Of Thieves And Do Gooders

Raymond’s Point Of View

By the time I got back to the agreed meeting point Hayden was no where in sight. That figured, he seemed like someone who was late everywhere he went. So I leaned lazily against a signpost as I waited, looking at the dirt under my fingernails. Man, I needed to wash my hands more or something.

I glanced up and saw that Hayden was coming for the same direction I had come from. But that only made sense since that’s where he had been going in the first place. I nodded in his direction and he hesitated, and then nodded back just as he approached me. “Hey. You ready to go?” he asked casually and I narrowed my eyes in his direction. For someone who had just gotten laid he seemed pretty cool about it.

Ah! Mental image is back! Drop the topic! I shook my head and refocused on Hayden and what he was doing at that exact moment. In doing so I pulled up a memory of what he looked like before we went separate directions…he looked exactly the same…wouldn’t he look a bit more…erm…wild? If he had just--Gah! Damn it! Why did I keep thinking about that? Forget it, I ordered myself silently.

“So what are we doing tomorrow?” I asked, just hoping he would completely wipe the image from my mind with his next words.

“Tomorrow? I don’t know. I was thinking of hanging out at the school,” Hayden replied, although he seemed distracted and he kept stealing glances at me rather than looking at me directly. What was with that?

“Sounds good to me. I could probably spend more time there. You know. Get used to the halls and stuff.” Woo, mental image was mostly gone. Thank God.

“Sure, sure. Whatever works for you,” Hayden said quickly, hmm, I suppose that meant we weren’t hanging out at all. Which was fine with me, since he was acting weird anyway.

Hayden called Damion and Leon and we agreed to meet at the coffee shop again. The entire time we walked in silence and Hayden kept looking at me like I had either killed someone or I was a zombie with really good makeup to make me look human. I chose to ignore this fact, dismissing it as a “guy monthly” as I called it.

Let me take a brief moment to explain this concept. Have you ever just seen a guy that’s normal and cool and fun to be around and suddenly he has this one week (sometimes month) in which he acts totally weird and depressed and moody? That, my friend, is what I call a “guy monthly”. A horrible experience in my opinion. Therefore, I would most likely be avoiding Hayden until he was back to normal and I would leave the cheering up to Leon and Damion. Hopefully they were good at it.

So anyway, Damion and Leon picked us up at the coffee shop and I stole glances at Hayden as much as he was stealing them at me. It was weird. Leon and Damion, however, were acting completely loud and normal and turned on their music as loud as possible.

However, seeing as I wasn’t quite in the mood for Bullet For My Valentine, I popped in my headphones and moved to my “Obsession” list. Which consisted of songs I could hear more than ten times in one day. I moved my lips to the words, but no sound came out, I was intent on ignoring Hayden and his weirdness.

“…Life for you’s been less than kind
So take a number stand in line
We’ve all been sorry, we’ve all been hurt
But how we survive is what makes us who we are…”

I bobbed my head absently to the music, thinking back to my brother’s grave. My throat tightened and I changed the topic in my head to my exercises.

“…All smiles and sunshine
A perfect world on a perfect day
Everything always works out
I have never felt so fucking great…”

Tonight I would be practicing my stealth, if I could find my bells anyway. Oh, yeah. And you know that scuba diving training? I was planning on skipping it.

“Why?” you ask, ever-so-curiously.

Well, that’s very simple, when scuba diving you have to wear a wetsuit of which would show my curves a little too well. Not to mention the whole I-can’t-swim thing. So, all around, a bad idea if I went. The only thing I would have to do was make sure Hayden, Damion and Leon didn’t wait for me.

I was a little bummed that I was going to miss Mr. Jager’s first class since he seemed pretty cool. But still. Nonnegotiable, I had to skip scuba diving.

I pulled away from my plans as Damion pulled into the parking lot, parking right next to the Corvette Stingray. Urg. Taunting me. It was such a shiny red car and a classic even, the body style wasn’t even made anymore. My eyes lingered on it and then I thrust the door open. “So Damion? What’d you and Leon do while we were gone? Finally admit your feelings for each other?” I teased and received a club over the head from Leon.

Ow! Son of a bitch! I covered my head with one hand, grumbling something about pain. Like I said before, Leon’s pretty fast for a big guy.

