"Lucy … I'm home!" Tristan called. Silence was her only response. "Nny … are you home yet?" More silence.
"He's not here …" The stuffed cat on the couch said.
"Oh … he must not have come back from Taco Hell yet, …" Tristan thought aloud.
The cat snickered. "Oh … he came back alright. Had an unconscious girl with him. Went down to the basement for awhile … came back with girl fully conscious and left …"
Tristan growled. "You mean he let her go?"
"Not only that … left with her. Said something about she had some explaining to do." The cat paused for a moment, as if I thought had occurred to it. "… I told you he was a threat. Why didn't you destroy him when you had the chance?"
Her arms crossed over her chest, as she paced the floor. "I tried. He's good … real good."
"So? You are better, Tristan! You've been at your trade since you were young! I should know … I've been with you the whole time."
"Yes, but Phillip … you haven't seen the way he works. He's a fighter, and he doesn't give up. He'd be difficult to destroy if not damn near impossible."
The cat laughed a high, cold laugh. "How weak you are, Tristan. Letting someone else push you around …"
Tristan stopped dead in her tracks. "Not now Phillip … please not now."
"It's true …"
Tristan growled, and snatched the small stuffed cat from the couch. "You listen to me, Phillip!" She screamed at it. "I am sick of you and your incessant bothersome meandering! I bow down to no one but myself!"
The cat laughed again. "Keep telling yourself that, Tristan. Maybe someday … it'll become the truth to you."
She grew very tired of Phillips noise. She hurled him across the room, and he grunted when he met the opposite wall with a soft thud. Panting, she plopped herself down on the couch. She'd killed twice that night, and both had put up a good fight … so she was tired and didn't care to hear anyone's bitching. Not even Phillip's. She combed her fingers through her hair; bits of it clumped together with blood, and took a deep breath. She needed to calm down. Phillip was only critical because he cared about her, right? Still, she hated it when he nagged … which seemed to occur at least twice a day. Ever since she was little, it was nag, nag, nag, nag, nag. That's right Tristan, hold the match against the curtains … they're sleeping they won't feel a thing. What's that? You don't want Mommy and Daddy to go away? You're weak if you think that you need them! You need no one but me, friend. Go on … light them! Watch the house burn into beautiful oblivion! Oh, why are you crying you pathetic little twit, it doesn't hurt them!
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Her head turned toward the door, waiting for it to open. When it did, her eyes narrowed when she saw a girl stepping through, Nny close behind her.
For the longest time, not a word was uttered. Tristan glared at the girl, obviously still very alive. Piper didn't seem too thrilled to see Tristan, either. Because she knew what she was, the product of Piper's big screw up.
She was a Guardian-less Waste Lock. A dangerous rarity. Without a Guardian to guide her, she was even more a threat than Nny was with his inexperienced one. No Guardian meant she was running around, like a stray dog, killing everyone who crossed her path, and that was dangerous. At least Piper had managed to keep Nny under minimal control, but Tristan was a different story. And unlike Nny, Tristan could easily kill Piper if she wanted to. Piper knew she'd have to be on guard twenty-four seven while she was here.
Tristan smirked, standing up from the couch and approaching like a cat ready to attack an innocent bird. "Johnny, aren't you going to introduce your friend?"
Nny looked over at Piper, then back to Tristan. "This is Piper. She's staying here for a week."
"Really? I had no idea we still had vacancies." She stopped a few inches from Piper, giving her a deadly glare of doom. "Hmm, there's probably some room in the basement for her … granted I get around to cleaning out the cadaver closet …"
"I'm warning you, Tristan …" Nny growled. "While Piper is under this roof, if you come at with so much as a butter knife … you will answer to me. She is a guest. An alive one, and I want it kept that way, understood?"
How dare he, tell her whom she can and can't kill. No matter, she smiled as sweetly as possible (even still it looked more sinister than sweet), and nodded. "Crystal clear."
Three AM. One homicidal maniac was out stalking the streets, and the other out to fulfill his Brainfreezy craving. That left Piper all alone in the scary house, sitting on the couch and flipping through the minimal channels. Cable must not have been a necessity when you got your kicks from disembowling people.
Giving up on the lack of entertainment the TV had to offer, Piper decided to take a look around. She'd probably get a better insight on what made Nny "tick" if she had a good look at his surroundings. The first place she stopped was the kitchen, where after rummaging through a few cabinets and the refrigerator, she found there wasn't very much on food in this house. If she got too bored, she'd wander down to the 24-7 and pick up a few things. They could survive without food, but she'd spent too many years with Mischa's ample supply of homemade food, and she couldn't stand to go too long without eating. (AN: No, she's not a pig … she was just raised to be a "meat and potatoes" kinda girl, that's all.)
She moved on to another spare room. It didn't look like a bedroom, and it didn't look like it really served any type of purpose. It was just … a room. There she found crates stacked almost to the ceiling, a few boxes here and there, and the occasional sharp pointy hurty thing. The only piece of furniture in the room was a desk, with piles of papers stacked on top of it and a book. Johnny's Die-ary.
