Misplaced (COMPLETED)

10. sketchy old man

For a long moment nobody says anything. Nobody moves. Nobody moves. The five of us stare at the one of him and he at us. The man is old with a balding head and clothes more outdated than what I imagine my great-grandfather would've worn. Despite us being likely candidates for paying customers, this man seems genuinely unhappy to see us. Is he the shopkeeper or another customer? 

Roberto's the first to make a move and shovels his empty wrappers of stolen food items into his pocket before wiping his mouth in a movement that couldn't have been more obvious if he'd tried. "Hello there, I'm Roberto." Ignoring the silence to return to him, Roberto carries on with a charismatic smile and a voice booming with confidence, "We didn't mean to intrude on your night. This is a twenty-four seven petrol station, isn't it?"

"It is," short, abrupt and sent with sharp icicles, the man knows how to make an impression.

Lucy clears her throat and steps further in his field of vision, "The phone isn't working. Is there a way to fix it? Or do you have another phone we could borrow? We don't mind paying for it."

Nothing but more icicles. This time they're accompanied with frosty silence and an unblinking stare. 

We all shift nervously, silently seeking both comfort and support in each other's eyes. My own eyes find themselves looking into a pair of sea green orbs contrasted against a line of concern wrinkling his forehead. Something close to a smile slips across Zach's face. It looks forced but it calms me down anyway and suddenly all I want to do is stand closer to him. There's a tiny voice in my head that screams at me that he will keep me safe. That around him nothing bad can touch us. It's a lie but a comforting lie nonetheless. 

"What are you all doing here? Alone? At three in the morning?" The man finally speaks again. There's something about his voice that gives me a hard time trying to get a read on him. I can't tell if he's sceptical of us robbing him (which Roberto technically did), or he's concerned for us in some warped way that's just being interpreted very differently by us. 

A black mop of hair swings dramatically around the room in a smart ass sort of way. Roberto looks at all of us before returning his gaze to the questioning old man, "Well there's five of us here which, technically, would mean we're not alone."

"Roberto," Zoe hisses under her breath. Chastise is evident in her voice and I want to applaud her for it. The last thing we need is for Roberto to piss off the sketchy old man. 

Zach clears his throat loudly to simultaneously bring everyone's attention to him whilst attempting to diffuse some of the negative tension that's been breeding through the room, "Look, we don't want any trouble okay? If your phone's not working, that's fine. Do you know where an available one is? If not, that's also fine and we'll be on our way."

As soon as the words have left his mouth, the man takes a deliberate step towards the door. Standing five-foot-eleven with a surprising amount of muscle clinging to his withered bones, the old man has blocked the first and potentially only exit in this increasingly hostile joint. "You can't go out there. Don't you know it's The Vocatio tonight?"

I suppress a deep sigh. Great. That's all we need. A radical elderly man whose paranoia has reached new levels to include complete strangers in an entirely different demographic to his own. Wait, maybe not strangers. As his jaw locks forward and a small smile pulls his cheeks backwards, something sparks in the back of mind - a memory. I want to get closer to him to get a better look. I've seen him before, I know I have. The question is where? What memory has ignited in my brain? 

"Old man," Roberto places himself under the spotlight again. Something in his shoulders and arms seems different this time. They're tense. He's preparing for a fight. "We just came from The Vocatio and you'll be happy to hear it's been cancelled by the police. So as my good buddy Evans just said, if you don't have a phone we'll be going now. Thanks for the concern."

With one bold step placed in front of the other, Roberto confidently strides up to the man. No fear, no doubt. Zoe told me earlier that Roberto was co-hosting the bonfire. At first I thought it was because the classic stereotype of a teenage party boy painted a pretty accurate picture of the Spanish boy before us. But now I see it. Beneath the clown, friend and flirty fuck boy I get the impression he might be, Roberto is a natural born leader. If that makes us the followers under his direction, then I'm okay with that. 

It's not until Zoe joins his side and the rest of us too start migrating to the front exit that the man finally takes a step back. "Be careful, young man. The Vocatio does't stop because a law enforcer says so. The sky is still clear and the God's are still hungry."

"What?" Scepticism is clear in Roberto's voice and I know what he's thinking: when we find that phone it isn't just the police we'll need to call, we'll need to call a psychiatrist and a good one at that. 

It's then that I see it and judging by the look on Zoe's face, I'm not the only one. Around the collar area of his faded green polo shirt are several dots of distinct cherry red. Blood. I whirl my eyes over the rest of his body looking for the cause of the blood but I see no wounds and signs tell me the blood is not coming from under the shirt, rather it came from outside of it.

Something loud and unmistakably clear rushes to the forefront of my brain. The memory of that day at the beach fizzles back into sight and the fuzzy faces I'd forgotten without a second thought come rushing back in blinding clarity. Lexi's there. She runs down the beach throwing the tennis ball back and forth before it fatefully lands at the foot of the old man. I look back to the face of the man that stands in front of us now in this tiny service station so isolated reception can't even reach us. There's no mistaking it this time - it's the same old man. 

"Oh my God. You killed her, didn't you?"

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A/N:

Bit of a shorter chapter this time but it was the best place to stop. 

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