Trance

Chapter Fourteen: Breaking into Hotels

Matsya genuinely looks lost for words. Her red lips open to say something but close again and her hands wind up holding the box of pizza tightly. I take the box from her, noting the nail sized dents in.

Matsya is nervous?

"Revenge," she finally breaks the silence, causing my eyebrows to raise. I didn't expect her to answer and I wasn't planning on pressuring her any further. She's already nervous, afriad or all of them. For some reason, I don't want to hold the cards anymore. This whole making Matsya nervous thing is something so unlike me.

Revenge? "For what?" I ask. Revenge isn't an answer to all my thoughts and I want to know more. It's not enough. "And what does Diego have to do with it?"

"He has nothing to do with anything," Matsya confirms my thoughts. But then why does she has his phone? For money? Diego is rich, there's no other way to address it. "Can we start eating the pizza? It's going to get cold."

I nod, passing the box to her. After she grabs a slice, I take one too and sigh with relief when I realize it's still warm. Cold pizza tastes like dirt compared to the warm slice I hold. "Why are you working here then?" I quiz.

"It's not his fault at all but I wouldn't say he's innocent," Matsya finally admits. The pizza overloads my taste buds with sauce and spice mixed together as I try to process what she said.

"How?"

"Have you ever met his parents?" Matsya says instead, locking her brown eyes with mine. I pause chewing on pizza to watch Matsya carefully bite into her pizza to avoid getting it on her lipstick.

Diego's parents were old people and friendly. They were rich and let me stay over at their extra apartment when I was kicked out. But then again, I'm not sure if Diego even told them that I was staying there. "Yeah, they were nice," I answer, frowning at her.

Is she saying that the people who smelt like flowers and wore designer clothes all the time(I'm convinced they had designer jadals as well) are bad? They donated to almost all the charities out there and with the few encounters I met them through, they were nice enough.

"They killed my parents," Matsya says. Her voice sounds tired. I meet her eyes, mine filled with shock and hers filled with sadness. They seem lost and suddenly, I can finally see the bags under her eyes. She cracks a grin at me, her eyes still brimming with pain. "This pizza is pretty nice right?"

"You don't have to carry on speaking," I say, my voice soft and low. In response, she raises an eyebrow. Thousands of questions are spinning my head around but the hurt in her eyes quieten them. "It's been a long night and I can tell the subject still hurts you."

Matsya stares out of the window before meeting my eyes with the smallest of smiles. "Thank you," she whispers, her tone almost impossible to catch. The moment seems tender as if Matsya's heart was hurting. I don't want to press on an issue where she's not ready to talk about.

The moment seems odd, it was so out our usual selves but then again, talkimg about matters of the heart always changes a persom's tone. Even the most happiest people can cry, even the darkest can have their hearts broken. Everyone seems to change their tones whenever they discuss the past.

What do I know about Diego's parents other than that they were rich?

I knew utterly nothing. They partied a lot, had thousands of money and Diego constantly tells me that his parents always wind up arguing about something - business maybe. Perhaps Matsya's parents were on the wrong side of a business deal and were eliminated.

Matsya does look rich. She can easily fit in with any group and with the way she holds herself up can give off that illusion. It might not be an act - it could be from her childhood filled with rich parties. But then why would she need to join a gang? Why couldn't she hurt them another way?