Huntress: The Beginning by LT Reynolds (sci fi books to read txt) 📖

Chapter One
The heavy beige make a loud SPLAT as it landed on the hard wood surface of the small coffee table before Savannah. The impish psychologist had been hoping to make her jump but the most Savannah had done was look across at her.

Dr. Barbara June wasn’t as intimidating she wanted to be. She stood on the other side of the coffee table, peering down at Savannah in her chair. Her hands on her hips, she spelled out the one word Savannah hated the most.

“A-M-N-E-S-I-A-C.”

The brunette paused, and watched Savannah, looking for some wanted reaction. The only reaction she was getting was impatience. You know how to spell. Congratulations. Savannah’s polished black nails tapped on the coffee colored leather chair.

Dr. June was pixie tall and therefore trying to act like she was taller than she was didn’t really intimidate anyone. Even in the snappy business skirt and blazer, it didn’t really do anything much to incite fear.

“Do you know the meaning of the word?” Savannah wondered if she stood, would she made that cocky Doctor jump under the patients couch and tremble like a puppy? Savannah glared and opened her mouth, her words made meaningless as the doctor jumped in with her own. “Of course you do. You have a superior IQ.”

“Then why did you ask?

Ignoring the question, the Doctor continued speaking, “You’re a straight A student but yet you start fights that could lead to your expulsion.” She swung around as she spoke, moving her hand to her jaw and to her hips, carefully. Savananh scowled at the woman as she realized that every movement she made looked rehearsed. It was if she wasn’t the doctor but trying to be an actor.

Well, we are in California.

“They won’t expel me; it’s nearly June.” Savannah glared at the paused brunette who stood with her hands on her hips in front of the long couch with the same upholstery as the chair in which Savannah sat. “Besides, I don’t start fights. I end them; which seems to be the only part of the fight that the system cares for.”

Dr. June’s brows pressed together, knitting almost perfectly into a uni-brow as she leaned forward, her hands still perfectly placed on her sides. “You ended it by breaking her nose!” She said.

“She had it coming,” Savannah wiggled in her spot and crossed her legs, firming the wrinkles quickly out of her cotton track pants with athletic writing down the legs before she glanced sharply up at the woman. “Anyways, why should I care if Janice has to go get her nose done a second time? I’m sure the plastic surgeons are rejoicing.”

The young doctor sighed deeply and reached up, rubbing her forehead with her finger and said, “It could’ve been dealt with differently.” Dr. June was a fresh faced psychologist. Savannah had been to psychologists close to retirement and their eyes were shrunken into their skulls, they hardly moved and it looked like they hadn’t slept in years.

Still, no matter how many years of experience these psychologists had, they were all infuriating. Why don’t you understand? Out of all the shrinks she’d seen, Dr. June was by far the youngest and so it was only common sense that she might understand just what high school was like. However, glancing over her outfit again, she figured that Dr. Barbara wasn’t the type of girl who got in trouble at school.

“There wasn’t another way to deal with it,” Savannah snapped. “Janice and her friends cornered me, pushed me. I defend myself and I’m the one in trouble!”

“They could’ve filed assault charges, Savannah!” The doctor’s voice rising to match Savannah’s tone. Frustration was rising in the small woman and she went back to rubbing her forehead. Savannah wondered if she actually given the woman a headache.

Savannah threw up her arms into the air. “Hence the reason I’m here.”

She barely got a glance and the Doctor went her desk, fishing things out of her massive dark wood desk. Savannah sat in the chair usually reserved for the Doctor but when she’d been invited in the office space, Dr. June had foolishly told Savannah to make herself at home.

Savannah sat uncomfortable in the chair staring at the folder on the small table in front of her. She brushed her fingers through her smooth golden hair over her shoulder that lay over her faded blue-green pull string sweater. She’d never seen her own folder before. It was thick with collected archives of her short life.

It was uncomfortable in the room and Savannah didn’t want to be there. It hadn’t been her choice to go but the school board’s. It hadn’t been the first time she’d been forced to see a shrink at the whim of the school but rather the second.

The first time she was in that position was after she’d sacked some older guy in the ninth grade after he’d come onto her in the lunch line. It was either go to the psychologist or go to court and face assault charges. The school didn’t really care about that though; they had other reasons to send her there.

Rumours had been flying around the school halls that Savannah was a raging psychopath and everything gets out of control from there. People had different stories. One of her personal favourites was the one that she’d snapped and the girl that moved to Florida two weeks ago had been murdered and stashed under the floorboards in the gym.

