"Boss, she went with Graham." A deep voice crackled through the phone.
"Sorry, can you repeat that?" Mason gripped his brandy glass. "And when you say it again, it better be what I want to hear."
"Ok boss, 'It better be what I want to hear.'"
Mason slammed his head onto his desk. Idiots! I'm surrounded by idiots.
"I meant," he said through gritted teeth. " that I wanted to hear that you did not let some idiot's disguise fool you."
"Ok boss, 'I did not let some idiot's disguise fool you.'"
This is my fault for hiring brawn over brains, Mason thought. He felt like clawing his skin from his face to relieve his anger.
"Listen to me, and I will say this slowly so your empty space you call a brain can understand, do you think that Will Graham, a boy who has recently been accused of being attracted to a man in this backward town and now has disappeared off of the map, would think 'oh, let me keep my promise to this random girl, who I have never gone to a lesson with, and help her out.'" He raised his voice in a mocking pitch.
"Uhhhh…is not the right answer?"
"Well done. A prize for the idiot in the corner." Mason was prepared to throw his phone out of the window, but even Father would not buy a third one that week.
He leaned forward and slapped his hand on the desk. The goon on the other line gave an audible gasp. "Now, you absolute bedpan of a human, you will follow her and document what is going on. NOW!"
XXX
Alana followed Margot up a deserted path. She consistently looked back, as if she was followed. There was a feeling that a serial killer was about to pop out from behind the trees.
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere safe; away from prying eyes."
"Prying eyes?" Alana asked, just as her foot struck a rogue root. Her arms stretched out, ready to strike the ground. She closed her eyes in anticipation of her face smashing into the ground…but it did not come.
An eye opened to see Margot's arm outstretched; she grabbed Alana's arm before she fell headfirst. Alana looked up to meet her eyes with Margot's. For a second, there was a spark in both Alana's and Margot's stomachs.
"Uh, be careful…" Margot quickly dropped her hands. She turned to face the path again. "It can be quite difficult to traverse."
Alana took a breath in and followed Margot. They were silent for a few minutes before Margot suddenly took a turn off the path into the thick foliage. She picked up speed and ran in a zig-zagging direction.
This took Alana by surprise but she took off after the younger girl. She started to run out of breath, falling behind with each step.
"Wait…Up…" Alana rested her weight on a nearby tree, but Margot was already gone. With her back against the bark, she slid down to the ground.
That girl…that girl has some serious problems. What is the deal with her?
She rested the back of her head on the rough bark and looked up into the sky. The clouds were merging into a grey cover. Not even the golden rays of the sun filtered through the canopy of trees. It was going to rain.
Alana knew that she could not stay if she wanted to be dry. Either she follows the general direction of Margot, or she goes home. The problem with the latter is that she had no idea where she was. By the time she found the road, she would have been drenched.
As these thoughts ran through her mind, there was a sound of footsteps crunching through the fallen autumn leaves.
Alana noticed a rustling in the bushes. A nervous shock ran through her body and she jumped to her feet. Was this what Margot was running away from? She backed away before she felt an arm gripping her arm and yanked her behind a giant white oak. Her body slammed into a soft body, chest to chest.
Margot put her fingers to her lips. Alana nodded, even though the questions bubble up to her mouth. What the fuck is going on!?
The rustling of the leaves stopped just by the oak. Through the think clothes, Alana felt the rapid pulse of Margot. Margot squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath.
"Boss," a gruff voice said. Alana recognised it as one of the lunatics who follow Mason. "I cannot find them."
"Then I suggest you look further, you nimrod! Margot must not have gone far, especially since she is dragging along that scrawny bitch along with her," a distant voice emanated from the phone in the goon's hand.
"Yes, boss!" The phone dropped away from the goon's ear. He swiped his forefinger across the screen. With this action, there was a defeated sigh sighed. "I am starting to think that he is not a very nice person."
Footsteps receded into the distance and Margot breathed a sigh of relief. Her muscles relax and slumped down the tree.
"Margot? What is going on?" Alana said after a few seconds of silence. "What is this," she waved her hands around her, "all about. I am not going a step further until I get an answer!"
She crossed her arms and her eyebrow raised, daring Margot to go against her wishes. Margot looked down, pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.
"My brother… is a psychopath. And that is a nice way of putting it."
"We all knew that…" Alana began.
"No, you do not know that!" Margot snapped. "You've only seen a small section of the hell that he can create; barely a minuscule of power has been revealed to the rest of the town. I know, though."
