Estranged [Completed]

Separate Ways

For the first twenty minutes, they didn't say anything. The rain had started to pour in heavy sheets, turning the world around them into a blurred dream and making it hard to see anything further than five feet away. The water soaked through Kalei's sweatshirt and poured in through the eyeholes in her mask, collecting in pools above her cheeks that slowly trickled down the rest of her face, down her neck, and into her shirt, blazing an irritating trail of tickling sensations. Kalei ripped off the mask and threw it into the gutter.

"How far is it?" she asked.

Jenna nodded in the direction they were walking. "About two miles. It's in the Wadduck district."

Kalei grumbled a curse.

They took a few more steps, and then Jenna said, "Forget about meeting Marley."

Kalei looked up at her sister. "What? I wasn't even thinking about it. That whole district is swarming with cops by now." Kalei shoved her hands into her sweatshirt pocket. "Shit, wonder if he was even going to show up."

"Hell if I know."

The conversation died, and they continued walking to the sound of the beating rain.

It was about another mile when Kalei noticed that Jenna was quivering. Her sister kept her chin tucked close to her chest, but her eyes darted out into the rain, desperate for something. It could have been that she was just cold from the rain, but that didn't seem to be it. Kalei might have been wearing a soaked-through sweatshirt, but Jenna's jacket, now that it was zipped up, was waterproof. And all the walking was already starting to make Kalei sweat beneath her layers. No, Jenna couldn't be cold. It had to be something else.

So Kalei hung back a step behind her sister and watched. A few moments later when a pedestrian walked out into the street, Jenna's head shot up and she eyed the man hungrily, but she quickly pulled her eyes away and looked at her feet.

Kalei stepped up and shoved Jenna into the nearest wall. "Are you going through withdrawals? Have you been high this whole fucking time? Who did you get a high from, Jenna? Who did you—" Kalei paused and her eyes subtly widened. She knew who. Her brows snapped together and again she shoved Jenna against the wall. "Did you get Josh high?" Jenna didn't say anything. "Fuck! What the hell is wrong with you, Jenna!"

Her sister bowed her head and grabbed her arm with her other hand. She squeezed it tightly. "I'm sorry."

"Fuck, what the hell am I supposed to do with you, huh? Give me your gun. GIVE ME your gun!" Jenna held it out and Kalei snatched it from her hand, careful to pull back her darkness as she did so, in case the bitch tried something. Kalei held up the gun. "I should just shoot you right now and leave you for SWORDE."

Jenna's eyes widened. "Don't! I can't leave—" She couldn't hold Kalei's eyes, though. She looked away and withdrew into herself. "Please don't, little sister..."

"And why not?"

"Because... because you can't do this on your own. You need me. I—"

Kalei's rage threatened to overwhelm her. This wasn't her big sister Jenna anymore. This was the teenage delinquent Shenaia, and Kalei sure as hell didn't need her help. "Really? Do I really need you? You were supposed to be my way in to Tusic, and now we know how that went, so no. I don't need you." Kalei raised the gun to Jenna's forehead.

"Hey!"

Kalei looked over her shoulder to see a man several feet behind her, completely sure of himself despite his bare, rounded torso, his flannel pajama bottoms, and a pair of slippers on his feet. She could only guess that his confidence came from the gun he was currently pointing at her. A woman shouted something from the open door to his right, and he shouted back, "Call the police, Ma." To Kalei, he said, "Let the lady—"