They had a right to be nervous but not nearly as nervous as the kid who started the rumour…

Dr. June sat down on the couch and sipped from a steaming mug, holding her poised pen above a pad of paper. Savannah knew the questions were about to pour out and many of them she wouldn’t answer.

“So, Savannah, tell me about July 1st 1998.”

Savannah’s heart crashed but her eyes remained firm on the doctor. What did she know about that date? It was a struggle to keep her teeth from grinding in her mouth as she answered, “It was independence day ten years ago.”

“More.” She answered without a hint of a smile, her pen scribbling down on the paper.

“More? What more do you want from me?” Savannah snapped. Dr. June’s insensitivity to this sensitive subject made her want to stock over and kick her block head off…

Savannah took a deep breath, calming herself down. Resorting to that type of violence wouldn’t make anyone believe that she wasn’t a psycho. “More?” Savannah wet her dry lip. “What more do you want from me?"

Dr. June’s dark eyes stared unmoved across at Savannah, “You know what I want you to tell me.” Savannah did. She knew very well what information would quell this doctor’s information sweet tooth but tell her she wouldn’t.

So, she lifted her foot and with a quick push and heavy thud of wood on wood, the coffee table was pushed onto the floor and the contents of her folder had spilled from their folder and littered the floor in white: “Oops.”

The woman jumped off the couch and started to collect the papers back into their folder. The color in her face had disappeared and there was a glossiness to her eyes that made Savannah want to turn away. If Savannah had to hazard a guess, she’d never had a patient so unwilling before.

“Savannah, you’re only hurting yourself by continuing this,”--she grabbed a fistful off papers and held them up--”If you want to leave, you’re going to have to cooperate with me.”

“Then what do you want?” The concept of leaving sounded very appealing to Savannah. She was missing math for this. Math wasn’t her favourite class by any means but it was one of her best.

“I want you to talk to me.” She barked from her hands and knees on the ground. “I mean… I can’t prescribe anything if I don’t know what’s wrong?”

Savannah shrunk back in her chair, and she felt like she’d been shot in the chest. Savannah scoffed loudly, “Is that all you’re going to do? Interrogate me like a criminal and then give me pills to keep me in line with society?”

Dr. June paused and looked up, making it clear that she was on the brink of tears. The level of tension in Savannah rose. Tears were even more uncomfortable than the situation as a whole.

“No,” She shook her head. “I’m trying to help.”

It made her more angry and she repulsively kicked a small pile of paper at her. “Help who? I don’t need help. You must be helping the school control their demonic straight A student.” Savannah paused and the brunette’s jaw opened but Savannah wasn’t finished yet. “It’s my last year--the next generation of mindless drones will be safe from my tyranny.”

The folder assembled and secured with a elastic, Dr. June brought it back to the couch with her. She took in a deep breath and tried again, “I know you’re hostile about this whole situation, Savannah but don’t make me call in the officer to make you answer my questions.” She pulled her pad back onto her knee and clicked the pen. “Just a couple questions and I will let you leave.”

Savannah wasn’t convinced and folded her arms across her chest, keeping quiet as the doctor ran through a list of questions. Why do you feel you get so violent? Does this have anything to do with July 1st ten years ago? The doctor got increasingly frustrated and Savannah watched the steam rise and her face get red.

It was like waiting for a kettle; all she had to do was wait for the screech.

“Tell me about July 1st?” It was the third time she asked.

“I was eight.”

“Elaborate.”

Maybe if Savannah just gave her a simple answer, she might get the hint. “It was the day my memory began. You know that, Doc; you’ve done your homework. I don’t see the need to reiterate what you already know.” The spongy layer in the bottom of her flip-flops made a loud slapping noise when Savannah used her toes to flick the material against her heel. “Just give me pills and let me go back to my life.”

Exhaustion wafted through her tone and she dug her fingers into her brunette hair, a weak smile sliding across her face. “Oh, so now you want the pills?” The doctor was done. One more comment and Savannah had a feeling the good doctor would start to hyperventilate and throw things.

So she tested it.

“I’d take horse tranquilizers if it meant I didn’t have to talk with you anymore.”

Boom.

Dr. June stood up and silently, she walked to the door opened it and slipped out. It was kind of freaky actually. Savannah had the urge to follow and make sure she didn’t ‘off’ herself in the hallway.

Savannah took a deep breath and stood up, glad to be out of the chair. She heard Dr. June talking with Henry, the police officer that had escorted her here, in the hall quietly. Savannah paced around the coffee table, her eyes skimming the light brown folder.

She didn’t even debate with herself as she slipped it under her