R I V E R
He felt as if he was being guided into a horror movie.
An abandoned house filled the space in front of him, standing tall but weak. Although the termites had feasted upon it for years, it still appeared intact enough. Maybe a blow and it'd fly away, River wasn't sure. Rusted metallic gates, shattered windows and several cracks weren't small enough to deceive his eyes.
Weak and pathetic, the house didn't fail to remind him of someone.
It offered an eerie sense of awareness, regardless of how beautiful the mountains not so far away looked, the house—the whole town—appeared to be nothing but Valak's home. In the middle of nowhere, the town of Elesk was one of the perfect places to hide but only at the cost of giving up necessities. Even though the place reeked of dead rats and moss, River decided he wasn't going to complain about it. Luxury hadn't been in his fate for a while now. He was alive, that mattered more.
He sighed. Instead of a large number of boxes, ready to start a new life, what he had last week was a small duffle bag and no clue how many days of freedom he had left. When a month ago, he was informed they had managed to find his hideout, he had no choice but to run. He had spent half a year in a small cabin near the countryside, hiding perfectly away from any pair of eyes which could pose a threat as well as making contacts in case of any emergencies. His time spent there did come in handy when he left but it had been a tough choice. He had grown fond of the place.
A bird chirped close to him, flying away when he moved. Its wings flapped, gliding above the house eventually and he took a full view of the house, once again.
It was two-floored. Moss enfolded various areas of the house and two trees on each side of it had infested it completely, their branches growing peacefully through the various broken windows. The trees had made the house a home of their own and a dead rat, rotting by the edge of the broken swing wasn't a good sight but he decided, he could move past it.
Ignoring the state of the house wasn't a hard task, the house or he could say his new temporary home was as good as it could get for him but when a ragged doll's eyes, two-floor above pierced into his from the window, it became harder to breathe.
A new house, a haunted doll. It was like walking into a trap but the doll at the window was alive, ragged from living on the streets all her life but alive and the doll was the only one who could save him for now.
She waved, the skin on the palm of her hand torn in various spots.
Ignoring her felt like a crime but River was already a criminal, it didn't matter.
He stood anxious and uncomfortable, gulping his saliva as his stomach rolled. His nasal passage was blocked, the chilly wind was to be blamed and as another wave of wind managed to redden my nose further, he wiped it on the arm of his silver t-shirt. He could blame his anxiety on the cold but in truth, Rosalyn Green made him nervous. Beneath the innocent infatuated facade, River suspected she held something much more devious than she showed.
He looked away then, letting his mind linger on anything other than the girl in the window. She moved when he didn't reciprocate her greetings and he groaned from the utter despair in the pits of my heart.
"Rev," his jaws tightened when she approached. He wasn't sure how she stepped down that quickly, but her sight didn't fail to sour his spirit further. He hated the nickname he'd gotten from her; he wasn't a fan of nicknames in general but he knew defying her would only result in something he wasn't looking forward to. So, he kept his mouth shut and braced himself to give a sweet smile to the girl in the pair of new fancy heels and dress. "Are you coming in?" She asked and he nodded.
Rosalyn was like a pest. He wanted nothing but to get rid of her, but she had been the only one to offer help and politeness for her was an obligation.
"Do you like the house by the way? I added lights in the room last night, they're nice, aren't they? They were cheap too!" She grinned, her thin lips stretching wide and further sickening him but he had no time to express his hatred. He hated the way she looked, he hated the way she talked but instead of every cruel word he felt she deserved, all she got was a smile.
He couldn't afford to chase her away.
"Not bad," he kept his answers short.
Past the large metallic gate, there was a small front yard, feather-like grasses covered the entire area. A bunch of wildflowers grew out of those unwanted plants, acting as a sight of beauty to one's eyes. Even with his shoes on, the grass tickled his exposed skin near the joint. He groaned when a bunch of them tangled at his foot, glaring and kicking them away, stepping on the white flowers along the way.
He threw my foot around more, getting rid of more unwanted plants that came his way.
"It belonged to my father." She said, almost weeping.
He wasn't sure how to comfort her. If that was what she needed at all, and neither had the will for it.
"Why didn't you live here then?" He questioned instead and she fell into silence.
"He kicked me out."
"What a shame." He whistled to himself.
"Do you want to know why?" He stared at her for a moment. She may have made him nervous but he knew how to reciprocate that. Anxiousness was dripping from her face when she kept blinking, attempting to look everywhere but at him. He had learned the trick years ago—the key was to keep a poker face, not blink and think about something funnily cruel.
He had thought about Ander trapped in the attic with the vicious rats when his mother had come home drunk, and he thought about Rosalyn falling from her very own window when she didn't give up being nosy. Worked like a charm.
She looked away, as quick as a cat.
He wasn't interested in her question, but he knew she was interested in opening up to him. At her query, he stopped walking. He knew he couldn't be too straightforward with her but feigning to care was something he was incapable of. "Rosalyn, when you saw my name in the newspaper a few years ago, what did it say?"
