ritsukaorchid
Sidekick
" Overwhelmed, underwhelmed, why isn't anybody ever just whelmed? "[A1i:1]
Posts: 200
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Post by ritsukaorchid on Nov 2, 2011 18:16:30 GMT -5
Kite lowered his eyes, thinking. He was right. Of course he was right. But… He looked up at his frustrated friend, “But do we want to involve them?” He asked quietly.
He stepped away from the tree and shoved his hands deep into his denim skinny-jean pockets. It was warm out, so he’d left his black jacket behind at the house. His white V-neck was almost as white as his skin. Almost. Both glowed as a cloud passed over the sun overhead. His dark hair was softer, since he hadn’t showered since yesterday morning, and shone more around the top. On one of his wrists hung a leather band Alex had given him when they were little; it had a white rock woven in it, with a Yin symbol carved into the stone’s face. The black Yang stone on a leather cord he’d given Alex was nowhere to be seen.
“What if they get hurt or he gets mad at them? If Lance hadn’t rescued me, I would be dead. If we hadn’t left this morning, he would have found me. If you hadn’t checked my bike, I would have rode on a sabotaged chain and crashed.” He shook his head slowly. “That’s not a danger I’d put on someone else lightly.”
“Lance already sealed his fate when he saved your ass,” Al shot back, “at least he might understand why we need his help.” He turned swiftly and trudged through the creek with his back to him, arms crossed. He wore a brown knit t-shirt with long sleeves, curling black designs on the arms and a wide collar. There around his neck Kite noticed with pride that the leather cord he’d given him was there – the stone was just hidden in his shirt. He had on gray jeans, pale, slightly torn, and regular converse beat to hell. The usual; save for a ring on his right hand, clunky and gray, it looked more like a collage of skulls than a ring. His curls seemed to have heightened color in the pool of sun he’d stepped into, light dancing off his head in wisps of gold and soft brown.
Standing away, Kite saw the tension in his friend’s stance. Alex was a hard act to follow. He was an ass, and he had the worst mouth Kite had ever heard, but there was no way to take away from his loyalty, or his brains. He knew enough to make him crazy with the way things were – but not enough for him to change them. That made him restless enough without this whole mystery weighing on his shoulders.
Kite paused to look into the bubbling creek. The clear water smoothed over silt and rocks as if they’d been training for the same obstacles for decades. They probably had been. But they bent his reflection back at him blurry, and for that he pulled his gaze away, stepping up beside Alex and drawing his hands around his own elbows.
“I don’t know, maybe,” he said quietly, anger growing in him, “all I know is that I don’t like this – any of it. I wish I’d never gone to that party, never drank, never even showed my face.” He kicked at the pebbles lining the dirt. All this because some guy was following them, getting to them, behind every shadowy corner they saw. He had seen Kite alone and jumped for the opportunity to ruin the night with sick humor. But in the end, it was just that: sick humor. Life was playing a joke on them and he was tired of it.
Why them? Why not some other kid, some other poor soul with a policemen as a dad - or a soldier? Someone more prepared or someone more experienced with this kind of thing? This stuff never happened in the suburbs. Weird mystery killers were for city people, not guys like Kite and Al. But it had happened anyway. Asshole disrupts the entire flow of normal life, the disrupted run for cover like uncovered cockroaches; not for shame, or guilt, but for fear of the unknown and what it would do to them.
The flash of fury bubbling down to nothing as quickly as it had come on him. The remaining feeling was emptiness. It hollowed him out, draining his energy, and Kite found a broad, flat tree stump and sat down hard. He tangled his fingers in his hair, knees knocking as he dropped his face into his lap. All this was too much for them alone, Alex was right. They needed help.
Alex sighed, his breath coming out long and heavy. Kite heard him approach, crunching footsteps stopping beside him, a warm palm resting on top of his head. “All right,” he said quietly, “not Lance’s help – he doesn’t need to be in any more danger than he might already be in, anyway.” He crouched down, and the palm was gone. “But we can get the police now if he has a phone in the cabin.”
A pause; Kite rested his eyes, his body, and took three deep breaths, letting them all out slowly. He felt his head settle down and his thoughts relax. All around him, he was all too aware that there was a need to end what had to be finished. So, he lifted his head and glanced at Alex, nodding enough to verify that he agreed. The other boy flashed him a smile and stood up. Kite followed suit, leaning on his knees with one hand and pushing his bangs out of his eyes with the other.
They stepped up the old wooden stairs and scouted around the windows, searching for signs of life behind the dusty panes. The floors inside were uncarpeted. Paved in cement, with a braided rug that held a variety of lounge chairs and a fireplace in the corner, it looked reasonably worn, as if many troupes of teenagers had made it to their liking. There was a high island counter in the center of the cabin that was piled high with junk food containers; some open, some otherwise. All the chairs around it were different – a few carved from wood and polished to perfection, a few plastic, a sturdy material woven there and a pair of beanbags to one side. Garbage spilled from the countertop onto the floors. A coffeepot was half full in the corner and covered in cobwebs.
Alex shot a glance at Kite and tried the knob. It turned with a creak in his hand, and he pushed the heavy door open with his shoulder. Kite reached inside and flipped on the lights.
The ceiling was low and white, with no overhead lights, the walls dark brown. The illumination served to be lamps all over the room placed strategically to cast light only around the center of the cabin. If it hadn’t been midday, there would hardly be any light at all to go by.
To one side, there was a corner hidden half in shadows, but they could clearly see two sets of bunk beds and an overturned cot occupying that space. The frames of the beds were covered in discarded clothing as well as quite a few quilts. A mound of pillows was seen on one of the top bunks. To the other side, there was another set of bunk beds, with a cloth draped over the bottom bunk that hid it like a curtain. Beside that was a bed stand with a lamp made of bird feathers.
There were wardrobes, desks and stands with TVs all over the place, as well as a pair of doors off to the corner that might be a bathroom and a back door, or a closet. The locks on both doors were thrown. Kite walked around, the cold in the floor seeping through the soles of his shoes. He drew his arms around himself as he glanced about, taking in the overturned plastic cups and the pools of soda by his feet. “Looks deserted.”
A grunt, “I can tell Lance and his boys were here. It smells like sweat and hormones. See a phone?” Alex asked, picking his way over to an open box of raspberry filled doughnuts. He nosed open the top more and grinned with glee, lifting two fresh treasures from the depth of the near-empty box. “Jack pot!”
Kite turned quickly. “You found the phone?”
“Better. Food.” Al destroyed his doughnut and walked over to offer Kite the other. “Good shit they’re amazing.” He drooled, “Hurry before I eat both.”
Reaching out with his arm, Kite smacked Alex’s shoulder, hard, snapping at him, “Dipshit! Look for a phone, not for more junk! You’ll be a thousand pounds before you hit thirty if you keep eating like that!” Whirling, he turned and stomped off towards the two shut doors in back.
“Damn! You sting! Pimp hand got powa,” Alex muttered, slinking off to the corner, nibbling his doughnut and rubbing his sore arm. He finished off the treat and began searching the walls for outlets, to then in turn follow the wires to a possible phone. Crouching down, he grabbed a table and pushed it out of the way with a groan, squinting in the shadows. “I think I found a phone wire.” No answer.
Alex rose and looked around. His heart skipped a beat. Kite was gone. “Kite?” He ventured cautiously, a hand on the table beside him. “Find a phone?” Silence. “Dude, I will pimp slap you back if you’re screwing with me.” Still, nothing. The house creaked. Something across the room squeaked. The shadows began to stretch as the sun inched along in the sky. But Alex was alone.
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ritsukaorchid
Sidekick
" Overwhelmed, underwhelmed, why isn't anybody ever just whelmed? "[A1i:1]
Posts: 200
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Post by ritsukaorchid on Nov 5, 2011 17:59:53 GMT -5
Stepping away from the table, Alex felt shivers as the silence pressed into him. The cement floor seemed to grow colder; the walls seemed to creak, as if in breathless expectance. He moved slowly in all ways. Step by step, the sweep of his glance, the breath sliding between his lips. He swallowed to soothe a dry throat. As he approached the two doors Kite stood by when he’d vanished, he noticed a light under one door. He held his breath and reached for the doorknob. Heart pounding, an uneasiness prickled his skin. Inching his fingers closer, slowly, slowly – then, curling his hand around the cold metal in a snap of his wrist, he turned the knob swiftly and threw open the door.
Kite yelped. The wire at Alex’s foot caught as he jumped in fright at the noise, causing him to tip forward rapidly, knocking right into his friend. Flailing in a futile attempt to regain his balance Kite shut his eyes tightly and tensed in anticipation, his back hitting the floor with a light thump as he curled to lessen the impact. That part of the impact wasn’t so bad, but he couldn’t stop his head as it snapped back against the floor. Pain exploded in his eyes as stars and lights. The wireless phone in his hand skidded away under a shelf. Overtop of him, Alex belly-flopped onto his friend like a gym mat, managing to catch himself just before he smashed his face into Kite’s collar. His glasses slid off and landed on Kites chest.
Panting, dazed and in pain, Kite clutched his head, “What the hell, Alex?” He moaned. “You scared me shitless!”
Alex shook his hair from his eyes, blinking, “S-Sorry,” he stammered, lifting to his hands and knees, “damn wires…” But before he got up, he paused.
Kite rubbed his forehead and cracked his eyes open, squinting up at him. Pain was fading into an ache now, but an acute one all the same. He blinked as if the world were too bright. The look on his friend’s face was blurred for only a brief moment before his eyes adjusted and Al’s sharp features came into focus. It was poised, thoughtful, and curious. Almost… romantic. Kite felt color rise in his cheeks; he didn’t like that look. He lay very still, waiting for the look to pass, nervous. “Alex?” He asked cautiously, when it didn’t.
Alex’s hands curled into fists on the floor. He lowered his head a bit, just so his gaze looked to be going through Kite’s chest. “I thought someone had knocked you out and dragged you in here,” he said quietly, moving to get off him, sitting back on his legs to give him room to rise.
