Six Feet Under • Anthony Lockwood

|04|

before

Fifteen-year-old Amelia Evans slammed the door open to their room at the inn, a dingy place that they could barely afford because of the jobs that they had been forced to take lately. Business had been slow and she could feel the hunger pains in her stomach at the fact that they had barely any food left to get them through the week.

"Lia." George followed behind her, watching as she threw her bag down against the end of the bed that they had been forced to share for the last two weeks, a frown on his face as he watched his sister tear down her ponytail and grasp her hair. She was stressed and he hated that he had dragged her into the mess that he had. She could have been at Fittes still, without the fear of being on the streets or without food. "It wasn't that bad."

"Kipps was an arse." Amelia snapped, throwing her body back onto the bed and grabbing a pillow that she knew had seen better days. She placed it over her face, a loud scream coming from her mouth as the days events finally caught up to her. She removed the pillow, watching him cautiously as he latched the door behind him and gently placed his things down. George was the calm before the storm and Lia was the hurricane that caused destruction wherever she went. "He knew that we were taking that case somehow, knew it! Now he gets paid for all of the hard work that we did because I botched it with the owner."

"It's not that bad." George approached her slowly, like a hunter would a wounded animal that was ready to lash out at him. "There's always more cases."

"No one wants to hire us." Amelia spat, her voice acidic but he could see the damage that Kipps had caused her with the words that he had whispered to her when they were leaving the house. "No one wants to hire two people that Fittes disposed of. Two washed up agents that couldn't hack it at the most prestigious agency in the world."

"You could probably go get your job back." George admitted hesitantly, his frown growing as he watched the tears of frustration gather in her eyes. He knew that things had been bad for Lia lately, the whispers haunted her far more than they did before. He supposed it was from the anniversary coming up and he made a note inside of his brain to keep a closer eye on her. She had become more reckless lately, barely thinking before doing and it worried him. "They didn't want you to leave in the first place."

"I'm not going back there!" Amelia shouted, her voice firm but the fear on her face overtook her anger. She was scared of Fittes, of how they didn't seem to care if the associates there lived or died if the job was done. There were too many secrets, secrets that George had been looking at too closely which led to his termination. "Not without you."

"This isn't about me Lia." George sat down on the bed, his head in his hands at the pain in her voice. He hated to see her sad, absolutely loathed that he had been one of the people to bring her to this point. She didn't have that same spark of life that she did before, her face had only grown paler and he had caught her changing once to see that she had lost enough weight from their lack of food. "This is about you going to a place that can provide you the safety and security that we don't have anymore."

"And what about you?" Amelia grumbled, her mouth turning into a firm line at the thought that George didn't want her around anymore. "What are you going to do? You won't go home to your family."

"Like I said, this isn't about me." George looked up at her, his hands falling into his lap and his fingers grasping so tightly at his trousers that he feared the material would finally give out. He was defeated and worn down and he couldn't bare the look on her face that showed the betrayal she felt. "You don't think I notice that you pretend to fall asleep before we eat so that I might eat more without you watching? You think that I don't hear you cry yourself to sleep most nights because this lifestyle is something that you hate? I can't pretend I don't notice anymore Lia, not when you're barely holding weight and you look like you're going to keel over at any moment. We're not twelve anymore. You can't protect me from the reality of the world anymore like you tried to do at Fittes. The world is cruel and unkind, but I can't sit back and watch you kill yourself anymore to protect me."