Bring on the Payne! And don't forget to
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P.S. To those of you who haven't been listening to the music...please listen to this one, it is so beautiful. *cute face* :3
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CHAPTER NINE
Luke woke me up at nine on that Sunday morning. No matter how much I protested, he seemed to have a continuous supply of pillows, so in the end I gave in. I couldn’t take the abuse. We had to sign out at ten, so we went and had breakfast and were on the road by nine thirty. We got back to our dorm at eleven. I went back to bed and Luke went out for a jog. That boy cared too much about staying in his peak condition.
Before my nap something crossed my mind. Payne. How had he known about me? Was he evil? He probably was not considering the fact that I was still alive at the present moment. I was going to have to confront him about it sooner or later. Sooner rather than later in my opinion. I was going to have to sleep on that.
After a two hour nap, my mind was decided. I was going to confront this weed and nip it at the bud. I got ready for the day, as in, I fixed my wig and re-stuck my eyebrows. How long had it been since I let my hair down? A day? Three days? That wasn’t the problem here. I put on a pair of jeans and a plain dark blue tee-shirt and I was ready for action. I decided to vote against socks and shoes. My feet needed some room. Now, just to figure out what room he was staying in.
I jogged down to the main building and made sure to stay on the grass so I wouldn’t burn my feet on the black asphalt. Why hadn’t I worn shoes? I reached the main building and slid in through the door. I had to think of a convincing story now. I went into the main office and smiled at the young receptionist.
“Hi,” I started. “I’m Charles Hatsfend from room B12, I have a bio project that is with partners. Unfortunately I have no clue what my partner’s dorm room is. Do you think you could help me with that?” The lady smiled at me.
“What is your partner’s name?”
“Payne, Payne West.”
“Okay,” she started to click on some files and typed in the name. “I’m sorry but there is no Payne in the system.”
“Is it under Parker?” I asked.
“I’ll check, let’s see…yes. He is in room C02.”
“Thanks ma’am.” She smiled at me and nodded. That wasn’t so hard, and here I had Luke saying that I didn’t do anything by myself. I left the building and headed to his room at once. I prayed that he would be in his room, and that he wouldn’t be sleeping, because I don’t think I would ever be able to gather up enough courage to try this again. Yep, my courage reserve was running on empty.
I walked the three flights of stairs and stopped a the second room in. Okay, here you go Charlene, you can do this. I grabbed the knocker on his door. It was so cold. Just tap it and he will come, but do I really want him to come? No, probably not. I dropped the knocker back and it tapped lightly against the metal plate beneath it. I winced, hopefully he didn’t hear that. I turned around and tried to tipi-toe away.
“Charlie?” Should I respond to that?
“Yes,” I spun on my heels to face his door. Payne was leaning on the frame of his open doorway. He was wearing a pair of dark skinny jeans, a red collard shirt and a black neck tie.
“What did you want?”
“Uh.” What did I want? Hum…I wanted answers. “Can I come in?” I asked quietly.
“Um, okay?” He raised and eyebrow and backed out of the door way. I gulped and followed him into the room. I entered and my mouth dropped. Man his room was beast. He had both of the twin beds pushed together so they were one large bed, and a large and rather fluffy looking black silk confider was covering it. The walls to his room were a nice white, instead of the standard blue, and all of the furniture consisted of a red wood.
“Whoa,” I said.
“Close the door.” Did I want to? No. Was I going to? I nodded and closed it. Charlene, you are too week. “Make yourself at home.” He said as he went over to his fridge and grabbed a soda. He cracked it open and sat down on his bed. I realized now that he had an Xbox 360. He sat the pop on the floor and picked up the controller to resume the game he had been playing. He started to play a game that I remembered as Call of Duty. I stood in silence.
“Are you just going to stand there or are you going to ask me something?”
“I uh,” I took a step closer to him.
“I don’t bite.” He said in a flat voice. His eyes were still glued to the television as he expertly sniped another person. My father was a sniper. I took another step towards him and he moved to give me space on the bed. I sat down next to him, shaking out of fear.
