Clenched Teeth~Part Two

Once, when I was dancing, I broke my ankle. It was mostly me being cocky thinking that I could land the no-handed back flip when I hadn’t had enough near enough practice. I landed on both legs, but crumpled immediately. There was a searing pain shooting up my left leg, and the pain nearly blacked me out. That pain was nowhere near what I felt now.
Bewilderment. That was my first emotion. How would they do this? What would make them do this? Hurt. That was the second. I felt hurt that this had been going on behind my back for who knows how long. Paralysis. That was third. I was glued to my spot. It was amazing that I was still standing. This was a huge blow in the face. With all those different emotions running through my head, I had no idea what my face looked like. I couldn’t see. I was too blinded by my thoughts. My eyes eventually unclouded and I looked at Braeden, or the one on the wall. He looked pained, like this isn’t what he wanted. Like he never wanted me to know. Like he didn’t even want this for himself. I glance up at the boy in front of me. His face was harder to read. He may or may not be surprised by my reaction. It was like a wave of emotions was overflowing me, and I was slowly drowning.
“I—I—I need to sit down,” I try to speak, but the words are barely mouthed. I plop down onto the cold, hard ground. A minute later I feel heat radiating from another form to my left. A hand touches my back.
“Hayley, you wanted to know,” a deeper voice says. It sounds like Damen, but how am I supposed to be sure? My head flies up in frustration.
“Yes, I did want to know, and now I do. I just don’t understand it. Can anybody explain to me why? Just why!” I jump up to my feet, and the guys do the same. It’s disorienting looking at two Braedens. It’s like seeing double. I storm out of the clearing and through the trees. Branches thwack me in my face and who-knows-what is getting into my lengthy caramel hair.
“Hayley!” The voice is coming from close behind me. I hear the thud-thud-thud of feet on the rock hard ground. Then arms wrap around my waist and I’m being dragged back in the opposite direction.
“Hey! Hey! Let me go!” I rasp while struggling against the strong arms. I’m no match. I quit my struggle and am instead silently pulled back into the gazebo. My legs figure out how to straighten themselves to cause the least amount of discomfort, and when I’m set back down in front of the blazing fire, I sit cross-legged trying not to bare my teeth. You just don’t grab me like that. It really ticked me off.
“You wanted to know so badly, but yet you run away. What is with you?” one of the voices boom.
“I want to know, but the thinking process takes a little longer. I need time to process. I need time to think.” My head faces the ground, engulfed by my hair, and the words come out barely above a whisper.
“Hales, do you really want to know what happened to us?” A softer voice asks. I nod quietly.
“Well, here you go. It may be a bit easier if I reveal my face, too.” I hear a slight scraping, a grunt, and a snort of “Wow, it must’ve been a while since you took it off.”
“Hay, please look at me?” The softer voice says. I turn my head and see the softer voice has the face of Damen. I quickly rearrange sounds in my heads. Louder bass voice equals Braeden, and softer voice equals Damen. His eyes drift off to the gleaming stars as he begins his story.
“Maybe this would make more sense if I started way in the beginning, about 200 or so years ago when the masks were first made. My great-great-great grandfather, Damon Pierre, was traveling through Persia, where many caravans were passing through. Some would set up stands along roads and try and sell their products to rich travelers. My grandfather had made much money selling furs in France, where he lived. Anyway, there was this magician from Russia, Petrov.” Where had I heard that name before? “He created the Hanpera mask triplets. Petrov had cursed the masks so that whoever wore them would be able to change their face to look like another person’s. My grandfather bought the masks with the last of his traveling money, just looking for a nice gift for his wife. He never suspected that the curse was real.
“When he returned to Versailles, his wife had the masks put in greatly designed cases to show off to company. Nobody ever wore the masks for fear of the curse, and they were too beautiful to ruin at masked balls. They stayed in those cases until the day three were stolen. Upon inspection by the police, they thought the masks were stolen by an escaped Russian convict named Petrov. The cops eventually caught Petrov, and he was sentenced to death. In reality, Petrov only stole one mask. Damon’s wife stole the other two. She wanted them just in case she needed to break away from the grips of Sir Damon. He was a tyrant.” I unconsciously gasp while ignoring the last part. I know where I had heard that name now. “So I’m guessing you figured out where this is going?” I nod in short, slow, careful movements.
