Ugly

Niko gave me the number for James first, since that was the clearest he could remember.

I dialed it and waited for him to answer. On the third ring, he picked up and answered.

"Hello?" James had a sweet voice, he sounded like he could sing in a romantic musical.

"Um, do you know a kid named Niko Marcell?" I asked.

"No." His voice switched harshly. "Don't ask me about him, I don't know anything, leave me alone."

Click.

He hung up.

"That didn't go over well." I frowned and looked at Niko, feeling a little upset.

"I'm not surprised." Niko said grimly. He gave me the number for Phil next. "He's a little bit more friendly." The rat assured.

I dialed it and waited. Nobody answered. I tried again and still nothing. Niko just gave me a rat-shrug and gave me the number for Walker. "Maybe I had the wrong number." Niko said as I punched in Walker's.

Walker picked up on the first time. "Jenny?" He asked.

"Uh, not really. This is Sophie."

"Oh. Well, hi! Do you have the wrong number?"

"Is this Walker?"

"Yeah."

"I have the right number then. Do you know a kid named Niko Marcell?"

Silence sliced down like the blade of a guillotine. I could hear Walker's breath faintly hissing in the speaker. I almost hung up on him just to spare myself from hearing him do it first.

"Yeah, I do. Are you an investigator?" He asked cautiously.

"No, I'm not. I'm.. Niko's cousin."

"Okay... Um, I don't know anything about his disappearance, okay? If that's what you were going to ask."

"Oh, no, I wasn't going to do that... I, uh..." I made up a quick scenario. "I was going to ask about him. I never met him, I'm, uh, a cousin through marriage. So I was curious and I heard you were his friend."

Walker settled down. I left the room and went into my own room, as Niko gave me a look and Walker said, "What do you want to know?"

"Um..." I thought fast. "Well, what was he like? Was he smart? Popular? Et cetera."

I heard Walker let out a slight grumble of disgust, quiet enough where I could barely hear it. He said, "Well, he wasn't too popular, and not really smart. School-wise and life-wise."

"That's unfortunate." I said.

Walker didn't say anything. He eventually sighed and said, "Look, Sophie, he wasn't a great guy, sorry to disappoint you. I feel terrible that he disappeared, but he really was just a nasty person."

"What did he do?" I asked.

"He, ugh, just..." I imagined Walker shaking his head with repulsion. "I don't even want to go into it."

"No, it's fine." I said. "Please tell me."

Walker blew out his breath. "He... He was a huge bully." He said, sounding pained.

"Like how?" I was curious.

"Are you sure you want to hear?"

The tone in his voice made me hesitate. Then I finally said, "Yes."

"Okay... Well, we all grew up together, me and my other friends, but he just turned into this crazy guy in high school." Walker said. "He'd pick on the gay kids, the poor kids, the kids that had hard lives. Or the brilliant kids, the guys that worked hard for their achievements. He ran in track. He was really competitive. I was a runner as well, actually some of his competition. There was this other guy too, who was always just seconds ahead of him in races, and Niko would blow up on me about how much he hated him. It was actually quite scary. The other guy though, he worked so hard at everything he did, went to every workout and pushed through his pain. He was great and popular. Then suddenly he didn't come to practice."

I pressed my ear closer to hear every word.

"I didn't know what happened to him then, and everyone was confused. I talked to Niko about it and he... he smirked and said that it was great that he was gone. I mean, like, crazy smirk. He looked a little insane. Later I found out that the guy had been assaulted and had both his legs broken."

My heart began to pound.

"Okay, I'm not saying Niko did it, but it got me scared. I talked about it to my other friends, James and Sebastian, and it got them scared too. We realized how much of a bully this guy was even before that, but this was going too far. Then Niko disappeared and I don't know, I'm talking about this too much already. I'm sorry. Look, I was just waiting for this girl to call me and whatever."

"It's-it's okay."

"I'm sorry your cousin is a terrible person. I'll let you go, okay?"

"Okay." I shivered.

Walker hung up.

I didn't go back to ask Niko for another number.