“No, I’m all right. I was just talking to the police, so I couldn’t answer. I told them about the guy, and my house, but not where we are. By the time they trace the call we’ll be gone, anyway.” Kite sat up gratefully, but took his time as not to offend his friend that he was glad to get out from under him. He took his glasses carefully from where they rested on his chest as he leaned over his legs, the blood rushing to his head making it ache more sharply; that made him wince. He let his chin fall, holding his head with one hand and Al’s glasses with the other. The pain began to slowly fade. “Your damage hurts, though. Even if it is nothing critical,” he said to his lap.
“Sorry,” Alex repeated in an obvious hesitant tone. He was holding something back – and from that look he’d given Kite, it was something important. Very important.
“I’ll live.” Kite let his hands rest in his lap. “That look on your face said something, though. Alex,” He said firmly, looking up at his friend with sharp eyes, “what’s up?”
His friend fell silent. His bangs covered his eyes as he looked down at his fingers; he messed with a hang nail on his thumb.
With a small sigh, Kite crossed his legs, leaning his elbows on his knees. His gaze softened a bit as he twisted Al’s glasses between his fingers slowly, end over end. His head was aching dully now; it was quiet in the closet, and it was more lit than the rest of the cabin. The closet walls made their words seem more private; less out in the open. It might help Alex open up. They had, after all, been friends for years before hand, so he knew it only took a bit of soothing to make him give up his thoughts. “Alex… this thing you’re going through,” he began, “I’m sorry I don’t understand it; really.
“I wish I did. I wish I had all the answers. I wish I could just give you the solution, and have all this unhappiness, all this discontent and discomfort of yours go away, but I can’t. And I can’t imagine how weird admitting to yourself was, let alone admitting to me. I just know it’s gotta suck. But I’m not some judgmental loser – I want to help you find a way to deal with this.” He leaned forward, “And I don’t know anything that could help you more than talking. Things sound much less complicated and overwhelming out loud. That I promise. So just say what you need to, and we can sort it out, both of us.” He held out the glasses to Alex. “Ok?”
Alex lifted his head a fraction to look blankly at the glasses in Kite’s hand. There was an emotion there that Kite couldn’t place; it looked to be a combination of guilt and shame, but starch, making his face paler than usual. The glasses glittered in the lighting. He reached for them with stretched out fingers; hesitated, then took them, sliding them back on before combing his hair from his eyes with slow motions. He glanced at Kite, then back at his hand for a moment. Another moment went by.
Kite waited, patient, fixing him with a stare that was sure to prod him to words.
With a sigh, Al looked up sheepishly. “You’re not like me, are you?” He asked quietly, as if he already knew the answer.
A silence stretched. Thinking over his words carefully, Kite sat working his jaw, as if trying to get words out that his mind couldn’t comprehend. A contortion of his mind around him and Alex being linked romantically was twitching, failing, and grossing him out in all one instance. Then he shut his mouth and just let his expression speak for itself.
Alex sighed more heavily this time after studying his friend’s face. He let his chin hit his chest. “Yeah, I figured as much.” He rubbed the back of his neck, hunching his shoulders. “It’s just, you’re my bro, you know? I never feel this comfortable with anybody else. I can cuss and spit and rage with you two feet away and I know you won’t yell at me, or smack me, or get mad at me, or something stupid like that. You know?”
Kite shook his head, and a smile worked its way onto his features. He put his hands on his knees and got up, brushing himself off, turning his arms over to look for bruises and cuts. There was only one bad one; he had gotten cut on a sliver of wood sticking up out of the floor. Searching the shelves, he found a Band-Aid that would fit over the cut and wiped it off with some toilet paper before slapping the non-sticky patch over it.
Alex watched him quietly, looking very small and very nervous that he didn’t get an answer. He spotted another scratch on the back of Kite’s neck and rose as well on instinct, taking the Band-Aid box from him. Kite let him have it, frowning in confusion, and he watched Al take one out and carefully place it over the scratch he couldn’t see. Kite touched it with his fingertips.
“I do understand,” he said at last, as Alex put the box away and got down on the floor to get the wireless phone.
Al scrambled to get up, phone in hand, and hovered by the shelf looking at him, “Seriously?” Kite slid the phone from his hands and replaced it on its cradle. Then he turned to Alex, hands on his hips. “Duh. If I didn’t like boobs and my guy best friend was the only friend I had, I’d want him to say he was like me, too.” He poked Al in the chest, “But that’s too easy.”
Blinking, Alex just looked at him. “What?”
“Too easy,” Kite answered adamantly, “because there’s no challenge! Then you could be quietly gay and turn me gay (yes, like a vampire) and we’d sign a paper and be married and just go from best friends to partners and that would be that!” He threw up his hands. “When you said that you’re gay you opened a hell hole of challenges and hard choices for yourself! You can’t just take the easy way out and expect it to be all hunky-dory, fag. You won’t find me wearing spandex and painting my nails – and that’s that. Which forces you to grow a pair, push up your sleeves, and go digging for somebody else. And that is always dangerous territory.” He smirked. “The shittiest, hardest part of being different is searching for someone the exact same kind of different as you are, not living with it – because even if you were born gay or people picked on you, it’d all be fine if you had someone, just one person, to share your misery with.”
Alex was looking at him like he was insane. His jaw slack, his light brown eyes full of hazel with the angle of light coming from the closet light bulb overhead, he said nothing.
Kite smacked his shoulder, “Be a man, man. You’ll find somebody else gay when he needs you. But that’ll be your new quest in life – well, after we catch this guy, anyway.”
With the shake of his head, back and forth steadily, Alex walked out of the closet with his friend in tow. “You’re a dick, you know that, Kite? A simple ‘no, fag,’ would have sufficed.”
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ritsukaorchid
Sidekick
" Overwhelmed, underwhelmed, why isn't anybody ever just whelmed? "[A1i:1]
Posts: 200
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Post by ritsukaorchid on Nov 30, 2011 19:50:43 GMT -5
The pair left the cabin and headed back through the trees. The sun slid behind a thick blanket of clouds. It was afternoon, but not late, and the heat had faded. The cool now held down their limbs like hands and fingers, dragging down their pace, making their lungs ache with the altitude as they stepped further and further from the cabin set low on the mountain up to their hidden sanctuary. Its weight wasn’t terrible, but it was wearing, and it took them almost twice as long to reach the house again. They had skipped lunch save for the doughnuts Alex ate and Kite was starving for dinner, but they knew they didn’t have much left. Not the way they were going – they would barely have enough to fend them off for another day. And that was if they ate pop tarts for breakfast and lunch tomorrow.
Just at the beginning of the secret back path, Kite paused to lean his hand against a tree, feeling its coarse bark and breathing slowly to ease his racing heart. He turned his rainwater eyes to the sky and sighed. “I wonder if anyone’s looking for us right now.”
Alex, just a bit further up the path, kicked a pinecone and spat in the bushes, glaring at the world this way and that through his specs as if it were all dangerous, and somehow he needed a way to protect Kite from it. “The police will see your ransacked house - probably did yesterday, actually, if your dad saw it and called them – and it’s been 24 hours since you saw your dad last. He’s probably filed a missing person report. So the boys in blue will be looking for you like mad – but nowhere near this place, obviously. At the cabin maybe.” He frowned. “Though they might question Lance and his folks, since we saw his dad last.”
The boys exchanged glances. Alex’s was sharp, Kite’s holding a flicker of resentment. Alex had known well enough that they needed Lance’s help, and as well he was already involved, so he’d written Lance a note asking him to meet him so they could talk. This plan was well and fine, since it kept the house hidden, but it involved with Alex going out into public when he was also being looked out for… and it left Kite alone, because it was far too risky to bring him into the town when they still didn’t know how the guy was finding them. But they’d thought of nothing else that could keep both Kite and the house safe and away from the limelight.
Kite knew the risk was worth it, but it still didn’t sit well with him. He hated the idea of Lance in trouble, too, but they were just two skinny kids. They couldn’t take a college guy after blood or lust – both being equally terrifying to two virgins who had never so much as put glue in a girl’s hair let alone thought of killing someone.
Breaking the glance, Kite shivered and drew his hands around his elbows, pulling his arms tightly to his body as he looked off down the deserted path, solemn. There was so much fear in him. It was visible, in the dark circles under his eyes, in the jerky way he moved to physically get away from a thought, like getting up and moving around or walking faster along the dirt. He’d never been so afraid. This kind of fear, living with it like he was, was something he wouldn’t wish on anyone.
Nothing like this had ever happened to them before – never here. It was always so quiet. People went on with their lives, parties happened, couples married, but they either moved away or became part of the rest of the middle class. His parents had met in Memphis on a college trip, married against their parents’ wishes, cut off from all family relations, and moved out here to get away from their disdain (someday Kite would go back and find his grandparents and cousins; he didn’t like leaving families on a bad note. It never ended well in sit coms). But his parents had been the first to move into town since Alex’s grandparents came from Louisiana. That’s a long time. No one ever came to somewhere so quiet, so boring, so normal and laid-back - unless they were running from something. And it figured. He was running from someone, and couldn’t leave.
Alex jerked his head to look at the ground, scowling. It was obvious he was pissed he couldn’t protect Kite by himself. He was still trying to see if there was any chance of Kite being like him, and although he knew it was futile deep down, there was a part of him who couldn’t let go of the only person who had truly taken care of him not because he had to, but because he loved him – like a brother or not, that love was something he clung to desperately. His parents just had to pay for him. He knew they only loved each other. They were always tired, working extra time to make money to support their one foul-mouthed child and Blake. He sometimes thought they’d never be happy and energetic again, like they were in the pictures before Blake was born. His condition bore them down until they had no happiness to give to Alex, when his mother had accidentally gotten pregnant again. They didn’t say it but he knew they had been trying to avoid having another baby. But, being Catholic, their beliefs had held them fast, thus Alex was born.
Reaching out, he stepped back to where Kite was and put a hand on his shoulder, not looking at him. The other boy turned from where he’d been facing and followed him. They walked back down the path towards the house together, twigs snapping underfoot.
