the thrill of the chase. The girl was fast, but they were faster.
They backed her against a tree, and her body thudded against it as she slowed herself to a halt. The girl broke into manic laughter as she slid to the base of the tree. Relle growled. Hero observed, and placed an arm on Relle to quiet her. Only once the laughter stopped and the shuttering tears began did Hero let the taller girl question the small figure shaking beneath them.
“Alva,” the girl offered her name to Relle. “I know both of you. Hero, Relle. I’ve seen you at the bars. I’ve done a little digging. A little stalking. If you sit down, I’ll tell you my story.”
They had no choice but to drop, and to listen.