It was ten o'clock, the sun virtually nowhere in sight. Andria walked quietly up to Jill's house, where she was staying, and slowly turned the door. The old hinges creaked a little, but other than that, she was able to slip by unnoticed. She headed to the bathroom, grabbing a small cloth from the kitchen.
The damage to her clothes was irreversible. The slight cut on her neck would heal in time, visible as it slowly faded away. It was higher up on her neck, shifted slightly to the left.
Turtlenecks can't cover up this sucker. She thought, gently prodding the wound, assessing the depth. This stings like a bitch.
She cleaned it up, wrapping toilet paper around her neck. She tip-toed into Amy's room, the room Jill had offered her. She had stashed all of Amy's possessions into the walk-in closet, leaving hers in the drawers. Andria got an old white shirt, originally hers, and raided the room for scissors, finding a pair behind the dresser. She cut the shirt into strips, took the make-shift bandage off, and slowly—as well as painfully—secured the wound around her neck.
Clothes, she thought. I need clean clothes.
She put on a new pair of pyjamas, and picked up her blood-soaked clothing. I need to dispose of this, she thought. I need to get rid of this. Before anybody finds out.
She slowly slipped outside, this time taking the quiet backdoor.
Where to put it... So little options. Her ideal way to wipe away the evidence was to start a fire and burn the clothes, but that would draw the attention of people. Also, Andria couldn't contain a fire.
Suddenly, a thought hit her. The neighbour's house! Jill's neighbour was a short, nineteen year old athlete, who disappeared in the poof. I can hide the clothes there! She thought, hopeful. She never thought that this would be her biggest problem in life—where to hide your bloody, death infested clothes?
When she got to the house, she quickly mapped the house out for the best place to hide something. She chose the attic crawl-space, absolutely teeming with spiders and cobwebs.
She walked back to Jill's house in style. Well, stylish shoes as least. The neighbour had the same size feet as her, and since Andria's own shoes were soaked in blood, she'd decided to borrow herself a pair. Indefinitely.
She took the front door again, using the logic 'if they didn't hear me before, why wake up now?'
"Andria?" said a blurry eyed Megan, just walking out of the kitchen. A midnight snack, no doubt.
"Go back to sleep, Megan. My errands just took a little longer than expected." Andria said, bending down and rubbing the side of the six-year-old's cheek. Or was she five? Andria didn't remember. Megan complied, drowsily walking to her room.
Andria felt tired and dreamy, partly because she stayed up late, and partly because of all the running she'd done. Who knows, maybe even Megan's feelings contributed.
Regardless, Andria went straight to bed.
When walking to work, she felt protected. She dressed like herself—sort of—and she felt like herself. The neighbour's shoes, a light, knee length skirt, one of Stephanie's shirts, and a light cardigan. The usual.
And three hidden knives. A sharp, three-inch blade with a leather cover hidden in her right shoe (hence the sneakers), a pocketknife, closed and concealed in her bra, and finally, the most deadly of all. A large knife, stolen from her mom's butcher shop, bound in a light cloth and tied around her left leg, out of sight but easily accessible by her skirt.
Yeah, I'd say I'm pretty well protected. She thought, heading into the office of Town Hall. She walked to her desk, only to find a blazing neon sticky note, saying that they had moved their office into the school to accommodate more rooms. At the bottom of the note, there was a little post script, saying the they—being the Coates kids—had taken Sam and his gang back up to Coates Academy. Andria knew who had wrote it. The script was too elegant to be a boy's.
Better head out. She thought, walking towards the school that had housed her entire education. Never thought that I'd be comin' back here.
The local people who were filled with complaints were already there. She slipped behind the desk, already talking to the one in front. Standard procedure now, even after only one day of work.
A couple hours passed, noon coming in quickly as she wrapped up talking to people about complaints. She took on their personalities: one boy had been teary, and she had immediately felt the grief of losing a loved one. Later, a girl had showed up angry. She had spoken back to the girl, also mad about nothing.
She felt like silly putty, moulding into anybody on a whim. It was like one, massive mood swing. She sighed, stacking up the sheets of complaints. She had stopped looking into people's thoughts. Besides the fact that it was an invasion of privacy on their part, it was like watching a snuff film to her. People thoughts varied with their feelings, and a lot of people were pissed. Her last face had been angry, and she still held a little of that emotion.