Damion grinned, apparently ignoring my suggestion of them being gay “It was awesome, first, we went to the park a few blocks from the coffee shop and we totally smoked these punks at basketball. I think a lot of them were scared of Leon, which was pretty sweet, and then I was too fast for them to cover. After that, we went to the mall and bought a pack of, like, fifty Baby Ruths and left them in the all of the toilets in the girls’ bathroom. We didn’t even get caught!” Damion spat off their previous acts with a laught and Leon roared with laughter at the memories.

“That’s right! I forgot about it already!” Leon said with another laugh, turning around to grin at me. “What about you Raymond? You visit your girlfriend or something?” he asked, apparently losing interest in his little prank.

Eww. Girlfriend? No.

…Then again. That could work as a pretty nice cover to visit my brother’s grave more often. “Yeah. Well. Not exactly I guess, not yet anyway. She’s just a girl I know,” I lied confidently, already forming her name and description along with her life story.

“Oh-h” Leon said, drawing out the single syllable as much as possible before he punched my shoulder and turned to stare at me as Damion and Hayden looked over their shoulders at me. “Spill. What’s she like? Is she a blonde? You look like a guy who likes blondes,” Leon said thoughtfully.

Blondes? No, no, no. That was shallow and stereotypical. If anything I’d say a girl with…ehh…chestnut hair? I always wanted that color hair anyway. But no I had to get the “dumb blonde” stereotype tacked onto me. One blonde moment in a sea of brillant moments and I would never hear the end of it.

I took a deep breath and sighed. “No, she’s not a blonde, she’s got light brown-ish hair and green eyes. I guess she’s sort of short, for a girl anyway and she likes to go jogging, so she’s got nice legs.” I flinched inwardly, pretending I was talking about a guy with nice arms.

I pushed past Leon, hoping that was a good enough description for them.

“Hmm. Sounds pretty. You got a picture?” Leon prodded, jabbing my side as he caught up with me and I fell in step with Damion and Hayden.

“Nah. We’re just friends remember? It’d be a little weird if I carted a picture of her around with me.” I snorted, knowing perfectly well that I would never have a picture of this supposed girl. “Can we just forget about this now? Anyone else wanna talk about their love life? Maybe their feelings a little bit?”

That shut them up, and they completely excluded me from their newest conversation which was fine with me, since it was about a new first person shooter game. I sucked at FPS’s, so I contented myself with picking dirt out from under my fingernails and observing the forest.

Just as the school came into view from behind a tree a keyword triggered my attention: Fable.

“Fable 2? What?” I turned attentively in the direction of who had mentioned the game and everyone stared at me for a moment.

“Dude. You see the deranged look in his eyes? I think you found a fanatic just like you Hayden,” Damion joked and nudged Hayden who rolled his eyes.

“I guess us being roommates was fate, huh?” Hayden joked and kept walking, probably not expecting me to know much about the actual game.

“Guess so. However. If your Fable 2 knowledge is lesser than mine, I believe I’ll be transferring out of your dorm room. It’s simply blasphemy for me to sleep in the same room as a less dedicated fan,” I said knowledgably. It was total bullshit of course, since there were no other open rooms to transfer to, and it would have been a stupid reason to transfer.

Hayden chuckled and looked at me from a side-glance then paused. “You serious?” he asked, sounding perplexed.

“Dead serious,” I replied, keeping my tone in a joking manner.

“How could you possibly know anything about it? It isn’t even out until October!” Hayden pointed out, sounding incredulous. But there was that look in his eyes that told me he knew just as much as me.

“Dude. I read Game Informer. I know enough to want it,” I said back, a mischievous gleam in my eyes. “Oh, and it’s October 21st, to be exact.” I grinned as he stole a curious glance at me.

“Really.” Hayden sounded like he didn’t believe me. Why did it look like I didn’t read Game Informer? I read Game Informer and it rocks.

“You get a dog,” I said simply, crossing my arms over my chest.

“What?”

“On the game. You get a dog,” I repeated confidently.

Hayden snorted, “That’s easy to say, anyone could have told you that. Unimpressive,” he scoffed, although the look on his face became less disbelieving.

“The opening scene features a fancified view of a piece of bird crap landing on your character’s head,” I added with a shrug.

That caught his attention.

“So you read one article about it. So what,” Hayden dismissed, but he was looking at me now, trying to gauge how much I knew.

“More than one buddy. I also know the basic storyline in the beginning, not to mention the classes and that you’re supposed to be able to be a guy or a girl. Are you going for good or evil on this game? I think I’ll be good first and then evil the second time around, since it changes the story and effects the entire town in the beginning. I’m wondering what the slums will look li--” Hayden finally cut into my sentence to pipe in.

