Chapter 12: Home
It was a pain going to the stairs after my talk with Hanz. But an even bigger pain to know that the crutches fitted me like a glove. It didn't use to be like this before.
Going to the landing upstairs, I breathed a sigh of relief; both at getting to my destination on my own, not needing anyone else, and also getting away from Hanz's perceptive eyes. I didn't know he could be like that too.
Sighing, I tried to focus on my task. "Audra?"
The hallway in front was empty of her, the door to the farthest corner of the area closed. Was she or wasn't she in my parent's bedroom? Although, I didn't see her downstairs before Hanz and I went on our ways.
The floorboard under me creaked as I took another walk.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
It sounded exactly like that time too. I stifled a groan as I pushed my parent's bedroom door opened and squinted inside. A single figure was slumped on the bed.
Neil?
I looked around. The handcuff was removed from his arm, placed on the bed beside him. The guy, for all intents and purposes, was still fast asleep.
I was just wondering whether Audra was in my parent's bathroom or not when something sounded in the hall. Quickly, I turned around, and found the door to my bedroom an inch or two ajar.
My heart jumped to my throat. Was it possible? Could she be in my bedroom right now?
"Audra?" I continued to my room, limped one step at a time, until I was pushing my own door open— stepped inside.
I squeaked when the door behind me closed.
"Hey, Pax."
"H-hey. . ." There she was. Just in front of me, one hand pushing the door, another hand traveling to her mouth which she gave a gentle wipe.
"What's up?" she asked.
"You're in my room."
"Oh." She let go of the door, swiveled around. Frankly, I had no idea what she was doing here. Maybe she was looking for something to do. "It does smell like you," she said.
"Like what?"
"Like. . ." Audra's shoulders stiffened, then she took a step towards my bookshelves, examined the paperbacks I'd collected over the years. "What do you have here?" she said instead.
Okay. She totally dismissed the question, but I needed to answer her anyhow. "Books, just books."
"Tom Sawyer." She spoke. "Oliver Twist. . ." Audra lifted her hand to the spines, as if to find something there. "All adventure books, Pax. I never pegged you for someone who wanted to have an adventure."
"Well, you don't know me. None of you does."
"Right. . ."
I wanted to slap myself silly the moment I said that. It shouldn't have been my answer at all. My answer should have been, 'Yes, Audra, I'm a person who craves for adventure. Excitement. But due to my introverted nature, I can't. Because you know what? I'm a loser. A faker. I don't even have friends and my parents probably think I'm weird.'
Alright, not the last few parts. But still. I should have been cooler for Audra, yet I was nothing but a joke.
Glancing at her, she was still examining my room, had now moved on to my nightstand. "Cool light," she said, leaning down to my merry-go-round lamp. "Does it work?"
"Yes, but—"
"Can we try it?"
"S-sure."
I watched helplessly as Audra searched for the end of the cord, found it sitting right behind the stand. After a while, she plugged it to the outlet, then pushed a button on the lamp; the room was immediately bathed with colors. Images of horses, flashing in subtle red and white.
"Wow."
"Audra?"
"I'd always wanted to go."
"Huh?"
"To the merry go round," she explained with a wave of her hand. "But no one would take me."
"Oh." My forehead creased. Didn't Neil say back in the hideout that both their parents were deceased? Unknowingly, my feet took me to her. "We should go then," I said, before I could stop myself.
"Downstairs?"
"To the merry-go-round."
Audra, who was still leaning down, glanced at me in surprise. "Like a date?"
"Uhh. . ."
"In that case, I'd love to." She straightened back up, gave me a smile. "But first, you need to take care of that leg, huh? And I see that you even found a crutch."
Wait. . . I sucked in a breath. Was she serious?
My stomach was beginning to flip. Did she seriously say that she and I would go out? On a date?
I caught Audra studying me when I focused on her face. Something flickered on her eyes before she spoke again. "Neil probably won't be happy going to the amusement park, though. He's always so picky."
"N-Neil?"
"Of course," she said. "It's a celebratory date after all, right? We'll also take Hanz someday when everything is done."
Oh. The elation that was beginning to brew in my stomach quickly smacked back down. Slapping me from head to toe while at it.
What was I thinking? I shook my head. Of course, it wouldn't be a date between us. She was so out of my league.
I was a second short of a groan when Audra left me to be die by myself, going to my study desk next.
My eyes widened in an even bigger embarrassment, especially when I remembered what was supposed to be on there, but the girl was really quick. "What's this?" she said, raising a Lego block. "A toy?"
