The Last Wish

18. Mayhem in Mind

He stopped short in the middle of the main hall and turned around facing the sofa. He groaned. That second, he knew two things, a) he brought home a girl last night and b) he wished he was back in the nightmare, that was way better than her.

"This is fucking not happening," he grumbled, running his hand through his damp hair and pulling it by the ends.

He went to the girl. Somewhere in the middle of the night, she had fidgeted too much and now was on the ground. The blanket spiralled around her making her look like a distressed mummy.

Matt smiled, a small involuntary one. He didn't attempt to help her up, knowing interrupting the mummy in distress would end him up with her slap wrath.

He went to the kitchen, deciding to leave her alone and aid his growling stomach. He opened a pantry cupboard, one that was filled with dozens of cereal boxes. He took out the fruit flavoured honey loops box and emptied half of its contents into the bowl. He opened the refrigerator, poured the remaining of the milk carton into the bowl, mentally making note to buy more cartons.

Satisfied, he sat on a bar chair with the bowl in his hand. The chair squeaked under his weight, but Matt was too busy gulping away his cereal to care. He was momentarily reminded of the lessons on table manners his discipline coordinator had taught him and his elder sister when they were young.

"Hold the spoon like this," she had said, holding the spoon between her sausage-like fingers (he had a strong dislike for the woman). His perfect sister had held the spoon between her fingers perfectly, but the seven year old him squirmed and groused and in the end had never learnt to hold a spoon like a gentleman. But that didn't matter now, he was him and that needn't the requirements of a gentleman. All he needed was a cold heart, a revolver to survive.

He shoved a spoonful of soaked honey loops into his mouth with much force, only to find it empty. He looked at his bowl, it was empty. A trip down the damn memory lane and he had already finished his breakfast. Sullen, he got up and dumped the empty bowl into the sink.

He walked to the sofa, deciding to check on the girl. She was still asleep, breathing softly. He checked her pulse again, it was normal. He wasn't yet satisfied, apprehensive that the fall might have been severe than he thought.

He sat on the floor next to her and pulled out his phone. He cringed at the amount of missed calls and messages. Twenty five missed calls, ten alone from Edward and sixty three messages.

"Holy shit," he cursed. He ran his hand through his hair, skimming through the messages. Most weren't serious, but a specific one, the second to last message grabbed his attention. The message was a single emoji, a single red ball. To the eye of a normal being, it would be a random mistype, a mistake perhaps due to the rapid texting. But to Matt, it was danger. The red dot signified a distress call.

Just like a*, Matt immediately turned to ALERT mode. As if on cue, his phone rang. An image of a mongoose flashed on his phone, he picked the call.

"Ain't gonna pry over your fuck life, dude, but this time I am," the voice said coolly and then shouted. "Who the fuck are you with?"

"None," Matt said in a level voice. He glanced at the sleeping girl and decided lying would be the better option for both.

"Dude we've got a damn situation to handle and everything's going down hell if you-" there was a screech and someone cursed in the background before the line reconnected again, "Andrew, fast. Now!"

"I'll be there in no time, Kilt," the call ended.

Matt threw on a military sweatshirt over a black t-shirt made of rough fabric, knowing the weather wouldn't treat him well otherwise. He was almost out when he remembered the girl. The door was half open, his fist wrapped around the door handle before making up his mind.