The misfits

chapter 8

Brian 

Maybe it was just a drill. I tried dialing many of the numbers, each one of them showing up in the old phone as either nonexistent or out of the country. Flipping through the notebook, I didn't want to recall any of the numbers I just saw, but I did. Numbers - dead - just as the names that held them. Barrel lords, thieves, murders, club owners and people with no morality. People that stole the innocence from me. In a fit of anger, I cut the notebook in pieces, devouring in every page that fell out and crumbled in the floor. I couldn't kill them, but at least I could kill their memories. The ragged notebook fell on my lap, with only some pages that refused to leave it left. With a sigh its pages open up directly in the middle, to reveal one last number, not as if it was the last of them anyways. The handwriting was quite different. The shapes of the letters were remarkably soft, written with expertise and confidence in symmetrical lines. Vertical strokes, both straight and rounded, were penned thickly with bold triangular pennant heads. It reminded me of the handwriting that my sister had. I was never one to write beautifully, or express myself well in what I wrote. I could never handwrite until I was almost in fourth grade. It was so slow, so frustrating. All of the other kids were printing neatly and then there was me with my spider scrawl and spelling that impressed no-one. She was the one that taught me. And then she left. Just as I followed her footsteps in writing, so I did when I left. Maybe I should dial this. This number is unavailable in the moment. Please dial this number later. ...

And there was nothing. The sound of static engulfed me, completely capturing my brain, rendering any logical thought or conclusion impossible. I dialed again and again to no avail. Hope will be my death. Looking at Alisan and Eve, looking so desperately out of place, like two pigeons in a murder of crows. They don't seem to notice me, lost on their own little world. As I was about to move ahead, the old thing buzzes furiously on my pocket, its loud ring echoing in the empty petrol station. Holding it with two hands, I open it, running to the both of them and putting it to the loudest setting.

-What is this- Alisan retorted, But the phone was already open, catching every noise and cricket that happened.

-Shhhhhhhh!

- Inaaya is it you? I swear to God that if this is another lost delivery I'll kill you myself in cold blood! Where is your delivery? Where is it?! - The voice was one of rich velvet, the type that made the words roll out effortlessly. It was the voice of years of loss of remembrance. whoever she and Inaaya was, didn't really matter. The money would be all spent before they even found us anyway. I urged the phone in front of Evelyn. She took the lead, making her voice inaudibly higher:

-There is no lost delivery this time, just calling to make sure. I..

-You better give me what I want before the next week even starts. You got that?! Wait, who is this num-

Evelyn closed the phone. Taking it from her hands, I threw it on the ground with as much force as I could muster. We were already half dead, the only thing keeping us being our terrible address. The phone broke into pieces, little scraps of metal flying everywhere.

-What just happened? - Putting a hand over her head, Evelyn huffed in the distance, looking up as to search for an answer in the sky. Her reaction was predictable, understandable even. We shouldn't even be here. - Did you dial those numbers? Of course you did. When will you ever listen?- She gives out an ironic laugh, spitting on the ground as to despise the earth for everything that has happened.

- That's not important. Well spent the night here and leave for Arizona. I...know some people there. - I can't lie when I'm distressed, and that didn't go unnoticed by the two of them. Shifting between his legs, Alisan removes the cigarette between his chapped lips.

- I doubt the people you know in Arizona are much different from the people you knew form the notebook. She, whoever that was, is probably looking for the lost contact now. What did you just get us into? - Alisan looks at me dead in the eye, raising his eyebrow. He removes the clasp he had in my shoulders, instead putting his arms behind his back. I have no answers, instead even more questions.

-I don't know, - the words repeat inside my head countless of times before they drown everything else. It's the same voice the same voice the same voice-

-What do you even know?

-AH! Nothing! I. Know. Nothing! Do you? I have no idea in prospect, I don't even now whose car this is. But you have to bear with me. - My voice crack under pressure, finding it difficult to swallow my thoughts away. - We... we have to go. - I try to move, but my legs stop on track. There is nothing to push us forward. Back to the city the police would surely catch us, no matter how many barrels we go through, but staying here isn't a solution either. Crows are still screeching from the old building, as to tell us " Stop you cowards!". I burry my face in my hands, as I slump down between the both of them. She sounded so much like my sister. So much.

I could feel hot tears wetting my checks, burning holes through my hands. Shame. What would my sister say? She would laugh at how miserable I was, the same way that Alisan and Eve could do know. But I never heard their laughter. Instead, Eve tries to get me up from the ground, touching my hair in the same way my sister would. I tried stopping them, but I couldn't do anything but tremble under her touch. Raising my head up, I stand up straight, but my voice betrays me just like everything else :

-Get the car.