Monsters

Chapter Seven

"Right, that." She brought one of her hands up to rub the back of her neck. "I overheard you a few weeks back mentioning your full name. Amity Blight, correct?" Her words surprised me as I hadn't been able to recall ever saying such at first. Then, I remembered pretending to play baseball as she worked on the car before the hoard had come. I wasn't sure where this was going but I nodded my head towards her in acknowledgment.

"Your father, does his name happen to be Alador Blight?" She asked awkwardly and my eyes went wide in recognition.

"Yes, it is. How do you know about my father though?" My one hand not holding the bat went down to grip the end of my shirt as a feeling of uncertainty grew within me.

"Is that what you want your question to be?" She began jokingly though I could tell she was uncomfortable with the spotlight she had placed herself under with me. I didn't want to let this go, but I suppose I could save that question for another time. Biting my lip as I went to think of a response I let out an exhausted sigh. All the walking has started to get to me.

"No. There is something else I'd like to ask you though." I said while my hand fiddled with a loose thread on my shirt. I figured that if my question was deep, then it would distract her long enough to allow the tension between us to dissipate to a more breathable level.

"Yes, I am single." She answered jokingly before winking toward me and I almost choked on air. My face flushed as my mind raced with all kinds of scenarios depicting what she could've meant. Looking back over at her with wide eyes I watched her start to chuckle lightheartedly. The way she looked at this moment, the sun causing a glow to surround her, I felt myself grow speechless as I opened and closed my mouth repeatedly as a result.

I hadn't needed to ask a question to get rid of the tension as Luz seemed to do that all on her own. That's something I loved about our time together, our banter, we didn't need to know a lot about each other to talk as we have been. "That's not what I was going to ask you, idiot!" I shouted, shoving her to the side as she continued to laugh to herself while I stayed fuming beside her.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry." She lifted her hands in surrender and I scoffed at her antics. "But seriously, what do you want to know?" Her joking nature fell as only a small smile remained. Sighing, I allowed my mind to wander for a moment as an image came to mind while I recalled a memory.

"When you took your hoodie off that one night you were wearing a shirt with a logo. At first, I couldn't recognize it but for some odd reason, I feel like I'd seen it before. What is it?" I stopped walking and leaned forward curiously and watched as she too halted any further movements. It seemed as if she was taking a moment to think back on everything before I saw her face grow a look that caused a heaviness to lay in the pit of my stomach. "I'm sorry, was I not supposed to ask that?" I immediately backtrack yet she held a hand up.

"That was not a question I had expected you to ask. I'm uncertain how you even remembered such a small detail so that caught me off guard." She took a moment to pause and take a deep breath. "The people that have been chasing me, that is their company logo. I had been wearing that shirt when I ran from them." This newfound information left my head reeling as I fell even further into the endless mystery that was the girl before me. The more I learn about her the more I find there is to discover. This, whatever it was that she is involved in, ran deeper than I could have ever imagined.

Questions circled my head all at once yet the biggest thing that came to mind was why she had needed to escape from them. And what about her made them need to chase her down? Had she known something, done something to make hunting her down necessary? However many questions came to mind though, I chose to ask none of them. "Wow, okay," I said before turning and continuing to walk forward without another word.