Chapter Two
Pain. That was certainly the first thing that registered in my delirious mind when I came to. My entire body ached. I don't think there was any part of me that didn't hurt in any way. My head hurt. My stomach hurt. My legs hurt. My feet hurt. My face hurt. I hurt.
I was in a bedroom. Laying in a bed. A bed? Where was I? How did I get here? I tried thinking about what had happened but came up with nothing. The only thing I knew was that I needed to get out of there. Who knew what kind of danger I was in?
I slowly sat up and groaned when the movement sent a jolt through my side. A few tears gathered in my eyes but I blinked them away, remembering his words.
"Only cowards cry, boy."
"Darry?" a voice called from the other side of the door. A knock shortly followed. I quickly shrank back into the blankets, trying to ignore the flaring pain, and covered my face. I heard the door open and stiffened.
"Hey, Darry, you alright?" the voice called again. The bed sunk with someone's weight. I grunted softly as the bouncing mattress jostled my side. The man must've heard me because the covers were pulled back, revealing my bruised face. I saw a teenage boy, probably around sixteen or seventeen, with blonde hair. He stared back at me with wide eyes as I sat up.
"Darry!" I jumped a bit but didn't move. Growing up on the streets I knew the best thing to do would've been to run but I wasn't exactly in the right mind at that moment so I didn't use my head and did something that was probably stupid. I stayed put. I could hear his voice yelling at me.
"Damn boy don't you ever use your head?!"
"Darry!" the kid yelled again. I wanted to tell the kid to shut the hell up 'cause his hollering was only making my headache worse but I felt like I could collapse at any given time. The door swung open to admit a giant man. And I mean giant. He didn't have a shirt on so I could see all his muscles. He was certainly intimidating. Scary, even.
"What is it, Soda?" he asked, his face still weary with sleep. Soda? The blonde pointed at me. The man's tired face cleared but quickly changed to one of concern. Oh, great, I thought. Now he's gonna beat me because his son or brother or whoever that kid is here with the dirty homeless kid. Nothing new. Didn't mean I couldn't hate it, though. Still, I stayed there. I must've been real out of it.
"Hey, kid," he said.
"You know him?" Blondie asked.
"Not right now, Soda," he said before turning back to me. "Hey, kid. Now just take it easy," he soothed, as if I was an injured animal. I squeezed my eyes shut as another spasm of pain flowed to my head.
"Soda, get the aspirin," the man ordered, then added, "and the first aid kit." The kid walked out of the room.
"C'mon, kid. Lay back down," the man said. I shook my head. I was a loner. I lived on the streets. We worked alone, unless you got desperate, or, in my opinion, stupid enough to join a gang.
"Kid, it's ok. I won't hurt you." Ha, like I hadn't heard that one before.
The boy came back with a little bottle and a small red box. He handed it to the man.
"Just let me fix you up right now. Then we'll get you home," he said. Home. A place I didn't have yet yearned for. I shook my head again. Blondie shook out a few of the pills and handed them to me. I stared at the little white pills in my hand. Were they drugs? Would they kill me? Would they make me hallucinate?
"They're just aspirin," the boy said, looking at me. I glanced skeptically at him. He sighed and fished one out of the bottle, placed it in his mouth, and swallowed. He looked back at me. Looking back, I don't know why I didn't take off or why I even took the medicine in the first place, but I did. I popped the two pills in my mouth and swallowed them dry.
At that moment I started feeling a bit woozy again. It couldn't have been from the pills, though. Those would need more time to get in my system. I knew I was sick. I just didn't know how much.
"Go to sleep, kid. Then we'll talk," the man soothed. I sank back into the pillows. I don't know why. I just did it, though. I was all jumbled up, not even remembering how I got in the house in the first place. The boy pulled the covers up to my chin, then left, along with the man. I yawned and closed my eyes, feeling a small smile tug at my dry lips. I was sleeping in a bed.
XxX
The kid sure was skinny. And frightened, no matter how tough he tried to act I could tell he was scared. When I walked into my room his eyes went wide. I could see the tears that were gathered in his eyes but he hadn't allowed any to fall. When Soda offered him the pills he shook his head no. He was stubborn, I noticed. Stubborn and stupid.
And terrified.
I knew I couldn't just ask him what he was doing in our house. He was exhausted; his eyes were already drooping when I first started trying to calm him now. So I kept my voice soft and soothing, trying to get the kid to settle down. He wasn't trying to escape, which surprised me, considering his actions the previous night when he first woke up. Instead, he backed up into the corner of the bed. He reminded me vaguely of a cornered animal. An animal being hunted by a predator.
Finally, he took the aspirin after Sodapop convinced him by taking a pill himself. I didn't really like the idea of him taking medicine without a proper reason but I didn't argue when I saw the boy slowly put the pills in his mouth and swallow. It didn't pass me that his hands were trembling and his breathing was panicky while he handled the pills.
I just said, "Go to sleep, kid. Then we'll talk," when I noticed his eyes were sort of glazed over. He obliged, sinking back into the pillows and covering his lanky body with my blanket. He was sick, that much was obvious. I just didn't know how bad it was. I wish I did.
XxX
I felt kinda bad for waking the kid up after Darry finished telling me the story of how he came home to find the boy in his bed, dead to the world. But what was I supposed to do? It's not every day you walk into your big brother's room to find some little teenage kid that you've never seen before.
I didn't know what we were gonna do with him. He hadn't uttered a single word since Darry found him. Could he even talk? Was he a mute? We didn't know. How were we supposed to find out where the kid lived? Were his parents looking for him? Did he run away? Was he a criminal? We didn't know the answers to those either.
At that point all I could do was help Darry take care of him. Darry told me the kid was sick, which was kind of obvious. I might be dumb but I am able to tell when a kid is that sick.
So that's what I was doing. I was busy wiping the dampness off the kid's forehead with a wet washcloth. Darry said he had a slight fever. 101, I think. Nothing too serious but we had to keep an eye on it. Darry had run to the drug store to grab something for his fever. The aspirin seemed to be helping with it, though. Sweating meant a fever was breaking, right? Darry had just said something about being back in a half hour and to watch the kid before grabbing his wallet and keys and walking out the door.
The boy mumbled something in his sleep and shifted, yet his eyes remained closed. For some reason, I really wanted to know what color his eyes were. His skin was pale and he was glistening with sweat. Still, he shivered. I stood up and draped another blanket over him before sitting back down. I had dragged Darry's recliner into the room, next to the bed.
He mumbled something else that sounded sorta like, "sorry," but I wasn't sure. I just wiped his neck before laying the cloth back on his forehead. Suddenly, he gasped and his eyes opened.
Green. They were green. And the owner of those eyes had answers. And the face of one who was about to lose his lunch.
