I woke up the next morning to a completely silent environment. I would have thought the house was vacant, but I knew better. My eyes still ached with sleep as I rolled over to look at the clock, which displayed the time as 1:32 pm. That definitely woke me up. I slept through both breakfast and lunch? No, that was not okay. I threw off the covers and bolted down the stairs.
Benton and Lu were seated in the lavish living room, already engaged in some heated argument when I arrived. This was so very typical of them to act this way. Not a day went by that they didn't bicker or complain about something. And, as if it wasn't bad enough, I had to deal with the reality of there being two of them. Twice the fights, twice the complaining. Sometimes it felt like I was herding dogs rather than watching after two fourteen year olds. Their argument, whatever it was, ceased when I entered the room. "Oh look, Sleeping Beauty had finally awoken. Did your darling Perri kiss you awake? Or is she too busy with an older man?" Lu jested. A sly grin appeared among his face, one that told me he was trying hard to not laugh at his own joke.
"Ha, very funny." I said. Maybe I would have laughter at his joke, but not today. Granted, neither he nor Benton were aware of the severity of the current circumstances, but I couldn't help but cringe a little at the timing of his joke. Too soon, I thought to myself. Too soon.
"So, what does the pretty princess have on the agenda for today?" Benton asked. He was already seated on the caramel-colored suede sofa with his feet resting among the top of the glass coffee table. A steaming mug of liquid rested undisturbed in his hand, while Lu's mug was on the floor with the contents smeared amongst his face.
"I'm not sure," I confessed. "Really, though, is there that much for three teenage boys to while unsupervised in a wealthy man's home?"
The boys exchanged a glance at one another. They didn't need to say any bring for me to be a part of their silent conversation. Their gaze returned to mine with the same smirk now on both of their faces.
"I don't know," Benton replied. "But I guess we'll just have to find something to do."
Somehow, we ended up running to the Mayor's office, first. Whatever secrets he could be hiding were bound to be in there. Getting access to the office was easier than I expected. Today was Sunday and, since the Mayor was out of town, most of the staff had returned to their homes for the day. The only one left, besides us, was his old housekeeper who was busy tending to the landscape outside.
Much to my surprise, the office was a rather small room. Right as we entered, we came face-to-face with an elaborate, mahogany desk. Papers were strewn across the top of it, as were some on the same green carpet floor. Black blobs of ink stained the carpet in several locations. The whole room, despite the size, was a disaster.
"God, what happened in here?" Lu exclaimed. He bent down to retrieve a few of the papers.
"Find anything, Lewis?" Benton asked and propped his head atop his brothers shoulder. His nose wrinkled as he examined the papers closer. "I don't understand any of this."
"Well how do you expect me to?" Lu sighed, tossing the paper to the ground. "We all know that I'm the dull one out of the two of us."
"Lu!" I snapped. "You know that's not true."
"Are you really going to argue with me about this?"
I sighed, exasperated. "No. We have more important things to do, rather than sit here and argue about who's smarter than who. Now start looking, you two. We need to see if we can finds anything while we still have access to this room." My voice was harsher than I expected it to be. Not that it mattered, really. These boys were used to me barking commands at them often. Even before we were at the safe house, we were on the run often. Being the alpha male of the group, it wasn't out if line for me to demand that they do a certain task or act a specific way.
"Oh come on, Cale, loosen up a bit!" Lu whined. "Can't we have fun for once?"
I tapped my against my chin and peered up at the ceiling. "Hmm, why have I not thought about that before? Oh yeah, because the answer is no."
"But why?"
"Are you really going to sit here and complain? Look." I commanded. I wasn't quite sure what exactly I expected them to look for. I guess I just wanted answers. To know why exactly the Mayor brought us here, rather than just throwing us in jail. To understand why he had such an interest in Perri. I couldn't blame him, though. She was hard to overlook. It was like she was a priceless piece of art hanging on your wall. You couldn't not stare at her. Except, she was better than any art piece painted by some dead guy hundreds of years ago. Nobody in right mind paid attention to those anyways. I can guarantee that if any guy was given the choice between a stupid painting of a woman or Perri, an actual, beautiful human, they would choose her. Well, at least I would.
My eyes flickered over to the boys. They were both, grudgingly, at work. I snorted a little. They were probably cursing me silently. I wouldn't be surprised. They'd cursed me out loud more times than I could count. It only made sense that the little mongrels would do so, silently, as well. Maturity and respect for elders were not their strong points.