“Matvei Petrov,” I mouth, the words coming out lower than whispers.
“Exactly. Remember two years ago, when he first arrived from Washington?” Yeah, I remembered. That was a weird time. It was sophomore year, and Braeden and I had already been friends. Damen kind of got accepted into the group after a while just because he was shy, always had his nose in a book, and we felt sorry for him. Around that time, Damen and Braeden seemed like they were going through personality changes. Their parents sent them to the counselors, but they just wrote it off as “teenage discovery” like they thought that one day they were going to be goth, the next day cowboys. I suck in my breath at the realization. They nod in unison.
“That’s when it happened. I went to Braeden one day. I was completely freaked. The story of my triple great grandfather and Petrov had been told throughout the generations. There was just something about the way Matvei glared at me. It was different than the glare that he used on most people. It looked like he wanted revenge.”
“But why would you switch with Braeden? Wouldn’t that just mean that Braeden would have to suffer Matvei’s wrath?” I wonder aloud. They glance at each other quickly.
“We didn’t really think it through. I just saw how messed up he was, and I had to help. I couldn’t see Damen living in fear like that.” Braeden finally says. “And, the mask changes some of your facial features. It’s just a cursed mask, it can’t get everything right. It was just enough to disguise me and Damen. It also helped when his mom got remarried and changed her name. Matvei left for Washington in the summer hating Damen Pierre, and came back looking at Damen Storm and not knowing that Damen Storm was now Braeden Vista.” Braeden smiles at the thought of their clever scheme. I was thoroughly confused.
“So, let me get this straight,” I point at Damen, “you’re the original Damen Storm,” I point at Braeden, “and you’re the original Braeden Vista?”
“Yes,” they breathe in relief.
“Okay, but what does this have to do with Matvei? It’s not like he’s some great lunatic magician like his grandfather was.” I nervously laugh. They exchange glances once more. “…right?” The looks on their faces are not reassuring.
“Aw, man!” I groan.
“Hale, I don’t know how to tell you this, but this world isn’t what you think it is. Well, what you thought it was.” Braeden declares. I groan again and bury my head in my rough, gloved hands.
“Life isn’t always what it seems. This is one of those times. There are things that go around you that you’d most likely never need to know about unless you were directly involved.
“What are you now? A fortune cookie?” I cut in. He sighs impatiently.
“…maybe. Look, I’m just going to come out and say this. Magic is real. It’s all around us. Damen’s been exposed to it all his life and so has Matvei. The masks were just the beginning. I know you probably didn’t believe me, but the masks really are cursed. Petrov was a real magician and he cursed the masks. Matvei is a magician and once he knows that we have the masks, he’s coming after us. Magic still runs through his veins. The only problem for him is that he doesn’t know it.”
“Good for us, right?”
“No, good for us,” He points his finger between Damen and himself.
“No, you’ve still got it wrong,” I watch their expressions through the fire. The red and orange flames flicker across their faces, “because you told me. I’m involved now.” They look at each other apprehensively.
“If Matvei were to figure out that he could use the magic, we could be obliterated with one point of his finger.” Braeden breathes.
“And I don’t want anything to happen to you,” Damen mutters so low you can barely hear it over the cackle of the fire. Braeden and I snap our necks trying to face him. My mouth drops open a small amount, but I snap it back up just as quickly. I take a deep breath and calmly look back towards Braeden.
“So what’s our game plan?” Let the games begin.

Once again, I’m crouching on a roof. This time, it’s not mine, but instead one of the old factories. It’s not as scary in the daytime when you can see clearly. Dumb blue jays sit perched on a bare tree branch. They must not know the meaning of migration. I unstrap the pair of binoculars from my belt and look out over the landscape.
​“Nothing so far, Damen. No sign of him.” I whisper into my earpiece.
​“He’ll be there in a moment. Just wait, Hay. He’ll be there.” Damen cackles over the airwave. I turn the volume down again after nearly falling off the roof from the loudness of his voice. An impatient sigh emits from my mouth. I’ve been here since seven. Real Damen is hiding somewhere in the clearing where we met that night and Real Braeden is further down the road on the lookout. We’re waiting for Matvei.
