I slowly wake up, and sit up in bed, sighing remembering everything that’s going on. I rub the back of my neck with my hand. Something tells me this headache isn’t going to go away anytime soon. James starts to stir in the bed. He rolls onto his side moaning. I gently shake his shoulders hoping to wake him up. He moans again before he slowly starts sitting up.
"Amber," he says tiredly and then yawns. "I guess you’re ready to go see your brother."
I nod sleepily.
I slowly get up looking down and realize I’ve had the same clothes on since I got here. The cold sweat from my nightmare didn’t make them smell too good either. Plus for some reason sweats and a t-shirt didn’t feel like the right thing to visit my brothers grave in.
"By chance can we go to a store first?" I ask
"Only if you pay, I don’t feel like going broke." He says with a sly smile.
He gets up and starts stretching before we leave my room.
We had to take a long walk to go to his room to fish around for my wallet. He lived here, but at the other side of the building from my room. I lost count of all the turns we took, and which way we turned. All I know is I’m going to need an escort for a while. James unlocks a door with his own necklace that he pulls out from under his shirt. I look him up and down and realize he probably wants to change out of his pajamas soon. He opens the door and I’m not surprised with what I see. When I walked through the threshold I see that his floor was basically nonexistent; I was surprised that a guy could own that much clothes to coat the whole room. Then there was the normal guy posters, chicks with cars: and rock band posters, at least me and him had the same taste in music. James walked over to the nightstand beside his unmade bed, his room was practically like mine, except it had more color due to the guy touch.
"So you really do live here?" I question.
"Nowhere else for me to go." He answers softly, not looking me in the eyes.
He digs in the drawer where tons of papers seem to live. Finally he pulls my wallet out from under the stack of papers. The papers were pushed onto the floor when he was looking for my wallet. I bend down to pick them up; curious to read what they are. I gave them to James respecting his privacy no matter how much my body screamed ‘Read them already!’
I kick clothes out of the way, making a path to his door. He picks up a pair of pants and a shirt that I kicked out of the way. He pulls off his old shirt then causally throws it on the floor. I try not to stare at his abs, before he finally puts his new shirt on. When he goes to takes his pants off I turn around and stare at the door and start whistling.
He laughs. It was only super awkward. I turn back around and see his new outfit; he was wearing a black band merch shirt, jeans and converse; my kinda style. I start walking to the door that leaves his room. Right when I’m about 1 foot from his door, there’s a short but strong knock followed by a hiss. Did a cat learn how to knock with its claws? James pulls out a gun from the back of his pants, he must have put it there while he was changing pants. He motions for me to get away from the door and get behind the bed. When I get behind the bed I hear a large boom as the door gets kicked in. The whole room fills up with a gray fog. I look up and see three figures walk in. Flashes of light surround me as people shoot blindly. I look up hoping to see the familiar figure of James.
I take a break hoping that if I stop looking for him my eyes would stop stinging. I take a deep breath just to regret it, because it got me noticed by someone. The next thing I know I’m getting pulled away, I try screaming but their hand is over my mouth, I bite the hand that is holding my screams in. The person curses as he drags me through the hallway. The building starts to blur. I realize my second mistake of taking a breath in his room is that the air from James’ room is making my vision drunk, in lack for other words.