“You also don’t get paid for doing good deeds anymore. You actually have to get a job,” Hayden said thoughtfully, sounding like he’d been holding the information in.

“You don’t even necessarily have to be a hero, you could be like a citizen,” I added.

“Your wife can cheat on you, and divorce you too.”

“You can have one of your friends characters imported into your world and walk around together and your friend can steal your wife.”

“If your character’s a girl you can get pregnant.”

“You can get STD’s.”

“You can--” Hayden began but was interrupted by Leon who was roaring with laughter.

“You can steal people’s wives? Dude, Damion, I’m totally stealing your wife.” Leon hit Damion’s shoulder and he scowled.

“Whatever dude, I’ll kill you before you get to go anywhere,” Damion retorted proudly.

“Actually, if you really wanted to, you could kill Leon’s family. If he has one anyway,” I pointed out with a shrug.

That got them arguing back and forth about what they were going to do in each other’s worlds. Hayden and I on the other hand went back to comparing each other’s information and finding out what was a rumor and what was true.

He was back to normal in my book. Thank God.

The rest of the day was boring, consisting of me practicing my stealth, since I found my bells just as the lights went out and then falling asleep to Secondhand Serenade and their all-too-popular song Fall For You. But it was a good song to sleep to.

________________________________________________

“Hey…hey…hey! Raymond! Get up you lazy fucker!” someone shouted, shaking my shoulder from side to side.

I groaned. What was with these people? They always woke me up when I didn’t want to be woken up! “What?” I snapped, turning my face to the side, but refusing to lift my head from my pillow. Maybe I could fall back asleep…

“Come on Raymond, you’re hanging out with Damion and me!” Leon said happily and I cringed inwardly. How come when he said that I pictured the three of us dangling from some unreasonably tall structure with an angry mob below us? I had a feeling that was a bad omen.

“What? What’re we doin’?” I muttered half-heartedly, although in my mind that translated to: “Leave me alone and let me sleep before I punch your face into the back of your head”.

“Tons of stuff. Come on, we’ll start with a jog, you know, to get the blood pumping, from there we’ll do a few warm ups, then we’ll go into town to wreak havoc!” Leon’s voice became heard at that moment.

“Jog?” I repeated, horrified by the mere sound of the word. I lifted my head to look at him as if he had told me that my bed was on fire.

“Yeah. Come on!” Damion confirmed and grabbed one of my arms while Leon grabbed the other and they hauled me out of my bed and to the front door. I, of course, didn’t make it easy. I went boneless on their asses. Then again, my weight didn’t seem to have much effect against their persistent tugging and occasional lifting. It looked like I would be jogging at eight in the freaking morning.

__________________________________________

“A club,” I repeated, glaring at Leon’s beaming face ten hours later.

“Yep! A club. That’s where we’re going from now ‘til….well actually, I’m not sure when we’re leaving. But you get the idea. You like to dance, don’t you Raymond?” He looked a little concerned, as if it mattered whether I wanted to go or not. They were the one’s with the car. Not me.

Still, the look on his face wore away at my conscience. “No. I don’t like dancing,” I said sharply, but managed to pull up a smile, “But I could scope out a girl or two,” I conceded and Damion whooped, letting go of the wheel to throw his hands in the air just long enough to make me worry and shout, “Ten and two! Ten and two! Jesus, just put one hand on the wheel at least!” He complied to my request with a sheepish grin.

It was just light enough outside for the neon lights to flicker to life. In my case, I saw a particularly large neon sign--which I somehow knew would be our destination--that read: The Cat’s Spats.

Great. A swing club. This ought to be interesting. Well at least it wasn’t overwhelming techno beats right? I mean, I liked techno as much as the next person, but not when it was loud enough to move an entire building.

The moment the car died down and the doors opened, I knew that I was sadly mistaken. The unmistakable techno beat assaulted my ears and made the sidewalk pulse. What sort of techno joint had a name like that? Completely misleading. Someone should sue their asses for false advertising.

Nonetheless, I followed Damion and Leon to the front door, where they cut in front of the long line to talk to the large angry-looking bouncer with the handlebar moustache. The guy nodded once, eyed me carefully and then moved the velvet rope so that Leon, Damion and I could step into the pulsing room.

And thus, the fun was supposed to begin.

