Music Girl

That weekend was a long one. Mr. Thyroid was away on a business trip and it rained all weekend, confining Aravic and Sam to the house. Tomas hadn’t turned up at the house after school on Friday. In fact, the last time Aravic saw him was lunch Friday, and then he had disappeared.

But Aravic wasn’t complaining. To him, this was a dream come true. Alone in a house with Sam - trapped in, even - it was quite fun. They actually spent most the time on the third floor, talking. Once he got her talking, Sam answered most of Aravic’s questions. He discovered that the house was almost entirely solid (natural) marble, but a hemispheric wiring throughout the house kept its’ internal temperature at a consistent temperature, no matter if it was rain or shine.

He also found out that Sam’s room was the most antique in the house. Her bookshelves, bed and desk were from the 1980’s, and her computer wasn’t that new either, about ten years old. All her books were very battered and were all books that had been banned from the public long before Aravic had been born. Aravic had seen very few printed books; almost all were on electronic libraries now-a-days. Her most prized possessions were all seven of the Harry Potter books, books that Aravic had heard only rumors of. Other series her owned included His Dark Materials, Anne Rice books, and Maximum Ride. It surprised Aravic to see books written by women. The only books he had seen were the Twilight series, and that was only because society glorified the books, calling them “prefect examples of what our lives should be like.” Sam called them “unworthy to be called books” for polite terms.

The rest of her room greatly contrasted the rest of the house. It was a very open space with good acoustics, but other than that, there really wasn’t a lot in her room. All of her cloths fit into one small dresser, and on her desk was her laptop computer. Over the wooden floors were a great many shag tie-dye rugs, and tons of posters covered the marble walls not taken up by windows. Despite its’ simplicity, Aravic enjoyed it, but mostly because Sam was there.

Monday morning, they woke to a light drizzle and Tomas was home. He was too busy sleeping to go to school, so Sam and Aravic left by themselves for the bus. It was a slow and sluggish day at Regal High. As the day crept to a close, Aravic became more and more jittery. He knew what was coming after school; Jared and Kevin’s initiation. It both excited him and made him nervous. He had an uneasy feeling that something bad might happen, but he shook that feeling off. The bus ride home, he sat in the seat across from Sam, drumming his fingers on his leg impatiently as rap music blasted out of his headphones. He stared absentmindedly at Sam, losing himself in her silver-studded ear. Her shins were pressed against the back of the seat in front of her as her head bobbed in time with her music, mouthing the words and moving her fingers along to an invisible guitar. Aravic smiled slightly as he watched her.

-

It was too quiet of a night. I ate my fruit and salad peacefully, but there seemed to be a sort of charged air in the room. Dad still wasn’t home yet; his flight wouldn’t get in until the morning. Between Tomas and Aravic though, there was some kind of charge, possibly excitement, though I couldn’t tell for sure.

After dinner and the dishes were clean, I took the elevator back up to my room. For once, Aravic didn’t follow me. I wasn’t particularly worried about this, more relieved. He had cut down a bit on the innuendoes, which was good, but he was still pretty annoying. He wanted to know everything about me, and that bothered me. If anything, it puzzled me as to what was preventing him from irking me. I shrugged off the curiosity and locked the door behind me.

I worked most the night on a new song I had started composing yesterday. I was mostly just figuring out the lyrics at this point, and I might get to the music notes tomorrow if I was lucky. So far, it was called “Blasphemy,” but that might change. My rough chorus was:

“In the shell of America
The land of the dark,
I’m committing blasphemy
Against your masculine hunger
I’m the black music mark
On the forehead of your God.”

I frowned as I examined the words on the computer screen over and over again. There was something I didn’t like…something I couldn’t place. It aggravated me to no end, but I couldn’t quite figure out what “it” was. Sighing harshly, I saved, closed the file and turned off my laptop.

On the desk next to me buzzed my phone. “Dammit,” I snapped, picking the phone up and touching it on. Cynthia was calling, so I hit talk and set the phone against my ear. “Hell–”

“Sam! Help me!” screamed Cynthia before I could greet her.

“What’s wrong?” I asked urgently, snapping bolt upright in my chair.

“They took me! I don’t know where I am!” she sobbed.

“Who’s they?” I asked insistently. I heard a clicking noise and voices on her end of the line. Cynthia screamed. “CYNTHIA!” I yelled, but the line went dead. Frantically, I re-dialed her number. She didn’t pick up, nor did anyone else.

I touched the screen on my phone and scrolled through the applications until I found the one I wanted; GPS locator. I typed in Cynthia’s number. Within moments I got a hit and a little red dot showed up on the map. She was about ten blocks northwest of my house. ‘What the hell? She lives on the other side of town!’ I thought as I hit the “Create 3-D Map” button. A holographic 3-D map projected itself from my screen and I set my phone down.