I walked over to the trashed desk and began to remove everything from it. Books and papers fell to the floor along with ink pens. They exploded all over the papers, staining them a black liquid as thick as blood. I'd hoped they were legal documents, or something that would make the Mayor cringe if they were destroyed.
Nothing. That's exactly what I found on the top of the desk. Absolutely nothing. The boys were underneath the hunk of wood, tag teaming to try and read every single document I tossed onto the floor. I laughed a little, under my breath, as I caught glance at them scurrying about from document to document. Their attempts at sleuthing were a damn waste of time for several reasons. First, my not-so-deductive reasoning was able to figure out that the documents were unless to us by just scanning them. Second, the two of them were too dim-witted to keep up with my not-so-deductive reasoning, and therefore did not see that they were pointless. It wasn't that the boys were dumb or that they should be degraded when in comparison to moi, but really, it was self-evident. It didn't take a mind reader to keep up with me.
Two drawers lay embossed within the wooden side-panels of the desk. I had to admit, for a man of such mediocre taste, the Mayor did have an apt for picking out fine desks. The handles of the drawers perfectly matched the bronze claw feet set at the bottom. They were also incredibly shiny. He'd probably hired one of his little slaves to spit-shine them for him. I certainly wouldn't put it past him to do as such. I placed my hands on either one and yanked them open. I snorted as I did so. Of course the man who ran our town wasn't even smart enough to have locks installed in his damn desk. The drawers were stuffed as full as they possibly could be. Random knick knacks flew from the premises, with one even hitting Lu square in the face. His face turned a bloody shade of red as his eyes narrowed at mine. The little twerp's facial expression didn't help suppress the laughter that shot out from both Benton and I.
"Oh, pipe down!" He whined as he rubbed the small bruise that was forming on his forehead.
I shook my head and laughed. "Nah, I don't think so."
"Yeah!" Benton chimed. "Sorry, little brother, but it was rather hysterical."
"Come on, it wasn't that funny!" Lu cried, throwing his arms down. Then, as an afterthought, added "Plus, you're not that much older than me."
"I don't know, five minutes really does make an insurmountable difference..." He said with a shrug.
I cleared my throat. "While you two continue this riveting conversation about whether or not the time of your birth really matters, considering you two are twins, if you've forgotten, did you even bother to look at what hit you?"
"Oh yeah!" Lu exclaimed. He bent down quickly to retrieve the object, which he then flung towards my face. Luckily, I saw it coming.
"You little..." I muttered, dodging the object just in time for it to collide with the wall.
"Hey, watch it, Collins." Benton warned. I rolled my eyes. He was the probably the only teenage boy on this earth that was against using profanity. Well, he was barely a teenager, but it still counted.
"Get over it, Howard." I mumbled. I walked over to where the object had been tossed and picked it up in my hand. It looked to me like a journal, bound in thick leather. "Guys, come over here!" I called out. Both boys came running over to me and stood behind my shoulders.
"What is it?" Lu asked, anxiously.
"Not sure yet," I replied, turning the book over in my hand. It was heavy and completely beat up. "What, did the Mayor run over this with a car?"
"Probably. But who cares? Aren't you going to read it?" He prodded.
"Duh." I said. I opened up the book to the center page.
There wasn't even a knock, or any sort of warning before we heard a sound that made us believe that the main doors were being knocked down. How courteous of whoever was there. Both Benton and Lu stood staring at each other in fear and in shock. I, however, did not feel like joining in with Dumb and Dumber. Instead, I strolled out of the office and into the foyer. The main doors appeared to be blown to smithereens, leaving a gaping hole in the wall.
"Is it just me," I mused. "Or is there a slight draft in here?"
A female voice laughed, half amused, half disgusted. "You idiot. I knew I'd find you here." From the gap in the wall emerged Delta, twirling a gun around in her hand. "Glad to see me, sweet cheeks?"
I laughed. "Of course it's you. Okay, babe, what's going on?"
"Ha, how cute." She replied. The corner of her mouth twitched up into a small smirk. "Told your little time traveler I'd be back, didn't I? Or did she not bother to tell you. Anyways, aren't ya happy to see me?" Several beefy men came up behind her, all armed with assault rifles. They stood nothing against her little revolver. Yet, as they came closer into view, I noticed that all of them were dressed identical to one another, including Delta.
