Between The Lines

Chapter 7

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… I just- wait- what?”

“She’s sorry!  She didn’t mean to.  She just- wait- what?”  The man was echoing my every word in third person, only in a voice a hundred times more devastated.

“She just what what?” the shorter man asked confusedly.

“I… what?”  I  lost track of what was going on.

“She… wha-”

Finally, the short guy realised what his friend was up to.  “Will you shut up, Simon?” he shouted, punching him in the side of the head.  It sure seemed to shock Simon into his senses; his eyes opened again and he managed to stand up straight.  He looked back to me, rolling his eyes lazily.  “If you’re not here for entertainment, then why are you here?” At last, they were asking legitimate questions.

“I’m-”

“Looking for the hottest babes in town?” Simon suggested, bursting into a fit of giggles as though he’d just pulled off the funniest joke of the century.

I glared at him.  I had to admit, it was pretty hard to keep my expression steady when there was something undeniably hilarious about a six foot tall man giggling like a little girl.  Clearly, my assumptions that they were drunk were correct.  “I’m looking for Zacharias,” I repeated calmly.  Somehow, I didn’t feel afraid in the company of the two drunks.  As far as I was sure, they were just a pair of giddy idiots with a drive for alcohol (and erotic entertainment.)

“I don’t know no Zacharias,” Simon mumbled, starting to sway drunkenly again.

“Nah, babe, me neither.”

“But Zacharias was here.  I saw him here.  Zacharias Hunt, you must know him?”  I persisted, refusing to believe that after all of this, I’d knocked on the door of the wrong flat.

“Oh, Hunt.”

“Why didn’t you say you were looking for him?”

“My favourite guy.”

“Beautiful little plonker, Hunt, isn’t he, Isaac?”

“Too right,” Isaac, the shorter man, agreed, nodding his head very seriously.

Relief spread through me; I swear I could feel it sinking from the top of my head to my tips of my toes.  “Yes, Hunt, that’s him, that’s the one!” I exclaimed, hastening to ask them more questions now that I knew for sure that they were acquainted with him.  However, as I was opening my mouth to ask if they knew where he was, it became obvious that I’d already lost their attention, for they were now immersed in a conversation regarding hunting laws and soon enough they were arguing whether Katniss Everdeen was ‘hot or not.’

“Glimmer, hot or not?”

“Smoking hot.  Primnose, hot or not?” fired Simon.

“Man, that’s disgusting.  She’s five years old.”

“Yeah, but hot or not though?”

For the second time in three minutes, Isaac reached up and whacked his friend in the side of the head before turning and making his way down the corridor, wobbling wildly as he did so.  Half way down, he swayed uncontrollably, knocking into a bright lamp which toppled over and died out.  “That’s like asking me if I would bang an eighty year old man.”  His voice was muffled against the tiled floor.

“You would bang an eighty year old man?”

The men disappeared from sight, leaving me standing in the open doorway, utterly lost.  Zacharias obviously wasn’t here.  I considered giving up and making my way home but I hadn’t come all this way for nothing.  I still had no idea why I was so bloody determined to befriend him.  Maybe it was the abnormal circumstances under which we had met which attracted me?  All I wanted was to know more about him; hopefully on the way, I’d be able to uncover the reason for the fight I’d been caught up in.  I was certain that he needed a friend, too.  The only people I’d seen him interact friendly with were Isaac and Simon and they weren’t exactly sober company.  I only had two leads to Zacharias and they were both utterly drunk and in the flat in front of me.