She was a girl—younger and small—with a fierce case of resting bitch face and hair as black as the night around us. Her pouty lips lived in a perpetual frown, and her cerulean eyes almost glowed like a cat’s.
She looked familiar, but then again, I’d been around a lot of different kids in my life. After a while, everyone began to look familiar.
Black clothes covered her body, and the boots she was wearing were obviously too big with holes and untied shoestrings.
She was a mess, but something about her told me she wasn’t someone who took a lot of shit.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. “You’re a chick.”
Her face twisted angrily, and her fists planted on her hips. “Of course, I’m a fucking girl! Why the hell would you think I wasn’t?”
I shrugged, not really sure how to tell her she had sounded like a guy at first.
She scowled at me for the longest time, but I refused to say another word. I didn’t know this chick’s level of crazy, and I wasn’t exactly up to finding out with no witnesses around.
“Shit,” she hissed before she turned away and moved back into the shadow of the tree. “Come on, Peeping Tom, let’s get the hell out of here. Just because I’m not calling the cops on you doesn’t mean she won’t.”
She pointed in the direction of Jane and Darrell’s house, and I twisted around to see what she meant.
Walking down the driveway was Jane, looking freshly fucked with a smile plastered on her perfect face. The trash bag in her hand crinkled with the beat of her walk as she headed toward the curb.
I moved deeper into the shadows and watched, wondering how much shit I would get into if I just walked across the street and took her in my arms.
Just as I was about to move from my hiding spot, a loud whistled sounded from behind me, catching Jane’s attention and making her look in my direction.
I gasped, pushing myself behind the safety of the tree like a coward while still watching Jane.
She peered into the darkness, wrapping her sweater tighter around her, before turning and all but fleeing into the safety of her house.
“Why the hell did you do that for?” I asked.
She laughed and shook her head. “You’re welcome.”
“For what? Almost getting me caught?”
“No. You’re welcome for saving you from doing something stupid, stupid.” She chuckled before disappearing behind the back of the house.
When I didn’t move to follow her, she peeked around the side of the house.
“Are you coming or what?”
I debated my next move, but I figured I had nothing left to lose.
Following her steps, I went around the back of the house to find her standing at the back door, jiggling the handle.
“What are you doing?” I asked, confused.
“Chill, dude. This is my house.”
“Then why does it look like you’re trying to break in?”
She shrugged. “I forgot my key.”
Lifting on her tiptoes, she felt around the top of the doorframe. Unconsciously, my eyes traveled down the length of her body, stopping where the hem of her shirt had lifted to show her flat stomach.
She had a nice body. I wasn’t so far gone with Jane that I couldn’t see that, but she was a girl, and I hadn’t been interested in girls since Jane had shown me what a grown woman could do.
“Yeah. Well, it’s been interesting …” I started, rubbing the back of my neck. “But I’m going to get going. Your parents probably wouldn’t be happy with you bringing home dirty, strange boys.”
I laughed, feeling sick to my stomach for even referring to myself that way.
Just a few days before, I’d been living the good life. Just a few days before, I was with the woman I loved, sleeping in warm bed and eating good food.
Not so much anymore.
“Nobody’s home,” she replied before popping open the back door.
She stepped inside before I could respond, and I stood there not sure what I should do.
A light brightened the doorway, and the sound of a can popping open drifted through.
Taking a step closer, I did a quick sweep across the backyard before I peeked through the open door.
The girl, whose name I had yet to learn, was leaning against the counter, sipping a soda. The refrigerator was still open, letting the delicious smell of food waft right in my direction.
My stomach growled loudly, making me settle my hand over my abs.
She snickered and took another swig from her drink. “Come in and help yourself.”
She gestured toward the refrigerator before pushing away from the counter and disappearing into another room.
Not even a little bit curious as to where she had gone, I made my way to the fully stocked refrigerator.
I made a sandwich faster than I ever had before and then sunk my teeth into the bread, meat, and cheese. The flavor exploded over my tongue, and I was positive at that moment that it was the best damn sandwich I had ever eaten.
I flipped on the kitchen light and made my way around the kitchen until I found the pantry. Pulling open the door, I found it stocked full as well.
I snatched a bag of Doritos and pulled the bag open when suddenly the lights went out, and I found myself standing a pitch-black kitchen.
The strange girl was standing across the kitchen from me, the light from the still open refrigerator shining right on her. She stared back at me with her hand on the switch.
“No lights,” she said before spinning around and leaving me alone in the kitchen once again.
I frowned.
She was fucking nuts, but I was too hungry to care. Instead, I ate in the dark and enjoyed the first bit of real food I had had in days.
Five minutes later, two sandwiches and half a bag of Doritos rested comfortably in my full stomach. Done with the kitchen, I made my way to the next room.
Crazy girl was nowhere to be found, but I was hesitant to go look for her. Leaving was my best option, but I had never been a smart guy. So instead, I found myself moving from room to room, checking out the goods in the house and waiting for the crazy girl to come back.