Alex had grown up making his own way, with Kite as a crutch to lean on when his parents wouldn’t, or couldn’t, listen. There was a lot to lose on this friendship for him. He knew he loved Kite – just how he loved him was a fine line he was having trouble walking. Friend, maybe more; never less, though. Sooner or later he’d figure it out. Maybe when this mess was all over and Kite was safe, he’d sort out his head. Until then, they had work to do.
Kite curled up on the couch as Alex locked the door. Staring at the floor, he pulled blankets around himself, piling pillows on one side and cocooning himself under a few spun cotton quilts. His fortress made him feel safer, less small, and less afraid. He sat in a tired trance as Alex went around checking to see if all the windows were still secure, that nothing had been touched or overturned while they were gone. Kite didn’t know what they would do if the killer found them here. Die, probably.
Slowly, he leaned sideways against his pillow wall until he was lying down. He shut his eyes. He curled his arms against his chest. He buried his face in the blankets. He’d just get raped, and die, by the hands of a crazy homo asshole. He was too tired to do much else.
“Kite? Kite, man, you have to eat first. Don’t sleep yet. Kite?”
Alex’s voice was so far away. Kite pried his eyes open and rolled them lazily to look at his best friend, the worry written all over the face draped in curly bangs. He had to sit up. Slowly, he untangled himself, nodding, too tired to speak.
Alex got him the last batch of chicken ramen they had and watched him solemnly from his spot on the floor until Kite had finished all of it. There was hurt there in his expression, a hurt his friend couldn’t see. It was only four or so, and Kite was this tired? That didn’t sit well with Al. He must be over stressed. He usually ate nothing but healthy stuff – the junk food diet, trauma, and stress must have him in a tight grip. Al shouldn’t have made him walk all the way out to Lance’s cabin and back.
When Kite had finally finished, Alex took the bowl and spoon, setting them on the table to the side. A frown creased his brow. But he said nothing. He’d let Kite sleep it off; maybe he wouldn’t worry if he was asleep.
“Thanks,” Kite mumbled, snuggling back down into his cocoon of warmth, “I don’t know what’s up with me.”
The brown curly head dipped a fraction. “Just get some sleep. You’ll feel better when you get up.”
Kite didn’t even bother replying. He was asleep before he could even think to. Alex left him; he put the handgun in a part of mess on the table that only Kite would see, pulled all the curtains shut, and locked the door behind him. All the lights were off in the house. There was no way to tell there was someone inside. Al stood looking up at it, feeling an ache in his chest, and set his jaw. He would keep him safe. Whirling on his heel he headed off down the path.
There was an hour before he had to meet Lance, but it was a long trek down, especially since he couldn’t take the main paths in case the killer was watching. So off he went, weaving through the trees, keeping his internal compass focused on the burger joint. He was too distracted to recognize the shiver that went up his spine as he vanished into the foliage, the kind of shiver a pair of cold eyes usually gives a person. A pair of cold eyes that weren’t supposed to be there – and the gleam of something through the leaves glinted in the afternoon sunlight. Cold, black; just like the heart behind the eyes. A shift of footing that barely crunched a leaf carried those eyes and the glint into the shadows, away, gone, as if they had never been there at all.
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ritsukaorchid
Sidekick
" Overwhelmed, underwhelmed, why isn't anybody ever just whelmed? "[A1i:1]
Posts: 200
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Post by ritsukaorchid on Dec 26, 2011 10:23:32 GMT -5
Alex had a tan beanie pulled down over his ears, sitting at a table by himself in the diner nursing a hot chocolate. It wasn’t so crowded. Barely anyone was there, and those who were, were deep in conversation and paying no attention to him. His table was by the back, in a corner beside the counter where you could only see him if he could see you.
The owner of the shop knew him – so if he came out, he had to keep him quiet. Maybe tell him Kite was sick and contagious and just wanted to be alone. Or he could tell them the police were trying to kill them. … Or he could tell the truth.
As he thought about a plan, he wondered where Lance was. It had been at least an hour. He was ten minutes late.
Alex sipped at his drink and fidgeted. He was worried about leaving Kite alone. He wasn’t well, and that idiot following them… He scowled, the expression appearing like a knife slash on his pale features. That idiot had a knack for finding them. Alex was scared stiff that he would find Kite alone, and hurt him.
Besides, that feeling he’d gotten on his way here had creeped him out majorly. Ten minutes more and he was gone. He refused to stay away much longer.
A waitress peered over in his direction suspiciously, maneuvering her trays around the swinging counter door. He tried to relax, leaning back, looking at the wall beside him as if memorizing the cracks there; smoothing his posture, trying not to look like he was a refuse being chased and under responsibility for his best friend while they were being hunted by a killer.
A leaf drifting around the looming figure curled passed the banister of the hidden staircase. A worn, beaten hand, with the nails bitten to the quick and grease stains on his knuckles, held back the curtain of plants that had once concealed the entrance. He was such an obtrusive presence that it was shocking the forest didn’t purge him from its perfect nature landscape like sling-shotting a demon from a collection of angel figurines. His long hair was ruffling in the breeze, long and tan, tied back tightly with a black rubber band. It gave a softer appearance to the otherwise cold, stony set to his shoulders, and strong curl of his fingers. The plainness of his clothes blended easily against the eerie, light glow cast over the earth and towering oaks by the gray skies. He was in earthy tones that seemed to shift as he moved – faded navy blue, worn greens, light brown. As if he’d lived outdoors his entire life.
But his aura was nowhere near plain. It seemed as if you reached out to touch him, he would snap, or shatter, whichever he felt would shake you more. Insanity hovered there – with a twitching hand.
There was a smirk on his face that looked like it was carved there with an embalming tool. A forever kind of itch that he knew would never be satisfied. And yet still he reached with a human desperation, jerking, clawing, trying to quench his need. There was no hope in a face like that.
His icy gaze slid up the steps, counting them, checking for snares or traps. But there were none. He set his steel-toe Harley boot forward and started up the steps.
Alex thanked the waitress in a mumble as she brought him another hot chocolate. Five more minutes. That was it. People were leaking in for dinner now; the more people, the more chances of someone recognizing him.
He couldn’t stick around much longer. A growing feeling of unease was making him twitchy; he fidgeted in his seat, the hot chocolate rolling around in his belly, and tucked his arms close to his body. Kite, don’t you go getting in trouble.
A blond head flashed passed the window. Pushing through the bodies clad in blue and badges, a lean hand grabbed the door frame as he veered inside the cabin. He hung there, suspended, chest heaving as he looked this way and that. Dust whipped up where he’d skidded to a stop.
The gray eyes were sharp and impatient as they landed on two olive skinned boys almost identical in height. Both boys turned at once, as did all the others, and looked to him obediently. “Get out here,” Lance barked, “and bring the note. I found their footprints.”
Tentatively, he stepped, heel toe, heel toe, smoothing across the rickety plank. The wind whipped at him suddenly; Get away, leave them be, it cried. His collar thrashed his cheeks, his pony tail flogging at his back. But he grinned and pressed on, wobbling forward with an unshakeable force of will.
His hands seemed to part the force of the air as he stretched his legs out for another stride. The wind wailed in his ears as he grabbed for the brass doorknob, and it refused to turn in his hand. His free hand stretched down into his boot and brought out a large serrated hunting knife. It fit easily in his hand, and he rolled the handle in his palm, plunging it between the door and the frame of the house. The metal was old and weak and had never been replaced since the sixties; he could have taken worse, and it could have been, if the knife hadn’t landed so precisely. It being as it was, it gave easily against the weight of the blow with a heavy metallic ping.
Hurdling forward, shoulder breaking the door from its tight enclosure, he shut himself in the house, blocking out the incessant annoyance that left angry marks on his face. The warmth of the house closing in on him bristled the hairs on the back of his neck.
He turned to face the empty halls, dark, but none the less breathing with the presence of a kitten curled away somewhere nearby. The knife gleamed in his hand and a smile sparked on his lips.
Running, a pack of older, slower figures falling behind, Lance and his boys used the extent of their long-learned speed to follow the direct path through the trees Kite and Alex had taken. Legs pumping, faces set in grim expression; they leapt over fallen logs and cleared dips in a single stride.
Lance had spotted the motorcycle headed up towards the cabin – taking a strange back path few knew even existed – on his way back to the cabin to clean it from the party his team and he had the night before after Maddie’s. He’d been too late to answer Alex’s summons, but if Alex was going alone, he had to have left Kite somewhere by himself completely oblivious to how close the madman was.
So, to find where Kite was hidden, they followed every snapped twig and bent blade of grass as they sprinted forward, searching determinedly. Alex would have to fend for himself for the time being. Lance smacked aside a tree branch in his way and took a large leap, landing heavily on the other side of a stack of fallen trees as his boys nimbly appeared at either side of him, dark eyes burning. He just hoped they weren’t too late.
A hand closed around the brown paper bag and money dropped into the awaiting hand. Moments later, brushing passed a couple whispering and giggling, the door swung shut behind Alex as he started with a twitchy vigor back towards the path to the house. He took long strides and leaned forward as he briskly glided passed the more crowded streets to the back roads – they would recognize him, but hopefully he’d be gone before that happened, or before they figured out where he was going.
There was more fear than anger at Lance not answering his summons. Why couldn’t he make it? Did he not get the note? He had to have come back; they’d heard his truck before, as soon as they’d been covered by the trees. The feeling creeping over him was growing with more and more dread each step he strained forward. When he was finally out of sight of the houses and streets, he bolted, running as fast as he could up the path that just began twisting around the mountain. Something was wrong.
Lance was panting like a dog by the time they reached the turn in the secret path, his normally neat blonde hair ruffled and his black sneakers mud-caked. A decoration of cuts and bruises from prickle bushes and branches swept up both his legs where his Bermuda shorts failed to protect him. He immediately started up the path towards the peak, not noticing where the footsteps veered off to, and the stockier of the two boys following close on his heels grabbed his shoulder. Turning in annoyance Lance gave him a questioning look tinged with a severe impatience.
“What, Rafael?” He snapped.
