Ruby Red Marionette

fortysix | lowercase

//: This chapter was rushed af. 

I was getting sick and tired of people who were supposed to be dead reappearing in my life.

The last time I was at Charlie's house, I was with Devin. We were there stealing documents that said something about Ashley being a suicide bomber, and when we were leaving we saw Charlie dead.

Well, actually, we didn't see him at all. He was sitting in a chair, the back of the chair facing us. He couldn't have been sleeping, because two people just broke into his house and spent quite a bit of time in there, and we weren't very quiet either. He would have woken up. And even besides that, there was an energy in that room. It wasn't the energy of someone living.

Still, there was nothing proving that it was Charlie in the chair. My mind just convinced me that it was, because it was easier for me to decide on something instead of unlocking the endless possibilities that came with someone else being the one in that chair. I had to trick myself into believing that I knew it was him, because I couldn't handle it being anyone else.

If I'd weighed the other options, seeing him would probably be a lot easier now.

We were in an empty warehouse. There were windows, but the only thing that could be seen through them was cinder blocks. Every single window was blocked up. The only sliver of light I imagined there could be was a space under the door, but I couldn't find it. The place was so big that the door was nowhere in sight.

The only piece of furniture was a chair, and he was in it. He sat a little bit slumped over—not in a tired way, but just in an observant, almost mocking manner—and said absolutely nothing. I don't know how long he'd been in that position, because I couldn't tell how long it had been since I regained consciousness or how long it had been since I lost it. All I knew was that Carlos was Lucifer and with the look in Charlie's eyes, I think it was possible that I was looking at the person who taught him everything he knew.

I looked to the windows again, half-expecting to see some beautiful scenery. The blocks were still there, though. I couldn't tell if they were just stacked on top of each other for the purpose of blocking the view, or if they were part of an unfinished building outside. Either way, I could make one assumption: we weren't in the neighborhood that Charlie's house was in. This was a warehouse, a large one, and there were no large establishments like this one in that neighborhood. That neighborhood consisted of strictly run-down houses, cars with fake plates, and skeletons.

So where the hell was I?

"You're usually a mouthful," Charlie finally said. Hearing his voice brought me back to the time we first met, when I likened him to Henry from Goodfellas. He still looked the same, just a little less handsome. Or maybe my mind saw him that way now because I knew how evil he was.

He pulled a cigarette and a lighter out of his pocket, and lit it. "So why are you so quiet now?"

I just sat there watching him, watching the smoke travel around his head. I waited for the scent to come, but it didn't. My senses were limited around him. Or maybe the "drugs" that kicked in right before my escape have some side effects.

I tried to rethink last night. When I got there, all I did was eat marshmallows and hot chocolate. There was one cup of hot chocolate and one bag of marshmallows. We both drank and eat from them, so the drugs couldn't have been in the food. Carlos would've knocked out too. Maybe he did; maybe he was willing to pass out if it would mean I would too. Maybe he passed out after I did. That would explain why I was able to take him down so easily in our fight; I was wondering why he wasn't much stronger than me.

The drugs also affected my vision; everything around me looked blurry. All that was around me, then again, was just white walls and gray floor, so even sober it might become blurry after a while.