I Wish I Had a Story to Tell You

Part II

The trunk of the car slammed shut with a startling BAM.
    Aunt Pearl muttered something to herself, and then made herself cozy in the driver's seat. "Coming?" she called out to us.
    "Yeah," Arelle replied, gazing at the apartment building. "You think we can come back here someday?" she whispered to me.
    "I mean, when we're adults at the latest," I said, hoping that was comforting. "Or if our parents show up somewhere."
    "You sure that somewhere will be here?"
    I sighed. "No, but it'll be somewhere. Somewhere's something." I gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder and made my way to the car. I heard Arelle whisper a final goodbye to the building before she joined me in the backseat.
    Aunt Pearl fastened her seatbelt. "Ready?"
    "Yes," Arelle replied. I simply nodded.
    The drive out of Bellevue was a quiet one. Aunt Pearl knew that Arelle needed some quiet, and likely suspected that I did too. My heart fluttered when we reached Renton. I'm leaving it all behind. It fluttered again in Olympia, and once more once we reached Oregon. I'm far away from that place.
     An hour went by. Arelle had fallen asleep while I pretended to be far away in a dream somewhere. Aunt Pearl didn't mind.
    The car was a rickety old thing. The constant clanking of the metal parts and the incessant squealing of the motor made me wonder how Arelle had fallen asleep so fast. My only guess was that she didn't sleep very well the night before. We went to bed after an hour of packing, but I heard Arelle toss and turn for most of the night. As for Aunt Pearl, she seemed used to the loud automobile, and was so focused on driving that her concerns were elsewhere.
    The scenery went from all metal structures to all natural greenery. Trees hugged the little road leading us into the heart of Oregon. Storm clouds peppered the sky with splotches of gray. A small wind picked up and rustled the foliage around us. It was as if the world outside Bellevue was waking up.
    "Where are we?"
    And Arelle, too, apparently.
    "Somewhere in Oregon," Aunt Pearl answered before I could even open my mouth.
    "Great," Arelle yawned. "What have you been up to?"
    "Sleeping. Dozing off here and there." That was a lie. I had been wide awake the whole time.
    Arelle adjusted her seatbelt and sat up, smoothing out her hair. "Me too." That was also a lie. She'd been dead asleep since we left Bellevue's city limits.
    "Well, I'm glad you girls are well rested," Aunt Pearl said, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. Arelle and I both responded with a yawn.
    Oregon was pretty. It wasn't unlike Washington when it came to trees lining the roads, but the sky had cleared a bit and the little bit of wind that had visited us earlier was gone. It was mid-afternoon by now. I nudged my messenger bag with my foot. I wasn't going to put it in the trunk. I told Arelle that I liked having essentials with me- hair ribbons and bandages and the like. While it was true that I had packed materials to keep my hair out of my eyes and some first aid essentials, I left out the part about the knives. I did show her mom's stuffed penguin, though. That I carried around for sentimental reasons. It also made me feel like less of a creep. A bag with a bunch of knives is weird, but a bag with knives and a plush penguin is well-
    I mean it's kind of cute.
    "We're stopping in Portland," Aunt Pearl told us. She held up her wallet without taking her eyes off of the road. "We need to get some food and maybe book a hotel for the night. We're going to be sleeping in the car a lot in the next couple of weeks."
    "Sounds fun," Arelle said.
    "It will be," Aunt Pearl assured us with a smile.