The large dark eyes turned to follow the direction of the footsteps and he pointed at the broken twig – down the path no one known was there. His brother, close by his side and standing tall with a flicker of fear in his eyes, dipped his chin.
“They had a secret.” Victor said somberly.
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ritsukaorchid
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" Overwhelmed, underwhelmed, why isn't anybody ever just whelmed? "[A1i:1]
Posts: 200
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Post by ritsukaorchid on Jan 8, 2012 16:08:14 GMT -5
Alex careened around the twirl staircase that had been pushed back and hooked on a branch, taking the secret out of its name. He had been running for longer than he cared to think about, his junk food system withering in on itself as his chest heaved for air. The acid in his muscles ached and screamed, but his fingers uncurled stiffly as he shot across the rickety plank to the house’s door. His breath curled in invisible tendrils around his face – the temperature had dropped substantially, and his lungs were numb. Curling around his keys, his fingertips shook as he shoved it into the lock, but it gave before he had a chance to unlock it. His heart dropped into his shoes. Kite! He thought in a panic. He pushed through the broken door and dashed down the hallway. Passing a few strange shadows his mind seemed to project onto the walls he skidded into the den at top speed. Was Kite here? He had to be here. He had to be all right. Before he could lurch towards the couch to check, a hand roughly grabbed the back of his collar. He gagged and fell hard onto his knees, held from a face plant only by the immense pressure on his shirt, hands scrabbling at his neck desperately. Oh no… He’s here! God, Kite! He got Kite! Dust from his fall clouded his blurring vision as a sickening dread filled his heart. “Aye, it’s Al, Chico!” A thick Spanish accent exclaimed. At once, the pressure slackened, and a figure bent its head close to Alex’s as the pale boy sputtered to fill his lungs. “Larx? Is that you?” Lance’s voice! Alex turned to look up into the surprised face as stars cleared from his eyes. The normally scrubbed appearance was smeared in dirt and sweat from what looked to be a long run, and a vein in his neck was leaping like a rabbit. But it was definitely Lance – and his two Mexican boys, Victor and Rafael. How had these guys found the house?! As they let him drop to the floor, Alex sat on his hands and knees coughing and hacking. He managed to watch enough of his breath to speak after the three of them had pressed in to see if he was alive. “What the hell… are you doing here…?” He coughed. “Where is… Kite…?” “Us? What the hell are you doing here?” Lance demanded. “I thought you were that asshole! We’ve been looking all day to find you guys to tell you that he was spotted nearby – we just found the house.” He helped Alex to his feet. “How did you guys even do this; put this house in a friggin’ tree? Or did you find this crazy place?” Alex forced his legs to balance him as he tried to comprehend them with a head lacking large amounts of oxygen. Then he remembered. “He’s somewhere nearby?!” He barked. Looking towards the couch, he spotted Kite’s cocoon and his heart skipped. Violently he pushed Lance away, stumbling towards the couch with a short burst of energy. “Kite! Kite!” Tearing the blankets and pillows off the worn cushions and tossing them over his shoulders, Alex rumpled everything – but it all puffed air and lay flat. Kite was nowhere to be seen. “Alex?” Lance asked, more confused than angry this time. “No…” Falling back onto his knees, Alex put his elbows on the couch and crossed his arms, pushing his forehead down against the material in front of them. He had let this happen! He had let that killer take Kite! His shoulders shuddered. This couldn’t be happening. He’d sworn to himself that he would protect him. But he was gone – taken. Maybe hurt. Maybe being tortured. Maybe dead. A choking noise strangled Alex’s throat. He would never forgive himself if something had happened to Kite. After a moment of calming himself down, his mind began to turn over. “Did you break the lock on the door?” He asked, muffled but coherent. Lance exchanged glances with his boys, and they shook their heads. The blonde stepped over to where Al knelt and hovered there. “No, it was open when we got here. We’ve only been here five minutes before we found you.” Alex lifted his head, death magnified in his eyes through the sharp specs perched on his nose. He curled his hands into fists and got to his feet shakily as the wheels in his head turned like sharply tuned machines. Lance took a step back, and his boys approached, standing close by him. Alex looked like a murderer. Sniffing, he dusted his hands off, “Then we have some more tracking to do – because Kite is gone, and we know damn well who’s taken him.” - - - It’s so dark and warm. . . Seeping into him, making him entirely too immobile in his coma of bone-heavy exhaustion, it soothed his fingers and toes and even his head was lacking the usual chill he got from the air vents over his bed. Now - so heavy in his dreams as well as the waking world – he felt as he hadn’t felt in a long time; perfectly cocooned. His face was void of all worry or troubles – peaceful in sleep. Curling his fingers into his palm, he felt his fingertips twitch. His eyelids flickered, black bangs drifting over his cheek. Maybe it was a little dusty smelling –but that was fine with him. It was a homey smell, like your friend’s closet, or your grandma’s sitting room. Distinctive, but not unpleasant, as if someone lived there but had forgotten to clean up a bit. Not the blankets he was wrapped in, though. They were soapy fresh and clean like a batch of laundry. The way they rustled when he shifted his legs wasn't audible at all, though. It made him feel deaf – as did the lack of noise in the room. He shifted again, and a flicker of nervousness went through him as, again, he heard nothing. Maybe he was just wrapped too tightly to really hear them. All he remembered was being zipped into something full of these blankets, being picked up, and then jostled quite a bit. He had been too out of it to figure anything out – he just figured the police finally found him, because he was still untouched and alive, and they’d just brought him home. Back to his house, his cozy, warm house, where his dad had cleaned up and everything was safe, and Alex was on the couch in the living room, and the stalker was cuffed and in jail… or dead, somewhere he would never be able to scare anyone else. Where everyone was all right and waiting for him and no one was in danger anymore. Going to roll over, his left side aching, he pitched over the side of the bed where he vaguely remembered there being more mattress when he’d slept there for the past four years. Oh, well. Maybe they’d just misplaced him – or he could have tossed in his sleep. He hit the floor with a thud and gasped shockingly in pain as his knees and elbows hit hardwood floor. Hardwood? His room was carpeted. Scrambling around it the blankets, it occurred to him that not only could he not hear himself move, he hadn’t even heard the sound of his fall! Shuddering in fear, flailing his arms now, as tightly as they were bound to his body, he thrashed desperately. Rope at his elbows held them fast against his back. The material held him just as well, like a caterpillar trapped in its cocoon. Where am I?! If falling hadn’t woken him up, the overwhelming anxiety welling in his chest had him as wide awake as a teenager hyped up on eight cups of coffee and a shot of adrenaline. Kite tried to remember if the living room in Alex’s tree house were hardwood, trying to stave off panic, and tried not to think about the bed versus old couch feeling – or the rope. Bending his elbows as close to his body as he could he wedged them and tried to move in all directions to see what he could still do. In motion, his arms could move about four inches in every direction before being caught in his mummy wrappings, and his head was completely immobile save for the small back and forth movement he attempted to free his face for fresh air, in vain. Nothing came loose. He rolled onto his back and curled himself up into a ball to become as small as possible, arms inching further around his body. They were trapped behind his back – nothing he could do would change it. His ankles were bound with the same rope, only more tightly, and in several knots he could feel as he rolled over them trying to balance. He pivoted on his bound arms with a wince; they ached horribly, but his right side was numb from the fall, his left side was tingling and hurt from the lack of blood it’d had through his sleep, and he didn’t have the power to roll onto his stomach. It’s so dark, he realized again; only this realization was less comforted and more frightened by it. How long had he been out? Alex had given him some soup to sustain him, and he’s just felt a huge headache hit him, and then he’d woken up in a bed here. Where ever ‘here’ was. He shuddered as his limbs began to tingle with sleep and dread crept into his heart. Where ever he was, it was not Alex’s house - that enough was cause for panic. As his heartbeat began to surge with fear, he tried to calm down, wiggling his fingers against his bonds. Nothing. He squinted hopelessly through the threads of the blankets. Alex…
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ritsukaorchid
Sidekick
" Overwhelmed, underwhelmed, why isn't anybody ever just whelmed? "[A1i:1]
Posts: 200
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Post by ritsukaorchid on Apr 7, 2012 19:22:42 GMT -5
Everywhere around him was dark, pressing in like vintage picture settings, with cracks in the walls and silk, glittering cobwebs hanging from every corner. Reaching deep into his mind, he felt the cobwebs there, too, but couldn’t seem to clear those out on his own. There was dusty furniture from the sixties and broken lamps and strung lights that flickered, their bulbs worn and on the edge of death as they shone weakly to light the shadows on the stained carpet, all surrounding him in this tiny room. It was one of the only ones he hardly used, but it also was the only one without windows. Even boarded up, he got nervous around windows. Threading his fingers through his hair – a long, lengthy motion indicating that he was deep in thought - he also moved his wrist back and forth across the soft-polished pine table, his hair bands rolling up and down in unison as he did. The hairbands were thick and numerous, but all the same colors. Gray. Black. Brown. He allowed himself an earthy green one as well. It did take quite a few to hold back his mane. Falling, long, shining gold in the dim lighting, his hair cascaded down the back of the rickety wooden chair he occupied. It was thick, an agony to comb, and colored honey-tan to the roots. Just moving his arms to stroke it hurt. His hands ached. His legs were worn out. Boots shifting on the floor, he sat back, knees apart, gaze glassy as if looking passed everywhere and into nothing. A sigh drifted out of him. So much of his energy had been sapped. He ran his tongue over his dry lips, feeling them crackle and shift as they moistened. This place was full of his hate. The floor creaked like an old woman in pain, even when no one stepped on it; the doors squeaked like nails on a chalkboard when they were so much as touched; the roof was drafty; and there were bats everywhere. The bats were fine, but the draft was annoying in the winter. And the dark always seemed to conflict inside him. There was hardly any light in the entire place. Why did it always have to be so dark? He was sick of it being so foreboding everywhere. In reply to that thought, he knew, as he always did, that any brighter and it would surely drive him mad to be here day and night, in the company of that comforting light people so different from him seemed to soak and bask in. Normal people. Lethargic sheep. He hated them most; then again, he wished he could be like them. Maybe then he’d be content. With what he had now, with a nice school and a nice job and a nice future, a sheep could bask and be happy. Sometimes, like now, he wished he’d been born bleary-eyed. He wished he’d been born a sheep. But then, he’d hate himself. - - - Before, he’d figure Kite would be weirded out if he wore the necklace he got him so long ago. Truth was, Alex had worn it every day since; under his shirt, mostly. He forgot to tuck it under his collar every now and then, which was fine, because then it would seem as if he rarely wore it. But he had to. He couldn’t