FLOOD [Pokémon]

Chapter 26

^ "Berechiah" (3-31-20)

—

DARWIN

Saturday, March 24, 2018

"F*ck!" Thomas roared. "F*ck! F*ck!"

Each curse was punctuated by a kick to the door, one that still wasn't yielding, even after half an hour and fifteen kicks later. Or was that twenty? I sat on the couch, staring numbly at him. Through him. While Thomas was still kicking, I was still shaking. That's why I hadn't tried to stop him yet.

I felt as though something had reached into my brain and flicked an off switch. I couldn't think. I couldn't focus. Just as broken were my emotional pathways — the only ones that could bridge the sudden break were a need to cry and a need to vomit. I struggled to do neither, and so I stared blankly at Thomas, watching as he pulled out his phone for the umpteenth time and waved it around.

"No signal," he said again. The words came out emotionally garbled, a mix of fury and fear. "No Wi-fi. No other exits, and no windows. What the actual f*ck. That f*cking sack of skin. That piece of sh*t!"

He kept talking, but I tuned him out, vague thoughts kneading around in my head like dough, unable to fully form. Suddenly Thomas was in front of me, and he grabbed me by the collar.

"I said stand the f*ck up," he shouted in my face. "And help me with this!"

"With what," I said tonelessly.

"With the couch, sh*thead. We're gonna lift it, and use it to bust the door open."

I glanced down at the foot of the couch, and saw bolts pinning it to the floor. "It's tied down."

"Dammit!" He went over to the chair, whose legs were also nailed to the floor. "There's gotta be something around here we can use to get that bitch open."

"Forget it," I said sullenly. "If there was a way out, we would've found it half an hour ago."

Something came flying for my head: a magazine, one Thomas threw so hard that it nearly put a crater in my skull. "Shut the hell up," he hissed at me, with a fury so acute that I could scarcely believe it came from Thomas Ryans-Wade. "You don't get to say that. You don't get to say that, you piece of sh*t, not when this is your fault."

His words — and the pain — pushed me a little out of my stupor; growing angry, I shoved the magazine to the floor. "I had nothing to do with this."

"The hell you didn't! We wouldn't be here if you hadn't agreed to go."

"Nobody asked you to come," I snapped, my voice rising.

"You did, dipsh*t! When you asked me to help you move house!"

"Arceus, shut up!" I grabbed the nearest thing within reach — a coffee cup from the table — and hurled it. Thomas ducked, and it shattered against the wall behind him. "You invited yourself, asshat! Or did you forget plugging your f*cking number in my phone? Or maybe you did — after all, some days that f*cking brain of yours can barely remember to not cheat on your girlfriend!"

His eyes burned with rage, and he took a step forward, only to back into the counter when I lobbed a ceramic coaster at him. He fumbled, grabbed the plate of Oreos, and hurled it. Cookies went flying everywhere, and one beaned me on the skull. Hissing, I grabbed my next missile — a Bible — and it narrowly missed his shoulder.

Next came a wine glass, then a Dragonair statuette, three oranges, several DVDs, and a bottle of dish soap, with plenty of insults in between.

"Bitch!"