"It's not mine," I quickly denied. But she flipped it around which made me groan for real this time. My name was spelled right on the block, the Sharpie clear as the morning sun.
"That's cute," she said, afterwards giving me a chuckle.
No, it wasn't.
This was worse than crying last year, worse than being humiliated on stage in front of the student body. With them, I could live it down, pretend that it didn't happen. With them, I could just live my life, listen with my headphones on in the hallway, so as not to hear their gossips. But with Audra?
I started to limp towards her, not knowing for a second what I would do. It was double the embarrassment, double the mortification. Somehow I needed to tell her that those Lego blocks scattered on my desk belonged to me when I was young— not, you know, played with a couple of days ago.
But the girl, really, was fast, ducking out of my reach, going to the bed. Why was she making this hard for me?
"It's okay, Pax," she said in that usual husky voice of hers. "I play with Lego's too."
"You do?"
I stopped.
"Yup." She sat on my bed, her eyebrows knitting together. "Well, played was more like it. There was something about those toys that always made me think that I could just fix things whenever they're broken. Like my life. Don't you feel that way too, Pax?"
"Yes." More than she would know.
But what was bothering her? My eyes raked down on her full expression. From playful, she was now downright sad. Like she was thinking of a memory she shouldn't have.
I took a deep restraining breath. I wish I could ask her. I wish I was close enough to her like Neil. But I wasn't. Not even close.
Audra, who had settled on looking at her hands, shook her head once, spoke so low that I barely could hear her. "I'm more like you than you'd ever think, Pax. I'm. . ."
A blood-curling scream echoed from downstairs before Audra could continue what she was saying. The two of us looked at each other then.
"I'll kill you!" Someone yelled, followed by a banging sound. "I'll kill you, mothereffer!"
Neil!
I immediately thought, as I followed Audra downstairs. We were back on square one.
It wasn't in the kitchen this time like what happened in Hanz's house. It was in my living room, but with the same parties involved. Almost.
Seeing the knife on Neil's hand, I knew that he was not only serious in stabbing Hanz, he'd enjoy it too. That, and the cynical smile on his face. That more than explained everything.
"You. . ." Neil said, walking the length of the sofa in my living room. "You asked for this, buddy."
Hanz, who had seen us rushing down the stairs, gave us a frightened glance, pleaded. "Help!"
"Stop!" Neil said, before Audra could make a move. "You! I'll deal with you later. Especially you."
Me? I thought, as he gave me one of his hateful glances. Of course, he would get mad at me. But he'd totally lost his mind. We didn't die, did we? We survived going here.
Hanz darted to the other side of the sofa, both of his hands raised up. "You win, Neil," he said. "Nobody is here to fight you."
"Bullshit!"
"We just want to take Pax home. What's so wrong with that?"
Neil gritted his teeth. "Punching me, asshole! That's what's wrong with that."
Hanz gave a quick yelp as Neil began to pursue him on his side of the sofa. Their cat and mouse game immediately began, while Audra and I, more or less watched from the sidelines, our mouths hanging open.
It didn't take a lot of time for Neil to corner Hanz, though. "Gotcha!"
"Audra, help!"
But I grabbed Audra's arm before she could rush to them then. Was she crazy? Neil had this huge-arse knife. Best friend or not, she could get hurt.
Hanz gave a small squeak as Neil yanked at his collar. Nobody was going to stop them now, except.
"Damn it!" Audra said, as the sound of tires echoed in the distance. All of us heard it at the same time. Who was that?
Hanz, who was a second ago acting scared of Neil, wrenched himself from the guy's grip, dashed to the nearest lamp.
The whole house was bathed with darkness when Audra spoke. "Your bedroom, Pax."
"I-It's okay," I stammered. "My curtains are thick. They won't see the light we made up there."
Hanz and Neil rushed to us just when the car pulled up to the driveway. This was all too sudden. It was intense.
"Is it your parent's?" Hanz whispered, as the four of us crept up to the stairs.
"I don't know. . ."
They might be. I mean, who else would return here in the off hours of the morning? Who else would go to the driveway, would open his car, if not for my parents returning from work?
The four of us huddled in the middle of the stairs anyway, no doubt all of us trying to adjust to the returning darkness, trying to peer on the entryway.
My heart skipped a beat when the wooden door finally swung open. Who was it?
Christie, my mom, stepped into the living room. "This is all so sudden," she said.