​“Hey, I think I see him!” That was Braeden. He sounds excited.
​“Which way?” Damen and I both demand.
​“He’s coming up Gorotom Avenue from the north, from town.” I swivel my head to the north and whip the binoculars back in front of my eyes. Braeden was right, I hope. There’s a huge white pickup truck coming down the road. I try and zoom in to see if I could magnify the driver, but the windows in the car are tinted over the legal limit.
​“Guys, I think it’s him. I can’t be sure because the windows are tinted too darkly. It’s hard to see inside the cab of the truck.” I strain to see if I can at least see a shadow. “I think I’ll go down and take a closer look.” My feet shift towards the slowly rusting pipe that I climbed to get up here.
​“No!” They practically shout but then clear their throats. I stop dead in my tracks and almost fall off the edge once more. They’ve got to stop doing that.
​“I’ll go, Hayley,” Braeden whispers. He’s too close to talk loudly. “I’m closer anyway. I’ll get a better look.” After a few moments of complete silence, Damen decides to be the first to speak.
​“Stay by the road and don’t get too close. If he didn’t fall for the bait, he’s probably armed. If he did fall for it…well, he’s still Matvei.” I swallow roughly as I finally realize how dangerous this is. Damen, Braeden, and I could probably get killed.
​Where did our parents think we were? Canada. They seriously believed that we were taking a day trip over the Canadian border. We made it pretty believable, too. We threw random junk in my car, filled our wallets, and started driving northwest. After about ten minutes, I turned around and went in a circle around the town and back south towards the place Damen, Braeden and
I met that night. We grabbed the “random junk” and unpacked it all inside the house: earpieces, camouflage, traps...weapons. If anything went wrong, we were all supposed to meet back there and regroup. I had the strangest feeling that something was about to go wrong.
​“Brae, turn up your mic. I wanna hear what’s going on,” Damen announces. I hear shuffling, and then the buzz of a hornet nest.
​“Uh, Braeden?”
​“Yeah, Hayley?”
​“Don’t be alarmed. I just want to tell you not to run into any trees.”
​“Why’s that?”
​“Because I think there’s a bee or hornet nest near you.” I hear his feet pound against the ground away from the buzzing before the last words emit from my mouth. Damen’s and my laughter bounces all over the frequency.
​“It’s not funny!” Braeden rasps. That just makes it even funnier. The sound of a door opening abruptly stops our laughter. I look around and realize there’s no way a car could be up here on the roof. I hear an “all clear” from Damen. That means it’s coming from Braeden. The only car on the road was the white truck with the tinted glass: the truck I thought contained Matvei. I’m sliding down the pipe before I even finish my thought.
​“Damen!” I hiss, “I think Matvei’s got Braeden. I’m headed over there. Don’t respond. He may start listening in. Either stay at the gazebo or come on and help me!” My feet hit the ground at the end of my last sentence, and I take off in the direction of where we left Braeden. He was so far away, at least a mile up, and I didn’t think I could make it. I probably won’t. I just have to try, though.
​Somehow I keep my balance I weave through the trees. It’s darker under the canopy, but it’s the only place I can run without being seen. The leaves are long gone; it’s the middle of February. The only sounds are my feet beating the ground and the occasionally call of a random bird. Then I collide into a rock and tumble to the ground in a heap.
​Wait, it wasn’t a rock.
​“Damen!” I say between clenched teeth. Of course he would be able to catch me from that far away. He gets to take long strides considering he just about clears six feet now. I, being a prim 5’9,” am not vertically challenged, but considering the skyscrapers I deal with on a regular basis, my two strides only take up their one.
“Get off of me, big guy!” I kick him off with my feet.
​“Oops, sorry, Hay.” He gives a weak smile, “Didn’t see you there.” He yanks my arm up so I can stand, and almost dislocates my shoulder in the process. I kick him in the shin.
​“Thanks for runnin’ into me,” I mumble. I turn in a circle and try to gather my bearings. I start running in the direction I thought I was going in, and Damen follows.
