“Is it fixed now?” I asked Deen after the front door clicked, locking behind us. It had been broken open by the goons of the 2Ms when they were looking for her.
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Sis dropped by yesterday while you were asleep. Called the repairmen to fix it. They also replaced the glass and other broken stuff.”
“Oh, too bad I didn’t meet her. I really want to thank your sister for letting me stay here again. She always goes off to some place when I’m around. Is she getting annoyed with me?”
“I don’t think so.” She led the way to her car. “I’m sure she doesn’t mind you’re here. Most of the time I don’t even know where she is.”
“Did she say anything else? Like…uh, did she believe the story that someone wanted to rob your place?”
“She did. Or maybe she didn’t care enough whether it’s true or not?” Deen shrugged, bouncing her pale golden hair on her shoulders. “It does look like a robbery for what it’s worth. I considered throwing away a few valuables to make it look more authentic, but I didn’t want to rip the TVs off the walls; real robbers would’ve taken those. In the end, I didn’t bother. Sis just thinks they were scared off when Adrian dropped me from a party I made up. I should tell him to cover for me.”
“A fake party?”
“It was the first thing that came to mind. Luckily—hmm, or perhaps also not—those assholes quickly realized I jumped over the fence and escaped through the back, so they didn’t ransack the house trying to look for me. That would’ve been such a mess…literally.”
“Assholes?” I snorted, trying to keep a chuckle down.
“What?” She put her hands on her hips, frowning at me from the other side of her car. “Did I say something wrong?”
“I can’t recall you ever using the word ‘asshole’. Have you ever cursed before?”
“I do! It’s just that I don’t want to. How about you? I haven’t heard you curse in like ever.”
“Very rarely. Anyway, good thing those assholes didn’t decide to spray your house with bullets, and just broke in like regular kidnappers. It’s going to be hard to explain to your sister if your house got turned into Swiss cheese.”
“I never thought I’d ever hear something like that in an actual conversation,” she said. “And I agree with it. That reminds me, I also told Sis you were there at the party too. Don’t forget it when she asks you, although she probably won’t. I told her I asked you to stay over because there was news of an Adumbrae attack, and it turned out the Adumbrae destroyed your place, so now you’re here with us.”
“I will,” I said. It was a different story than what I told Mom so I shouldn’t mess these up. “Thanks again for everything, Deen. I appreciate it.”
“This is what besties do.” After starting the car, she checked her appearance on her phone’s camera.
I absentmindedly copied her. I didn’t actually mean to do it; I was just on auto-pilot mode. In this state, I just do the most generic thing to fit in, and, given the situation, I obviously had to mimic her ‘grooming habits’ to be part of ‘the herd’—not sure if that animal behavior analogy explained it well. She looked me over. I cut her off before she could say anything, “I’m fine with your clothes, really.”
“They’re not too loose, are they?”
“A bit…can’t really help that. Isn’t it trendy to wear billowy clothes nowadays?”
“Hey, I’m not that big,” she poked my side while driving.
“I’m just saying I’m small.”
“We could go shop—"
“Nuuu, we don’t have time to shop. They’re probably already waiting for us at Cindy’s. And I don’t have money.”
“I already told you I’m going to lend you,” said Deen. “It’s no big deal. Or you can just think of it as a gift.”
“A gift to celebrate I survived…all of that?” I said, grinning at her reflection on the rear-view mirror. Does she seem a bit nicer than usual? It might be because she got off quite lightly compared to me. My condo was attacked by the Adumbrae of the 2Ms, while only normal dudes with guns chased after her. Tons of people around me were turned into monsters, my home was destroyed and I lost everything, and so on.
I knew it was normal for people to be nice to those who suffered misfortune—I did copy that attitude a lot; very nice social optics. Besides empathy—which I couldn’t relate to—I theorized people behaved this way because they were relieved the bad thing didn’t happen to them. But there was something different I sensed here. If I had to guess, I'd say Deen was compensating because she felt, between the two of us, she should’ve been the one to suffer more instead of me; she was supposed to be the hero, after all.
