midst of death

Chapter Eight

~Chance~

The crashing sounds got louder and louder as we all stood there, waiting to see what it was. I felt ready to knife anything that was going to threaten us. The sounds got louder and louder and even louder. Alex seemed to cringe away slightly, and Phyllicia was ready with the machine gun. Tony got ready, cocking the Glock and pointing it to where the noise was coming from. 

The noise suddenly stopped. I twisted my neck around, trying to get a better look at whatever was over there. What is going on? I thought to myself.

A girl unexpectedly came out of the gloom. She had shoulder length blonde hair that was matted with mud and blood. She wore a pink T-shirt and black dress pants that were covered in gore and sweat. She held a hand gun in her hand, and Tony raised his Glock a little higher. She looked at us with a dazed look in her eyes and hollered, "Oh, hey guys! It's been a while! You wanna hang out sometime?" She lifted the gun and squeezed her eyes shut. 

Alex was moving closer to me. She jumped as a gunshot rang in the air, and I dived out of the way. I twisted over onto my back to find that the girl had shot at where I had just been standing seconds ago. My eyes grew wide, and I jumped onto my feet. "What the hell were you thinking?" I yelled.

She opened her eyes, and they were really dilated and red. She looked at me, and I could tell that she had to be high. "Jesus," I muttered. "Alex, it's okay. Just be careful, and don't walk to her. Something is wrong with her."

Alex stayed where she was, but looked at me. I motioned her to stay where she was, but to be quiet. She looked confused at first, and then she realized what I was going to do. "Hey, you there," she called to the girl. "Look at me, are you okay?"

As she was trying to distract her, I snuck around behind her. I wrapped my arms quickly around her arms until she dropped the gun. Alex rushed forward and helped me hold the girl. Tony ran up and grabbed the gun and shoved it in his waistband. The girl thrashed and fought, and my grip on her was slipping. "Someone knock her out, please!" I yelled.

Tony ran up and with the butt of the gun, he slammed it against her head. She went limp in my arms almost immediately. I laid her down on the pavement and her head lolled back. "Tony?"

"Yeah?" he responded.

"I swear to God, she better not be dead." I looked up at him from my position on the ground.

He grinned at me and chuckled. "Not a chance, I didn't hit her that hard."

I stared incredulously at him while he laughed at my expression. "Trust me Chance, she's not dead. I can prove it to you." He knelt down next to the girl and laid his hand on her throat. He closed his eyes and silently counted. He opened his eyes after a minute and he said, "She has a pulse, smart one. That was all you had to do." He got back up and smirked at me like he thought this was funny.

I glared at him. "Just go, and don't get yourself killed in the process."

As he walked away, I sat down next to the girl, trying to figure out what to do. Alex slipped over next to me and sat down. She looked at me, but I wouldn't look at her. "Chance?" she asked quietly. "Chance, look at me, please." The pleading in her voice made me look at her finally. "Chance, this wasn't your fault. Don't give me that look. I can see it in your eyes." 

I glanced at her, and she looked at me with something that I couldn't place gleaming in her eyes. I looked down at the girl again, and I said, "We're going to have to find another house to stay in for tonight. She'll be okay, but she'll have the munchies really bad when she wakes up."

She looked at me, with a confused look on her face. "What was wrong with her?"

I didn't know how to say it any better. "She's high."

"Oh," she said, looking surprised. "Wait, where the hell did she find pot?"

"I honestly have no idea. She must have had a large stash of it somewhere or she found it or whatever." She could've gotten herself killed very easily. "We're going to go find it and bury it. No one needs to be killed because of a stupid marijuana plant." 

Alex stood up, and her bangs were floating around in the slight breeze that had just picked up. She looked like a zombie assassin, and she surely did kick ass since the last time we saw each other. She helped me up, and my pulse quickened, but I couldn't understand why. I looked at her, and she looked shyly away and pulled her hand away gently. I took the girl in my arms and carried her to the nearest building we could find that wasn't overly dilapidated like the others. Alex opened the door slightly, and checked the house before I walked in with the girl. I carried her upstairs and laid her down on the bed. Alex sat down next to her and brushed her hair away from her face, and stopped when her fingers brushed a gold locket. She fingered the locket, and picked it up. She flipped it over and it read 'To my sweet daughter Carrie, Love your beloved Mother. I love you.'

Her eyes pricked, and she looked like she was going to cry. I didn't know what to do, so I picked my hand up and laid it gently on her shoulder. She didn't shy away like I expected her to, and she sat like that for a moment. Suddenly and without warning, she flung herself at me, and wrapped her arms around my waist. I stood there awkwardly for a moment, and I let my arms fall around her hesitantly. She cried into my shirt, and I felt like I knew the pain that she had been in all this time. I never fathomed that one girl could feel this much pain. 

We stood that way for a moment, while she tried to collect herself. She pulled away after a moment, rubbing at her eyes to get the moisture away. She looked away from me, as if she was ashamed of what I just witnessed. Little did she know that it made me respect her so much more than I would respect myself. I looked at her curiously, trying to figure out how this girl was so strong. I admired her strength.

"We have to go downstairs to show everyone where we're camping out tonight." Alex said in a hoarse voice. She cleared her throat firmly and shook her head. "Sorry you had to see that." She gazed at me with chocolate brown eyes.

"No, really, it's fine." My gaze flitted over to the window, though there wasn't much you could see that wasn't destroyed. 

She looked away and avoided my gaze anyway, no matter what I said to tell her it was fine. When we went outside, she refused to look at me and tried to find Phyllicia, who wasn't that far away. She was sitting on the curb, looking right into the alley, as if if she stared at it long enough, the darkness would disappear and the light would shine through. Her head whipped around as Alex sat down beside her. She signed that we would be staying in the house, and that we'd be leaving in the morning. Phyllicia nodded, looking a little concerned, but she didn't ask any questions about what had happened. Alex stood back up and looked around, trying to find Tony next. He was probably trying to break into a building, or exploring in the alleys, although he knew that he shouldn't be in the dark areas.

As the light began to disappear and the darkness was setting in, the girls decided to head inside, while I stayed outside, watching out for Tony. Just as it began to worry me that he wasn't showing up, he came strolling up the street with a wild grin on his face. I rolled my eyes at his expression and shouted, "Where have you been?"

He glanced over at me and yelled, "Exploring!"

I fought the urge to pound his head into the pavement. "Just come inside, the girls are worried." He looked at me and grinned again in a smart ass kind of way. I rolled my eyes again and motioned toward the door again. "Get your ass in there please." He laughed, but complied. We walked inside and fought back and forth, until Alex yelled at us to shut up. We both laughed, until Phyllicia walked in and glared in our direction. We quickly shut up and looked out the broken window. 

"Guys, I think that she's waking up." Alex called. We popped up and ran to the room and found the girl still lying on the bed. She shook her head, as if trying to wake from a bad dream. She shuddered, and finally gasped awake. She looked frantically around, and eventually forced herself into a sitting position. She glared right at us boys, and she yelled, "Who the hell hit me!"

Tony and I exchanged glances. This was going to be a problem.