I started to back up, slowly. "Delta..."
"Save it, sweet cheeks." She said. I heard the bullet click into the chamber. Shit. I knew what was coming for me next. Before she had time to register what I was doing, I sprinted over towards her and tackled her to the ground. She kicked and screamed, even though it was pointless. I was stronger than her. One of her hands was still clasped around the trigger of the gun, while the other yanked at my hair. The men that followed her all had their guns ready to fire at the two of us. If I made a sudden move, they would shoot. If I didn't, they would still shoot. How wonderful.
Delta pulled my hair down towards her so my face was only centimeters from hers. She still squirmed from under me, but moved her lips to my ear. "Just let me shoot." She whispered. "Trust me."
"Why should I?" I hissed.
"Because." Was the only explanation I got. She moved the gun from beside me and shot me in the back of my leg. It burned. A lot. It felt worse than when I allowed Perri to dig inside my arm for a bullet. No, this was much worse. It was like having a butcher's knife that was covered in barbed wire and kerosene lit on fire and shoved into your leg. Only, the close contact to the gun made the shock even worse. I grunted a little, and bit hard on my lip to keep me from yelling out in pain.
"You bitch," I muttered. She laughed, and got out from underneath me. If my leg wasn't practically paralyzed, I would have run up to her and smacked her in the face. What in the world was wrong with her? This wasn't Delta, that's for sure.
"Shut your trap before I shoot again." She snarled. If there was one thing I'd learned about Delta, it was to not go against her word. She liked to hold power, and she liked that to be a known fact. If things did not go exactly as she planned...well, she had a temper. We've all had to deal with it one time or another. The two of us would fight and bicker constantly but, at the end of the day, she always got her way. I knew this would be just another one of those times. I nodded, and scooted back away from her.
"That's enough, Delta." One of the men called. I watched as he walked over to her and tried to snatch the gun from her hand. I almost laughed. The idiot clearly didn't know Delta like I did. She stuffed the gun into her back pocket before he could really even move his hand.
There was a long pause that nobody bothered to fill. "You're right." She conceded. "I should probably take the kid over to the hospital though, that gunshot looks pretty gnarly."
"We'll take him." Another man said, but Delta held her hand up in protest.
"No, that's okay." She replied. "I'll drive him myself. Boys, take the van back and I'll drive the Toyota. Okay? Now go." She ushered, using her hands to shoo them along. Once they left she ran over to me.
"What the actual f-" I started.
"Can it, sailor." She commanded. "Here, grab on to my arm and let's get you the hell out of here." She extended her arm towards me. I reached out to grab it, but backtracked.
"Wait," I said. "Lu and Benton are still in the other room.
"Shit." She muttered. "I forgot about them. Okay, you head out to the car-it's the green and silver one- and get into the back seat. Stay low, but make room for one of the boys. I'll get them and meet you out there."
"Right." I said and used the wall I was leaning against to pull myself up to my feet. My leg still seethed in pain. It had stopped bleeding as heavily- the blood must have clotted at some point. Once I heaved myself to a standing position, I used the wall as guidance to help me move out to the car. My wound required me to hobble on one leg all the way there. Little patches of blood marked my entire path from the door to the car, whichever was parked all the way around the corner. Once I managed to squeeze my body inside without injuring myself even more, I flopped down onto the backseat and waited.
It wasn't long before Delta and the boys came back. She hopped into the driver's seat and revved the engine up. Benton sat in the front, while Lu sat in the back alongside me.
"Thanks for the help." I muttered to him.
"Sorry, but I didn't want to end up like you are now." He said with a shrug.
"How selfless of you."
"Where are we going?" Benton asked.
"The hospital." I replied, gesturing to my leg.
"Think again, honey bun." Delta said.
If it were at all possible for me to have hopped up and taken the wheel right from her grimy, blood caked hands, I would have. "Excuse me?"
"We'll take care of your leg later. There's somewhere we have to go, first."
"Oh, I'm sorry if my gunshot wound that you caused has thrown off your schedule. Really, I feel terrible about it." I snapped. "Your plan is just to let me bleed out?"
"Wait, Delta you did this?!" Benton exclaimed.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll explain later. For now, let's just get a move on, k?" She said a she hit the gas, the car ascending into the silent sunset, only to be interrupted by the purr of the engine.