help it. Every day, he’d roll out of bed in his filthy, littered room, and squash the sunlight from his eyes with the heel of his hand and moan and groan, and as soon as the spots faded from his vision, there it would be. Sitting curled on his desk. Like half a heart, its black curve graceful, like a koi swimming, forever alone, searching for its counterpart. It sent a pang through his chest every time; he’d only known that kind of sadness in his chest, every time he woke up – before the necklace, before all this stuff had happened, before he’d confessed. It had been all too clear, and that hurt. He wasn’t normal. He was one of the stereotypes he mocked out, critically sneering his comments their way, that guilt and sadness burning in him. It fed on everything in him. It ate up his fear, his isolation, his insomnia, like a feast. But mostly it burned brightest by devouring his admiration of Kite. God, how it plagued him when they were together. Passing him a coke, shooting him a jealous insult, watching him nod off after a horror film, completely worry-free, unlike him… it tore him up. Alex’s jealousy and childish longing knotted up in him like dueling cobras. He loved Kite, but he needed his presence, his normalcy, his friendship, to be constant and unwavering. If he told him, it would all fall apart, he had known it would. Crumbling, like a ruined structure thousands of years old, just giving way after weathering strongly so many a storm. And he’d be left in the dust – cold, alone and completely eaten up, at last nothing but a shell left of him. No, he had to remain ignorant. Like anything else, it had become unavoidable; it had crept up on him and pushed him over the edge, whether he was ready to accept it or not. Telling Kite had been his breaking point. Without him, there was nothing. There was only him. And that was the most terrible of all punishment. But no. He’d digested it, and he hadn’t left him high and dry. He’d held a hand on his shoulder and helped keep him upright as he staggered, about to sink to his knees and give up everything. He’d been there for Alex. Rolling the faded stone between his fingers, his glassy oak-colored gaze unfocused, his thoughts no longer whirled. Beneath him, the truck bucked and shuddered, the engine roaring. His hair was messed as the wind lashed at him through the passengers’ side window. As it whipped against his cheeks, it stung his skin, but his expression remained blank. His head was clear at last. His anger simmered. His fear was quenched. Even his guilt had become silent. Only determination was left in his heart, and as he let the stone fall to thump against his chest, turning his head so his specs flashed in the fading sunlight, he held his gaze steady. That man would pay. - - - Kite had fallen asleep eventually, after an hour or two of being stuck on the floor, and his dreams were familiar. He’d had them before, in other words, but this time he remembered them while he was dreaming – and they were much more detailed than before. It was cold and black everywhere. He couldn’t see a thing, although it was so cold he was shivering, his teeth chattering as he looked for anything, fumbling for a light switch. Rolling around in the dark, he found he’d lost all sense of up or down. He kicked his legs and flailed out his arms, stretching them wide until he found a scene faded in the corner of his eye. It was bright, the sense of familiarity growing stronger as he recognized it. Turning to face it fully, he felt his hair shift against his face as if he were upside-down. And he peered through it to see, in fact upside-down, a pair of figures. It was Alex and Kite, just before Kite had left for camp last year, just after their freshman year in high school. They had their manga stacks and sodas spread out on the grass in a patch of sunlight, the dense forest looming around them. They were both leaning against the same tree, reading different manga. It was a warm day, Kite could tell by the mosquitos – and he noticed something he had missed that day. The leather rope Alex’s yang stone was hung on showed out of the back of his collar. Funny. He’d actually counted the times he’d seen Alex wear his necklace, and it had come to about ten or so in two years. He’d never worn it in his shirt. Had he? Alex waved mosquitos away, and as he waved his hands, Kite saw beyond him a troupe of guys throwing a football back and forth in a clearing far back, completely out of view of the two boys. Floating into the scene, Kite squinted, trying to make them out. They were all fuzzy – he hadn’t looked at them properly before anyway – but one had a very long, golden ponytail, though he was blurred. He was wrestling the football from two other guys, all obviously college kids on vacation, and as they rolled him off laughing he stood and shouted something. Then he waved and jogged off, headed straight for where the two boys were sitting. He stopped halfway to where they sat, still shielded by the trees, and ducked behind a thick oak. Kite heard the patter of his piss hitting the bushes, but remembered it as being some sort of branch rustling its leaves. Or so he’d thought back then. He frowned and hovered back, where he could see him if he came out from behind the tree. When he finished, and emerged, Kite was surprised. He didn't look threatening at all. The face was a bit clearer now; Maddie had been right, he was a handsome guy. He had a sharp nose - severe to a point - with a clean-shaven face, and bright, piercing hazel eyes that were more golden honey than Alex’s sapling-oak brown gaze. He had an icy look to his face as he watched the ground, deep in thought. ”NO WAY! Kite, you gotta see this!” Alex blurted from where he sat, and shoved the manga overtop of Kite’s. ”What? What is- WHAT?!?!” Younger Kite yelped as he read. The golden haired male jerked his head up, and paled considerably. Kite, drawing closer curiously, whirled to float upright to get a better look at him. For some reason, even if he was who he thought he was, he wasn’t scared. He should be terrified – this psycho motorbike fanatic was looking right at his younger self and younger Alex. But Kite was calm; he felt no fear, no anger, no aggression. He just watched his movements, his shaky hands, his now-paper-pale face, and did nothing.
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ritsukaorchid
Sidekick
" Overwhelmed, underwhelmed, why isn't anybody ever just whelmed? "[A1i:1]
Posts: 200
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Post by ritsukaorchid on Apr 17, 2012 19:35:47 GMT -5
The male looked like a deer in the headlights. He shot a quick glance over his shoulder to see if his friends were watching him to see them sitting by the river now, oblivious. Swallowing so his Adams apple bobbed, he turned back towards the sound of the squabbling boys and crept closer, drawing behind a small grove of trees just thick enough to hide him. He peered out at the boys intently, watching them. Kite felt his stomach flip. ”Alex, please tell me I didn’t just read that,” younger Kite groaned. The pony-tail male frowned, eyes growing wider. Kite saw the beads of sweat on his forehead, his face had gotten so clear. He had heard their names. His eyes swam with emotions Kite could only guess at. Leaning heavily against the tree, the male peered forward, and poised to strike. Then, all at once, everything was gone, swirling in a black fog. Kite reached for the image desperately, trying to catch it again, but all he grasped was the last fragment of the handsome male being called from over his shoulder and his biker boots kicking up dirt and underbrush as he jogged back to them, leaving the two boys to fade once again into the shadows of the forest. With a gasp, Kite was torn awake, and he sat bolt upright, eyes flying open. A blinding light flashed as the darkness vanished with the flicker of his eyelids. He yelped and jerked his arms to cover his eyes, the pain making spots dance before his vision. They stung like mad, and he swayed as if he was drunk, the blood rushing to his head. Bending forward he moaned. That flash of white was fading before he realized that he was no longer cocooned in the blanket, and he jerked his arms from his face, blinking rapidly in the florescent lights as he looked down at himself. He turned his glowing white arms over to see if they were unharmed. His clothes rustled, wrinkled and bound around him like snakes. His pulse took off like a jack rabbit. Someone had picked him up off the floor, unwrapped and unbound him, and put him under the blankets again without him knowing. He shuddered for a moment, and it racked his entire lithe body, shoulders shaking jerkily. Touched without his knowing, by someone he had never met. He could have done much worse to him and he would never know. Massaging his indented, but mostly healed, wrists, he tried to calm his breathing. He was all right. No one had touched him. No one had slit him in his sleep. He picked up the blankets slowly to check if his legs were all right. His upper thighs were sore, as were his knees, but otherwise they felt fine. He remembered he was wearing jeans – and wouldn’t be able to even see his legs – before he lifted the blanket more and realized that his legs were bare to the knees. In baggy black shorts he’d never seen before, he stared down at his pale calves and exposed left foot, that shudder returning. His pants were gone. Who in the hell changed his pants? Coursing through him, the shudder made him tremble from head to foot. Clutching the blanket, he went to jerk his legs to cross them, and the other came out from under the edge of the blanket he hadn’t lifted let, rattling. His jaw dropped as fast as his heart; like a rock into the soles of his feet. Eyes wide, he lifted his right foot and shook it. Again, it rattled. He reached out, eyes widening, and wrapped pale fingers around the thick, bright steel chain melded to a shackle locked around his ankle. The shackle was round on three sides and straight across the front of his leg over his foot, and instead of a clip to hold another to his other leg there was a chain snaking under the sheets. It was relatively small but very, very real-looking. Jerking his foot, he tested the chain, yanking on it. It seemed to be threaded through the metal post holding up the bed. He jerked it hard, and yelped as the shackle dug into his skin, but he heard a padlock thunk back against the metal. Locked like a prisoner. When he finally tore his gaze from his locked ankle he gripped handfuls of the blanket in his hands as he glanced around, frayed nerves calming slowly. It was a plain room. There were faded oak dressers that looked to be ancient standing bunched up in the corner as if someone had a lot of clothes to store and wanted them all in one place. The ceiling was white, but flat and smooth, without any interesting design, or even a tremor of the hand – it was flawless. The closet door was dark-washed, but stained, and larger than usual; Kite suspected it was a walk-in, or had some weird collection hidden behind it. The matching rugs were braided in all shades of brown and gold and only placed on either side of the bed. Other than those, the wooden floor was scuffed, worn and dented where many, many feet had tread. There was a vanity facing the door beside the bed, wiped clean, not even a trace of the usual perfumes or hairbrushes that usually adorned them in movies, a thin white-metal air vent directly above it, and the bed was king size, with him smack dab in the middle of dark blue blankets and sheets; scuffed up, terrified and red-eyed. The strangest part was the sanitary overall feeling of the room. There wasn’t a speck of dust on any of the furniture that he could see, and he had great eyesight, and the carpets looked fresh – even if they were frayed at the edges like they were fifteen years old. There was nothing hanging from the dressers like Kite’s house, where he got PJ’s back from the wash and shoved them in a drawer to keep his mom from nagging him; there wasn’t so much as a corner of a sock or the pinched hem of a pair of boxers to be seen. Not to mention everything was flat against the wall – nothing catty-cornered. Not a thing out of place. Scrubbed clean. Sterile, if not for the Tide-smelling sheets, and the musty air coming from the air vent. Kite felt cold suddenly. He pulled free one of the blankets underneath him and threw it around his shoulders, huddling against the mountain of pillows at his back, everything tucked warmly under the rest of the comforter except a single pale foot. Curled in an indent of sheets, the flesh crawled with chill as its metal counterpart bit down mercilessly. - - - Sooner or later, he