Jhondie
I woke up a little before dawn. I normally only sleep maybe two or three hours out of any seventy-two hour period. No matter what I've done physically, I just do not sleep. So the sensation of waking after sleeping for more than six hours is a very strange sensation for me. Not to mention waking up and feeling another person with me. I'd been with a couple of guys before, but it was kid stuff, grabbing whatever you could when you could. I'd never actually spent the night with one of them.
I moved a little, and felt Justin's hand press on my back, rubbing lightly. He was still about ninety percent asleep as he muttered, "It's OK, go back to sleep." I wondered how many times I'd woken him that night. I lay my head back down, glad that he was here. He was the only person that I knew that could have handled me last night. Zack would have told me to just deal with it. None of my other friends could have handled an emotional outburst from me.
I got up from him. He didn't wake up. I could remember yelling at him to get out, but he'd stayed anyways. He knew I could hurt him. I could make him leave. It was nice to have one friend that would stick it out no matter what. Maybe he knew me well enough to not be afraid of me.
I went upstairs. Mom and Kayla were still sleeping. That was good. I wasn't ready to deal with them just yet. Maybe that was cold, but I needed a little more time for myself. I took a shower and changed my clothes. They were still asleep when I went back downstairs. The couch was empty. I listened carefully, and heard something in the kitchen.
"Hey bud, need some 411," Justin was saying into the phone. "Gang shooting yesterday," he continued. There was a pause. "I know there's a million, but this one was at a hospital. Many of those?" He listened some more, and then winced. "Man, you got pricey on me." He listened again. "No, no, I can do it, you just better have something real hot in return." The other person answered back. "How soon can you have it?" A beat. "OK, I'll call you when I got your stuff," Justin said, then hung up. He turned around, and jumped when he saw me standing there.
"You have got to stop sneaking up on people like that!" he declared. "You're going to give me a heart attack."
I almost made a joke back. But, I just couldn't get it out. I felt like there was a ball of lead in my stomach. It was just sucking all of the energy out of me.
"Who was that?" I finally asked.
"You remember that homeless guy with the Armani suit?" he asked. Like I could forget him. He was supposed to have been a banker before the Pulse, some big shot like that, but now he'd gone from a cannon to a BB gun. He wandered around, always looking for the life he'd lost. Somehow, he'd kept some of his clothes from his past life. It's weird to imagine Armani in a shopping cart, but he would have everything neatly kept in protective plastic. Everyone's got to have something to live for I thought.
"I got a hold of him, and he's going to get us some information about last night," he replied. I wasn't sure if it was the journalist or my friend jumping on this, but I really didn't care. I was just glad that Justin had all these freaks as contacts. Maybe I shouldn't think of them as freaks. Given my history, I'd be their queen.
"What does he want?" I asked.
"He'll give me the information in the nice hotel where he'll be spending the night." Justin named the hotel, and I whistled low. That was not a cheap place.
"Just one night?"
"He doesn't know how much it's worth to me." I wasn't sure why I got fluttery hearing him say that.
"I could probably take care of the reservation," I said, trying to get my mind back in focus. Breaking and entering a building wasn't terribly different from a computer. You just had to know where and how to look.
He smiled. "I thought you could. You know they have a lot of frequent travelers there. It's one of the few nice hotels left in this area."
I smiled back. It was weird how we would get on the same mental tracks. "Most of them have their credit cards on file too." It wasn't really stealing. OK, so it was, but the person could protest the charge, and the hotel would lose one night's rent. It was a fair trade for me to find out who killed my father. Maybe having a Manticore spin on my scruples was a good thing at times.
We stood there a little awkwardly for a moment, neither of us sure what to say.
"Well," he finally said. "I probably should get home, and get cleaned up and everything. I'll come over later on if that's okay with you."
I nodded. That would be more than okay. I knew what we'd be doing today, and it would be nice to have some support when we got back from the funeral home. On impulse I went to him and hugged him. He hesitated, and then hugged me back.
"Thank you for everything," I said, feeling teary again. I didn't have to say anything else. He gave me a little squeeze.
"Anytime, " he replied.