Then my dad, Owen, stepped right in as well, adjusting his glasses, shaking his head at her. "I know," he said. "Things had been very strange lately. Care to explain?"
My whole body seemed to deflate as the lights were switched back on. My parents were here. We were safe.
Yet Audra pulled me right back down when I was about to call over.
"Take a seat," dad said, gesturing to the sofa. "And then we'll talk."
Someone else entered the house right then. Someone I was very familiar with. With a sinking feeling, I gawked at him.
Unkempt, messy black hair. Black-rimmed glasses. A forward, practical smile, only punctuated by his white lab coat.
My world seemed to crush on me as it dawned who it was. None other than Steven Blackwell himself, the proponent of the Gay Gene and the accompanying cure himself. What the fudge was he doing in my house?
Even Neil was shell-shocked as my parents and the lead scientist all went to the sofa. "Thank you," Doctor Blackwell said, in this polite, professional manner. "I know you were quite surprised when my team contacted you tonight, but we had no other choice."
"What is this about?" My dad gave mom a worried glance. He never gives her a worried glance, except when it comes to me.
"Your daughter," Doctor Blackwell answered.
"Pax?" My parents stared at each other again briefly, before looking at the doctor. "The school did call us this evening, said that things had been complicated?" Mom turned up to the stairs, which made all of us freeze up. But thankfully she didn't see us, returned right back to them. "Is there a problem with her, Doctor? Did she do something she shouldn't?"
"And why are you here?" My dad asked curtly. "I'm sorry, but I would like to keep this meeting short. We hadn't seen Pax in days. She doesn't normally want us calling her phone, but. . ."
"You're worried." Doctor Blackwell raised an appeasing hand, afterwards reaching to his throat to play with his necklace.
"Well, yes." My mother shifted on her seat. "When we talked to her this evening. . ."
Wait, what?
I gave Audra a panicked glance.
This evening?!
"She was nervous for some reason," my mom continued. "Sounded different too. We just want to go to her room and see her again, that's all."
"And you have every right to." Doctor Blackwell lowered his hand. "Truth be told, this might come as a shock, Mr. And Mrs. Leighton. And I hate that I'm the one who needs to break it to you, but. . ." The doctor stood up from the sofa. "Your daughter is missing. She won't be in her room if you check."
I swallowed my own choke as my mom rose from the sofa as well.
"Missing?" she said, followed shortly by my dad. "What do you mean missing? She was just—"
"Please calm down." Doctor Blackwell gave her a sympathetic look. "That's why I'm here to talk to you. And I waited after your hospital duty too. We'd been hoping she'd turn up before the day was over. But she didn't."
My dad took off his glasses— a habit that said he was getting really stressed, wiped it with the end of his scrub before saying, "So what happened?" He replaced his glasses again. "Why on earth would my daughter go missing? And why are you here? This doesn't make sense."
I wanted to know that too. What the hell was going on?
Behind me, someone squeezed my shoulder, followed by a whisper. "Someone's upstairs."
Crap.
"Neil and I will go take a look," Hanz said. "Pax and Audra, you stay here."
Where else would I go? I couldn't leave my parents now, could I?
Quickly, Hanz and Neil tiptoed up the stairs. Meanwhile, I was left with Audra, wondering why the hell I couldn't just show myself to my parents. Surely, everything would end once that happened. Surely, they would protect me.
But Audra grabbed my hand. "No," she whispered. "Look out the window."
My eyes darted to the glass, followed by a wedge in my lungs. A numbness on my throat I hadn't quite felt before.
Tracers. About three of them, were standing outside, rifles pointed and ready at my parents. What the frack?!
Downstairs, the adults continued to speak. Doctor Blackwell, the scum that he was, was leading the conversation. "After the students had agreed to take the cure I had made—"
"Wait." My mom cut him off. "You're saying they just agreed? Everyone?!"
"As a matter of fact." Blackwell gave her a grave smile. "We had talked to the students beforehand, Mrs. Leighton. They knew that the cure was for the greater goo—"
It was my father's turn to cut him off. "So what did Pax do?" There was panic in his voice now. "Why is my baby girl suddenly missing? Give it straight to us, Doctor. My wife and I are dying here."
Doctor Blackwell gave dad a shake of his head. "In that case. . ." He paused. "I'll cut down straight to the point, Mr. and Mrs. Leighton. I'm sorry to say but, your daughter. . . Pax. . . Had murdered someone."