Killer Instinct

17 | Michael

"I don't want to go into this house, Mary."

"And I don't want to have a brother who's a complete waste of space when it comes to one person's house, so I guess we're both going to be disappointed today." Mary snapped back to her brother, who directed his eyes at the ground in a mixture of embarrassment and annoyance. Mary knew why he didn't want to go into the Green's house, but she treated him like he was stupid for it.

The restraining order he knew was in one of the bedrooms of the enormous mansion seemed to be laughing at him as he stood on the front step.

"Alright, I guess I'll knock." Mary rolled her eyes as Michael stood frozen in place, eyes trained on the ground and hands behind his back. She stepped forward and knocked three times on the giant front door, three quick raps before stepping back to where Michael was. Footsteps could be heard rushing towards the door as the twins stood waiting, Michael's heart racing as he remembered the last time he was in the Green house. He tried to forget it, but there was no forgetting anything of that magnitude.

Secrets never went away in Easton.

The Green's butler, Harry—who the Hadden twins had met multiple times before—opened the front door and seemed slightly surprised to see the two.

"Mr. and Ms. Hadden, how may I help you tonight?"

"By letting us in." Mary replied, "Roland's expecting us."

Harry's surprise was evident from his expression, as Roland Green had never had any friends outside of the two losers he usually hung out with, but he let the two inside anyways. He closed the door behind them and walked forwards a bit.

"I'll go and fetch Mr. Roland, but in the meantime, I'm sure that you can find your way to the dining room."

Michael nodded as the butler rushed off to find Roland, leaving the twins to find their way to the dining room.

Mary led the way, maneuvering through the house. She had been in the mansion far more times than her brother had, as she had greatly looked up to Erin Green while the socialite had been alive. Erin had begun to teach her ex-boyfriend's sister all about her life and, essentially, how to have a lavish life without doing any work at all.

They walked through the house slowly, Michael following behind his sister. They walked past the only room in the house that Michael knew the exact location of: Erin Green's room. And he felt his vision blur and colors pop up before his eyes as he tried to walk past it. He averted his gaze and kept going, trying his hardest to not act like the baby that he knew Mary thought he was.

A knock sounded on the front door just as the twins sat down at the dining room table, and two minutes later Jordan and Roland entered the room together, sitting down quietly across from the Hadden's.

"Should we wait for Lindsey?" Jordan spoke first, "I don't think she'll want to miss anything."

They group looked around at each other and Michael checked his watch: 8:11.

"She's past ten minutes late, so I think the time for courtesy has passed." Mary answered her best friend, "Is anyone else home, Roland? Should we go somewhere more private?"

Roland shook his head.

"No one's home, so we don't have to worry about it." He replied, "Just Harry and me."

"Harry and I." Jordan said immediately.

Roland raised his eyebrows.

"I'm pretty sure it's Harry and me." He said before turning to the rest of the group, "But that's beside the point. I kind of screwed up. Big time."