Chapter 4
Dietary Habits
Damon let go of me, but whether that was from the fact I was heavy or the fact that he realized I was splattered with monster goo, I couldn't decide.
"We need to get you cleaned up." He stated- looks like monster goo wins.
Christopher trotted up to me, took a glob of goo off my arm, and began to play with it.
Dustin cocked an eyebrow at him, "What on Earth are you doing, Nitwit?"
"Heh-heh is squishy." Christopher replied happily.
Jem gave a strained laugh, "Only homicidal killers would find that amusing, Chris."
I felt my face turn to a worried/disturbed look. Well, he did just brutally kill a monster, and was now currently frolicking with its puss.
Damon got that overworked-underpaid nanny look in his eyes again. "How far is the safe house?" He asked Dustin.
"Not too far."
"Well than let's go," Damon commanded, "Christopher stop playing with the puss and get going!"
We all filed out of the monster's deathbed, and Christopher pouted as he put down his blob. "Bye bye Squishy," he said with a forlorn look back at his Squishy.
I was walking on my own now and could probably run away if I wanted to, but after the monster incident I was sticking close to the boys. Dustin and I now each had one of Jem's arms around our shoulders. As it turns out the safe house was very far from where we were, or at least for me it was. Christopher tried to lighten the mood by cracking some lame jokes, which only made the situation worse. Even Jem had stopped pretending they were funny. So we walked along in silence. I looked over the boys a bit more closely, but my eyes kept wandering back to Damon, who was scoping out ahead. He acts as though he doesn't care I thought but he still worried about Jem being hurt and me looking bad.
"If you are trying to burn a hole through my head," said Damon suddenly without turning around. "You are going to have to use a better method then just staring at it." I felt my cheeks turn pink.
"Try using Dustin's gun. It worked for one monster it should work for another." Christopher smiled at me.
Damon gave an undignified snort.
"We're here," announced Dustin. I looked up to see a small house with sky blue gables surrounded by cherry trees with their pink blossoms in bloom. It was, in a nutshell the last place I would expect 4 teenage guys who just kidnapped me to live. It was like a sweet little old lady turning out to live in a haunted axe murder house.
"Home sweet home," Jem sighed, but winced as he rapped his arm that had been around me to cradle his wounded side.
We all walked through the baby blue front door that matched the gables above it. The inside was more quaint and cute than the outside. I waited for some other nut-job to come bursting in, but as a pleasant surprise the residence was lacking further wackos than I already had to deal with.
"I'll go upstairs to grab you something to wear," Dustin said heading up the beach wood stairs off to my right.
"I'll go get a first aid kit," Damon stalked off down the hall and into the kitchen.
Christopher led Jem to sit on a couch in the living room off to my left, which was sky blue like the house with white, fluffy couches that resembled clouds. Not knowing what else to do I sat on a couch across from Jem and Christopher. I then watched as Christopher helped Jem out of his shirt revealing his wounds. There were three, long gashes starting from his left shoulder and winding down to his right hip. They had stopped bleeding, but Jem was still smothered with his own blood, which was drying to a sickly brown color. He himself didn't look too good. Jem was breathing heavily and his green eyes were upturned towards the ceiling with an unfocused and dazed look to them. His skin was pale and sweaty; he looked skinnier then he normally was.
"He's been in worse shape," Damon walked into the room holding several large bandages. I didn't know if that was supposed to reassure me because it didn't help.
I jumped up. "Could you use a glass of water?" I asked Jem.
"We don't need your pity," Damon growled.
"It's called being nice, Stupid. You should try it sometime." I snapped back.
Luckily or unluckily Dustin came striding into the room, driving a wedge in between me and Damon. He held a very lengthy black dress that had such long sleeves my hands would be consoled, and it looked like something you would wear to the renaissance fair.
"Ohhhh!" Jem squealed in a somewhat girly voice, "Oh Miss Terra that looks so pretty on you." I gave a worried look to Christopher because I didn't have the dress on and Jem wasn't looking at me.
"I just gave him some pain killer," Christopher explained.
Dustin snorted, "Honestly Chris I'm amazed Jem hasn't died because of the many times you've overdosed him."
"'The many times you've overdosed him'?" I asked.
