Off The Rails

“Jess!”

Simon didn’t waste much time in calling out his genie’s name, scrambling out of his desk and around it to face her. But, unfortunately, the rest of the room had reacted to the sudden screaming apparition of their classmate as well. The teacher jumped back alarmed, and the rest of the class scrambled into mutterings and raucous talking among themselves; their eyes or legs moving around them in urgent huddles.

Fuck.

Jess started to claw at him as he tried to think of something. The head cheerleader had just appeared out of thin air on his desk - it was the very opposite of inconspicuous, and even harder to explain. Not that that mattered much to him as the sight and sound of his genie's distress set alarm bells ringing in his head.

He thought back to his more absented-minded wish during their time together Saturday night, ordering in her ear,

“Jess. Yell ‘Simon Says let Simon take me to the nurse’ right now.”

Her body responded, even as she remained in a precarious state.

“Simon says let Simon take me to the nurse!”

The voice was almost monotone and robotic, a **** statement, as Simon watched the room fall into blank stares and a brief moment of silence.

The teacher spoke first, “Mr. Harris. Please get Miss Edwards to the Nurse’s office, seeing as she’s interrupted our class to be on your desk...?”

He nodded as fast as he could and picked Jessica up onto her feet as her eyes remained locked ahead of her. She clawed at his shirt and arms and followed as he led her out of their classroom unsteadily. The raucous sounds of the class returned, though muffled from their place in the hall. He walked her out of sight of the door,

“Jess, Jess, look at me. What happened? What’s wrong?”

He reached out to cup her face again as her **** green eyes finally focussed on his face and she began to tremble.

Before he could make any more progress, another person knocked him out of the way angrily.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, you retard!” Brad’s anger snapped at the young man as Simon struggled to regain his step.

The two of them glared at one another briefly. The Quarterback had removed his sunglasses as he stared him down in disgust and disbelief. Brad then leaned over and immediately grabbed Jessica’s face with both hands, leaning down and kissing her on the lips.

“Hey, babe. What did you do that for?” he purred, trying to get her attention.

Simon felt his eyes widening at the sight of him kissing her and stroking her hair like a goddamned pet that got jumped from the Fourth of July fireworks.

“C’mon baby, talk to me. What’s wrong?” he continued to attempt to soothe the genie in his husky tone.

The young man felt his fists clench and his head-turning off to the side even more than it had at other times. The way Brad acted had always irked his sister, and when Jessica was with him, her playfulness always seemed to defuse it.

For Simon, seeing it now, his anger began to grow.

Jessica seemed to notice almost immediately the change in him. As Brad attempted to scoop her up in his arms, she flailed and knocked him back. The Quarterback was taken off guard at the sight of the Head Cheerleader immediately bolting toward the other young man in the hall.

The blonde genie latched on and clung to her Master for dear life, shaking and trembling even more than she had a day earlier. Simon reached down and cupped her cheek, stroking her thumb as he looked down at her.

“I’m here, Jess.”

The young woman’s face contorted and stared, then buried itself into his chest as he turned her toward the direction of the Nurse’s office. Simon’s hazel eyes turned coldly back to glare at Brad Myers as he locked eyes on him and found himself seething, his muscles in his arms flexing as he clenched down his hands into fists.

He pointed at Simon and then ran the same finger across his neck before pointing back at him and mouthing,

‘You’re dead.’

The auburn-haired teenager felt nothing from the threat. His glare and his lack of emotion keeping his face frozen as he began to walk forward and away with Jessica. Jess’ safety was all that mattered to him. He was only glaring to make sure Brad turned around and slammed the door to the classroom shut behind him.

If he had taken a step closer to Jess, Simon would not have wasted even seconds on him. Instead, the darkness lurking inside of him was already opening the door to be released.

But the bigger problem on his hands remained.

He grabbed one of Jessica’s hands and held it tightly, a protective arm wrapping around her as they went towards the Nurse’s office and sat down on a bench inside. He kept holding his genie’s hand and knelt in front of her. She looked up at him again with her head down.

He smiled at her, “Jess, can you hear me?”

Her emerald eyes were bloodshot, shaken, but she managed to nod slowly. Her face had still been red from the moment earlier as she stuttered to find her voice again.

“M-Ma-Master?”

He nodded as she clung back onto him from her seated spot, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and neck as she closed her eyes and begun breathing deep breaths in and out. She began to regain her bearings as her mind focused again.