_______________________________________

“This was stupid. I shouldn’t have even come,” I mumbled to myself, knowing that no one would hear me over the insanely loud beat of which ever song happened to be playing. In this particular case, Disturbia by Rihanna was pulsing through the speakers.

Practically the moment that we stepped into the club, Damion and Leon agreed to split up and I was on my own. I had already been hit on by three drunk chicks and two drunk guys. I was not having fun. Oh, and one of the drunk chicks looked like she could have been my great, great grandmother, but then again she was smoking too, so she might have been about forty and yet she was still trying to pick-up on the younger guys.

Activate shudder button…now.

The only reason Damion and Leon had come here in the first place was to pick-up on girls. Tch. Like it was hard for them. Leon had been dancing by the same brown-haired girl for no longer than five minutes and they were already scurrying off to a secluded corner. Damion was in about the same situation, although, he was leading a pink and black-haired girl dressed unmistakably in the emo style toward the bar. I didn’t see Damion as much of a drinker, but then again I didn’t see him as going for emos either. So I guess I didn’t know him too well yet. I doubted he could actually get anything to drink anyway. He looked young for his age and I was pretty sure he didn’t have the proof of being twenty-one.

I, on the other hand, was standing in a corner closest to a large speaker…scowling. You see, a normal person would just move, right? Well, I didn’t have anywhere to move to. There were so many people the only choice for me was to try to find an empty table to occupy on the upper floor, or head for the door.

Guess which choice I picked?

I shoved my way to the front door and then found it pretty simple to get past the bouncer again, since he was intent on keeping the door unblocked and keeping everyone else from getting in. He was a pretty mean guy, if I actually wanted in that club, I would have been pissed and hated the guy. But clubs and their seizure colors didn’t interest me much.

I took a deep breath of air and regretted it when I realized the nearby alley smelled like urine and throw up. At least I knew what people did when they had to go but didn’t want to get too far away from their spot in line. I passed the alley and crossed the street to Damion’s old blazer. I tugged on the handle on the back door and it didn’t budge. Of course. The door was locked, and my plans of sitting in the car until they decided to leave were spoiled.

Great.

I sighed and started walking in the direction of the school. Who knew when they would finally decide to leave? I wasn’t about to wait around and find out, besides it was technically a school night, and I was already tired from being woken up earlier than I was ready to be woken up and then dragged around by two people who were too hyper for their own good.

One good thing about pretending to be a guy, the clothes and shoes I wore were pretty easy to move in, so walking back wasn’t too horribly uncomfortable. As opposed to when I would be my normal girl-like self, and dressed for a club, I would most likely be in high-heels. Which would suck to walk in.

Of course it was cold that night, since winter was coming around and I had to walk somewhere. So, I crossed my arms as I walked, turning the corner to face the long stretch of road that would lead me to the school. Ugh. Have I ever mentioned that I hate walking? Because I still do. “Most popular form of exercise”, my ass.

__________________________________________

Hayden’s Point Of View

It wasn’t hard to convince Dame and Lee to distract Raymond for the rest of the day. I could already hear Raymond’s whining when he got back. No doubt Lee wanted to take him on a jog and run through his usual workout, then Damion mentioned something about a club. Now picturing Raymond at one of those was funny. I mean, I guess the guy might have liked clubs, but the way he complained about everything, I had a feeling he wouldn’t like the loud music.

As soon as they left I reported to the Headmaster, as he had requested. Of course, he only wanted me to make sure that Raymond didn’t try to tell anyone about the school or try to run off for some reason.

“Come in,” Headmaster Wilkins ordered casually, my guess was that he was working on paperwork and assignments and whatever else headmasters had to work on. Boring shit was what I would generalize it as.

I pushed the door open almost silently and stood next to the large chair in front of the Headmaster’s desk. “Hello Sir,” I greeted casually, yet formally at the same time. It was just easy to call the Headmaster “Sir”, it seemed natural.

The Headmaster looked up from writing something and smiled at me. “Ah, Hayden. I suppose you won’t be staying long, considering you’ve decided to stand.”

“Uh, yeah,” I muttered embarrassedly. Somehow the Headmaster always managed to notice things that no one else did, paid attention to detail more than everyone else and was better at reading people. It was weird.

“How was Raymond?” he asked, moving straight to the point.