She looked up from her sorting to see a young boy, about seven. He looked shy—and familiar.
"Can I help you with anything?" She asked, trying to twist the anger into compassion for the young boy.
"My brother is missing." He said, almost sheepishly. He was shy, so he stayed to the back of the crowd.
"What's his name? When did you last see him?" This wasn't the first missing person report. Many people had siblings who went missing, and it was her job to get names and details.
"Jackson Rice. The last time I saw him was when he went out to go find people."
"...Find people? Like, who exactly?"
"He got mad when his friend killed our sister, Shelly. It was an accident, but he didn't think so... I think he's trying to hunt him down." The memory brought tears to his eyes, but he held back, trying to be brave.
The thoughts screamed at Andria like an open book, and when she looked into his mind, she found the same film reel of events that she had seen in her attacker's mind. She had killed his brother.
She rolled her chair out from behind the desk, kneeling down in front of him. "I'm sorry, but they found his body down by the pier, early this morning." She tried to force as much compassion into her words as she could, but it wasn't enough. She seemed like a cold hearted person.
The little boy couldn't take it anymore. His sister had died. His brother had died. He burst into tears, and with all that strong emotion flowing out of him and into Andria, she did to. She pulled him into an embrace.
The little boy's sobs raged on and on, racking his body with each new wave of sorrow and pain. Andria finally had the strength to collect herself, and put her hand beneath his chin, tilting his face up to hers.
"Don't worry... It'll all be alright, you'll see." She said soothingly. A motherly instinct kicked in. All she wanted to do was hug this boy, and whisper sweet lies into his ears.
The little boy still sobbed, but not as much as before. He asked her questions that she couldn't answer. Where was he going to live, how was he going to get food. When the wall was coming down. He was too old for Mary, and too young to live on his own.
Andria only had one solution. "Stay with me... I'll make it all better." She hadn't known the boy had a little brother. It was the least she could do for the guy she'd killed.
"Really?" He said through the tears, rubbing his eyes.
"Yes, really."
Jill hadn't exactly been thrilled, but she allowed the boy to stay and even started to warm up to him. Megan, on the other hand, was ecstactic. She had tried to cheer the little boy up. It had taken them thirty minutes to coax his name out of him, with them cheering when he finally said the word 'Austin.'
Andria broke up the celebration. "Jill, I'm going to go get some food for dinner. Anything you need?"
"Nope!" She said, still excited by Austin's first word.
Andria ran down the street, wanting to breeze by all the thoughts of those around her. She turned up another road, but was cut off by a thought. The Healer. There had been talk about where she lived, and that she was open for healing anybody. Andria's cut was bothering her, so she decided to check it out.
When she got to Dahra's house, Dahra had said that she had just missed Lana, and that if she walked a block down the street, she'd find her at Elwood's.
Andria barely had time to walk away three houses because just then, a car came roaring down the street, stopping outside two houses from her. A tall figure with sandy blonde hair stepped out, with every limb but his right arm.
Andria couldn't help it. She burst out laughing, making the figure turn around. It didn't matter that all of his emotions were of anger, hatred, and rage. Her thoughts on karma were far stronger.
"What the hell are you laughing at!" Drake roared, stepping a few feet towards her, closing the twenty meter gap. Nothing was very funny to her in that situation, but she just felt it was a work of karma that his arm got cut off. An arm that he's killed with.
"Your arm! It's a stump!" she said, through giggles. She collected herself, little chuckles still seeping through her composure. "I take it you're trying to get Lana to heal it? I don't need a power to guess that."
"So what? I want my arm back. It's natural to have a need for both arms." He said, mocking her.
"I don't think she can heal something that's not there, Drake." Andria said, walking away.
"The hell she can! You'll see, bitch!" His left hand shakily reached for his gun, but Andria had already ran behind a house, knowing his next intention. He yelled a few more curses, damning her to hell, but didn't proceed to follow her.
Andria only had one thought. Rest in Peace, kid who did that to him. I salute you.