Ruby Red Marionette

sixteen | patriot

"This isn't what I was looking for." I said, my inclination to surrender and go home already breaking in my voice.

"Well, we can check -

"Stop talking." The words spilled. We stood silent next to each other. There was not a sound; you could hear a pin drop, a mouse peep, my heartbeat. I began walking then, faster and faster, and soon I was running. I pelted down the block, past the erroneous house numbers and onto the next block. Devin struggled to keep up.

I stopped when I saw what I noticed a block away.

"What the hell? I'm tired as shit." Devin said, heaving with his hands on his knees.

I pointed to the car across the street. License plate PMI-165, an old green Subaru. Then the car on our side of the street, the black Isuzu, with license plate FNT-171. The car behind it: Acura, CMB-100.

Those were the license plates I memorized.

"I don't see what you're pointing at," He told me, peering at where my finger pointed. I turned around to face the houses on the block. They were the same numbers as before, but spelled out in letters now. And, somehow, all numbers were there - including house number 105-74.

I went inside the one-story house.

I knew I was in the right place when I saw the barrel chair he made me sit on, still in the same spot, and the chair he sat in. All lights were off, and everything was silent. Devin looked around, remaining silent. Moonlight cascaded over and through the bars of the windows, covering everything in the room with a sinister tinge of blue-white.

"What's that?" Devin asked me. His words took a few moments to settle; I stood frozen in the middle of the room, memories of that day and those burgundy roses and the way my feet used to sweat before every dance recital when I was little. I almost slipped across the stage once because of it.

They were sweating now.

"What's what?" I turned around to look at Devin, but I almost wished I hadn't. Something about him, about the glow in his eyes from the light, from the way he stood, the way he spoke, put a bad taste on my tongue. Suddenly all I could think about as I looked at him was the fact that I didn't know him, and that I'd given him my strengths and weaknesses. I explained to him why I didn't trust anyone, but had forgotten not to trust him.

"That." He pointed to the window, where I had been looking before but never noticed the brown paper envelope on the windowsill. I went over to it immediately - hesitation would only give the hairs on the back of my neck more time to grow even straighter - and picked it up. The contents were thick; there were maybe about twenty pages inside. I pulled them out and kneeled down on the floor, spreading them all about before me.

All of them had the police department's insignia. They were Charlie's private case papers. I skimmed them, using the moon for light. Many of them spoke of people and situations that I had no knowledge of, so I skipped them and looked for anything to do with Witness Protection Programs, or bombs, or me.

I found something.

It was my case. There were statements with checkboxes for 'resolved' and 'unresolved'. Bomber's motive: unresolved. Bomb's origin: unresolved. Bomber: resolved.

And then, right next to the checked 'resolve' box for 'bomber', there was a name: Ashley Culzac.

The chills that were already growing just beneath my skin, pushing goosebumps onto my arms, had now turned into violent shudders. I bit down on my lip to keep myself from screaming and dropped the papers like they were on fire. They might as well have been. I might as well have been. The room spun and so did I, and when I made a full turn, Devin wasn't there. I couldn't control my breathing; either that, or the sounds coming from my mouth weren't the result of uncontrolled breathing, but the lack of any breathing at all. Sweat dripped from my forehead, so much that I even swore I heard it dripping, like a leak from the ceiling. The room continued to spin and so did I, and I remembered doing my ballet turns as a girl on stage. Spinning and spinning on my toes, just like this room did. I never slipped once, no matter how sweaty my feet were.

But right now, I had already slipped. I was mid-fall and everyone was staring and while all I'd want to do as a girl was die from the embarrassment, I probably wasn't far from it.

"Geneva?"

My heart dropped to my stomach. It was a dangerously painful feeling, yet I was relieved. Devin was still here, still alive, and he just called me. For what? I couldn't go to him. I couldn't move.

I managed to turn around and pick up the paper with Ashley's name on it. My fingertips burned against it, but I held it nonetheless, and went to the back of the house where Devin's voice echoed against the walls.

He was in the bedroom. It was completely empty besides a grand, cushioned armchair. The two French windows were the only ones in the house with curtains; the windows were open, and the frail curtains blew in the heavy wind.

So did his hair as he sat slumped in the chair, one arm on the armrest and the other couldn't be seen from behind him. I looked at Devin; the look on his face told me that he hadn't gone around to check who sat in the chair. I imagined Charlie sitting in that chair, dead, the gun he used to kill himself in his hand. I imagined blood splattered all over his face, maybe his eyes open, his hair slicked back. But then I remembered who he was, and realized that things with him were never as they seemed.

He was either pretending to be dead, had killed himself for a reason beyond me, was murdered, or...or someone else was in that chair.

We left.

'Left' was an understatement for the speed at which we flew out of that house and immediately out of the area. Somehow, the thirty minutes we spent looking for the house burned down into two; either that, or I was imagining recognizable neighborhoods around me to comfort myself. I ran, not sure if Devin was beside me, my cheeks shaking and my chest scorching. Of course, again, the clown was behind me. This time he didn't even try to catch up, as if chasing me like he always did was too predictable. It was more haunting if he let me go.

I could see Carlos now, telling me that he knew nothing after giving Charlie the products. I could see him telling me about what happened to the Latina girl at the Witness Protection Program. I could see him in the bumper cars, in the driver's seat, at the bar. I could see him slumped over a glass of water.

I could see him, and I didn't want to anymore. So I turned left, leaving he and Devin on the main path.

The clown followed.