As I pulled on my ancient leather jacket I looked out my window to the street below. Tomas’s black Buick wasn’t there. Grinding my teeth, I picked my phone back up and headed for the elevator, locking my door behind me. I tapped my foot impatiently in the elevator as I saved Cynthia’s map and searched for Tomas’s phone. He was as the same location as Cynthia. I went to search for Aravic when I remembered I didn’t have his number. I entered the hacking program I had downloaded onto my phone and proceeded to hack Tomas’s phone. When I had finally managed to get in, I was two blocks away from my house. I found Aravic’s number in his contacts and ran a search for it. He was with Tomas and Cynthia. At ten at night, I doubted this was any coincidence. I broke into a run.

I followed my phone’s holographic map to where Cynthia was. I approached the house where the GPS said she was. The neighborhood was a sort of ghetto, but cleaner than the nastier parts of town. The house I was in front of had a few cars parked in its’ driveway, including my brother’s black Buick. I shut off my phone and crept along the cars to the bushes below the front window. I crouched on the yellowing grass and peaked into the window. The living room was a mess of miss-matched furniture and beer cans. There wasn’t anyone in the room, but there was light coming from some room father off in the back. I decided that the back would offer a better view, but as I stood, a black arm and fist smashed into my face and I toppled over.

-

Aravic stood in Antonio’s “office” with Tomas, Kevin, Jared and Antonio. The floor had been cleared, the furniture shoved against the walls haphazardly. On the floor was a struggling girl, duct tape holding her ankles together and her hands behind her back. Her pale legs shivered under her tattered skirt and simple dressy shirt. She had a black sack over her face, and Aravic was pretty sure she was gagged too.

Antonio’s henchman The Gorilla went outside to investigate a noise out front. His name wasn’t really The Gorilla, but no one knew his real name (except probably Antonio) and he looked like one. The Gorilla was a 6 foot plus body builder with skin and shaggy hair as black as midnight. He rarely talked, and no one really wanted to get on his bad side. Aravic had seen people who had been “taken care of” by The Gorilla. It wasn’t pretty.

Antonio had just finished explaining to Jared and Kevin what they were to do when The Gorilla came back. “NO! Let me go you bastard!” Aravic’s heart began to race at the sound of the familiar voice. The Gorilla entered the office holding a struggling Sam. Aravic’s blood raced faster as he saw her ankle stuck out funny, her bloody lip, and her bruised arms. There was a deep cut oozing blood on The Gorilla’s cheek, but the huge man seemed unbothered by it.

“She was looking in the front window,” The Gorilla said in his deep voice.

“Goddamn you fucker let me GO!”
As Antonio stalked slowly across the room towards her, The Gorilla held her hands together with one hand and used the other to yank her head back by her short red and black hair. Sam’s gray eyes glinted murderously as Antonio stood inches from her.

“Let Cynthia go,” Sam growled as Antonio took the open pocketknife The Gorilla was holding out to him. Antonio took the knife and examined the blood on its’ edge. He snorted and threw the pocketknife to the ground. He pulled out his own knife and opened the blade, holding it millimeters in front of her nose.

“Do you know what this is little girl?” Antonio asked softly, threateningly. Sam ignored him and continued struggling. “It’s called a Serpent’s Blade,” Antonio explained, pulling a tiny orange card out of his pocket and inserting it into the butt of the bright purple handle. “I can put any type of liquid in here – any at all – and it will come out of the blade. For instance, now –” Here he checked to make sure the liquid pack was in tightly “– there’s a Fire Mage poison inside. So when I do this –” He pressed the blade to her right cheek bone and cut “– well, you can feel the effects.” Antonio smirked as he pulled the blade away from her face, wiped her blood off on his pants, and closed the knife.

Sam began to scream as the free-flowing blood began to bubble as if it was boiling. The sight made Aravic queasy. He took another glance at the girl on the floor. ‘Is that really Cynthia?’ he asked himself in disbelief. ‘No, it’s not her!’ he told himself firmly, but he didn’t believe that either.

“Take her into the next room,” Antonio was instructing The Gorilla. “We’ll save her for later.”

“Wait,” said Aravic suddenly. The room went silent as everybody stared at him. Sam had even stopped struggling for a moment. “I’ll take her,” Aravic offered. “She is mine, after all.”

Antonio thought for a moment, a trace of his smirk still on his lips.

“Very well,” he finally said. He gestured to The Gorilla, who simply let Sam fall to the floor. Aravic resisted the urge to wince as he picked her up and set her on her feet.