Authors: Stephanie Fowers
Lizzie was right. I didn’t see how life truly was. I wanted my life to be a certain way and it wasn’t. I had been pushing at the same stubborn rock forever just to change the way things were…and though nothing was budging, I couldn’t leave that rock and find another one. I had already put too much energy and effort into it. What I meant was…I had a point to make; love was dead, and even if no one listened to me, I had to get that across somehow, even if it meant dealing with this kind of scum.
“Don’t let this get to you,” I heard Lizzie say quietly. “Please.”
I could barely hear her voice and I stood up, pacing the kitchen floor around Kali’s clogging. “You think I’m the only victim of chick flicks here? What about you? You can’t tell me that you’ve never been hurt by a man. Why haven’t you found love, huh?”
“I have. He just didn’t love me back.”
No words could be more calculated to shock me. “Who?” I growled.
“Actually, it happens all the time. It’s just the way the cookie crumbles, ya know?” She smiled what she thought was a comforting smile.
“Who
wouldn’t
love you!” I was angry again. I raced to the flowers. I’d uncover the enemy that we were dealing with and make sure my friends were never sad about losing a man again. “Let me see these.”
“What are you doing?” Kali asked in some alarm. By some miracle, I had diverted her from her floor stomping. As soon as I got to the table where the flowers rested, I pulled the flowers out of the vase and thrust them next to Kali. She screwed up her nose. “Ooh, those stink!”
“Did I call it or did I call it?” I tugged the note out of the flowers:
“Sorry, you weren’t here when I brought these over. Due to your unfortunate absence, I took advantage of your roommates instead. Let’s call ourselves even, shall we? Post script: Please return my copy of
Love Whispers in the Rain
when you’re through watching it. I need a good laugh.”
Byron wasn’t at the gym when we stole his backpack, was he? He gave us the chick flick. He messed with my mom. And these roses were soaked in tuna juice. I dragged them across the room, letting them drip heedlessly all over the floor. “This is how fun love is.” I chucked the roses into the garbage.
Sandra’s face screwed up in horror. She clicked off her phone, cutting off the guy on the other end. “What are you doing?”
Kali peeled the roses out of the garbage and rinsed them. “So what? They’re still beautiful. Ouch!” A thorn pricked her. I hated to say I told her so, but I told her so. A loud noise outside the kitchen in the hallway made us turn. Two legs dangled from the trapdoor above the hall. The legs were attached to a pair of dirty sneakers. My roommates’ faces twisted into various expressions of horror as the thing descended from the ceiling and came for us.
“Shhh,” Kali warned us. “Keep it down…it’s Mike.” And if he caught us, he wouldn’t stop talking.
I watched in horrid anticipation as our landlord crawled out of the crawlspace from our ceiling and dropped to the floor. He was covered in grime and white dust. The fear was almost palpable as everyone turned away from him in one motion, busying themselves with whatever they could find. Even Kali seemed suspiciously preoccupied with the dishes. She wasn’t fooling me in the least.
I was the only one who couldn’t tear myself away. For some strange reason, I was irrevocably and profoundly attracted to that hole in the ceiling. Even to the extent that I would sacrifice myself and my sanity to find out more about it. I walked towards the hole and held my hands up so I could touch the lip on the ledge. “What’s up there?” I found myself asking. I ignored the startled gasps behind me. I had opened the conversation with Mike.
He dusted off the sprinkle of white stuff from his brown hair and gray sweatshirt. “I put Velcro on the edges of the trapdoor.” He reached up, snapping the door into place over the crawlspace.” It’s easier to open, see.”
“Uh yeah, I guess if the Nazis ever came for us.”
He gave me a nervous look mingled with warning…
as if I’d actually try to explore the place.
“I wouldn’t go up there if I were you. It’s hot and dirty…and there are spiders.”
Doubtful. There were no webs on him. I stared up at the trapdoor and nodded to appease him. “Yeah, sounds dangerous,” I lied. “I would
never
go up there.”
“You’d better not. I’ll tell you one time, there was this…”
His stories were beginning. My cell phone rang and I recognized the ringtone. The Evil Twins. I answered it, knowing that at the least it would keep me safe from my landlord’s talkative tongue. “Yes, Byron?”