The house was full of unnecessary shit, but I was sure most of it meant something to her and her family. The house was lived in. The sofa was large and comfy and expensive, and plush rugs decorated the hardwood floors.
Knickknacks and junk filled every shelf, and picture frames full of family portraits covered the walls. I followed the frames down memory lane, starting with a couple getting married. The next picture was that couple standing in front of the house, followed by them holding a baby with loving smiles.
With each picture, the baby got bigger, growing into a toddler, and I chuckled to myself at how much she looked like a boy growing up.
When I got to the next picture, I frowned and leaned in closer.
“What the …?”
I grabbed the picture from the wall, bringing it even closer just in case I was seeing things.
I wasn’t.
It was definitely a boy in the pictures with the couple and not a single one with the crazy girl with them.
Something cracked behind me, making me turn toward the sound with the picture still in hand.
I moved toward the cracking noise, leaving the room until I found her hunched over a table with her back to me.
“Hey,” I called out. “Why the hell aren’t you in any of these pictures?”
She turned, holding a backpack in her hand, and her eyes found the picture I was holding up for her to see. She stared at it for only a second before she looked back up at me and shrugged.
Another cracking noise sounded as she dropped an item into her open backpack. She ignored me as she moved to something else and picked it up, dropping it into the bag as well.
It was then I knew.
“This isn’t your house, is it?” I asked.
Fuck.
“Nope,” she answered casually.
“Why the fu
ck did you tell me it was?” I yelled.
“Keep your voice down, dumbass,” she hissed. “You wouldn’t have come with me if I had told you I was here to rob the place.”
Reaching up, I pinched the bridge of my nose.
Only I would walk into some bullshit like this.
“I’m fucking out of here. If you were smart, you’d leave, too.”
I took two steps toward the back of the house when the room suddenly lit up with flashing blue lights.
“Shit,” she groaned. “This is why you never turn on the fucking lights.”
“Well, excuse me. It’s not like I knew you were robbing the fucking place.”
“Yeah, well, we need to go,” she said, stuffing one final thing into her backpack.
“No shit,” I muttered.
We shuffled through the kitchen and fled out the back door into the blackness of the backyard. “Follow me,” she whispered into the night.
I ran behind her as we crossed the yard toward a tall wooden fence.
She was up and climbing over before I could blink.
“You have to be fucking kidding me.”
I hadn’t scaled a fence in years, and I wasn’t sure I could even do it anymore.
“Come on,” she hissed before she disappeared over the fence completely.
I was out of options.
It was either stay and get caught or follow the crazy girl over the fucking fence.
The fence was easy, and within a few seconds, I found myself in the alley behind the house. Searching around me, I saw the girl halfway down the road swinging her backpack merrily as if she hadn’t just almost been busted by the cops.
“Hey,” I called out.
But just as the word left my lips, a cop car pulled around the corner behind me.
I ran.
“Jesus, you’re slow. Come on,” she screamed.
And then she took off running, laughing with her head back the entire way.
She was on some next-level shit for sure, but I followed her once again, sure that if I didn’t, I’d get snagged by the man and booked for breaking and entering.
She called me slow, but I caught up with her easily, and when she looked over at me, her eyes sparkled with excitement.
Her laughter and excitement were contagious, and I found myself smiling in her direction.
Maybe it was the past couple of weeks of my life or maybe it was the bullshit and the hurt I had recently endured, but at that moment, I felt alive again.
The weight of the system and the loss of Deloris—of Jane and the pain she had inflicted—and the weight of my shitty existence, in general, didn’t feel so heavy on my shoulders.
Another cop car appeared in front of us. They surrounded us on two sides, so we could only go in one direction. A direction that ended up being a dead end.
“Shit. Now what?” she asked as if I knew what the fuck we were doing.
I’d run from the police plenty in my day, but it had always been in familiar territory. This side of town wasn’t my stomping grounds.
All I knew was that at any second, the cops would be out of their cars and cuffing us. At any second now, I would be in the back seat and headed to jail.
Strike three was what it would be, and I wasn’t about to let that happen.
A crack in the fence beside me caught my attention, and without hesitating, I grabbed her hand and pushed her through the opening.
An empty field waited on the other side of that fence, which meant no place to hide. But I knew if we ran fast, the cops wouldn’t be able to catch us.
We had barely fit through the crack in the fence, so there was no way they would fit. They would have to go around.
I didn’t know where the hell we were or where we were going, but when she took off running toward the right side of the field, I followed, hoping she knew where she was going, and we weren’t about to get caught.
SIXTEEN
“HERE WE ARE,” SHE SAID.
Here consisted of a dilapidated building in the middle of nowhere. Broken and boarded windows kept me from seeing inside, but I could tell just from the outside that I didn’t want to go in.
Weeds as tall as me surrounded the building, and rusted tin panels covered the outside walls, making it look as though dried, crusty blood drained down the sides.