had to get up. No matter how lulling morning warmth was, when the darkness had receded to gray filament and the covers were positioned perfectly to keep you insulated. He had someone to entertain. Someone important. But he was so tired. He heaved a great sigh and let his eyes remain closed for now. His mind was plagued by driving ideas; what he was going to do, mostly, now that he had what he’d been looking for. What he would eat, how he would do it, why he would do it, using what, how long, what time did he have left, what would he be like… By the time he’d finished that thought his stomach was boiling. He opened his eyes and forced himself up, his mind screaming ‘GET UP!’ while his body begged and groaned for sleep. He moaned aloud, rubbing his eyes as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. Just another morning in hell, he thought bitterly, glaring at the door as he drew a hand over his face and rose from the bed. As dots flew in his eyes and his equilibrium adjusted to standing upright, he lost sense of where he was walking, but when he blinked the spots away he had stopped swaying and was in front of his dresser. The drawer squeaked open. All the same clothes. All the same colors. He looked up. His biker boots, newly polished, sat in the corner. He eyed them proudly. He kept them well – they were the interesting part of his attire, even if nothing else was. His sister’s gift. Before she decided to die and leave him here, alone. Angeline had been her name; pretty, sweet, sassy Angeline. Her long blonde hair had been brighter and lighter than his, like yellow sunshine on a beach day, and it flashed when she laughed, because she’d throw her head back and scrunch up her eyes and smile like nobody had ever dampened her mood. She had white, perfect straight teeth, and eyes the depth of the ocean, all greens and blues winding together in a current, swirling her thoughts out loud like a TV screen for all to see. She had spoken to him. She’d understood. And now, she was gone. He had no one to quell these thoughts rising in his head, these urges and needs. These driving thoughts that wreaked havoc on his nerves and drove him to insanity with a single flicker of their existence, had wormed deeply and unforgivingly into his mind. As if they’d never leave, as if those thoughts would never let him be and cast off, because they were never his to begin with. They weren’t his. Never. He grabbed a t-shirt and jeans and showered. Brushing out his hair was long and arduous, but worth it. He combed it until the knots were gone, then left it down to dry as he stepped out into the hardwood hall to make coffee. As the smell of grinds filled the air, he felt awake, and pouring the rich, dark caffeine into a blue mug made his mouth water. He drank down the brew as his hazelnut eyes - bright and wide, as if innocence had ever resided there – drifted over the placid, clean, OCD-induced neatness of the house. The colors in the rooms and on the walls were worn greens and tan, only two modern pieces of furniture decorating the living room; a new couch and a coffee table. The rest of the rooms were filled with his dead parents’ furniture, moved from their house after the funeral into his private storage, than personally carted here. His parents’ house had been sold since then. And now he was here, where no one knew he even owned this place, let alone used it when he wasn’t in school. It was old, but it was clean, dammit. And today the bathrooms needed to be scrubbed, the furniture dusted. Stepping across the floor, his bare feet padded on the threshold as he approached the living room. He had sold his parents’ house as soon as he got their things out, and threw out all his mother’s antiques. Useless things, antiques; they were all dusty, all the time. Point was there was nothing left for him there. He couldn’t go back to the past when he’d been normal, back when he’d just been a wide-eyed child watching the sun come up and go down. No, he would never be normal. After they died he knew he’d had to make a new life. A life entirely his own. But he had demons, demons spawned from out of nowhere; ones that crept in his head and sank their dark claws. And he knew he would never escape them. No matter how far away he moved. No matter how normal he tried to be, or told himself he was.
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ritsukaorchid
Sidekick
" Overwhelmed, underwhelmed, why isn't anybody ever just whelmed? "[A1i:1]
Posts: 200
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Post by ritsukaorchid on Jun 1, 2012 9:27:09 GMT -5
There were no clocks here. No TV. No radio, no phone. The electric outlets were all plugged up with little plastic pegs, their gaping mouths and empty eyes muted by the transparent plastic. It felt choked in white; in clean, in a lack of dust particles glimmering through the florescent lights overhead, in every corner painstakingly scrubbed. There wasn’t so as much a spec of dirt on the carpet, even at eye-level. There was not a smudge on the door knob, even when he squinted as hard as he could. His bare feet met cold, no-resistance floor, with nothing but age welting the wood. It was polished smooth. Not just clean - spotless. This was the room crafted easily by someone with severe OCD. Kite had gotten antsy panicking in the bed curled under all those blankets. It had been at least half a day by now, he reasoned. He would get a fever if he lay much longer. And although every time he rattled his chain, and so much as working it around the blankets so he had enough leg room to walk freely, he broke into anxiety attacks, he could not just sit around. That was like he’d given up. And as many things as he was – weird, too nice, best friends with a gay guy, a nerd, widely ignored – he was not a quitter, by any means. Kneeling in front of a dresser, shackle jerking along to rest behind him, Kite sat back on his haunches, pulling out the drawer on his level. His gray eyes narrowed, heart pounding, his fingers gingerly curling around the wooden indents and sliding it from its slot, letting it glide smoothly to tip a bit and rest in his lap. It was surprisingly light. Peering inside, eyes wide, his anticipation faltered. He sat back and sighed in disappointment. Nothing. Completely empty. Putting the drawer back, he tried the others in the same dresser. Empty. Empty. Empty. Frustrated, he sat back and looked around, eyes running over the room and coming to rest on his shackle. This guy put him in this room for a reason. He wanted to know why. He needed to know why… and try and get himself rescued, or broken out. He had to hope. He felt his throat tighten. Getting off the floor, he smoothed out his t-shirt and went to the next dresser, determination steeling his eyes. - - - “What do you mean nothing?” Alex shouted. “He was in college! There are people everywhere! Some sucker had to try and get to know him at least once – or at least memorize his license plate!” Crowded around him were tall men in blue uniforms, some wider than others but all much taller and bigger than the scrawny kid yelling at them. They frowned at each other from thick handlebar mustaches, exchanging glances from under furrowed brows, foreheads wrinkled with worry lines. The station had been going crazy, pulling hands from all over town to pitch in, and trying to track down every trail possible to find Kite Trei. Before they’d even known it, a killer had swept in among them and taken him from them. Kite, the one kid all their own kids could remember distinctly as never changing - always smart, smiling, with a big heart and more sympathy and kindness than any socially-rejected boy should ever be able to retain. Before, everyone had just kind of taken his bright smile and strange red jacket presence for granted. School with him had been like having stressing days surrounded by pressures, turning here and there and running into a scowl or a smirk, than having Kite take you aside and make some comic comment or judgment of your day that wouldn’t only knock your socks off but make you put everything into perspective. He’d been good at that – no one had really bothered to get to know him that well, because whatever they needed to hear that moment he gave them, kindly, with no remorse, and then they were happy again and didn’t need him anymore. Until the next time they did. He was steady. Solid. A smile that could never be turned away from. Now that he was gone, the kids were in a rage. The chess club was calling everyone who lived from here to the next city asking if they’d seen him. They were very convincing. Raina, the goth, invited by a squad member, was working diligently alongside detectives to trace back personal sources to the killer. Since she had slept with most everyone in the school, guys and girls, she knew the dirt and personal profile on most of them, so she knew who to call in and who to disregard. She also helped as a comforting presence when badges were drilling classmates about the party. She was the only one who could convince them that how much they drank that night was not under question. The kids had loved and needed Kite, and hadn’t realized it until he was gone. Poof. The first few days in school he hadn’t shown up had been normal. What kid didn’t skip some school? He got sick, he slept in, whatever, everyone skipped sometimes. They assumed he was on vacation, or had mono, or something, and would be back the next week. But Kite had been busy running for his life. So his desk stood empty in every class. So all eyes began to turn back to notice. Kids began to frown in confusion, or realize how down they felt without that spark of personality to go to. They had walked around in a daze, all wondering where he had gone, if he was all right. And now this. He was gone. Really gone this time. Taken from them, right in their own town, by a madman - a real threat. Not some slideshow on the effects of drinking and driving. Not a lecture on STD’s. No, this threat had suddenly materialized in front of them, and there wasn’t a soul who hadn’t stepped up to lend a land to get Kite back, and get him back in one, solid, kind, admirable piece. Through the thrown-open windows, the morning seemed to light the world up and make the greens more green and the blues more blue, the light reflecting off the glinting glass seeming to touch every corner of the room, yet casting no shadows. The desks glowed with oaken warmth. Papers became blindingly bright. But such light that usually inspired a good, light-hearted mood hardly seemed to affect the collection of officers and teenagers alike gathered glumly in the meeting room. Whoever this guy was, he wasn’t only good at covering his tracks and staying under the radar, he was just gone. It was like he’d teleported and left no DNA traces of anything anywhere. They had checked through the ashes on Maddie’s parents’ floor she had cleaned up, knowing that he had left them, and hadn’t found so much as a partial fingerprint. Not so much as a nut or bolt from the bike. Not even a hair. The guy had been careful. Furious, Alex threw up his arms, “Come on! Here have to be some leads! A hobby, a class, maybe a car he borrowed! The kid couldn’t scrub everything clean, or tell every teacher a different name for get away with it – just like that!” “Alex,” Lance said quietly, from a desk he was leaned against, dark bags under his eyes and arms crossed tensely. “He’s insane. Lost touch with reality. All he has is his drive to do animalistic things; his instinct. Fit in, lay low, work in the shadows, get what he wants. He’s used to getting off Scott-free. All his life, he didn’t live like we did. He lived with something strange inside of him, something he learned how to acutely mask.” Alex flushed with anger and clamped his mouth shut. Clenching his fists and hunching his shoulders, he turned to the wall, so the bright sunlight cast a dark shadow across his face. They all turned their eyes back on Lance as he continued. “Somehow, he can make himself seem normal and get away with it. We’re not just going to come across a Coke he flung out his window on a drive to the supermarket. It is going to take time to crack this guy as wide open as we need.” The blond male explained softly, the least aggressive his boys had ever seen him. From where they huddled around the paperwork at his back they looked up through their bangs at him, dark eyes solemn with respect. They all knew how this was affecting Alex. After prying the story from him about the house, Kite, the killer, and how they ran from him, they had all finally understood Alex’s hasty temper. He’d been trying so hard to protect Kite – only to run off for help, and come back to find him already