Hawk Point *ON HOLD*

Chapter Five: Cross My Heart And Hope To Die

The slamming of the door can be heard echoing through the house, the sound piercing the air so jarringly and painfully that Christopher could imagine the birds perched on the fence scattering away like leaves in the wind. Still sprawled across the couch, his mind begins to wander to the possibilities as to what might have happened.

Footsteps pound across the floor, heavy thuds that indicate that whoever is stomping has on their shoes. The first intimation he has that something is wrong is Cif's angered shouting ricocheting off the walls like clumps of dirt bouncing off a knight's shield.  

"How come you never told us you had a twin brother?"  Cif inquires in a high voice as she stalks into the room, a trail of muddy footprints following in her steed.  "Why? Is it because he's dead? That's not a valid reason Christopher!" 

"Cif..." Christopher's voice is careful, but his expression, before he schooled it into blankness, showed fleeting shock. "Who told you?"

"Why do you assume someone told me?" Cif asks, glaring daggers at Christopher. He can feel the force behind her stare boring holes into his skull. "I was in the forest. There's a graveyard."

"Cif---"

"No excuses!" Cif's eyes shimmer with light and glassy tears and Christopher feels a stabbing sense of guilt. His tongue feels heavy and for a moment, Christopher is incapable of speech. Images flash through his mind, fleeting glimpses that come and go as quickly as a strike of lightning.

There is his brother smiling and alive, Joe Klinsey with blood dripping from his insanely smiling lips, the keys of a piano causing its little hammers to strike the strings in a deathly melody as Winters plays in the dead of night.

Then, there is death. Monsters. Death...his brother is dead...

"I couldn't." The words fall past his lips in a choked whisper. "He...I don't even know how he died...It just happened so fast..."

"You still should have told us." Cif's voice has softened somewhat, but it is still laced with hurt. "Does Mom even know?"

"Does Mom know what?" Luke appears at the doorway, rubbing his tired eyes with the back of his hand. Cif slews her gaze from Christopher to her younger brother and the boy flinches from the venom behind her glare.

"Christopher has been lying to us." She says curtly before stalking purposely out of the room.

The second the front door swings open, Cif finds herself breaking into a sprint. She doesn't even bother to close the door, ignoring her brother's cries for her to come back. No, she will not go back; who knows what else Christopher was lying about. Her feet pound against the hot asphalt and she really begins to regret running away; she has only been here for a day and she knows nothing about this town and its inhabitants. The only place she really seems to know is the Judgment Day Cafe and even the name sends chills racing up and down her spine. The streets are almost deserted which is strange for this time of day. The only other person out is a large and burly man with eyes that glow like blue fire. They're too bright to be natural; coloured contacts maybe. He blinks and the blue dissolves into a deep coffee brown and Cif tears her gaze away.

"Hey!" The voice is barely recognizable and if makes Cif wish to go faster. Whoever it is, they could wait until she wants to talk. "Hey!"

A hand wraps around Cif's wrist and she is jerked to a stop, slamming back into something hard and solid. There is a moment of weightlessness as she flails her free arm to regain her balance. Tearing her wrist free, she turns angrily to whomever grabbed her.