“
I seem to be missing something vitally important.”
“Indeed.” I tried to keep my voice down with my landlord’s eyes on me. “Have you met my demands yet?”
“
Yep, boyfriend-for-a-week, coming right up.”
I almost dropped the phone. “I don’t take kindly to your threats.”
“
The funny thing is I didn’t know you were interested in me? But then when we saw what you wanted…?”
“I’m sorry; you’re going to have to look at the small print...on the back. I would never be that desperate.”
“
Really? That’s not what the stake president said.”
“Leave him out of this. He has nothing to do with this.”
“
Now don’t worry your pretty little head, Mad. We can just keep this whole boyfriend-for-a-week thing under wraps, but you owe me. I want my backpack delivered to my apartment unharmed. I want the hand-off nice and clean...tonight. No tricks.”
“Why you dirty—!” I took a deep breath, remembering the couch cushions. “Tonight it is. Give me what I want, Byron, and no one gets hurt.” Before Byron could undermine my resolve again, I hung up. I met my landlord’s shocked eyes and cleared my throat. “Sorry. What were you saying?”
“Uh...stay out of the trapdoor?”
Before I could mumble out an answer, I felt Sandra’s eyes on me. As soon as I caught her look, she smiled prettily. It was full of sarcasm. “Ooh,” she cooed. “Sounds like you’ve got yourself a hot date.”
Day 109
2143 hours
“
It wa
s
Friday night, a night normally reserved for revelry…though I wasn’t so lucky. I had the enemy to deal with.”
—Madeleine’s War Journal Entry (Friday, June 1st).
I slammed the door to my car. Sandra’s words still burned in my ears. A date? And then she actually had the nerve to congratulate me. I knew that glint of revenge in her eyes. She knew how much Byron hated me. He’d return the cushions; I’d return his backpack. No one else had to be involved. And after that, I wouldn’t either. I wasn’t messing with her ex, okay? No matter what she thought.
I stalked around my car in the parking lot behind our apartments and opened the trunk, pulling out my groceries. A shopping trip to Macey’s had been the only way to kill some time before meeting him tonight. The sound of my footsteps the only sound in the darkness. The moon was just a faint crescent above me, the clouds dark and ominous with the coming storm.
I’d get what I wanted and then I’d let Byron go. Go clean. It wasn’t so hard. I knew exactly how to get Byron back—never talk to him again...because it wasn’t nice to mess with my roommate’s ex-boyfriend. That’s why. I dragged out all of my groceries until I had every last bag. Anything to avoid another trip to my car. The plastic handles dug into my fingers. Sandra wanted those cushions back just as much as we all did. I mean, just one more time with Byron wouldn’t hurt and then I’d quit. The crinkle of the plastic was lost in my inner struggle with myself:
I don’t feel guilty. I don’t feel guilty. I don’t feel…
A faint light illuminated the darkness. It came from the top apartment next to ours. I could see it perfectly from the back of our building. Thanh was home. Even she was staying in on a Friday night. I glanced over at my trunk and realized I didn’t have any hands to close the hatch. I tried using my head, but gave up and plopped my groceries down on the hard black pavement. I slammed the trunk shut, and heard an echoing slam above me. A shadow passed the upper window in the back of Thanh’s apartment...a taller one followed it. Thanh’s Friday night wasn’t a complete bust. She had a visitor.
I reached down and looped all the plastic handles through my fingers again. The noises in Thanh’s apartment grew louder. I listened to the arguing voices, one female, the other deeper and raspier, definitely male. I heard a crash and straightened. Thanh was throwing her things around. I heaved my groceries into my arms, wondering if I should check on her. It would probably look weird coming from a complete stranger. I heard another crash. Without thinking, I shouted up at the window, “Hey!”
Before I could figure out where I was going with that, the light snuffed out in her apartment and I found myself standing in the pitch blackness, my skin crawling as I regretted my usual recklessness. What had possessed me to shout out like that? Poor Thanh could make a mess if she wanted. She had a life to lead. My groceries grew heavy. My fingers quickly lost feeling, and now I was afraid of meeting Thanh on the stairs. After a self-reproaching roll of my eyes, I two-stepped into the darkness.