gone. Kidnapped by a gay psycho-killer with a fetish for chains and motorcycles. Looking up his files from his college had been useless – he’d forged all of it. All fake. Numbers, dates, hometown; even his friends had known the man from the file. The fake kid from a small town with a 4.0 GPA. One girl had gaped openly when they told her that his name wasn’t Michael Browns. Actually, no one was sure what his real name was, because he’d used Michael, Jake, John, Josh and Drake, and only at the college. The laundry mat had called him Joseph. The supermarket woman had called him Jack. The authorities were also scratching their heads as they sorted through his things in the college dorm. A bottle of Vodka, a lot of Pink Floyd t-shirts, some cut up jeans, a black hoodie, some socks, and a red scarf. No razor. No toothbrush. Not even a pair of underwear. He had dusted his entire room clean of fingerprints, and hadn’t left so much as a fleck of skin cells or anywhere. Even the doorknob was clean. “They’re running face recognition now. Maybe he’s in our criminal records,” a hefty officer offered, trying to be helpful. His dark eyebrows lowered so far over his eyes that he looked as if he didn’t have any. The others shifted around him, nodding but not looking particularly hopeful. Alex’s lip curled in a grimace. He hated when people pitied him. The way their sad eyes looked at him, seeing a crushed kid who had lost his only friend in the world, desperately trying to get him back. He glared at them. “Go look through the cameras on that college campus and see if that asshole had any hobbies he liked to entertain at school. You might catch him headed for an internet café or a beauty parlor,” he snapped, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “And get the chess club captain on the phone.” Moving towards the windows as a few men scurried off to do just that, he scowled at his reflection. “We need nerds on the job, and I need to get someone who works well with computers.” Someone dialed on the closest desk phone - the chess captain’s cell number punching in with loud button clangs - and held it out for Alex as it rang. Snatching it up, Al turned away from the sea of faces pressing in on him and crossed one arm over his chest, the other tucked against him as he held the phone to his ear. “Hello? Who is this?” A lisping pubescent voice questioned. “It’s Alex, Reggie. Do you know anyone who can hack into bank computer for some classified account information?” A pause. “…Give me a bank, and a name, and I’ll have what you want by lunch.”
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ritsukaorchid
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" Overwhelmed, underwhelmed, why isn't anybody ever just whelmed? "[A1i:1]
Posts: 200
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Post by ritsukaorchid on Jul 5, 2012 7:59:11 GMT -5
“Sweet dreams are made of these,” he crooned, “who am I to disagree?” The coffee cup was empty, sitting in the precise center of a tile on the kitchen counter he’d chosen; there were opened packets of sugar as well as tiny creamers, both on their sides in the garbage can, half spilled out onto the other various contents. Viciously, half eaten, several dinners lay disdainfully slung there after he had gotten moody a few nights. There was just something about a meal made for two that he hated – probably the fact that even after his sister had died, he hadn’t thought to start making less. And so, when he had eaten al he could manage, he would angrily get rid of the rest, not thinking to save it; or not wanting to. The smell that hit him when he dropped in an apple core among said past wreckage made him shudder. He shut the lid to the garbage quickly, moving on through the room. His long sandy hair fell down his back, swishing as he headed down the hall, singing, “Some of them want to use you; some of them want to get used by you.” His voice was a good tone of bass; smooth, melodic, even. It never broke. Never wavered. It was hypnotic, his face reflecting the most bottomless well of shadows you could ever imagine. “Moving on, hold your head; Moving on, keep your head.” He drew his body through the house, like a ghost, pale but graceful. He really had a gift. You could almost picture a black guitar in his hands; his compact form perched on a stool in the spotlight, breathing life into songs on a stage somewhere. As he snatched something from a dresser in the hall and slid it into his back pocket, his hands seemed to move steadily across the strings of a guitar as if teasing a melody to the surface. His heavy footsteps echoed, only enhanced by the weight of his boots, balanced on the rungs of his seat. Turning down a hall darker than the rest, the sculpt of his face half lit by shadow and blinding florescent light, eyelids lowered so his lashes just touched his cheeks. Smoke drifted like a column of living being around him; masking his surroundings, casting a glow on his body. His voice cut off sharply. The florescent lights dimmed until they became hardly a single bulb dangling above his head. The guitar dissipated. The stool was gone; his feet were planted firmly on the floor, knees trembling as he stood before a door. The door. Two steps down into the ground and there it was - thick, bolted, locks climbing the wall beside it. The world seemed to curve around him. His heart raced, his palms sweated. A creaky uncertainty tipped at him. He swallowed. Now, he had never gotten used to this feeling. It was how he managed to survive this long – no matter how many times he went through the routine, he always felt this rush, this nervous quaking in his boots. This danger of what he was doing and the consequences that would ensue if he was caught; the adrenaline that spiked a grin onto his face, into his wide, empty eyes. It drove him. It fed him. A giddiness rose in his chest, and his grin cracked, fading. His poker face replaced it. He relaxed, rolling his shoulders. All was still. A fly buzzed by, and he back-handed it. The insect vanished. The male used that same hand to reach for the door knob, his breath catching, his bones aching with anticipation. “I want to use and abuse – I want to know… what’s inside…”- - - A coughing fit racked Kite. He hacked into his arm, shaking dust from his dark bangs and brushing it off his shoulders. Lifting reddened eyes to see his progress, he frowned deeply. Nothing. So far, he had checked all four dressers in the room. One had a tiny candle on it, ocean breeze scented, unlit, sitting neatly on a tiny knit coaster. He had looked through, under and behind every drawer, and the candle too, and had found nothing. This guy was clean, whoever he was. Around him, the separate drawers lay on the floor neatly. Picking them up, he sighed and began replacing them in the correct order. The outsides of the drawers were spotless – it was the dust inside he had to worry about. But other than that, there was nothing in them to give Kite any clue to his captor’s identity – I mean, he knew who had kidnapped him, just not who the guy was. I mean what young guy kidnaps kids, anyway? Was he sick? Mental? He got a shiver down his spine and turned quickly to face the door. His chain moved with him, making a lot of racket, but through it he heard footsteps on the wood outside and a low sing-song voice. A male’s voice, but he couldn’t make out what he had said. Kite’s heart took off like a race horse. His breath quickened, his hands trembled. Quickly glancing around, he knew he could not escape, nor hide. The closet was still locked; there was no even trying to get it open, let alone breaking in and using it as a barrier between him and the killer. He swallowed. He hadn’t even prepared to meet him – to face the man that had been following them, tormenting them. The doorknob jiggled. Kite’s heart leapt into his throat, but he did not lose his cool. He could do this. Being alive still meant that this guy wanted him to live at least a little while longer; and the longer he wanted Kite alive, hurt or not, it gave Al more time to come find him. He knew he would. There was no way he would fail, not when Kite needed him like this. His knees were cold on the hardwood floor. Clutching his arms for a moment, Kite shuddered. He was scared; terrified. This man was a murderer. A madman. And he was shackled to a bed. What was going to happen to him? Composing himself, he dropped his arms and shook them out. All right, he thought, let’s see who you are, you coward. Many locks disengaged. Bolts slid. Shorts swishing around his legs, Kite gathered his feet beneath him and rose, face like stone. Just as his knees straightened and his arms fell to his sides, hands balled into fists, the door crept open. The hall was dimly lit, but the figure in the doorway was obvious. It was him. The male from the dream. Stocky; he was six foot, maybe a hair less, with strong shoulders, long legs and arms, tapered wrists, and large biker boots. He stood with a slight forward stoop, as if ready to lurch at any time, like he might need to react to something with all the brute force he possessed. Kite felt his blood turn to ice, understanding why in movies people pee themselves at the mere sight of the villains, but he managed not to flinch or move when the male took a step inside. “Kite. It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” the smooth voice intoned as the lights in the room lit the peach face, calm, striking in a way that surprised his prey. Kite’s eyes widened as he took the male in. His face was angular; with a sharp nose, and an almost childish curve to his thin lips. Large, strange hazel eyes rested on the pale boy before him; they were beautiful, but cold and echoing. It was as if something was missing from his gaze – something irreplaceable. The calm of his face changed though, and worry flickered there as his hand moved behind him, shutting the door with a gentle click. The sound echoed about the room. “You don’t look well, though. You didn’t when I found you before, but I hoped rest would help.” His hair was golden tan, pulled back neatly off his forehead, and Kite realized the pony-tail when he noticed it swish behind one arm as he moved to face him. “Are you ill?” Now that he brought it up, Kite’s stomach hadn’t felt very well since he ate that soup Al gave to him, right before he fell asleep. He frowned, dark hair falling on his cheeks, and shook off his trance as the handsome male waited for his answer. “I don’t feel well, no. I don’t know why.” He replied stiffly. His feet shifted; the shackle rattled gently. He looked older. Darker. The man’s eyes flickered to the chained ankle, then back to Kite. “All right. Well, obviously it wasn’t the cold I thought it was.” He nodded to the bed. “Take a seat. I’ll check you over; I’m a med student.” “First tell me who you are.” Kite demanded firmly. Moving to lean back on his heels, the man rested his hands on his hips, considering him. His gaze was glittering, mocking, his lips curled in amusement. A silver stud winked in the light from his left ear. A chuckle rolled from his lips, but he nodded compliantly. “I guess that’s fair. Sit, and I’ll tell you.” Kite hesitated, staring the man down. That cold golden gaze didn’t flicker. Was he serious? A doctor, kidnapping people? This was all too strange for him, but if he was serious, fine. So, obediently, he went to sit on the edge of the bed, tense though he was. His knees moved stiffly, his steps careful. He let his legs dangle over the sides and sat very straight, never taking his eyes off the college student. “Good kid; smart.” The blonde approached him slowly as if trying not to spook him. He moved with a grace; Kite had never imagined someone so mentally sick would look so normal – or seem so above normalcy, with his good looks and methodical cleaning. As he reached him, Kite got a slight whiff of clean-smelling cologne and cigarettes. Strange mix. He watched the shadows move across the older male’s face. Those hazel eyes looked deep into his rainy gaze. “Now just try to be still; I’ll be finished soon.” He said soothingly. “My name is Eli. I went to school with your friend Maddy’s older brother, as you should well know by now. I’m top of my class, actually.” Wincing as Eli reached for him, his hands large and leathery-looking, Kite felt his pulse racing like mad. Well worn, soft to the touch, and warm, his hands moved to check his pale forehead for a temperature, then moved to his wrist for a pulse. He wasn’t lying, at least. He knew what he was doing. “Sounds like a consuming study life,” Kite murmured, searching his head for the right questions to ask. He didn’t like how close Eli was to his face. It gave him a weird feeling.