Just a weird vibe I was getting from her.
We continued on our way, just two girls going to have lunch with their friends. Nothing to see here people, move along.
I found it relaxing to engage Deen in these mundane fake conversations, like about clothes, law school, also about Mom visiting. She was especially excited to meet my mother—I wasn’t. Just a nice and uncomplicated face of a friend. After using all sorts of faces since that fateful day of nearly getting killed by Myra, I realized I missed the simple life.
For all I knew, Deen might be making a sort of face for me too, pushing to talk like this to have some sense of normalcy in her life. Or maybe not? Maybe she had already adopted to this new life that she wasn’t fazed anymore and thus could talk like this in a relaxed way.
“There are cops,” I hissed, interrupting Deen wondering if the foot spa place she liked was open. A patrol car rolled down the other side of the street. It didn’t have its sirens or lights on. I tightly closed my right hand, then relaxed when the crystals grated against each other. Were they looking for me? I don’t think so. “Are they coming to your house?”
“No, they shouldn’t be,” Deen said. “We didn’t report the break-in. Sis told me to, but I didn’t.”
“Why are they here then?”
“I think…hmm…they should be going to the club—see, there they go,” she said as the cops turned left, climbing up the winding road to the clubhouse in the middle of Verde Hills. It was the common area for this gated community, with the pool, restaurants, a bar, the usual amenities for rich folk.
“Did something happen there?”
“I guess I didn’t elaborate yesterday. When I said Everett and Reo fought the men of the 2Ms, it was…”
“A big fight?”
“In a way. They decided to fight back at the clubhouse because no one was there at that late an hour. Everett got slightly overeager and even killed a few of them.”
“What?” I said. He must have been pretty angry they were attacking his beloved Deen. “Why did he do that? That’ll really draw the cops here. They’ll investigate and—”
“We thought of that, don’t worry. Everett used his power to…dispose of the bodies,” she said, her voice getting weaker towards the end.
“Eh? What do you…Oh, he burned them to ashes?”
She nodded slightly, as if she didn’t want to expose me to the horrors of what they did. “Like you said, the cops will come. Better they see something like a vandalism incident at the clubhouse than actual dead bodies. I’m surprised they only came now. Probably busy with everything else. Compared to an Adumbrae attack, whatever happened here is low priority. But if there were dead bodies, cops might’ve came sooner.”
“It’s just a bit extreme, isn’t it?”
Stolen story; please report.
“If we left the dead bodies as is, it'll even draw more attention to this place. Don’t forget, we’re living here.”
“I guess so…” I tilted my head, showing hesitation in agreeing with their decision. Of course, I would’ve done something similar in their place, but I had to be the outsider here. Deen nonchalantly talking about dead bodies was also so eerie; I didn’t expect this from her at all. And I came to believe I had a fair grasp of her personality. Maybe she was changing? Aren’t we all?
Speaking of cleaning up our tracks, I finally thought about the fate of Ramon, Lizzie, and Julie. I surprised myself it took me this long to care about them again. There was a chance Ramon and Lizzie were killed by the BID clearing the other monsters which escaped the collapsed condo. I had seen on TV many of them crawled out of the ruins. Even if those two were alive, I was sure they'd be in hiding and posed no threat to me.
But what about Julie? She knew who I was. Did Ramon take her to hide with them? Or did he leave her by the police station or something?
I kind of regretted that I didn’t kill her back then, or just left her to die…but only a smidge. I badly wanted her to survive as sort of a victory for my supposedly heroic Pino face. It was a win—or more like a consolation prize looking at the big picture—so, congrats to past Erind. Now present me will be dealing with the consequences.
I’ll just bring it up in the meeting later that we should look for her. They’d all want to help because it affected the whole group too.
The traffic slowed to a crawl as we drove along Romeo Drive, perhaps the busiest shopping street in the city. Deen turned to me while we stopped in front of a red light. “Erind?”
