Ruby Red Marionette

fortyseven | goodbye

We did that all the time.

Whenever we went to establishments with analog clocks, we broke them. Sometimes it wouldn't be appropriate to destroy them, like in crowded places, so we just picked them up and put them on the floor face-down. Usually, all we got were funny stares, but never punishment. So we kept doing it.

But we still always felt like someone was watching us.

It had been officially a week since Carlos kidnapped me. Isaiah had become an over-protective maniac; he wouldn't let me out of his sight without knowing where I was going and making sure I took my phone (this included bathroom trips). Because of his insane behavior, he got distracted from his mission to get Yvette to stop being mad at him and explain to her that Carlos was just joking. That was okay though, because the recent drama distracted Yvette from being upset with him. It wasn't exactly a good thing, since she still wasn't happy with him. She was just ignoring him.

The five of us decided to take a break from being around each other all the time. Every time we met up over the past seven days, there really wasn't any specific reason. I think all of us were suffering from anxiety and didn't want to admit that we were afraid of being by ourselves; there was an unspoken mutual fear among us. Even with this fear, though, we grew tired of each other. So today, we decided to to keep to ourselves in our homes.

But of course, we were forced to do otherwise.

Isaiah was sitting in the living room listening to beats one of his producer friends sent him. He was playing them out loud, which annoyed me since I was trying to fall asleep and the beats weren't good anyway. We were just in the living room relaxing. Being us.

"This one is called Egyptian Silk," Isaiah started to turn up the volume and bobbed his head to the music.

"I don't care. Turn it down."

"What? Geneva, this is fire."

I picked up a pillow from the couch and stuffed it over my ears. He put the volume higher.

"I'm going to rap over this," He said.

I moved the pillow. "What? Isaiah, you can't rap."

"You can't speak on something you don't know."

"Okay, fine," I sat up. "Freestyle over 'Egyptian Silk' for me, then."

Isaiah started the song over. He sat up, cleared his throat, and just when he'd decided he listened to the beat for long enough and was ready to begin, both of our phones started ringing. He paused the song.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Geneva, turn on the news," Tyler said.

It seemed whoever called Isaiah, most likely Batul, told him the same thing. I turned on the TV and found the news.

There was a woman reporting live, struggling to speak steadily with her hair blowing in the wind and the people around her running and shouting. I could barely understand what she was saying, but I didn't have to. I could see it, the smoke behind her. There were thick, gray clouds in the sky and fire behind her. It happened again. It was another one.

I would probably be desensitized when seeing this if it were just another regular building that blew up, but this was different. This was my childhood. This was my passion. These were my memories. This was my family's history.

This was the studio.

- - -

Isaiah and I ran there. We ran, and our feet shook the ground below us. We ran, and I had to hold back my tears. We ran, and I looked for my mother in the crowd. There were some other familiar faces, girls who worked at the studio and girls who danced there. We ran, and they ran with us. We didn't talk to each other. There was not much to say yet. Not until the shock settled in.