    Portland was not fun.
    We arrived about forty-five minutes later. Portland was bustling with people, from shop owners to moms with kids to teenagers eager to see the newest picture at the theater. We saw a family sitting against a brick wall, huddled together, sharing a sandwich. Not all of us got to so lucky, I thought, grateful for and resenting the car I sat in. Some families didn't ever fully recover from the Depression. I guess mine was an example.
    I wondered where my parents were. I wondered if we were leaving them behind. A part of me doubted it, though. In my time on the streets I had spent any spare hours looking for my parents. It was something to distract me, something for me to do. Over the years, I couldn't find a single trace of their existence. They had vanished.
    I heard the squeak of the car door as Aunt Pearl got out. "Wait here," she said, looking at the sign for the fast food place. "I'll get you all something," she said, leaving just the two of us in the car.
    "So," Arelle said. "Nice scenery."
    "Meh. It's just a bunch of trees, really. Well, now there's a bunch of buildings."
    Arelle twisted a strand of her hair. "Where do you think they are?"
    "Not in Bellevue."
    "No Vera, not our parents. The waiters." Arelle pointed to the restaurant window.
    "Oh," I said. "No clue."
    Aunt Pearl walked back to the car. "No one's there," she sighs. "We might as well get a hotel for the night, and figure out how we're going to get from point A to point B."
    "Surely you know how to get to North Carolina," I said. "You do, don't you?"
    "I have to write it out on a map, but I have a rough idea," my aunt replied. "We can go to a hotel down the street for the time being. I think they have a little diner downstairs. How does that sound?"
    "Food," is all my sister replied, letting her head droop against the window.
    Aunt Pearl laughed. "Food it is." With that, we were off.
    The hotel driveway wasn't much, just a few spaces in front of what seemed to be a crumbling building. I could bet anything that my sister wasn't super thrilled with the location, but I had seen worse.
    "Here we are!" Aunt Pearl exclaimed, springing up out of her seat and practically skipping up to the hotel entrance. "Say hello to your temporary home."
     "We're going to be here for one night," I muttered to myself.
    Arelle shrugged. "As long as they serve food."
    The hotel lobby didn't amount to much, but it was an improvement from most of my previous living conditions. An old, mistreated piano sat in the corner, while moldy chairs and scratched up sofas took up the space in the center.
    "Two beds, please," Aunt Pearl said to the man at the counter. "We're here for only one night."
    "Trouble at home? Or are you all taking a road trip?"
    "The latter. Well, something along those lines." Aunt Pearl took the room key from the man and led us up the stairs, helping us with the scarce bit of luggage we had taken from the car. "What do you think?" she asked.
    Arelle smiled. "It should work for the night."
    I could tell she wasn't too pleased. I suppose if I were her I wouldn't be either. However, I couldn't help but question the building's architecture. I looked at the cracked chandelier, which appeared dangerously like it was going to shatter at any second, and mimicked my sister's smile. "It's nice." Two years ago this place would have been the equivalent of heaven for me, so I wasn't one to complain.
    We made quick work of climbing the old staircase. It creaked with each step, but I didn't mind. Arelle, however, didn't seem to be stomaching it as well, considering the fact that the color returned to her face only when we reached the second floor of the hotel.
    "Room 207," Aunt Pearl said, marching down the hallway, squinting at the numbers on the doors. "Ah, ha! Come on in," she started to stay, but then wrinkled her nose, "to our temporary home."
    "We're only going to be here one night," I reassured myself as we stepped into our "temporary home." I could handle poor living conditions, but the look on Arelle's face was enough to make anyone queasy. Holes decorated the carpet, and liquor stains seemed to paint the walls. The stench was that of cheap surface cleaners. Certainly not delightful, but better than nothing.
    "I don't particularly want to unpack my things," Arelle said. Aunt Pearl looked at her sadly. "So I don't leave anything behind," my sister corrected quickly, taking a sudden interest in her bag. Aunt Pearl placed her bag cautiously on the ground, and Arelle and I followed suite. I keep my messenger bag next to me, though. Positioned on my waist, the same comforting weight there as there has always been.
    Aunt Pearl looked towards the door. "Dinner?"
    "Sounds great," Arelle said.
    "I agree," I said, with a nod. We walked downstairs and into the musty lobby, and walked into an old diner at the end of the hall.    
    The sun was setting below the skyline as we made our selves comfortable at a table by a window. We then went up to the counter, where we were greeted by a waiter.
    "Good evening, can I help you?" a woman asked, standing behind the cash register, wearing a wide smile on her face.
    "Three cheeseburgers and three malts," Aunt Pearl sighs, laughing.
    The waitress eyes me and Arelle. "Long day, hon?"
    "Yeah, you could call it that."
    Within minutes we got our food and sat down at the table with our ice cold malts and our hot cheeseburgers.
    "Heavenly," Arelle said, daintily tearing off a piece of her burger.
    "Mm hm," I replied, my mouthful of beef and cheese and onion. "Do you have the ketchup?"
    "It's right here, love," my aunt said, sliding a red bottle towards me. I gave her a muffled thanks and poured a little too much of the condiment on my burger.
    "You know," Arelle said, "I don't think we've ever really traveled before. It's like we're on vacation."
    "Very high class vacation we're on," Aunt Pearl laughed, rising to take her tray to the counter. "Done?"
    "Not yet," my sister replied.
    "I'm not done either," I said after I swallowed a bite of my dinner.
    It was then I saw the figure lurking in the hallway leading to the restroom.
    They were hard to make out. It was as if the shadow had no human to go with it, but I was certain that my eyes weren't tricking me.
    "Excuse me," I said. Arelle, her mouth full, merely raised her eyebrows in acknowledgment.
    I walked to the hallway and leaned on the corner, looking at the chillingly familiar figure. "Following us, eh?"
    The shadow grunted. "No, I'm just casually taking the same route to North Carolina as you."
    "I haven't lost it," I whispered.
    "Lost what? Your sanity?"
    "My survival skills."
    "And I haven't lost mine. So please, watch your back." With that, he left.
    I ran into the bathroom and stared into the mirror. How the hell did he find us? Con was a thief from Bellevue. He was my main enemy when I lived on the streets. He was vengeful, he was ruthless, and he did not do well with grudges.
    He was the thief of thieves. He was also fifteen, but that's not important. Con, short for some fancy name or another that I didn't care about, prowled the streets, with only the satisfaction of taking driving him. He didn't care for the goods as much as the pain we felt without them. He had no band of fellow thieves, no person to care for. He was the son of the wealthiest aristocrat in Bellevue, and he enjoyed watching us all suffer. He had a bed to go home to at night, a family that loved him. During the day he was a menace, and the only thing you had to do to anger him was to have something that he didn't, even if it was just a scrap of bread or a coat button.
    Somehow, through it all, I managed to avoid him for the most part in all of my time on the streets.
    Until now.