The leaves of a bush shook to my left, almost like a sudden wind had overcome it. I stumbled over my feet at the rush of adrenaline. There was no wind here. The coming storm held its breath. I stared at the bush through the darkness. Anyone with less situational awareness wouldn’t have noticed a thing, but I knew I wasn’t alone out here. Anything could be in these shadows. Anyone. All I had to defend myself was some eggs, tortillas, maybe some toilet paper. Everything a girl needed for a prank war, and they were completely useless in the face of real danger. But why would I have to defend myself anyway? I could just walk away and pretend I didn’t see anything, except I did. Something inside me wouldn’t let me look away from the bush. For now, it stayed put like any good bush should, but there was something different about it. Something stared back at me from the leaves. It jumped out at me with alarming swiftness.
“Captain!”
I jolted as Tory came out of the darkness. Apparently she had been staking out the premise outside. Not too much of a surprise, except she came out of a bush. “I swept the area.” She drew in closer. “Your cushions are in the guy’s living room next to the—”
I jumped, seeing the bright light seconds before it enveloped us like a bomb. I dropped my groceries and fell flat to the ground, momentarily blinded. The sound of it pierced my ears. “Whoa.” The noise cut out my voice. I squinted through the light, but as soon as it was on us, it was gone. “Tory, did you see that?” I shouted.
“What! I can’t see!”
I couldn’t either. To top that off, I couldn’t hear very well. As soon as my eyes adjusted back to the darkness, I saw Kali tearing around the bend in her Strawberry Shortcake cut-offs. “Oh! No! Way!” she shouted out in her adorable voice once she reached us. “I don’t know what the guys did! But that was amazing!”
Lizzie followed, her arms swinging furiously. “Can you believe that!”
“No,” I shouted. “No! I can’t. It was like a flash bomb. The guys wouldn’t have something like that. That’s swat team stuff!”
Tory’s jaw clenched. “Then what’s this!” Lizzie shouted through our deafness. She pushed something at me and it crinkled into my hands. It was another list of demands.
I ran to my car and opened the door to read it under the interior light.
To the apartment known as the black hole: We want a dozen cinnamon rolls, our dishes done, and our place scrubbed clean of any traces of girl stuff. Pronto…or we add more demands.
“This is blackmail!” Lizzie was properly enraged. “What kind of monster would make a list of demands?”
I met Tory’s eyes, ignoring that. “Maybe we should show them the light.”
Her lip curled up. “What are you thinking?”
A drop of rain spattered against my nose like a light kiss. I brushed it off, digging through my glove compartment. “I say we introduce them to the old bait and switch game. What do you say?”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Lizzie shook my shoulder. “Byron’s trying to lead us out of our apartment. Isn’t that obvious?”
“We’re already out!” I scrambled out of my car. The storm was upon us, and the wind picked at my clothes as I rushed heedlessly through the parking lot to find out what damage Byron had already done to our apartment.
Tory pulled me back. “Your apartment is booby-trapped. We’re fine.”
“How? What did you do?”
The light from my car shone over Tory’s face, making her eyes look demonic through the darkness. “Sandra’s there. Remember?”
I snickered. “Oh, excellent. If they can get past her, they have my respect.” The rain poured freely down on us as I dove back across the front seat of my car. After a thorough search, I found my flashlight. It was one of those miniature ones. Tory’s brow furrowed. It was enough to make me laugh. “It’s all part of the plan. C’mon, I’ll need all of you for this.”
After Lizzie threw my groceries back into my car, we left the parking lot on foot. The rain puddles splashed under our shoes, dampening our surprise attack. “This would be a whole lot easier if we had Byron’s cell phone number,” Lizzie muttered. She tugged her shirt over her green and white pajama bottoms. Kali skipped to keep up with us. We ducked behind a dumpster, avoiding more giggling civilians that passed us from our ward. Two lovebirds shared a bright red umbrella with polka dots.