Chapter Fourteen: Melanite:

I don’t understand why we are even bothering. Clearly, she doesn’t want to be found. What I’m curious about is what is she hiding? I stuck around the apartment on phone duty. (I didn’t pick this out, but I don’t really care either.) Noiz told me to stay behind in case ******* calls. (Yeah, like that’s going to happen!)

So far, I have been playing games on my cell phone and talking to the girls. I think I about fell asleep a couple of times. I turned on the TV to stay awake. There wasn’t much on, so I turned it off.

I really do not see the point. I didn’t even want to go to the wedding. I just wanted to sleep in and play my video games today.

“But it’s Ben’s big day!” Amber said as she sat on my bed this morning.

“So?” I asked as I covered my head with my pillow.

“It’s his big day. We promised him we would be there.”

“We?” I hate when they used “we” to speak for all of us. I didn’t promise that weird guy anything. I don’t even try to associate myself with him. Ben’s just… too weird. Everything about him is just off. His face, his glasses, the way he talks, the way he walks, the things he says… I shook my head. I try not to think about him too much.

I don’t have anything to say about *******. Most of the things I could say have already been expressed by my boss and coworkers. It won’t change the situation that we have been dragged into. I looked over at the phone. Nope, that a single call. Do they really think she’s going to call the apartment? Really? There’s no point to me even being here. I could just leave. Walk out and slip back to my dorm. Nobody would notice a thing. Yeah, I could walk out right now…

Suddenly, the phone rang. Darn it. There goes my escape plan.

“Hello?” I asked. Some dude coughed and cleared his throat on the other line.

“Hello?” I asked again.

“Uh… Is ******* there?” the dude asked in a raspy low voice before coughing again.

“No,” I said. “Are you okay there?”

“Are you making fun of me?” He coughed about three more times.

“No. You don’t sound too good.”

“Shut up!”

“Okay, geez. Calm down man. She isn’t here, but I can take a message for you.”

“Tell her that bitch better have our money or we’ll—!” He broke down coughing on the other line again. I raised an eyebrow not exactly sure what to make of this. Clearly, he’s trying to sound tough, but he’s sounding like he’s about to die at the same time. If I ask about his well-being again, he would probably cuss me out.

“And?” I asked.

“We’ll make her pay!” the dude shouted through his coughing. He hung up hacking up his lungs. I stared at the phone with narrowed eyes. Okay… What was all that about? It would seem that I was right in a way. Well now, things just got more interesting. I leaned back against the couch and stared at the ceiling. I probably should tell somebody about this. And then what?