“No, we’re not shopping here,” I said.
“I’m not talking about shopping. It’s just…you seem worried.”
“I’m not,” I said, which was true. I was just preoccupied with my thoughts. Is she projecting on to me? But I spoke in such a way that would deliberately make her think my mind was weighed down. Anything to gain sympathy helps in the long run with whatever plan I’d concoct in the future. “What made you say that?”
“You’re a bit quiet.”
“Come on, you know I’m the quiet type. I’m just talkative when you’re around.” I missed these times of socially manipulating people here and there instead of fighting for my life.
“You don’t have to take the test later if you’re not ready,” Deen said, mistakenly assuming what I was thinking. “Just rest for now. I know you went through a lot. We got time. Remember what Johann said?”
“I do,” I replied. He told us yesterday that when he and Myra went to the security control room of my condo hoping to find me using the security cameras, they found that the 2Ms’ men hijacked it and destroyed most of the recordings there. He also tried to erase what he could. Anything left would certainly be gone given the building burned and collapsed. “But they will eventually find a list of the condo residents,” I said, “including me. Maybe they have it now. It’s not like it’s some big secret who lives there.”
“The property manager can provide a list of only the owners of the units, right? And you’re just a lessee. I assume a number of the units there aren’t occupied by the registered owners but also rented out like your unit.”
“I don’t know about that…”
“Let’s say they somehow put together a list of people who were supposed to be there that night. They still have to sift through the rubble and identify the dead bodies to find out who’s missing—I don’t know how they’ll do that with the ones who mutated, or the people who were eaten. Only then can they start to look for you. It’s going to take a long time. You can put off going to the police station for a few days at the least if you’re still not ready for it.”
Yep, I thought, Deen was really changing. It made me wonder how I changed since that day we met Kelsey. Could I even change? I said, “Deen, I still think it’s best for me to do this as soon as possible. I’m already continuing on with my life…our classmates saw me in class. It'll be weird and suspicious if I didn’t come forward now. I think I also need to go to the police before getting new credit cards.”
“Right,” Deen said, snapping her fingers. “I forgot about that. I’ll just be here to support and help you…always. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
“I know you are,” I said, smiling at her. “And I appreciate it.”
----------------------------------------
As we pulled in the parking area of Cindy’s, we spotted the hero-wannabe gang. They occupied a table at the outside sitting area of the restaurant, hiding beneath the wide shade of a bright red patio umbrella from the hot California sun high above, an odd day out the usual mildly warm February weather.
“Deen, Erind!” Everett, or Emcee if we were on a mission, waved at us. His strong Mediterranean features broke into a friendly smile. I internally smirked when I noticed he was wearing extremely tightfitting clothes. Trying to impress Deen with his muscles as usual? Although, he should have bonus points by now for actually saving her. His natural olive-toned skin made me think about getting a tan at the beach again—and reminded me there was something amiss connected with the sun and the ocean.
“Hello, ladies,” said Reo, codename Oberon. “Ohayo!” He stood up with his arms wide open. He wasn’t wearing his usual leather attire—probably a death sentence in this heat—choosing to don a loose jersey that revealed his pale arms. Instead of his signature ponytail, a bandana tied as a headscarf held back his long black hair. “I missed you guys so much. Come and give me a hug—" Myra kicked his shins. “Ow! The fuck, you used your actual strength on me.”
“Because you’re being a creep,” Myra, also known as Barb, retorted. She appeared a bit under the weather with heavy bags under her eyes and pale lips. “I was holding myself back from breaking your bones.” The blue color of her hair was brighter, like it was newly dyed; her bangs were trimmed and her normally shoulder-length hair was an inch shorter. Did she go to the salon after our encounter? Or did she do this herself? Such a weird reaction.
“How is that being a creep?” Reo sat down and massaged his leg. “I’m the most gentlemanliest guy ever in the whole wide world.”