"Christopher always gives us too much pain killer whenever we get injured," Damon said sitting down in a seat and rubbing his temples as if he had a headache.
"Awww you guys need to lighten up anyway," Chris defended himself, "Right Jem?"
"Right!" Jem exclaimed from the couch.
Dustin sighed, "Chris, Jem will agree to anything in this state. You're a big idiot right Jem?"
"Right!" Jem assented again.
"Okay…" I said while slowly walking out of the room. I changed quickly in the nearest bathroom and tried to scrape as much monster gunk off my clothes as I could. As big as the dress seemed whoever it belonged to was pretty small, at least compared to my tall frame. I felt as though the air from my lungs was being squeezed out, and I couldn't take any more in.
There was a knock on the door. "Dinner will be ready in a little bit," Damon's voice said. I quietly stepped out of the bathroom and headed towards the kitchen. As I passed the living room I heard Jem drunkenly singing Christmas carols. Note to self: Never let Christopher give you medicine I thought as he started Jingle Bell Rock.I strode into the kitchen and was surprised by all the good smelling food that lay on the buttercup yellow dining table. There was something different at each placemat, so I wasn't sure which one was for me.
Damon pulled out a chair next to his seat and patted the cushion. I sat down and looked at what was on my plate. There was a roll, fresh out of the oven, mashed potatoes, a slice of chicken, and a glass of orange juice.
"We didn't know what you liked, so we gave you something from each of us," Dustin said. I examined Dustin's plate to find that he didn't eat much, and a majority of what he was dining on was carbs.
"The orange juice is from me!" Christopher announced, "I like fruit." It was true Chris's plate looked like one big fruit salad, along with about a gallon of orange juice in front of him.
He noticed me looking and held up a pineapple that hadn't been cut, "This is my special pineapple!"
"Well that's… interesting," I said.
"You wanna hold it?"
"Can I?" I asked with obvious fake excitement and sarcasm.
Christopher nodded vigorously and handed me the pineapple, "What do you think, pretty cool huh?"
Unable to think of a response I looked desperately at Dustin. He mouth the words just humor him.
"Defiantly!" I answered. Pleased by my response Christopher took the pineapple and sat back down.
"YOU ALL STARTED EATING WITHOUT ME?" Jem was screaming from the doorway of the kitchen and muttering some other words I never thought would come out of sweet little Jem's mouth.
"Looks like it's his time of the month again," Damon grumbled next to me. Dustin and Christopher smothered their chuckles for Jem's sake.
"He gets real crabby when the pain killer wears off," Chris explained, "He'll be back to normal once he eats something." I considered this and resumed eating while continuing my food examination. To my surprise I thought the chicken would be from Damon, but as it turns out Jem is a carnivorous fiend. His plate was loaded with T-bones, slices of chicken, pork roast, and other types of meat I didn't recognize.
"Jem, you're scaring the girl." Damon said whipping away a fraction of the mountain of mashed potatoes that had accumulated on his face.
"Wha?" Jem said his mouth half full with a steak he was attempting to swallow in one bite. "Oh, my apologies Miss Terra," He said looking sheepish. Well, he was back to polite James Carman at least.
Instead of inhaling more meat like I had assumed he would, Jem sized me up and down then turned to Dustin, "She can't wear that. Miss Terra is taller than Alexandra, and if she takes too deep of a breath I say that dress will pop right off of her." Dustin's face turned about as red as mine.
"You say that like it's a bad thing, Jem," Christopher stated with a perverted look in his eyes, "Ready Prisoner? Breathe in-"
That was as far as he got because I threw my fork at him. It impaled the wall not more than a couple of inches from his head, but Christopher Adams hadn't even flinched. Actually he remarked, "Well someone's touchy."
That tears it. I gathered up a handful of forks and took aim at Christopher. I never got the chance to hit him because Damon snatched all the eating utensils from my hands and said, "No more forks for you."
"Hey that's not fair!" I protested.
"It's not my fault you misbehaved and lost your fork privileges." Damon stated.
A shadowy figure watched the lively dinner from the depths of the forest. The moonlight shown on his white hair, and made it shine. He peered at the girl in the black dress, focusing his dark blue eyes in on her face.
"Welcome home, Scarlet, welcome home." And with that the stranger was gone.