    My aunt, sister and I left the diner for the hotel at around seven, and made ourselves as cozy as possible in our room.     Aunt Pearl took the bed closest to the door, while Arelle and I shared the one by the window.
    "You think we'll be able to see any constellations from the window?" Arelle asked, resting her elbows on the window sill.
    "Don't know. Depends on how much light there is," I replied, but my mind was on anything but stargazing. Con was dangerous. When he had a new game to play, he won. I didn't know how far he would go until he turned around and went running back to his little kingdom, but all I needed to know was that he was close by. "I'm going downstairs," I said.
    "What's wrong?" Aunt Pearl asked, looking up from the little novel she was reading. "Is everything alright?"
    I smiled and turned towards the door. "Yeah, everything's perfectly fine." I headed downstairs solemnly. I didn't know what Con wanted. I didn't know what I would have to do to keep him from taking every last shred of what our family owned.
Oh God, the car.
    I bolted outside to make sure our ride was still there, and luckily it was. I could only hope it stayed that way.
    "You look the exact same."
    I heard Con come up behind me and sighed. "What do you want? Cash?"
    "Your soul," my enemy said with a grand eye roll. "Although cash would be greatly appreciated."
    "Bold of you to assume I have either of those."
    Con laughed wickedly. "You always hid from me. Were you with them the whole time you were out thieving about? They sure didn't feed you well-
    "I don't want anything to do with that life anymore. I have a home now. I don't give one damn about you or Bellevue or thieving anymore. I'm getting out of that life. You had a choice," I hiss. "You don't have to live that life. You can run on home and make the most out of your education that you're actually getting. You can enjoy the good food placed on your table instead of the scraps you tear from our hands. I'm getting out of that world. You can stop whatever joke this is and go on home and do something useful with yourself."
    Con smiled. "Alright," he said, turning around and walking away from me. "Just know," he called, "that I don't want what's given to me. When I take, I take what I want. When I'm done, I leave behind what I want to leave behind." He turned to face me with that last sinister line. "Night, Vera."
    I let my hand grasp my messenger bag, feeling for the outline of my dagger. I didn't reply. I just watched his shadow melt into the darkness.
    "Vera! Vera!"
    "What?" I asked, letting an unconcerned expression wash over my face, letting myself relax. The less Arelle knows, the better off she is.
    "Aunt Pearl," she gasped.
    "What's wrong with Aunt Pearl?"
    "I don't know. She's just-
    "What?"
    "Gone."

Thanks for reading! Sorry about the wait, I know it's taken a bit to get this second part up. I would love to know what you think! Anyways, I hope all of you are doing well in quarantine.

Lots of love,
Nova