“Payne.”
“Parker.”
“Parker, how did you know?”
“Know what?” I rolled my eyes and he smiled. “It was rather obvious really. The first day I passed you, you had your teddy bear. I saw you in Bio later that day and I swear I thought I knew you from somewhere.” He ran up behind a person and stabbed them. “And when I passed you after class, you told Vanessa that your name was Charlene, and it all clicked. I came back here and flipped through some old photos and sure enough, I had one with Charlene in it.”
“You have a picture of me?” I was thoroughly creeped out by this kid now. He nodded as he shot down another person.
“And then when Renee went missing, you were there. You had the same eyes.” He looked over at me and smiled. That was why he was looking at me like that. “So I had to test my theory that Charles Hatsfend was in fact Charlene James. So I teased you. Luke punched me, and you broke it up. You broke it up using your normal voice.” He laughed to himself. “And then at gym, I had already made up my mind that you were Charlene, but then I got an even better way to test it. You had to do gymnastics. It was my idea about doing gymnastics in class, I had talked to Mr. Laslily during lunch to make sure we could.” Payne chucked a grenade and blew up a group of three other players. “And then you showed off, because Charlene has always been competitive. Lastly, you did the human wheel with me. I remember when you first showed me how to do that. What were we, six?” He paused his game and looked over at me.
How did he know me?
“You’re still confused, aren’t you?” He took another sip of his pop. I shook my head yes and he laughed. “You know, you always ignored me when we were kids, but I never thought it would be this bad. I mean, really, you were always too busy chasing my older brother around.” I was honestly confused now.
“I still don’t get it.” Payne sighed and rose from his bed. He went over to his dresser and pulled a book out of the top drawer. He came back and sat next to me. “What’s that?”
“Shush, I need to find something.” He started to flip through it and I realized that it was a photo album. “Here,” he said as he pointed to a picture. I leaned over his shoulder to get a better look, he still smelt minty. I froze.
“Oh my god.” I breathed. How had I not seen this before? Payne smiled and handed the book over to me. I had the same picture in my album that he had in his. I slid it out and flipped it over. The back read; Jaxon age 10, Charlene age 6, Parker age 5. Payne smiled again.
“Now she gets it,” he patted me on the back mockingly as he rose to his feet. He shuffled over to the television and clicked it off. I wasn’t quite sure if I should be happy or furious. He knew it was me all of this time, yet he didn’t bother to introduce himself properly. This was all his fault.
“Pa-Parker?”
“Yes?”
“When was the last time you saw your brother?” He shrugged and picked up his pop to drink some more.
“Why?”
“He’s in town.” I looked up from the picture. “I can take you to see him.”
“Really?”
“Yeah…but you need to tell me something.”
“Sure,” he sounded so ecstatic, he kneeled before me. “Anything.”
“Anything?” He nodded. “What happened to your mom?” His smile fell off his face. He rose to his feet.”
“I can’t tell you that.” He said quickly. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
“Why can’t you? You don’t trust me.” I turned to leave.
“Wait, it’s not you that I don’t trust.” He came up to me and placed a hand on my arm. His hands were so cold. He turned me around to face him, I gasped at how close we were. His minty smell was overpowering, but still not unpleasant. “I don’t trust Charles.” He said quietly. I stood in shock as he reached up and removed my wig and bald cap gently with one of his hands. He smiled at me and tossed them onto the table next to him. I was still frozen in shock. He reached up again and pulled my hair down and around my face.
“There,” he said softly. “That’s the Charlene I know.”
“Was it Mr. Kridd?” I whispered. He turned and walked away. “Payne.” I grabbed him by the arm.
“Parker,” he snapped as he ripped his arm away. He fell onto his bed and twisted so his back was facing me. I crawled onto the bed behind him and kneeled down.
