528

chapter six

"Saturday. About 7:17 at night. That's when it happened," Milo started.

I was a little confused as to how Milo knew the exact time it happened. The exact time he murdered someone.

"You might be wondering how I know this."

Woah. He can read me. It's normally hard for people to read me. I was surprised that Milo could. Maybe it was just a coincidence. But if it wasn't, I had to keep that in mind. It was a good aspect for the 'team'.

"A few days earlier, I had a client come to me. He's bought from me for years now. I had memorized his order. He bought the stuff and left. Two days after that, I attended his funeral. Told the family that I was a friend of his."

"Why'd you kill him?" I asked.

"No, no. I didn't kill my client. I killed his father. See I attended HIS funeral. He overdosed. Few days after the funeral, the dad came knocking at my door rambling on about how I ended his son's life and somethin' about how I should be condemned to hell."

I tried to stifle my laughter but I couldn't hold it in.

"What?" Milo questioned while raising his left eyebrow.

"We should all be in hell."

Milo was confused as to why I thought this but continued on with his story.

"Anyways, he barged into my house and pointed a knife to my neck, rambling on about his son and how I ruined his family. He cornered me to the wall and the knife pushed deeper into my throat, slicing it a bit, causing blood to drip down. Before he could cut any deeper, I broke out of his grasp and grabbed a flower pot nearest to me and chucked it at his head. The pot shattered and he stumbled back a bit, but it didn't hold him back much. He charged at me and pushed me to the ground. We fought on the ground for a little bit but a few minutes later I managed to get up. I punched him over and over again until I made sure he couldn't fight back. But, I think I got a bit carried away though because when I got up, he wasn't breathing. I swear I tried to bring him back. But it was too late. I was gonna call the cops but then he showed up. 511. And, now I'm here."

"Now you're here," I repeated.

It was self defense. If he would have just gone to the police, things wouldn't be so bad. But my brother just had to mess it up.

"You do know that that's self defense right?"

"Yeah, I realized. But at the time, I was in shock. I didn't know what to do and he helped."

"He helped," I repeated.

He always just has to help.

"Then you ended up here?" I guessed.

"No, actually. He told me to this house on Gellian Street and take care of some stuff for him."

"What? Are you sure it was Gellian Street?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

That was my foster house. Bernard. Oh god, what happened to Bernard.

"What happened," I demanded.

"U-um. There was this guy there. He was drunk. Really drunk. Thought I was somebody named Lilia."

Lilia. His daughter. Dead, daughter. She was the reason he fostered children. He did it for a long time. Five years before I came along. But they told me that he couldn't take it anymore after a while. He wanted to be good for Lilia, but he couldn't bear the thought of children, so he started to drink. Drink the memories away. Drink Lilia away.

I'm not sure why they didn't revoke his license. It was probably because they felt bad for him. Or maybe it was just because they didn't have enough foster parents and couldn't afford to lose one. I waved my hand at Milo, asking him to proceed with the story.

"511 asked me to take him to some place name Jelly's Candy Shop and leave him in the dumpster behind the store. After I did that, I came here and met the others."

"Is he still there?"

"I don't know," Milo replied.

He doesn't know. Nobody ever knows. I don't understand why 511 had to get rid of Bernard. It doesn't matter anymore though, because he's probably already dead. I need to move on.

"Okay."

"That's it. That's my story."

"That was your story."