He was certain she had something in mind. She should be far away from him, anyone with a rational mind would abandon him at the main gate, wishing him a painful death as a goodbye but here she was, willing to confide. Was she that lonely?
"That. . .that. . . did you really do it?"
"What do you think?"
"You don't look that cruel. It was a false accusation, wasn't it?"
"Looks can be deceiving." He shrugged and she fell out of words, he knew she was itching to know more.
"Is River your real name?" She breathed in and he tilted his head, curious where that question came from.
"No," it was a lie.
"Oh."
He was certain she lacked common sense, half the population knew his identity, and his alias wouldn't be the one published nor plastered all over the media when he had been hunted by the authorities for seven months now.
"Ander said it was."
Ander had been a pain in his ass ever since they were kids. He had tried befriending him, the unknown boy who out of nowhere had become a part of his life along with his mother's new boyfriend but he was chirpy, too chirpy for his liking. Always running after him with his mindless bobbleheads and ratting him out to Mom when he threw them on fire.
His mother was likely the reason he hated him, he watched her be a mother to Ander the way he had begged her to be for him.
"Ander lied to you then."
"I like your name." She smiled and he nodded. He wasn't interested in this conversation any further but poor helps poor. She offered him a hideout and he promised her a large sum of money when he left, he didn't intend of keeping his but he couldn't be bothered with it.
He sighed, walking away from the fancy disaster.
Inside wasn't any better than the front yard he had just walked through, with broken floors and no furniture the house was hollow and empty. Not a trace of people who used to live here.
"So, your family left nothing?"
"They transferred the house to my brother. It's been around three years since he left. I could only renovate the floor above on my own."
At the mention of floors above, he was hesitant to go up. The stairs looked flimsy, he was pretty sure they'd collapse even though he had used them before. He still refused to take chances, "After you," he smiled and she grinned, gladly leading him the way.
He noticed Ander above, sitting at the beginning of the staircase with his phone in his hand. His feet were swollen red, a layer of white ointment covering them like a mould on bread.
River didn't regret filling his shoes with poison ivy for one bit. His brother deserved every bit of the pain.
"I think you have somewhere to be." He nudged Ander's side with the tip of his foot.
"Can't walk."
"Don't care." He was going to be out of his sight in the next hour, willingly or not would depend.
The corridor extended beyond the room at the edge of the staircase. Squeaky wooden floors stretched up to the very end where they met with the upper deck. When he looked down from the balcony, on the ground small stairs rose to an elevated site in the backyard. It was covered with a plastic lid of sorts, only bigger—he assumed it was a pool or a hot tub. He hadn't explored the house much in the last week, most of his time had been spent trying to avoid Rosalyn and look for Ander. Both had been incredibly painful.
"What's that?" He asked and he hated the look of excitement she gave him.
"It's a small indoor pool, I can get it cleaned if you'd like."
Rosalyn had a rich childhood.
He nodded, walking down the stairs, where Ander still sulked with his phone in his hand. "Twenty minutes, you're out after that." He wasn't sure if heard or how long it was going to be before he left to find Jamie but he wasn't interested in his brother's little whining.
He walked out, and circled the patio, making his way toward the backyard.
The blue plastic lid was buckled from all sides. He went around, unlocking the clips in too quick of a motion. He was sure it'd take longer but the weak locks came apart as quick as kinetic sand. When Rosalyn and River managed to throw the lid on the other side of the pool, the dirty murky water came into his sight.
It held the odour of stagnant water, the water was still clear enough to see the tiles at the base but it did need to be cleaned.
It was deep enough to hide something if he could make the water polluted enough. He could use this but he needed Rosalyn to stay away from it.
"I used to be a swimmer," Another random fact that he didn't care for but, he had been exhausted enough because of her. If she wouldn't shut up— "I could hold my breath for four minutes."
"Jump for me, then." River acted on his impulse. Her frown deepened while his smile lifted. The water rose and she sunk back in fear. He didn't know the consequence of what he was about to do, but he refused to let her believe she held any sort of power over him.
"Why? What's on your mind?" Her voice was meek but didn't lack determination and he just knew how to use it.
To her reply, he gave her a shove. As much as the water came into life with a splash, it could also take someone else's with as ease as it could, and River was proved right when water began to seep into her lungs, her terror-stuck eyes paining with the discomfort of the rough water. She thrashed and scraped her fingers, trying to find a wall to save herself but she simply sunk deeper. Screams of help went out of the question when the water gagged her. Out of instinct, she threw kicks, feeling the water block her air supply and as her chest compressed one last time, losing all air in it. . . Ander jumped into the pool out of nowhere.
"Rose!" He yelled, swimming to her side and trying to keep her unconscious head above water, "What the fuck is wrong with you?" His eyes met River's and the latter shrugged.
"She can't hold her breath as long as she thought."
New discoveries.