“Parker, am I right?” He didn’t answer. I watched him as his body started to hitch softly. He was crying. Why must I make the emo kid cry? I am such a horrible person.
“Parker,” I whispered as I grabbed his shoulder lightly. “Someone once told me that when you cry for someone, it is because you love them. It’s okay to cry.” Man I have grown up a lot in the last week. I can thank Luke for that. I wondered if he was done running, he was probably wondering where I was right now.
“Who told you?” His voice was raspy and barely more than a whisper.
“No one told me Parker, I-I noticed how you behaved around him. You seemed scared.” He nodded and rolled over to face me.
“Wouldn’t you be?” He asked. His normally interrogating blue eyes looked so lost. I nodded. He let out a shaky breath and sat up. He laughed a bit, it was a scared laugh. “You know, kids like us shouldn’t have to go through this kind of stuff.” He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “Death.”
“It is natural for people to die.”
“Not to be murdered it isn’t. I was ten Charlene. I came home to find my mother bleeding out on the kitchen floor. She had cut her wrists with a kitchen knife.”
“That’s not murder.”
“She took her own life Charlene. She left me. I was ten. I found her like that,” he turned to me again. “Do you know how it is to have your only parent taken away from you like that? To have to witness her slowly slipping to the point that she finally falls. No child should ever have to go through that. It isn’t fair Charlene.”
“Parker.”
“And to find out that my father was shot a week later. He was shot on his way to the airport to pick me up. Both of them were dead because of me.”
“Parker, that’s not true.”
“I put too much stress on my mother and then my father was killed because of me. How is that not my fault?”
“Do you remember my mother?” He nodded. “She drowned. She had brought me out to the lake for my fourth birthday. Me, her and my father. She swam out to get a beach shovel and she never came back. They had to drag the lake to find her.” Parker fell silent. “And all I have left of her are some pictures and that stupid bear.”
“Charlene.” He whispered.
“What?”
“This is a depressing conversation.” I smiled. He fell back onto the bed and pulled me down with him. We were lying on our backs side by side. “Our lives suck.” He blurted and I couldn’t help but laugh at his random comment.
“Yeah.” I agreed.
“Charlene?” He asked after a few minutes of silence.
“What?”
“Why are you hiding?”
“I, uh…” I rolled onto my side to face him. “It’s a long story really.”
“We have all day.” I looked over at the clock, it was half past three. Wow, I had been here for over an hour.
“Okay,” I started by explaining the origin of the anti-government group. They are believed to be American citizens who disagreed with the actions taking place due to the government’s involvement in the drug market. When the group first formed it was a laughing matter, and then the first agent died. They seemed to be going down the list of CIA agents who had been involved in any way, shape, or form to help stop their black market. I also explained that a circle branded on the left arm represented the members. In a sort of mock way they would brand the dead agents and their families to show that they owned them. I finished by telling him about Heather and how it made me go into a further state of hiding, and becoming Charles.
“Do you think they are still in town?” He asked.
“I don’t know. They very likely could show up at the school tomorrow, looking for Renee, or even Charles. I am not quite sure if they would check the guys roster for the school, but my plan involves them not doing so.” He nodded. I looked over his shoulder and checked the time. It was past five o’clock.
“Man, I really should get going.” I slid off of the bed. Unfortunatley, it was silk and I almost fell off of the side. I grabbed onto the confider to stop myself, but pulled it off instead, Parker with it. We landed on the floor, him on top of me and our faces way too close. Neither of us bothered to move as we were both laughing to hard. I could feel Parker shaking on top of me. I could feel Parker’s chest shaking against mine as he failed to keep himself from laughing.
After a short while, and a few tears streaming down my cheeks, we finished. Parker had kept some of his weight off of me by putting his arms on either sides of my head. I smiled up from under him and he smiled back at me. This so reminded me of the good old days. He tilted his head, looking deep into my eyes. I could feel my cheeks heat up with a blush. What, why on earth was I blushing?
“Parker.” I said quietly. He leaned a little closer. “Can you get off of me?” That seemed to bring him back to earth.