She grazed her fingertips over the dilapidated cover, arguing with herself whether or not to open it. Sure, it was invasion of his privacy, but she needed to get inside his head to understand better how to sort things out. Besides, it wasn't like there was anything in there she probably didn't already know about him. She agreed with the latter thought, and began to open the book.
"It's not very nice to go through other people's belongings." She snapped the book shut and turned around. Her eyes scanned the room, but other than herself the room was empty.
"H-hello? Who said that?" She asked timidly.
"Over here." The voice said. It sounded like it was coming from the table, and she turned her head to look. Nothing but a stack of papers sat on the desk. "Good, now look down." Her eyes lowered to the floor, and she sighed at the sight of the Bub's Burger Boy.
"I'm just … researching." Piper explained, turning back to the book.
Reverend Meat scoffed. "Invading his privacy is more like it."
"I'm his Guardian … it's not like there's stuff in here I don't know about." She defended.
"Do you know of the inner workings of his mind? Weren't those things that were always supposed to be left alone?"
"Drastic times call for drastic measures." She proceeded to open the book. She glanced at a few of his earlier entries, the ones he'd made when … the thing … controlled him. Paragraph after paragraph of a spoiled mind trying to explain to itself why it's host did the horrible things he did. "Wow … I had no idea it was this bad …"
"What you're seeing is only a fraction of the horrors committed under this roof."
Piper shook her head, coming closer and closer to the more recent entries. It was then she heard the front door being unlocked. She gasped, and tossed the book back onto the desk and bolted from the room. She ran over to the couch, hopping over the back and landing in a sitting position on the seat. A fraction of a second before the door was opened, she assuming a lounge-like position and pretended that she'd just been casually flipping through channels. She glanced up to see Nny walking in, holding a Brainfreezy cup in one hand and a bloody knife in the other.
"Welcome back." She greeted, moving her feet so he could sit at the other end of the couch.
Nny hummed in response, seating himself on the couch. Piper looked from the bloody knife to his Brainfreezy cup. It didn't take a genius to figure it out. "Let me guess, one less valued employee at the 24/7?"
Johnny shook his head. "One less crony hanging out front. He was harassing people … I think he was more than deserving of a slow painful death."
At least it wasn't some poor, innocent mini-mart clerk. "I'm impressed."
"Why should you be?" Nny raised an eyebrow.
Piper smirked and looked at him. "It's an improvement."
"On what?"
"Your clarity on your mission."
"I didn't kill him to please you or your … establishment."
She sighed. Why was he so difficult? "An improvement non-the-less."
"Look, I already told you … I'm not a slave to you or those … slave-drivers you report to. I kill because I want to, not because you tell me to."
Piper's eyes narrowed. "The Guardianship isn't slave-driving, and we are the ones keeping your kind in line so I suggest you refrain from speaking ill of us."
"My kind? What, do you think that you're higher up or something? If keeping the population of assholes at a controlled level is so important, why aren't you the ones doing the hard work? We, if you must put me into some kind of category, are the ones who do all the dirty work. All you do is sit back and watch the blood flow."
Piper gritted her teeth. She tried hard to bite her tongue, but she hated it when people insulted The Guardianship. As much as she loathed them sometimes, they were everything she stood for and an insult to them was an insult to her. And she hated being insulted almost as much as Nny did, although she had a different way of dealing with insults.
"Oh, you think it's that easy? That we just sit back and watch and that's it? Well let me tell you something, waste lock." Her face was starting to redden. "Have you ever put any thought into why it is you never get caught? Huh? Because of me. And do you think it's easy, manipulating the police so that they are clueless as to what you do? That's a pretty damn difficult thing to do, y'know! It takes years of training and practice, and even then it isn't as simple as you think! And then there I was, a little fifteen year old girl who'd just lost the closest thing she ever had to a mother, having to do all this for someone like you." She spat.
His eyes narrowed into a deadly glare. "Well if you didn't want to deal with me, then why didn't you just pawn me off on someone else. If I was that troublesome to you."
"Because I couldn't. And I didn't want to! I … I thought I could handle it." She lamented. "Look, Nny … I'm sorry … I didn't mean it that way."
"Hmm, funny. That's exactly how it sounded to me." He hissed, getting up off the couch.
"Where are you going?" She called after him.
"Not that it's any of your business, but I'm going for a walk." And with that, he slipped out the door; slamming it behind him.
Piper huffed, with her arms crossed and sank into the couch. "Why to go, Piper." She scolded herself.
(AN: I hope this chapter was a little better than the last. It was definitely a lot shorter. Anyway, I may not be updating for awhile, a week at the most, because you know … Christmas and what not. Well, later folks! And don't forget … review! I'll give you nachos! P.S. – "Ever hear "Trigger Happy Jack" by Poe? If so, please tell me I am not the only one who is reminded of Nny when I hear it.)