I had run the words through my head several times: There’s something off about this guy. He visited a grave with his name own name on it while we were in town and just doesn’t act normal. There’s something about him that simply isn’t right. However, when I opened my mouth to say these words, they somehow changed and I said, “He was fine. Didn’t try to run, didn’t do anything suspicious…although he did go shopping of his own free will and didn’t even buy a video game.” I rolled my eyes.

I had been on the hunch of him being gay, just based on the way he stared at some guys for too long, then the whole shopping thing and no video game at all. However, that checked out the moment he started spouting off fun facts about Fable 2. So he wasn’t gay. But he definitely wasn’t Raymond Frost, like he claimed to be…so…who the hell was he? And why wasn’t I telling the Headmaster about him?

“Good, good. He didn’t look like much of a troublemaker, although he does need to improve on his timing. It seems he’s late everywhere,” The Headmaster said thoughtfully.

“I could do something about that if you want Sir,” I offered, although I wasn’t sure what I could do.

“No, no. Don’t trouble yourself, I’ll take care of it. Thank you Hayden. Fifty extra credit points in English class.” With that said, Headmaster Wilkins closed the book beside him and motioned for me to leave.

I nodded in understanding and turned to leave, grinning like crazy at his words. Fifty extra credit points? And in English? Hell yes! At least the guy knew where I needed my extra credit.

After that little encounter, I directed myself to the training grounds. That’s what Mr. Jager called them anyway. It was pretty much everything that anyone who wanted to practice something physical could ever want. I needed to waste some time now that Damion and Leon would probably be gone for the rest of the day.

I was in mid-jab in front of a punching bag when I stopped to think of something. I looked out a near window and saw that it was already getting dark, so I made my way to my room, and planted myself directly in front of the computer in the farthest corner next to my bed. I cracked my knuckles and opened up an Internet Explorer page, waited for Google to pop up. As soon as it did, I let my fingers hover over the keyboard.

What the hell was I doing? I was going to Google something, but, now that I thought about it. Why was I googling it? I thought about it for a moment, not sure where to start then decided to type in the most logical thing:

Raymond Philip Frost, 2006

Instantly a line of links appeared before me all containing the key word Raymond. Great. I had to hunt a little bit before I found a decent link about six sites down. I clicked.

An article appeared, featuring a picture of a gnarled tangle of metal on metal and a growing tuft of black smoke swirling into the sky. I frowned. Carefully, I scrolled down to the actual article. My frown only deepened as I read:

“…twenty-year-old Raymond Frost suffered a tragic death on October 3rd. He was an upstanding young man as well as ambitious, considering he managed two jobs in order to take care of his younger sister, Raven Frost. Police suspect gang activity and will continue to search for the culprit. However, any further details have yet to be released to the public. On another note, Raymond’s orphaned younger sister still has yet to be found. Police would like you to contact them if you have any information regarding Raven…”

I stopped reading before I got any further. Younger sister? I swallowed some lump that had showed up in my throat and then looked back to the article, scrolling down until I found two pictures, one showing a girl with wavy dark blonde hair and hazel eyes, along with a forced grin--a school picture. The other was a picture of a young man, probably Raymond. He didn’t look a lot like his sister. He had black hair and green eyes, but the structure of their faces were similar, the only differences being their eye and hair color and a small difference in the point of their chins.

It was unmistakable. The black-haired green-eyed guy named “Raymond” was not the Raymond I knew. Which meant that the grave I had seen was his. However, his sister, Raven, looked remarkably similar, although her hair was longer in the picture in the article. I licked my lips in thought, tapping my forefinger impatiently on the computer desk.

Could it be…?

Nah. No. Absolutely not. Why in the world would Raymond’s sister take up his name just to join a thieves school? Girls were allowed at the school too, so there was no reason to lie…Oh…Wait a minute. When Raymond gave me his name I just assumed…okay, so maybe it was partially my fault that I had gotten the wrong name. Honestly, did I expect her to give me her real name so I could tell the police? Well, at the time, yes. She seemed like such an amateur…Ugh!

Why was I assuming? This was just a hunch, I didn’t really have any proof that “Raymond” was really “Raven”! So why was I making excuses and trying to fill in gaps?

…

Because it all makes sense, I decided and sighed. With one last glance at the picture of Raven, I closed the window I had opened and pushing myself away from the computer. My mind buzzing. All of Raymond’s strange behavior made sense, if, in fact, he really was a she.

Ack, I’m starting to confuse myself, this is stupid.

