Eccedentesiast (Brandon Darrow)

#NewSibling

[#NewSibling]
The heart has reasons that reason does not understand.
–Blaise Pascal
*****

I was walking down the road when I heard someone call my name. When I looked I saw Trevor coming up next to me. "Trevor?" I questioned, "What are you doing here?"
"Moving some shit to my mom's, do you live around here?" He asked.
    "My dad just bought a house around here," I told him still walking ahead.
     "Oh yeah, my mom just moved too, moving in with her new boyfriend. Says she has something big to tell me. Sounds ominous," he says.
    "Well good luck with that," I say stopping outside of the house. My father was standing in front with Trevor's mom unpacking boxes.
    "That's your dad," Trevor said eyes widening.
    "And that's your mom," I say staring at the two of them. Well this was just exciting, cue eye roll.
    "Oh shit," he muttered
     "Yeah listen I know we don't get along very well but if we're going to be living together I don't want us to be fighting all the time," I say.
    "Listen I'm sorry, I've been a dick to you. It's not your fault," he says.
    "We're good then right?" I ask.
     "Yeah we're good," he answers. I didn't know if I could actually forgive him for the things he did but at least we came to some sort of truce. We walked up to the house and helped unpack things. Trevor laid on my bed as I continued to unpack my boxes. "So have you talked to Brandon at all?" He asks trying to sound casual.
     "Okay if the only reason you're in here is to try and get me to talk to Brandon then you can leave," I say unpacking my art supplies.
    "Come on we both know you two or like in love or something," he says rolling his eyes before grabbing my sketchbook.
    "Trevor leave that alone, and we so are not in love," I say as he flips through the sketches.
    "Says the girl who has like a million sketches of him in her notebook," he says flipping all the way to the last page. He stops at the last sketch and I realize that must of been the photo of him.
    "Give me that," I say grabbing it from his hands. He throws his hands up in surrender and raises and eyebrow. "I needed to draw something other than the two people who plague my mind, your photo wasn't much better," I mumble.
     He gets up and heads to the door but stops and puts a hand on my shoulder. "He really does care about you," he says.
    I shrug his hand off and say, "Tell him to stop because I don't need him to." Trevor sighs before walking to his bedroom and I continue to unpack. That's when I find Fishy. I grab him and lay down on my bed staring at the ceiling. I crush the stupid frog to my chest and think about the first time Brandon ever kissed me.
    How it felt when he wasn't being a complete asshole. To bad he was just using me. I throw the frog down on the other side of my bed and groan. My phone rang and I knew exactly who it was that was calling me. Speak of the devil. I answered and listened to animatronic voice asking if I would like to accept.
I thought for a second before hesitantly pressing accept. "Aspen thank god, are you okay?" He asked. The sound of his voice almost made me burst into tears.
"What do you want Brandon? You've called me everyday now," I ask.
"I just want to tell you that I'm so sorry, to make sure you're okay," he answered.
"I'm not okay Brandon. This is your fault, I'm so scared all the time," I could feel the tears forming.
"Hey I know, I know but I'm gonna end this okay. I'm gonna protect you," he said.
"You can't," I muttered before hanging up the phone. I sighed before throwing my phone at the end of the bed and cuddling my pillow. When I finally fell asleep every nightmare I ever had twisted together. A couple days later Trevor asked me if I wanted to come with them to pick up Brandon. I definitely did not want to see him at the moment. Anyway Rowan had called and said to meet her and Elisia at Stingers.
"So what's going on?" I asked
"Stinger found out where the masks came from," Rowan answered.
"You can buy these freaky things online. They're for people who want to be servants of Mr. Empty. They're called empties," he answered.
"Yeah and what is that?" I ask raising an eyebrow.
"Really?" Stinger asked and I shrugged.
"It's the online urban legend," Elisia answers.
"The one, the only," stinger replies.
"There are these sites where people make up these horrifying creatures and then write stories about them. You've definitely seen stuff online. Mr. Empty is the most famous," Elisia explains.
"Of course you're the one who knows all that dark shit," Stinger said smiling at her, "The only difference is he's not made up, at least not anymore. Someone acts as him, big time hacker, he's real," stinger clicked on a photo saying, "This is his army of empties, people he recruits."
"Recruits them for what?" I ask.
"Anything he wants," Stingers phone rang, "hang on." He left to go answer the phone and Rowan turned to Elisia.
"I didn't want to say anything in front of Ash but what exactly happened?" She asked.
"He said the surgeries-all three of them-went well but now it's just a waiting game," she said, "The doctors were able to stabilize his spine in the lowest parts of his back, where the bullet was lodged, but they say it's almost impossible to predict whether sensation and motor functions will return until the swelling goes down."
"Are you okay?" I ask grabbing her hand.
"I'm just so happy he's alive," she whispered. I gave a sad smile and pulled her into a hug, Rowan hugged her as well.
"So what's the next step?" I ask as we pulled away from Elisia.
"Trying to figure out why Sean was at Zoe's house," Rowan replied.
"You're right, Sean keeps popping up everywhere Zoe is suppose to be," Elisia said.
"And the only thing they have in common is camp," I say.
"Hold up, there was something-a letter- in Zoe's file, that said something about Zoe transferring because of a cousin," Rowan remembered.
"Do you think Zoe and Sean could be related?" I ask. Rowan shrugged.
"Maybe, that's what we've got to figure out," she said.

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