New Age

Chapter 10 ~ Just Be Home In Time For Dinner Honey

“So, where are you thinking of going?” I ask Lucas. We’re sitting in his car; Juliette and Spencer are on Saviour behind us. We’ve packed all our rations into the backseat of the car and our bags in the boot.

“I don’t know, I’m just gonna go out of this part of Paris, then we can look for a safe place hidden away.” His knuckles are white on the wheel. He needs comforting; someone to tell him it’ll be ok.

“You know they can most probably find us wherever we go?” I’m not that someone.

“You should just leave me behind, I can find a safe house and you three will be left alone.” I keep my eyes on the road ahead. I know what Lucas is going to say to that but it was worth a try.

“Sure, do you mind if I drop you off here?” He says. Excuse me? Is he serious? He stops the car. Oh man. I look at him and find that he has a massive smile on his face. That asshole!

“What the hell?!” I playfully slap him on the arm, he laughs and starts the car again. His smile is now on both out faces. I keep my eyes on him for a while but then I go back to the road.

“You know that we’re never gonna leave you Mika, you know that, right?” Lucas’ tone goes back to serious.

“I know.” I whisper back.

~

“Mika? Mika. Mika, wake up” I hear softly, along with someone patting my hand gently. I squirm slowly and open my eyes. I see Lucas’ face, up close. Too close. I scoot back a bit, fully awake now.

“What is it Lucas?” I say half asleep still. He smiles.

“We’ve found a house and we’ve already loaded the kitchen. Sorry but you got third dibs on the bedrooms.”

“I’ll have the one with a bed and pillow in it.” I murmur and adjust myself so I can get out of the car. Lucas steps away and I climb out. I stand up and put one foot forward. I wobble and begin to fall to the ground when Lucas catches me.

“I’m sure that can be arranged.” He smiles and helps me to the new house. It’s just as wrecked as the last one, if not a bit more rusty. The first thing I notice about this house is that,

“There’s no stairs.” I say to Lucas who is guiding me down a long hallway.

“Yeah, I figured it’d be easier for when one of us is like you are now.” He opens the door to a room. The walls are a cream colour, well they were, and have peeling birds on it. It’s quite relaxing actually. I look to the corner of the room and find a big bed with blankets that match the walls. Apart from the random red splatter, that random. Wait, that’s not part of the blankets. That’s blood.

“You can have mine.” Lucas says hurriedly whilst ripping the blankets off the bed and throwing them into the far end of the room.

“What about you? What will you use?” I say to him as he returns.

“I’ll be fine.” He says dismissively as he comes to stand in front of me.

“No, I’ll just run next door tonight and grab a blanket from there.” I say as I walk into the room. Before Lucas can argue with me, I turn to him and thank him for helping me out the car, indicating that there’s nothing he can say and that I wish to be left alone. He nods and walks away, down the hall.

I walk over to the blankets in the corner and straighten them out. I look closely at the bloodstains, trying to figure out how this person was killed. That’s when I see the two small holes in the fabric. What on earth could’ve done that? They’re too small to be bullets but too big to be from Taser probes. My imagination goes wild. Maybe Robo have a new weapon? Maybe it’s something so small that you can’t see it? Maybe Robo killed this person. Stop it Mika, I’m sure Lucas looked for signs of Robo. Of course he did.

My head hurts, I look to the big bed and smile. The invitation to sleep is too good. I collapse onto the bed and as soon as my head hits the pillow I close my eyes and sleep.

~

“I will find you Mika, we will be together.” Drey says as he fades.

That dream was a hell of a lot better than my last one, this time it was Drey and I talking, he spoke of being together and I told him to piss off. I don’t trust him anymore; it’s obvious he’s moved on. He’s probably with that woman from last night right now.

Geez I’m cold, and hungry. I go to pull up my blankets, and then I remember that I don’t have any and that I was going to go to next door and grab one. I get up, wide awake now and go down the hallway. When I reach the end of the hallway I find Lucas in the kitchen preparing dinner. I didn’t know he could cook. He sees me and I tell him I’m just going to grab a blanket. He looks concerned but I tell him I’ll be fine. He nods.

“Just be home in time for dinner sweetie.” He smiles.

“Yes mother.” I retaliate and leave as Lucas beams whilst cutting up carrots.

The sun’s setting, illuminating the battle scarred streets, I don’t know where we are in Paris, or if we’re even in Paris. I turn the corner and find another house that looks exactly like ours. I walk up to the door and let myself in when I find it open.

I walk through the house; it’s identical to ours. I go to my room, which isn’t my room. The furniture is different but there’s still a bed, and blankets. The bed looks kind of lumpy though. I go towards it and in one swift movement I rip off the blankets.

“LUCAS!” I jump back in fright. I just stare at it, as it stares back at me. I hear running footsteps coming down the hallway.

“What is it? Are you ok? Mika?” Lucas is right behind me, panting. I must’ve screamed his name really loud for him to hear it. Why did I scream his name in the first place?

“On the bed.” I point to the thing staring at me with dead eyes. Lucas comes from behind me and laughs.

“What are you laughing at?” I say upset.

“Mika, it’s a cat.” He laughs. Oh.

“It scared me.” I cross my arms.

“It looks dead.” He says as he goes to touch it.

“Don’t touch it! Who knows what diseases it could be carrying?” I fling out my hand and grab his out stretched arm. He pulls his arm back and kicks the bed leg.

HISSS! The cat hisses at us, jumps off the bed and runs down the hallway. Lucas and I are frozen with shock. Not a scared kind of shock but a ‘did that really just happen?’ shock. Lucas then shakes his head in disbelief and holds out his hand to me.

“Let’s just go home and have dinner.” I nod and take his hand as we leave the house. His hand feels really nice against mine. We walk slowly home on the streets lit orange by the sunset, hand in hand.