Haunted by the Past (Original)

Chapter 17

"Dani, I'm going to be fine, ok? There's a cop posted outside my house. My parents are downstairs and planning to stay up all night. There's no way he can break in without being noticed," Brodie said confidently over the video chat.

"Are you sure that's enough though?" I sighed. "Shouldn't we all go over to help keep watch?"

"No, no," he shook his head vehemently. "That's completely unnecessary. And there's no way I'll allow you and Vic to put yourselves in harm's way for little ol' me."

"But not Wayne or Dylan?" I smirked.

Brodie winced, "Yeah, no. If I was going to have someone spend the night in my room, it would not be one of them." He waved his hand in front of the camera to express his disgust at the thought.

"Brodie, what happened to your hand?" I exclaimed at the sight of the white bandage wrapped several times around his palm, soaked in his blood.

Brodie lifted his hand and shrugged, "I sort of broke a cup just before."

"That much blood from breaking a cup!?" I asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, I kind of tried to look like a bad ass in picking it up and that didn't go so well," he said embarrassed. "It's kind of deep."

"Then shouldn't you kind of go get stitches?" I mocked.

"Nah, I'll be fine," he insisted.

"That hardly looks fine!" I pushed.

"Aww, look at you worrying about me," he laughed. "Stop, you'll make me jealous."

"Jealous?" I did a double take. Jealous of what? Eli? I wasn't even sure what Eli and I were. Sure, we'd gotten closer over the past few days, but I didn't know what he thought of me. I wasn't even sure what I thought of him. There was something though, considering anything and everything made me think of him when he wasn't around. Like here I was talking with Brodie and thinking of Eli instead.

"Ah, forget I said anything," he shook his head. "Listen, I..." his expression soured.

"Brodie?" my voice dripped with concern.

He glanced back to his camera and whispered, "He's here."

**

"Dani," Eli said in a sing-song voice.

My attention snapped back to the present. I pulled my gaze away from staring out the window at the string of houses built practically on top of each other. It was one of those very uncomfortable neighborhoods – one where you check that the doors are locked tight at least three times and still check again. You could feel the anger and hate towards society seeping out of every window. No one lived here, in the shadow of one of New York City's bridges, by choice. It was literally the last place left for these people to live with four walls and a roof of their own. And here we were sneaking into their neighborhood for a 'meeting'. Then again, it was smart. The last number these residents would ever call was '911'. Even if they did, the average response time would've been long enough to earn them a free pizza if we were talking in pizza delivery standards.

I turned to Eli confused, "Did you say something?"

"Yeah, I did. We're here," he repeated as he turned the corner.

The road took us under the concrete of the Bayonne Bridge where it connected on the Jersey side, fenced on either side intended to keep people out, but anyone could've jumped it. Directly under the middle of the bridge an open gate led the way down a dirt maintenance road to the bridge's supports. While work crews weren't an uncommon sight, today's pair of black vans along with Eli's black Civic must've stood out like a sore thumb. It was dubious as hell and yet the neighborhood turned a blind eye to us.