ADOLESCENCE - The Unfortunate Disappearance of Autumn Usher

Chapter Thirteen

    Knock Knock Knock.

    Amelia pounded on the front door to the Nest. No answer.

    Knock Knock Knock.

    She heard voices from the inside talking for a while, before the door finally creaked opened. Fabian stood in front of her. He loomed more than a foot taller then Amelia, and she shook in his shadow.

    "Can I help you?" he asked in his smooth deep voice.

    "Hello," she said, gathering all the strength she could to not sound scared.

    "What can I do for you?" he asked.

    "I know that this isn't a car mechanic. And you better let me in before someone spots me and your hideout gets busted. The cops are right on my tail."

    "Oh, come in," Fabian said, opening the door wider for her as she stepped inside, and closed it behind her.

    "You've got a lot of guts just walking around in the open like that," Fabian applauded. "But you even had me fooled. I would've thought you were just some average high school girl."

    "That's the idea," Amelia laughed.

    "What's your name?" he asked.

    "Well," Amelia stuttered, "For security purposes, let's call me Amelia."

    Fabian shrugged.

    "Sure," he replied. "Well you can hide out here for as long as you like."

    "Oh, thank you."

    "Don't be so polite," Fabian said with a confused face. "You can drop the act, you're safe in here."

    "Well sir, I've been classically trained to not drop the 'act' until security is absolutely certain. Now let me be, I can handle myself."
   
    Fabian put his hands up.

    "Hey, whatever makes you happy, princess. I'll be in the lounge."

    "Alright, bye."

    Amelia watched Fabian walk away to a back corridor and sighed a breath of relief. She couldn't believe that she fooled him! She followed in his direction towards the back hallway, but a huge muscular man emerged from behind a stack of crates that were set up along the left wall and blocked her pathway. She looked at him and saw that he had a nub for a right arm.

    "Um, I- I'm sorry," she stammered. "If you could just let me through—"

    "—He doesn't talk," an echoey voice said from inside the garage. Amelia looked around to find the speaker. There were multiple people doing various, "interesting" things all around, but none of them seemed to be speaking to her or even acknowledging her presence.

    "He hasn't talked since that one dreadful day," it continued to echo within the metal walls. "And out of respect, I don't communicate with him through my mouth either."

    "Where are you?" Amelia asked, looking all around.

    "Right here! Look a little to the left, no, the other left. There I am!"

    Amelia was looking straight at Sashah, whose lips were not moving. The bird hunched on her shoulder let out a cry.

    "How are, what? How are you talking?!" she asked.

    "A little skill I picked up along the way," Sashah replied.

    "That's, not a skill," Amelia said quietly. "What kind of magic are you tapped into?!" Amelia's body shook and she felt a feeling of inescapable dread overcome her.

    Sashah continued to look at Amelia, and her mouth continued to stay closed.

    "What kind of magic are you tapped into?!"

    The words repeated again. It was Amelia's voice, and her previous words, but Amelia didn't say anything. She had never said that again. Her mouth hadn't moved at all.

    "Hey! Did you just mimic me?!" Amelia cried.

    "Perhaps," Sashah said, repossessing her previous voice.

    "Oh, leave the kid alone, Sash," Poppy said, coming out of the back hallway with a ring of keys in her hand. She stood to the right of Sam, who was now frozen stiff on the ground. She looked at him and smiled.

    "Sleep tight, big guy," Poppy said.

    Amelia chose to ignore the gruesome sight and focus on the topic at hand. Amelia looked at Poppy and was disgusted by her overly expressive and inappropriate sense of style.

    "That's Sashah," Poppy said to Amelia. "She likes to mess with new people like that. But sometimes she doesn't understand that that's MY JOB."

    "I see..." Amelia said, still concerned about her safety with this (what seemed like) eleven foot man standing over her.

    "I'm sorry," Amelia said. "I've been running for a very long time, is there any place I can rest?"

    "Let her pass, Abel," Sashah said, still not technically saying a word. Abel stepped to the side, and went back to hiding behind those crates. Who knows what he was doing back there.

    "Sure there is!" Poppy responded. She skipped over to Amelia. "Well there's the lounge, a few empty bedrooms, you could lie down right where you are and sleep if you'd like!"

    "Poppy, Why would she do that?" Sashah echoed.

    "I dunno," Poppy responded. "Why would she not?"

    "I think I'm gonna go find one of those bedrooms," Amelia said.

    "Alrightie," Poppy shrugged.

    "Which ones are being used right now?" Amelia asked, trying to learn just where they were keeping those kids.

    "Uhhhmmmmm," Poppy said for an extremely exaggerated length of time.

    "POPPY, focus. She asked you asked you a question," Sashah echoed aggressively.

    "Right, right," Poppy said pulling on the two pieces of pink hair that hung down in the front of her face. "Uhh ONE NINETY-NINE!" she finally said, as if it pained her to actually give constructive information rather than gibberish and useless fluff. "That's the only one that's being used right now. It's the weekend, you know, everyone else is out doing stuff right now."

    "Good, Poppy. You did good." Sashah echoed.

    "GOODNIGHT," Poppy suddenly yelled, and ran to sit in her spot in front of the old TV against the back wall. She just sat there and stared at the blank screen.

    "You're, not going to sleep," Amelia said, confused.

    "And?" Poppy said, still not taking her eyes away from the very empty screen.

    "Okayyy," Amelia responded. She looked at Poppy and eyed the ring of keys in her hand.

    "Can I have those keys if the room I want is locked?"

    "OKAY! Gosh, you're really annoying," Poppy said. She turned and hurled the keys at Amelia, which she scrambled to catch.

    Sashah shrugged and gracefully slid off the hood of the car. "I'll be making my rounds."

    Amelia didn't care what she meant by that, as long as they both were occupied.