It was creepy as hell.
“What is this place?” I asked, sure that at any minute some crazy fuck would come out and murder us.
She crouched down next to a small opening in the building and pulled back a piece of the tin siding. The edges were jagged and sharp, and I knew that with one wrong move, she would probably sever an arm or a leg.
She gestured at the opening she had made.
“You want me to go in there? You’re fucking kidding, right?”
She smirked, her conniving smile annoying the piss out of me. “What’s wrong? Are you scared?”
I tensed, my jaw going so tight it felt like it would pop.
No guy liked being called a coward, especially when it was far from the truth. I had done my fair share of stupid shit, which meant I learned the hard way that it was probably not a great idea to enter the decrepit building.
“I’m not scared. I just have enough sense to know wrong from fucking right. Common sense tells me not to enter an abandoned building with some chick who conned me into robbing a house.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to kill you or anything.”
I threw my head back and barked a loud laugh. “Believe me, sweetheart, I’m not worried about you. I’m worried about the diseases I’m going to get just by being near this place.”
“Just shut up and get in,” she snapped. “I’ve never heard a boy whine so much.”
“I’m not a boy,” I corrected her. “And I’m not going inside until you tell me what we’re doing here.”
She cursed under her breath. “Suit yourself. Come in or not. Doesn’t matter to me.”
She crawled through the small opening, and the sound of scraping metal made me flinch when she released the panel and it snapped back into place.
I sighed and dragged my fingers through my hair in frustration.
I was cold, but at least I still had a full stomach. The main problem was, I knew nothing about this chick, and after the stunt she pulled back at the house, I knew it was probably better to cut my losses and run rather than to hide with her.
The vacant lot beside me was pitch black, making me feel even more alone. Even though I wasn’t convinced I could trust the girl, I honestly had no other place to go.
The truth was, even though she had put me in a bad position, she technically didn’t have to help me when we had almost gotten busted. She could have climbed the fence and left me to deal with the police, but she didn’t.
Maybe the inside of the building wasn’t as bad as the outside.
Never judge a book by its cover, right?
Maybe it was warm and cozy inside—maybe it was clean.
Staying the night wouldn’t kill me. I could get a good night’s sleep and figure out my next move in the morning. If I managed to stay alive until then.
Making a quick decision, I pulled back the dangerous, rusted tin and eyed the tight entrance. It was silent and black inside, but I crawled in anyway.
Once I was able, I stood and grimaced at a sharp pain in my arm. I was much bigger than she was, and I wasn’t as lucky. The tin had scraped me good, leaving a long gash in the arm of my hoodie.
Great.
Now I would have a hell of a time keeping out the cold.
“Finally,” she said from somewhere inside.
I squinted into the black, trying to make out her figure, but the darkness inside the building was even more intense without the soft glow of the moonlight outside. Waving my hand in front of my face, I couldn’t even see the outline of my fingers.
“Where the hell are you?” I asked, stumbling blindly around the unfamiliar space.
“Give me a minu
te,” she snapped, her voice laced with annoyance.
I didn’t take it personally since that seemed to be the only tone she was capable of.
After a few seconds, a small glow illuminated the corner at my side, allowing me to see her and a bit of my surroundings. She stared back at me in a way that made me a bit uncomfortable, and I looked away.
“Are you going to tell me what this place is?” I asked, scratching at the back of my neck.
She shrugged. “Home sweet fucking home.”
“This is your home?” I said with a frown as I quickly tried to smooth the disgusted expression from my face.
“Yep,” she said, falling back onto an old ripped recliner I was sure someone had tossed out. “Got a problem with that?”
The stench of mildew and rust filled my senses, making me cover my nose with my finger.
“Nope,” I said, taking in the bits of her place I was able to see in the soft glow of the candle she had lit.
I didn’t have a cardboard box to call my own, much less an entire building.
Who was I to judge?
It wasn’t clean, and it smelled like old ass, but at least she had something over her head at night.
She stood from her recliner and moved to another broken down table to light yet another candle. When she did so, I was able to see more of the space. There wasn’t much there. Mainly a few broken pieces of furniture probably tossed out that she had managed to recycle and reuse.
“Hungry? I have some water and food,” she offered as she picked up her backpack and began to pull out the things she had stolen.
Candles, a lighter, and a few other items that would make her stay inside the abandoned building a bit easier.
“It’s not gourmet steak or anything like that, but it’s something,” she muttered, pulling a piece of rope from her bag and tossing it onto the table.
Obviously, she only took what she needed. I guess if you were going to rob someone, at least make it for things you needed to survive and nothing else.
Then she pulled out a handful of jewelry, destroying my new opinion of her. Jewelry wasn’t a necessity. Food and light were. Not that I could say anything. Just because I had lived in a nice place for the past few months didn’t mean I hadn’t ever been a thief.
Little Black Box Set Page 54