Monsters

Chapter Five

"You shouldn't come with me," I said in the door frame as I watched her lace up her shoes before standing with her bag over her shoulder. I gripped her bat in my hand before offering it out to her as she passed by me on her way down the stairs. She stopped by the front door waiting for me with a raised brow.

"And why is that?" She asked me as she went to turn the doorknob opening the door yet I slammed it shut and leaned against it to stop her. She gave me a face that told me she was unimpressed by my actions but I stood my ground.

"Because you said you never travel too far from your home. Why would you leave a place you love to follow some strange girl you just met and barely know?" I asked while trying to get her to think rationally. She attempted to open the door again and I pushed it shut once more while giving her a look. There was a look in her eyes that scared me for a moment but I refused to let it get to my head. Once again I thought I saw something change in the hue of her eyes but I had assumed it was my brain catching up from its lack of sleep.

"Who said I wasn't going to come back? This is my home so of course, I'm not going to leave it. I'll just help you get where you're going and then I'll come back." She made it seem so simple but it was far from that. She went to open the door again and I wrapped my hand around her wrist leading her to tense up. Stepping back, she ripped her wrist from my grip and turned her body away from mine.

"I have personal space issues. Please don't touch me like that again." Her voice sounded strained and I took a step back feeling guilty.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know. If I had known I never would have done that." I told her honestly before opening the door for her and giving her space. She stayed facing away from me for a few moments more. Her hands drew my attention as I watched them shake for a moment and it looked as if her veins were more distinguishable than they were a moment ago.

"Hey, just take a deep breath. Everything is okay." I spoke to her gently assuming that she was having something close to a panic attack making me feel worse for my actions towards her. What I did had been done without a thought towards her and I had no intention of doing it ever again if this is what it resulted in. I stayed quiet and listen in as she took a deep steady breath before her shoulders relaxed and she turned back toward me. Heading out the door, she chose not to say anything to me and I followed suit choosing to do the same.

... ... ... ...

We had been walking for a while, mostly in silence, which I had been fine with. She needed space and I needed time to think. There was an abandoned car that we discovered a while back. It was in pretty good condition and all it needed was a bit of gas. Hard to come by but we were determined that we could find some and we had.

When people look for gas they usually think about other cars and that is their first mistake. I had mentioned that some lawn mowers took gas to run and we had been going to the back of houses in the near neighborhood looking for such. At this point, we had half a gas canister worth so we were on our way back to the car to see if it will work for us. If we do manage to get it running then we'd save ourselves a lot of trouble in travel. However, on our way back we ran into a bit of exactly that, something we'd been hoping to avoid.

When we made it to the car she had hopped in after filling it and tried to get it to start by hot wiring it. I had been keeping an eye on our surroundings while absentmindedly swinging the bat around. "And Amity Blight steps up to the plate, bases are loaded, and the entire championship rides on this final pitch." I started to commentate pretending to crouch, readying for the imaginary pitch.

"Wait, did you just say Blight?" I heard her voice call from inside the vehicle. I turned to see her looking at me from her position leaning into the open car door as she fumbled with some wires below the steering wheel.