​
​A whoosh of air hits my face. Stupid cars…this was supposed to be a deserted road. Oh man, it is deserted, too deserted. I don’t even see the truck. The truck! Where’s Matvei? Where’s Braeden? Oh, shoot. I shift back and forth on the balls of my feet in a nervous rush. And then a deep, heavily Russian voice takes over my earpiece.
​“V’hy hello, Dameen. It’z been a long time. I hope v’you don’t like z’his little v’riend ov yours.” Damen snarls beside me when Matvei pauses.
“V’you know what I v’want. Ze Hanperas v’would be nice. I’ll be v’waiting in your little cottage in the pretty little meadow. V’you may v’want to hurry. I don’t know how much time he haz’ lev’t.” Damen turns on his heels and almost flies back into the forest, but I grab his arm.
​“Hold up! It could be a trap!” I try to convince him.
​“Yeah, it probably is, but they’ve got Braeden!”
​“Damen, listen to me! I bet he’s probably just hidden him somewhere in the woods where we can’t see him. Matvei just wants to get you alone so he can hurt you.”
​“Well, I can’t really blame him for wanting to hurt me after we convinced him that that Russian superstar was here performing a secret concerts. You don’t mess with Russians and their music! I take that back. You don’t mess with any culture and their music! Just come on, I have an idea!”
​“I’m getting kind of tired of your ideas,” I growl, but he’s already dragging me through the trees.
​
​A gazebo appears between some foliage. It’s huge; it’s like a miniature house. There’s no time to waste. I’m pulling Damen now by his hand, as I drag him over a bridge. The little wooden bridge crosses over a creek. It’s probably the creek that ran through our spot. We stop at the entrance and I take a deep breath. Damen pulls back a curtain covering the doorway.
​It doesn’t look like Matvei destroyed it yet. There seems to be two rooms: one to the left and one to the right. I hear snippety words coming from the right room. I look up at Damen to try and read his expression. His face is blank as a whiteboard. I sigh and drag him in beside me.
​I was not prepared for the scene unfolded in front of me. Nobody really ever can be. There’s Matvei, sitting in a chair, looking at us coolly as ever. Some crony is sitting propped up in a chair next to Braeden, who’s on the floor, half-dead.
​“What did you do to him?!” Damen roars, gesturing wildly in Brae’s direction. I’d never seen either Damen’s get mad like that. Matvei smiles and then stands.
​“V’you didn’t hurry.” Are the only words Matvei utters. Damen starts stammering the beginnings of words but never forming the entire word. I take a closer look at Braeden. He’s unconscious, that’s for sure. I have no idea how Damen’s shouts didn’t awaken him. There’s a bruise forming over his left eye turning purple and black. A rainbow of cuts decorate his right arm, and a drop of blood stains his right cheek under his mouth. This isn’t good.
​“What do you want, Matvei?” I challenge.
​“V’hy, you know v’what I want. V’what I v’want iz zee Hanpera masks. Zee remaining two.”
The masks were stuffed in my old duffel bag in the other room. We couldn’t let him get to them. Who knows what kind of world destruction he would cause.
​“Look, Petrov,” I spit out, “I’m not really—“
​“Hayley, Hayley, Hayley,” Damen whispers, “I got this.” He says as he pushes me back a little bit. That only makes me take another step forward.
“Matvei, why do you want these masks so badly?” He asks the monster. Gangly Tall Dude is frozen. He doesn’t even know why he wants them. That’s the real kicker.
​“I need z’hem to restore my family’s honor.” He raises a bushy eyebrow. “And, I just know I can take z’hem from yoo. It’z too easy, v’really, with the magic.” I look at Damen through my peripheral vision.
​“He knows,” I will my eyes to say. He gives his head an almost imperceptible nod.
​“Apparently,” he mouths. I focus back on Matvei. I need his full attention now.
​“Petrov, what exactly do you plan to do once you take these masks from us with your awesome magical powers?”
​“V’hy should I tell v’you, little gee-earl?” He drags the word “girl” out.
​“Well, if you’re not going to tell me what your great big plan is, why not give me a little demonstration?”
​“I don’t need to prove anything to yoo.”