“Simon.”

She clenched onto him harder for protection as she let out a whimper and looked to her friend as her eyes began to water.

“W-Where are we?” her voice asked in raspy and low tones.

“Nurse’s Office, I brought you here,” he explained to her.

She looked around again frantically and then let her face scrunch as she had realized what had happened to her.

“Master. I’m so sorry. I messed up!” she whispered emotionally.

He cupped her cheek again and rubbed her tears away, then sat in the chair next to her. He let out a sigh as he remained concerned with worry, his eyes on the school queen as she curled her legs up into the chair with her.

“Jess. We can fix that later. I’m more worried about you right now,” he pointed out to her.

He then pulled her chin over with his right index finger and kept it focused on him. He needed to know what had happened.

His genie bit her lip nervously and held her arms up as a form of comforting herself.

“Tell me what happened, Jess? Who? What? Did this?”

Her jaw continued to tremble and shake as she remembered her telepathic link to him coming back into play. Her emerald eyes, full of pain, glanced off to the side in hesitation, then locked back onto him.

“Kevin.”

Simon felt his heart stop at the sound of the name come from Jessica. She noticed almost immediately as her face scrunched up and looked at him.

“Master, I’m so sorry, but I was right! He was lying to you! I thought after first-period when I asked Sam to keep him off me that he didn’t remember because of the fight, but he remembered everything else! He knows I’m a genie; he was probably in my house yesterday before I got there looking for the ring! He jumped me in the hallway and pulled me into the janitor’s closet! He says if I don’t tell him where the ring is, he’ll tell everyone! He wants to use me! He tried taking my necklace thinking it was the ring! He won't stop, Master!”

As his genie told him of what had happened, Simon’s brain began to click in the little hints he had one-by-one.

His text message asking if Jess told his sister anything; when Kevin talked about having a new plan that morning to get back at Jessica and her friends.

“We’re only human, after all!”

His friend’s words echoed and replayed in his head, as did the comment he made with the smug smirk on his face.

“Well, ALMOST everyone is.”

If Simon’s left hand were holding anything in it, it would have been crushed or snapped. Instead, the tension in his fist was so forceful that Jessica’s eyes noticed it as his knuckles began popping and cracking on their own.

“Simon?” she purposefully **** herself to say his real name out of worry to snap him back.

Only this time, there was nothing to be snapped back to. Jessica’s voice returned to her as she made a suggestion, "... Why don’t you just wish for me to make him forget everything, that way, we could….”

Simon’s voice spoke one word bluntly and coldly.

“No.”

It had taken almost until the moment she said everything mentally to her Master that the genie finally felt her sanity returning. She had told him everything, knowing that he would take care of it. He needed to know his friend was lying to him, that he was hunting her.

After all the discussion of the Masters and knowing what they could be, Jessica was sure that Kevin would be the monsters’ willing acolyte if he ever gained her power.

She knew it might overwhelm Simon, as well. The way he had looked that night after seeing the now-erased video of her beating his friend because of what happened, the way he stormed off. She imagined the rage that must’ve been building up inside of him that he quelled.

But that wasn’t what she felt from him when she finished.

Master was very much angry, upset, and enraged. Like her and Sam, she expected Simon to be a Volcano or feel fiery in his anger if she ever got the chance.

Watching him, Jessica began to feel cold.

The genie’s body wanted to shiver. The normal warmth and care her Master always felt and tried to share with her to keep her safe disappeared. Instead, it felt like the dead of winter, with no lights, the snow building up to her knees as the wind whipped up, and she remained lost in the dark.

Her Master’s rage had cut those other emotions off at the source. As if he turned off the light switch. His free hand had clenched so tightly into a fist. She could see the white skin of his knuckles as they began to pop.

She looked at her friend worriedly, saying his name so that he would focus more on her, “Simon?”

He continued staring ahead of him, his face blank.

Jessica felt herself gulp out of nervousness. She needed to get him to focus on dealing with Kevin.

So, she began to speak again, suggesting her plan, “...Why don’t you wish for me to make him forget everything, that way, we could….”

“No.”

Her Master’s voice was an ice gust that burst out and around the room. Jessica could feel it hitting her and sending a shiver down her spine. Her eyes widened as she watched his head tilt toward her, his eyes remaining wide and looking right at her.

“I’m going to settle this. Now.”