The Start of Pain

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Alex sneezed.

Stupid cold, he thought angrily. He glared at the skyline outside his window. It was a rather endearing sight. The glittering lights, the busy bustle on the streets... And he hated every little bit of it. "Stupid world," he muttered, pulling blinds down as roughly as he could.

There was a tentative knock on his door. "What do you want?!" he growled loudly. He could almost feel the flinching from behind the door which opened very, very slightly. The younger girl - about twelve to thirteen years of age - we called 'Jasmine' peered fearfully inside.

"What is it, Maria?" he asked, trying to keep himself from yelling at the poor kid.

Too late. Maria was already trying to brave her tears as she sniffled them away. "Mr Butler told me I'm s'posed to be the one to look after the pretty Barbie," she said in a small voice, pertaining to Natalie. "I went to the exam room, but she wasn't there."

Alex growled low and menacing under his breath. "The girl is gone, Maria. You're off the hook," he said tightly, his jaw clenched as numerous ways of murdering the wretched boy passed his mind.

Maria looked confused, but she wasn't going to ask questions. "What am I gonna do now?" she asked him instead.

"Go talk to Jared, or paint the walls," he sighed wearily. He rubbed his temples. "Just stay out of my sight."

Maria flinched at the hostility of his tone, but otherwise nodded agreeably. She closed the door quietly and wandered off to find Jared whom we called 'Anthony' before. She found him sprawled on his bed with his Rubik's cube. His fingers moved fluidly along the cube before he paid attention to her. After a few seconds, he looked at Maria, appraising her tear-streaked face. With one last flick, the cube is solved as he sat down. "Told you he wouldn't like it if you bothered him," he said in a bored tone.

She wrinkled her nose and sat on the other end of his bed. "I didn't want him to think I was missing out on my duty," she said miserably. Maria rubbed at her nose. "He said she wasn't there anymore."

Jared looked at the wall above her head which is where the vent. "So I've heard," he said emotionlessly.

Maria looked at him questioningly. "Were you spying again?"

Jared looked at her listlessly as if she pulled him out of his thoughts. "Hm... No. Not spying. They were talking loudly, is all. What are you supposed to do now?" he asked her, trying to deviate the conversation away from him.

She gestured around her. "He told me to talk to you," she said plainly.

Jared raised an eyebrow.

Maria sighed. "Well, it was either this or I paint the walls. I chose the less boring one."

Jared said nothing. He lied back on his bed and began disarranging his Rubik's cube again. "You should really start looking for a wall that needs a new look," he told her impassively. Once the cube was as disarrayed as possible, he began solving it again.

Maria glared at him. She stood up and briskly walked out of his room.

Jared watched her leave with the corner of his eye. "Jonathan is an idiot for thinking it would work," he said to himself, looking at the newly solved cube. He threw it across the room disgustedly.

"Excuse me for being an idiot, but did you have a better alternative?"

Jared frowned. "Get out of my room," he told Jonathan without sparing him a look.

"Ouch," Jonathan clutched his chest. He sat down the swivelling chair on Jared's seemingly unused desk. "After all we've been through? This is how you treat the guy who acted as your older brother?"