​“You don’t need to prove anything to me? But I’m the High Lord Master of Modern Magic, didn’t’cha hear? You know, the HLMMM?” I’m starting to enjoy this. Matvei stares at me with a face blanker than a freshly washed white sheet. I almost forgot that he wasn’t smart. I have history and literature with him. Dumber than a doornail is the expression that fits him. It is a possibility that he could actually be dumber than the doornail. This would be a great time to see if my powers of manipulation work on people other than Braeden.
​“Zee HLMMM? V’what iz that?”
​“Did you not hear me the first time? I’m the High Lord Master of Modern Magic! I control all the magic in the entire world! Did nobody email you a rulebook? Tsk tsk tsk, our corporate offices are getting shabby. Somebody needs to report them. Damen, would you mind making a note about that?” I turn to my right to face Damen. Please understand. I willed. He stared at me for a moment or two but finally comprehended.
​“Oh, right boss, sure. I just can’t find my pen and paper.” He thoroughly searches his pockets looking for the fake pen and paper.
​“V’what is going on here?” Matvei bellows, bewildered. He glances over at his crony only to realize that he’s still sleeping. A low growl escapes from his throat.
“V’hine! V’where is z’his v’rulebook? I need to zee it, no?”
​“No, you don’t need to see it Matvei. You are in violation of HLMMM code. We’ll have to take you downtown.”
​“V’WHAT? THEREZ A CODE?” He screams, shaking the entire cottage. All I need is a quick glare at Damen for him to comprehend this part. We both ram into Matvei, slamming him against the wall. The whole place shakes like it’s an earthquake. The crony’s eyes fly open, and he grabs Braeden instead of helping his boss. This must’ve been his plan all along. While Damen and I try and wrestle with Matvei, the crony silently slithers out. I catch the movement, but it slides to the bottom of my priority list. I jump onto a chair then onto Matvei’s back and cover his eyes so he can’t see. Damen grabs his arms and pushes the beefy, hairy wrists through a pair of handcuffs. I jump off of Matvei’s back and walk into the other room.
​It’s not until I bend down onto my knees that it clicks in my mind that Braeden was missing. I give myself carpet burn trying to get off the floor and run outside. I stop at the top of the stairs to look for them. Screams of agony and pain are coming from the trees to my left. I hop over the steps and into the woods, disoriented. I hear another scream and follow it to the location it came from. I’m pushing through the final bushes when I see the knife plunge into Braeden’s stomach.

I watch as the tourists explore the meadow: my friend’s gravesite. Something about this place interests them. I’ll never be able to understand why. They know what happened here a few years ago. I know I’ll never forget.
Braeden died that day. I took care of the man afterwards. Damen was in pieces. I’d never seen a human skyscraper cry like that. My eyes weren’t dry either. At the funeral, nobody could explain why his life was taken that day. Damen and I can. We know the truth.
Matvei had planned to kill Damen, not Braeden. He had figured that the guys were still wearing the masks, so he took the one that looked like Braeden, even though it really was. We were just part of the scheme: pawns on the chess board. The masks were a real part. In a search warrant, the other Hanpera mask had been found in a]that dusty old trunk Braeden had that night. It turns out that they had stolen it from Matvei long ago. Damen requested it, so he could keep a piece of what happened, when really he wanted no part of it. The guys had removed their masks from their faces and not put them back on since that night they told me the truth. We got our revenge last year, in court.
Matvei and the other man were charged with Brae’s murder. He was there, at the scene with blood on his hands too. Since I damaged the other man, they couldn’t send him to jail. He died too his first night in the hospital. That’s what he got for hanging out with a criminal.
It turns out that Petrov really did steal the masks. At the testimony, it was revealed that the Petrovs had been planning their revenge ever since the first Petrov was sentenced to death.
About six months ago, Damen and I both returned home for a holiday. It was hard, knowing that this was the place that a life was unnecessarily taken. I found the masks in that old duffel bag at the bottom of my closet. We had a bonfire at our place that night and burned them, with wisps of lavender and midnight blue smoke floating up from the flames.
All they had done was cause trouble. The masks killed my best friend, tore two other grieving friends apart, and ripped a community from its core. Its core’s name was Braeden.
And all this pain and suffering, was caused by three little masks.