Margot leant her head against the bark; eyes closed to shield Alana from seeing the pain of her experiences. She brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly.
Alana sat next to the girl, quietly and without too much commotion. Cold water from the soil seeped into the seat of her pants. Tiny bites from the icy wind nipped through her thin shirt onto her sensitive skin. Spittle of water splattered onto her face: the rain was not far behind.
"My father, well he was ecstatic for an older son." Margot continued, either unaware of the change of the weather or ignoring it. "That is all he wanted: a man to take over the business. And although he does not want to acknowledge it, he is not going to get a man from me. He wants to preserve the legacy of the company, and if that means turning a blind eye to whatever demented stuff Mason does, then that is what he will do."
Alana noticed the speed of speech when she mentioned that Mr Verger was not going to get a man from Margot.
Does that mean what I think it means…
"And that is what happens each day of my life. I wake up with his face at the edge of my bed. He holds a wet cloth in one hand and duct tape in the other hand, and always that disgusting grin…"
Tears fell down her cheek and dropped onto her knees. She was shaking, but not of the freezing weather, or the incoming rain, but something out of trauma.
Alana instinctively leant into Margot and gave her a tight hug. It was as if she was attempting to shield the younger girl's grief.
She knew that Mason was insane. That was clear from the first moment he swung his hips down the halls of CHS. But she did not realise that it went this deep…this dark.
"Shhh," Alana chided as she wrapped her arms tightly around the younger girl. "You do not have to tell me more."
XXX
A shout of thunder boomed across the sky as Margot allowed herself to wail in the comforting arms of Alana Bloom.
Hurt had been building up in her soul for so long that she never knew if it could be released at all. Margot just assumed that this secret would solidify around her heart and never be revealed beyond the grave Mason would dig for her.
She squeezed Alana with a hug that she had only felt as a child. Her mother used to give comforting hugs like this when Mason pushed her off of the wall or used a letter opener to scar her skin. Of course. this was before her mother died. Cancer it was, and once her spirit left the realm, Mason only got worse. Mother was the only reason Mason held back, but now…now he had free reign on her life and her body.
Raindrops fell freely like her tears. Margot felt the warm embrace leave her body. She looked up to see Alana bounding to her feet and a hand offered in her direction.
"I hope where you were taking me has a roof."
XXX
The bird-watching hideout was not much further than the spot by the tree. It was draughty and covered in spiderwebs, but the rickety wooden roof was strong enough to keep them out of the rain for the time being.
Alana quietly sat next to her new friend and confidant. She glanced in Margot's direction to see the girl's stern face. Her eyes were glued to the empty forest ahead of her.
"Margot," Alana began, a little hesitant about where to begin with the sensitive question. "Why haven't you gone to the police?"
Margot gave a rueful snort. "Yeah, and what exactly would a small-town police department under my father's thumb gonna do about it? They would shrug it off and tell me to stop being hysterical. My father would take me home and give me a lecture about how I needed to stop sabotaging my brother's prospects.
"One day, though, when the father finally dies, I can be who I am. I can get away from this hell. I could change my name, move to a small farming town and find the girl of my dreams…"
Margot turned red when she realised what she said.
"I mean," she stuttered, "I meant a horse, of course. That is what I meant…" She looked away from Alana and continued to mumble on about horses.
Alana smiled as she reached over to clasp Margot's hand. She did not know what she was doing, but it felt right. Margot stopped in her rant and looked down to see slender fingers covering her own. Her eyes raised to meet Alana's, alarmed at the sudden warmth on frozen skin.
Fingers linked with fingers; hearts beat as one.
Alana's fingers began to have a mind of their own: her thumb caressed the back of Margot's hand.
Margot's cheek burned bright within the cold. Alana's stomach tumbled as she lost herself in the other's eyes.
She had not felt this tumbled feeling in her stomach ever since she was first kissed by Hannibal. Butterflies are what is usually a metaphor, but it did not do justice to what she felt at that moment.
A magnet pulled her closer to Margot. Her eyes flickered from glistening eyes to lips, then back to eyes.
An inch closer.
Another inch.
Eyes closed.
Alana could feel the cool breath from Margot's lips. Margot's right hand raised to a hot cheek.
Lips brushed lips. Soft kisses dotted each other's lips, and hands snaked across each other's back.
They closed the gap between them to feel each other's soaking bodies. The weather, the people, the hideout…that disappeared from view while they were in each other's arms. That proved to be an exhilarating experience for them, and just as exhilarating for poor Derrick Bradberry, aka Dewy, who stumbled into the birdhouse for shelter from the rain.