Anyway, that would explain why I never saw Raymond without a shirt and why he never changed in front of anyone, always wore loose clothing and was so secretive. I pressed my palm to my forehead, I felt a headache coming on. Despite my deductive reasoning, I needed some sort of proof before I made my decision. Maybe I could even get her to admit it to me…if he really is a she, anyway, and if there was really anything to admit.

What I needed to do was get my mind off of the whole Raymond-Raven thing. What better way to do that than to join my two friends and my semi-friend/new curiosity at the club to pick up on girls? Good plan? I think so.

________________________________________

Raven’s Point Of View

I muttered angrily to myself as I walked, mostly about how stupid Damion and Leon were, of course that was because I couldn’t find a hot guy while I was there, whereas they could find all the girls they wanted without looking out of the ordinary. I on the other hand was not in the mood to become a social pariah for being thought of as gay. I didn’t mind them really, but most guys I knew had a problem with them. Jeez, too much testosterone in the male species, I swear, they have a problem with everything.

I was walking along the side of the road for about an hour when car headlights shone in my eyes. I squinted and threw my hand up near my face, the jackass had his brights on. When his brights remained on as he moved closer to me I did the most logical thing and flipped him off as he drove by, telling him quite plainly what I thought about him and his damn brights.

The car screeched to a halt and was thrown into reverse.

Uh-oh.

My girlish instincts threw on the rape-alert, and I instantly became wary, turning slowly around and continuing walking even as the car pulled up alongside me. I was vaguely aware of the window being rolled down, but tried valiantly to ignore it. My heart rose into my throat and panic settled in. I was about to be face to face with an ex-convict that had a problem with every race except his own and was known to rape unsuspecting young men that walked on long roads in the middle of no where, I knew it.

“Rav--Raymond?” someone asked in a strange voice and I looked quickly to the car window to see Hayden leering out at me. At first he looked pissed, then he looked like he was acknowledging something, and then he looked at my chest and back up…What the hell?

“Hayden?” I asked, feeling no remorse what-so-ever for flipping him off. That’s what he got for driving with his brights on. I was a little edgy however, what had he started to call me? And why was he looking at my chest? I glanced quickly at my chest to see in maybe my necklace was glowing again. But it wasn’t. Was he checking for that too? God, this kid was confusing.

“What are you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be at that club with Dame and Lee?” he asked, putting the car in park as it quietly purred.

“I guess. If you want to sit in the corner next to the speakers and watch those two idiots pick up on girls.” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest.

“You know you could pick up some girls too, right?” Hayden sounded like he was teasing me.

A look of disgust took over my face, but I quickly replaced it with a glare directed at Hayden. “Ha. Ha,” I laughed sardonically, then rolled my eyes. “You plannin’ on goin’ there too? If so, don’t count on me coming with you, I didn’t walk all this way to be driven back,” I said sharply, knowing I sounded like the worst stereotypical guy on Earth, not even interested in girls.

Hayden rolled his eyes and said a little reluctantly, “Get in. I’ll drive you back to the school. Jeez, you’re a pain in the ass, you know that?” he asked, although he didn’t sound as annoyed as he was pretending to be.

I grinned at him, sliding into the passenger’s seat, “Yeah, yeah. You know you love me.” I punched his shoulder playfully and he shook my hand away. “Who wants to go to some club with an insane bass anyway?” I asked rhetorically, leaning back in my seat. Ahh, how sweet sitting now seemed. My ass was thankful and my legs were tingling.

“Oh, I don’t know, normal people,” Hayden replied with a chuckle, turning the car around easily--the road we were on was completely empty, apparently no one used it often. Probably because the only place it led to was a dirt road that nobody ever found.

I snorted. “Normal people are overrated, why not be a weird-o? I don’t see why the name is supposed to be an insult. I mean, if you say it right it sounds like someone should be throwing rotten food at you when they say it. The English language is all about tone sometimes…” I rambled and stopped abruptly, realizing Hayden was staring at me and not even looking at the road. I wasn’t completely worried since it was a straight-away, but I was still unnerved. “Hey? Hayden? Road’s that-a-way.” I pointed straight ahead of him and he blinked himself out of his trance looking at the road again.

“Right. Sorry,” he said quickly, his shoulders were tense.

“Sure, sure. It’s fine,” I replied, leaning back in the seat and closing my eyes. I wondered silently why he had been staring at me, but dismissed it as being a result of my rambling. “Wake me up when I have to walk again, will ya?” I asked with a yawn, but I was already asleep before I heard the answer.