“Yeah, right. And Santa Claus is a Corebring.” She nodded in our direction as a greeting but didn’t look at us. Or at me, to be more specific. “Hey, guys,” she muttered.
“You’re crazy,” he said. “Anyway, ladies. Have a seat, don’t be shy. Dario’s inside ordering food for all of us. All the best fastfood junk Cindy’s has to offer.”
"Johann went after him because Dario always forgets he doesn’t want pickles in his burger,” Myra added.
Everett said, “Isn’t ‘Ohayo’ good morning in Japanese? Good afternoon is something else.”
“Don’t really care, man,” replied Reo. “I always tell you I know shit about Japanese even though I’m half. You do remember an Adumbrae ate my dad when I was two, so no one could’ve taught me?”
“Ah…sorry,” Everett said. “I forgot.”
“If you guys want anything,” Myra said in a raised voice to cut through the awkward silence, “you can tell Dario. He’s right at the counter now.” She jabbed her hand back and we looked inside the restaurant through its window walls.
"He's getting burger and pizza," Everett said.
Burger and pizza? I couldn't eat those normally. “I like the chicken wings of Cindy's,” I said. "Should I go...? Oh, but it would be too imposing..."
"I got you," Reo said. "I'll just text Dario, no biggie."
"Thanks!"
“Greasy and fatty goodness for everyone.”
“More people are wearing masks,” Deen observed, referring to some of the customers.
“Because of the fires, you know.”
Everett explained, “People think the burned Adumbrae material floating through the air can cause them to get sick. I saw some started wearing masks after the raid at the club for the same reason. They thought the huge explosion scattered Adumbrae material in the air.”
“They think it’s some contagious disease or something?” Reo shook his head. “These people."
"Who knows, they might be right. The truth is sometimes crazier than the conspiracy theories people cook up.”
“Only sometimes?” Myra said. “Seems like most of the time.”
After about five minutes of chitchat, Dario and Johann arrived with the food. Dario said, “I got three pizzas. I don’t know their flavors; I just pointed randomly at the menu and agreed with the cashier.”
“You suck,” Reo said.
“I also got the group bundle they have of burger and fries. Erind's chicken wings. And also large smoothies.”
“Wow,” Myra said in a sarcastic tone, “everything sounds so healthy.”
“Should we even care about what we eat?” said Reo.
“You guys alright with this?” Dario said. His question was obviously directed at Deen. “Er, they have salad…not sure…orange juice?” He was blonde, although more on the platinum side in contrast to Deen’s golden hair. Even though he was just carrying food to the table, his had a serious expression as if it was a military operation with the lives of the innocents at stake. Or maybe he was just perpetually constipated.
“I’m really fine!” Deen said in exasperation. She looked like a celebrity dining with her fans pretending to like the ‘normal’ food they ate. “I’ll have whatever you guys are eating.”
“I’m not eating pickles,” said Johann. “That’s my one and only rule on food.” He was tall and lanky, I think the tallest of our group, like a walking bamboo with clothes. His face was more on the stoic side compared to Dario’s utter seriousness.
“Okay, let’s have an overview of the aftermath first,” Dario said. All of us learned forward to listen. “No, don’t do that. Just eat like we’re hanging out.” Everyone leaned back. “From what I’ve gathered, the 2Ms are pulling out of the city. Johann also found out that some key officials supporting them have been arrested. The BID is basically breaking their hold over the city. Is that a good thing or bad thing? Perhaps bad because then our next target, and only remaining lead, will be the Red Island. And we don’t know where that is.
“But let’s put that aside or now. We have two more pressing concerns. One is Erind’s test. That’s Johann’s assignment, and he says he’s all prepared for that. And the other one is Julie. Did I get her name right? A survivor from Erind’s condo.”
“Yeah,” Myra said. “Her name’s Julie. One of the guys we got out of that shithole.”
“What’s this about Julie?” I said.
“Julie is the immediate threat to us,” Dario said. “I need to get to her.”