Bad Taste (Part I) // Colby Brock

38 - Rebecca

          I pulled up on the parking lot and saw Angela's obnoxious white convertible sitting with the top down. She was inside it wearing designer sunglasses and designer clothes. I wanted to throw up as she climbed out in almost pure white, holding a terrible-looking handbag. She looked like the magazine of every snobs-r-us company. That description wasn't far off.

"Rebecca!" she exclaimed as I climbed out of Colby's car. I wondered if she knew that it wasn't mine, or if she was oblivious to my obviously-moody-young-woman black car as well. "Where've you been?!"

"Elsewhere," I snapped, slamming Colby's car door.

Her blue eyes flicked down to it and she cringed, wrinkling her nose up.

"Dare insult this car and I'll put you through your windshield," I growled.

"Ugh! Why do you have to be so aggressive constantly?! Calm down." She rolled her eyes as she moved away from Colby's car. "Let's go and talk in your place. It's stuffy out here."

"Right. Wouldn't want that to make your hair frizzier."

Angela gasped, watching me walk away from her. Her stilettos clicked on the ground as she suddenly ran after me, still stunned. She couldn't find the words to argue. In all the years we'd known each other — twenty-one, unfortunately — she had never developed the same witty snap-back remarks that I had, and I prided myself on that more than almost anything else. I was better than her.

We got to my apartment and slid inside, though I didn't want her to come in. I was scowling as she entered my dark space, the one place besides Colby's bedroom that I actually liked. The walls were dark grey, the furniture matching, black, or otherwise covered in something black.

Angela didn't fit in here, which was fitting, because I didn't want her here.

She sat down uncomfortably on my grey couch with one leg over the other. She looked quite classic and chic, but that still didn't fit. So I walked to sit as far away from her as I possibly could.

"What the hell do you want?" I snapped instantly, mocking her pose.

She huffed. "Again with the aggression. Honestly, Rebecca." Her condescending tone made me grumble at her, glaring. "And you grumble now like a dog? I thought that was a phase."

"You're testing my patience, Angela."

"Alright! Fine." She sighed and reached into her bag, pulling out a photograph. She slid it across my coffee table towards me. "I'm being followed by someone. I don't know who or why, but this... person is everywhere."

I frowned as I glanced at the photograph. It was taken from afar featuring Angela on a high street going into an expensive store. There was a dark figure hanging around under the shade of a tree. Another photo was underneath, of the same figure at a different store. Definitely following her.

I looked up. "Why should I care?"

"I guessed you wouldn't," she huffed. "But you better, because Mom had the same problem about a year ago. I think they're going down the list, and you're next."

"Angela, you're insane," I said as I shoved the photos at her. "You obviously barked up the wrong tree like you always do, and now you're gonna be attacked. Your fault. It has nothing to do with the family."

She scoffed and threw another set of photos out of her purse. These were of mother drifting between meetings. It was the same figure. "Want to argue with me now?"

"Yes," I snapped. "It's hardly difficult to just look like a black figure, now is it?"

"That's what the private detective said too but I know it's the same person..." Angela looked away, biting her lip. "I can't tell you who, but I'm pretty sure I know who it is."

"Angela, you're gonna have to be more specific if you want me to empathise at all. Because right now, I want to kick you the fuck out of my apartment."

Angela groaned and threw the photographs back into her handbag. "You know what me and mom got into...the thing. And I think it's him, or someone who knows about it. She stopped last year, I was thinking of stopping this year."

"Oh, so you have enough brain cells left after that?"

She grunted. "I'm telling you because I'm worried. I don't want you to start getting followed, too. It's stressful, Becca. Really stressful."

"So you came to my apartment? What if he or she is following you right now and you've led them to me? Huh? Thought about that?"

Her face paled.

"Yeah, exactly. Your brain cells have clearly not come back."

"Shit. I'm so sorry! I should have just told you over the phone... goddammit. Okay. Right, I'm gonna leave. Shit. What if I have led him to you?"

She panicked in front of me, flinging her arms around like a maniac. When she almost hit me in the face, I lost my cool. I caught her wrist and dragged her up from the couch then across the room. She managed to snag her handbag on the way and I flung open my door.

"Off you go, then. You won't be missed."

"Rebecca, I'm so sorry if I've just got you mixed up in this!"

"Go," I snarled.

Angela pulled at the blonde strands of perfect straight hair as she ran down the hall, still panicking and frantic. I rolled my eyes, slamming my apartment door with a huff. If she had brought any issues to my life just when things were starting to go somewhere, I was going to flip the fuck out. I didn't need anybody following me right now. And certainly not because my sister led them to me.

I thought about what she'd said, about why she thought it was the same person. She mentioned the fucked up circle she and Mom had been apart of — the first thing that stopped me from having any part in their lives besides being the other daughter and the irrelevant sister. The circle had been dangerous, they'd said when they tried to bring me into it, but the benefits were amazing. Angela had always told me that I was missing out, even when I was as young as sixteen.

It was completely and utterly fucked.

My body wanted to cripple thinking about how both Mom and Angela would come home after their... sessions, or whatever it was. They'd be pale and barely able to stand up, on some sort of high that they couldn't come down from until they'd slept. They ended up in the hospital a few times, and that was the first time my dad went crazy in front of me.

I shook my head. No, I couldn't think about that right now. Angela was insane and had to keep away from me. I needed a distraction that would take me away from this world for hours — sort of like what their circle would do for them.

I desperately scanned over the room, and my eyes landed on my sketchbook...