On The Scale Of

Chapter 2

"Mom! Ri's been out killing people again!"

Sticks and stones, am I right?

"Moooooooooom!"

And now I've gone deaf. My ears are currently only capable of soft murmurs and low whispers. Any more would give me a splitting headache. Which I'm delightfully having right now. The second the voice reached me, my migraine returned with vengeance. I was not in the mood for this. Never in the mood for this, actually.

"Quiet, child," I rasped through gritted teeth. Just after I'd stored my gun in my apartment room, the flu had already begun violating my body. It felt like jackhammers were drilling inside my head. I then proceeded to throw myself inside a taxi cab, paid the driver more than I owed him, on the condition that he'd drive a little faster than usual, and here I was; at another jackhammering event.

"So who was it this time?" Nat, the current source of my irritation, asked from the sofa.

"Can the volume of the TV get any louder?" I groaned, rubbing my temples.

"Nope! So who's the unlucky bastard?"

"Natasha!" Catherine boomed from the kitchen. This is beginning to sound like a cacophony of disaster. I guess this is where my eardrums rest in peace. With a frilly apron tied around her waist like a typical mom from the 80s, my mother marched in an equal manner to the living room. "What the hell was that?"

Nat looked up at her with innocent albeit fakely so, eyes. "What the heck was what, mom?"

"Don't you go pretending you didn't say what I think you just said!"

"But what did I say?"

My mother launched her infamous death stare and the little girl all but shrank.

I braced myself against the wall as the sudden urge to vomit struck me. I think it'd be comical to barf in the middle of this shouting match between my mother and my sister.

"Why is this about me all of the sudden?" Nat whined.

"Go brush your teeth, young lady. And we're not going to watch your favorite movie if you don't admit what I want you to admit."

Nat's eyes grew wide. "But Ri's late again!"

"And what does that have to do with your dental health?" My nine-year old sister scowled at me and stomped out of the room. My mother turned the TV off in time to salvage my sanity. I stared blankly at the empty space of our messy couch.

"There's meatloaf in the kitchen," Catherine said.

"Ngh."

"You know," she continued faintly from the other room. "Danny's coming home on Thursday."

"Nghhh."

Seeing as I was no longer capable of uttering coherent responses, I left the living room and dragged my body to my room. In the short hallway upstairs, I passed by my mother and my sister's rooms respectively. Nat's brightly colored door is flooded with superhero stickers. While mine, which was located at the very end of the hallway, was full of nothing. I'd never been the one to personalize my things anyway.

I keyed in and entered my room. I double locked it from the inside because single locks are wholly unreliable. The interior of my room seemed pretty boring and organized. It contained a small double bed in the corner, a work desk full of classified junk, a dresser, and an acoustic guitar that I'd never played in my life. Though the walk-in closet was the least boring part. After ingesting a couple of painkillers, I flopped down on my bed and snoozed.