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ritsukaorchid
Sidekick
" Overwhelmed, underwhelmed, why isn't anybody ever just whelmed? "[A1i:1]
Posts: 200
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Post by ritsukaorchid on Jul 5, 2012 8:02:57 GMT -5
The hands moved to the pockets of the jeans Eli wore, and pulled out a tiny flashlight. He clicked it on and gently held open each of Kite’s eyes, shining the light in both before returning it to his pocket, satisfied. “It’s a living.” He frowned. “Your vitals are a bit weak, but that should wear off if I get some food in you. It must have been the drug I put in the soup Alex made.” He mumbled, rubbing his face. “Might have used too strong a dosage.”
“You drugged me?! How?” Kite yelped. “You didn’t even know where we were hiding!”
Eli laughed; a sound that was both melodious and condescending. He stood tall and looked down at Kite, sliding his hands into his pockets, eyes narrow and sharp with an intelligence Kite was beginning to realize. Those eyes gave Kite a cold feeling. “Do I look ignorant to you?” Eli chuckled. “I not only knew where you were hiding, I had it built.”
Kite’s heart stopped. “What?” He whispered. “Built it…?”
An eyebrow cocked above one of the hazel eyes. “You really didn’t figure it out?” He shrugged. “When I was younger, my sister and I used to live on the other side of the mountain,” he explained, making an arm motion to indicate where he used to live in proportion to the tree house. “In another town. It was smaller, but it was quaint, I suppose. I hated it all the same. Anyway, we found that nice little spot and begged out father to put a house there for us so we could stay there whenever we wanted. We were young, spoiled, and our father was wealthy, so he complied, of course. He built that house as we asked for it; a log cabin stocked with food, with the works. Water. Electricity.”
Eli moved across the room as Kite watched, running his fingers over the top of the dressers, eyes on them as they moved. “We spent countless summers there. All that time was sixteen years ago. You were only a year old then, weren’t you? I was six, of course, Alexandria eight. She was always good to me, even taking all the blame for trouble we got into like older siblings do. She was responsible for me, and understood it well.”
Kite was growing cold. Goosebumps lined his arms. Gathering the blankets around him, he pressed his knees together and tried not to shiver. He couldn’t believe this. The tree house was built for Eli when he was a child. Before they could even walk. And Alex and he had lived there for days.
“Well, we abandoned it when I was around ten. Grew up. A year later, we moved away, completely forgot about it.” Eli glanced at Kite from the corner of his eye. “Until I got into my senior year in high school, I didn’t even remember it. I only recalled my time there when Alexandria died.”
“I’m sorry,” Kite said softly, despite himself.
The boots paused. But, taking a breath, Eli continued, “She was my only guidance. I didn’t know what to do without her,” he said in a quiet voice, “she had helped me get integrated into my classes, meet some friends. They joked around, had a stupid kind of fun; but they liked me. I fit in. We all were on the soccer JV team – only ever lost two games in three years. We planned on going to the same college, and Alex promised we’d be doctors together.” His voice seemed to waver near the end of that sentence, so he stopped talking and swallowed.
Kite watched him with curiosity. This man had needed his sibling to socially integrate him into high school. That was a hint towards his mental lacking’s. Although he seemed competent, there had to be something Kite was missing.
Eli collected himself quickly enough, though, the curve of his back deepening as he leaned forward to continue contently pacing about the room. His shadow was a shifting gray cloud beneath his feet; each footfall was as heavy a thud as the one before. “Our parents died when I was in middle school, that was a mess, but well worth it; but we were orphans then, so we stayed with our uncle nearby until Alexandria turned eighteen.
"Then she moved us closer to the high school. She was so smart; a genius. Everything, she knew everything right off the bat, by just looking it over for a few minutes. Equations, methods, symptoms, vocab, all of it. She was stunningly intelligent,” he said with a small, sad smile. “I only acquired half of the smarts she had. She was going to take the world by storm.”
“A big mess?” Kite interjected. “Your parents’ death didn’t devastate you?” He asked, confused.
Eli shook his head. “They were selfish, ignorant people. They spent money on material things they didn’t need. Wasted their wealth. And ignored our talent for education. With them gone, we could finally master our own futures,” he said dreamily. “Anyway, when she died, I was trying to cope with living alone. I was only eighteen. I planned a lot of things with my friends, and they were happy to comply, trying to make me feel better. Nice kids at heart.
"But I was inconsolable. I faked my fun with them, endured their stupidity while I could, but without my sister there to placate me their ways frayed my nerves. They all seemed worthless, useless, only to grow up and burden society with their lack of talent. Bad grades. Bad attitudes. Lazy.
“No one appealed to me anymore, so I severed my ties. I stopped planning things. I stop speaking with them. Soon, they reached out to me, but I pushed them away so often they began giving up. Only on holiday did I agree to let them take me to the town at the bottom of the mountain for vacation – but only because I planned on screwing them over and leaving them high and dry. For a final good-bye, you know.”
A grin crossed his face then, and Kite had never seen more animalistic glint in a man’s eyes until that very moment. “But they tossed the football too far that day, in the woods.” He lowered his voice and took a step towards Kite, looking him up and down, gaze sliding like a snake eyeing its next meal. “I heard a few voices. Felt some things, in here,” he tapped his chest, “and I had found my new purpose.”
Shaking his head slowly, Kite tore his wide eyes from that handsome face, shocked, looking at the carpet instead. It was all piecing together. That dream that he’d had, that young man he’d seen. It was all coming back to him. Eli had been there that day. This plan hadn’t just been a snap decision from that night at the party – it had been plotted long, long before that. Years. As the realization dawned in his face, Eli’s grin grew more twisted.
“That’s right. That year, when you went off to the cub scouts camp, I brought Alex there. Walked him like a puppet all the way up the mountain; I used a very minor drug, and when he finally collapsed on the steps, I just carried him back home and let the effects of the drug wear themselves off. He thought it was a dream, and now he had a safe haven to explore while you were gone.” Eli shrugged. “He moved things around, messed it up a bit, but he liked the place. Thought it was some sort of dream house.”
He snorted a laugh. “What a joke. Well, it was easy enough finding you two. I just rented a car, followed you on your bikes, memorized your addresses. Your family. Your habits. You’re just teenage boys, and nerdy ones at that. No wild escapades. Again, simple to keep up with. I kept up with my studies, watched over you two for a few years. Waited until you were… ripe.” He added casually, his wiles worming their way under Kite’s skin.
Kite was shaking now. He shrank back from Eli as the male slid by to round the other side of the bed, headed to stand by the dresser with the candle perched on it. A lighter appeared in his hand, and he flicked it to life. The tiny flame danced in his empty eyes. “You…” The teen sputtered, heart rattling around in his chest like a jackhammer, “You said we gave you a new purpose, after Alexandria died... If your purpose was to live with her and be normal, what… what made us your new purpose?”
Eli’s back was to Kite. Glancing at the unlocked door, then down to the shackle shaking on his ankle, the pale boy tried to think of a way to yank off the leg of the bed and take the chain with him when he tried to bolt. Clawing with his nails seemed to be his best bet. No chainsaw, no knife, no spoon to dig into the wood…
Staring at the lighter flame, Eli became placid. Quiet. He stopped moving. Stopped speaking. He just stood and gazed, didn’t even move to light the candle. There was something vacant about his face. Suddenly, the lighter clicked closed with a snap and the male was at the door, looking back at Kite through eyes narrowed with anger. “YOU DON’T KNOW ME!” He shouted all at once. “I was never normal! NEVER! And neither was she!”
A scowl had been etched onto his face as if chiseled there with a stone spike. The fury that wafted off him stunned Kite, as did the strength of the feeling in his words. “She was better than normal – she was extraordinary! I was the dud. I was the abnormal one. I tried! It came easy to her, even if she was different, but I tried and tried and I never learned how to be normal. Never! Understand? I’m still the same. I can’t change.”
Kite said nothing. His silence annoyed Eli further. The man turned and flung the door open, stomping into the hall and slamming it behind him. The wood frame shook. The dressers trembled with the force. The bolts slid back, the locks clicks again back into place, and the footsteps stormed off again - leaving Kite alone once more, as if he’d never even been there at all.
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