“Oh! Right.”
“Yeah,” I agreed as he pushed himself up and rose to his feet. He gave me a hand and helped me up. “Well, this was fun.” I was now standing between the bed, a corner, and Parker. I was blocked in once again. “We’ll have to do it again some time,” he smiled, “Soon.” I added and he nodded.
“Now, can you please move so I can go?”
“Oh, right, sorry,” he squished up against the wall and I squeezed past him. It was still a tight squeeze. I went over to the door and opened it to leave.
“Charlene!” He yelled as he ran up to it and slammed it shut before I could exit.
“What?” I snapped. He went over to his table and grabbed my wig.
“You might want to put this on first.”
“Oh, right…thanks.” I went over to his mirror and pulled up my hair. I could feel him watching me and I blushed again. Stupid cheeks had a mind of their own. I put on my cap and then the wig. I traced my fake eyebrows with my fingers.
“Okay, now I am going.” He nodded and opened the door for me. I smiled and left.
I had started the day terrified for my life, but I had ended it with a smile. There you go Charlene, just like Luke said, put your mind to something and add a little effort and you can accomplish it. Wait, Luke. I sprinted down the stairs. He probably had no clue where I was.
Luke sat alone in the cafeteria. He had a water bottle in front of him, but wasn’t all that interested in drinking it. He started to spin the bottle in his hand and watch as the water formed a miniature tornado. Water was so amazing.
“Son,” A large man came up to him. He had on a police uniform. A smaller guy was standing behind him. The larger man, with dark eyes and even darker hair and skin, sat down at Luke’s table. The smaller man stood behind him. “Have you seen this girl?” He asked as he held up a picture. It was a Renee in the lime green leotard that he recognized all too well. Her hands were up in the air and she was smiling with a balance beam behind her.
“Yeah,” he said as he took a swing of his water. He suddenly felt really thirsty. “That’s Renee Andrews, my sister’s roommate. Is she in some sort of trouble?” The smaller man smiled and a chill ran down Luke’s spine. These ‘cops’ were sending him some bad vibes.
“You could say that.” The smaller guy said. Luke looked up to him. The smaller man took off his hat and revealed his balding head. The little bit of hair he had was dark and greasy looking. His eyes had a crazy looking shine to them. Luke pulled his own eyes away.
“Do you know where we could find her?”
“She doesn’t go here anymore.” Luke stated. His eyes flashed back up to the smaller guy. “She transferred early last week.”
“Do you know where she transferred too?”
“Nope.”
“Do you still have any contact with her?”
“I wouldn’t consider it contact…” Luke trailed off.
“Did you know that you can go to prison for lying to a cop or withholding information that could help in the investigation of a case?”
“No. I could show her to you.”
“What?” The smaller man piped up. He had an annoyingly high pitched and nasally voice.
“She comes to the gym in the mornings, does some cool gymnastics stuff. I could show you if you wanted me to.”
“What time is this at?” The larger man asked.
“Early, like fourish-fiveish. She is always finishing when I get there at five-thirty.”
“How about this,” the larger man leaned in and so did Luke. “I will give you my number and you will call me next time you see her.” The larger man slid a card across the table. Luke looked down to grab it and saw something on the guy’s arm. It looked like a huge and puffy scar. The man noticed Luke’s gaze and pulled down the left sleeve of his shirt. He rose from his chair and said one last thing to Luke.
“We’ll be in touch.” And then the two police officers left.
Luke looked down at the card. It was like a normal business card; small and white, but there was only one thing written on it. On one side was a number, on the other was a perfect circle. Luke sighed and shoved it into his pocket. He checked his watch and realized that he was missing his captains’ meeting for swimming. He got up from his table unhappily. He wasn’t in the mood putting up with Darren today. He left anyways.
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Author's Note
Man I am a sucker for mintyness. Thanks for the addiction Abby...yes *points* you know who you are *evil eyes*.