AS: Sorry for the long wait. I hope this chapter comes off OK. Thanks for my reviews too, by the way!
This is dedicated to my Obsession Whores: Becky and Hannah, who I don't think read this but are still my obsession whores and helped me through this chapter. Beckyin maths and Hannah whilst watching Becky have a panic attack in textiles!
Enjoy...
REI'S POV
"Why do people do that?" Max cried, waving a hand at the screen. He was bouncing up and down on the sofa in agitation, "I mean, come on, you hear a bump in the night and you wander around in your bed clothes trying to find it! How ridiculous can you be!...Oh and look, now she's been grabbed, well, that's a surprise. Why do they do that!"
Kai, from where he is sat on the armchair, looked amused, "It's a film, Max. Calm down,"
Max grins, "Hehe. Sorry. They're still stupid,"
He leans back in the sofa. Since this is the only raised voice I've heard in a while, I actually paid attention to what Max was saying, but for the rest of today I've been wandering around like a little ghost. Believe me, Max has told me often us. Kai even mentioned it once.
"Are you tired or something Rei?" Max asked me as the dumb leading lady on the screen began to run through the house in her ridiculously short nightie screaming. Max's right, why do they insist on walking into the evil thing's hands?
"What? No, I'm fine,"
"You're really spaced out,"
"Yeah, well…"
I realised they were both waiting for me to come up with an excuse, "Nothing," I grumble, sinking lower in my place.
"Ugh. Nasty monster," Max commented when the thing was finally brought into the light, "How did they get the pus to dribble like that when it moved?" pause, "Oh, you know what it looks like? That yoghurt we found in the back of the fridge Kai,"I was pretty gobsmacked by that. I could imagine Judy's fridge being just like my Mum's. I.e. impeccable.
"A nasty yoghurt?"
"Yeah! It was gross. We had to pick it up with a spatula,"
There was another pause, in which the stupid lady was being mauled to death by the pus-ball.
"Oh, that reminds me! My guitar teacher could really do with that guitar of yours Rei, if you're still selling it. He's teaching kids who don't have their own and he's been cut down to just two,"
I blinked, "Max, how did that pus thing killing that woman make you think about guitars?"
"I don't know. It just did. Probably cos the thing's head kinda look like the body of a guitar,"
I stare at the screen, "Maybe,"
"Anyway, is it still up for sale?"
"Um…yeah. Sure,"
"Cool. If you bring it to school tomorrow I'll pick it up at the end of the day and take it to my lesson,"
"Sure,"
NORMAL POV
Rei rushed into his room at about seven o' clock. His Mum followed him, asking animatedly about his day, not seeming to notice her son's urgency.
"Did you have a good time?"
"Hm?"
"Did you have a good time?"
"Oh, yeah. Great,"
"What did you do?"
"Watch a few horror movies,"
She shook her head and tutted with a smile, "I don't know why you boys like those awful movies so much!"
Rei eventually found what was looking forward to. He wrapped his fingers slowly around the cool neck part of his guitar case.
"You alright honey?"
"Yeah, I'm fine,"
"Well, dinner will be ready in an hour,"
"OK,"
She left, shutting the door behind her. Rei pulled the guitar slowly from the depths of his cupboard. There was a bugle in it's bottom part, and when he zipped it open the box of photographs fell out. Rei gritted his teeth, snatched them up and slammed them into her desk drawer. The minute he had had dinner he was going to bury the box in the garden, he swore to himself. Just like he had done the last week or two. He slid his guitar from its' case and onto his lap.
'OK,' he thought, slowly, 'I can do this. Just put it back in the case and put it by your school bag. All you have to do is take it into school tomorrow, give it to Max, then it's not your problem anymore. It's not yours. You're doing what you wanted to do a long time ago,'
Rei groaned and delicately slid the guitar back in the case. Why did everything have to be so hard?
'Why I can't I just, for once, grow a spine?' he put the guitar down next to his school bag, 'On second thoughts that would be a bad idea. Morgan would just break it into two,'
After a while, the idea of Morgan breaking something got him into the train of thought that included Tyson. Who the hell was that kid? How did he know Morgan? Oh God he was sick of thinking about it.
After dinner, just like he promised himself he would, Rei went down to the bottom of the garden. He knelt on the cold earth and stared at it for a while. He clutched the garden trowel he had found in his left hand and dug it into the earth. But that was as far as he got. An hour later he was sat in his room staring out into the garden, burning holes into the bush he had hidden the photographs in with his intense stare.
Max's blonde head appeared around the doorframe. Kai looked up from his book.
"Mars Bars or Milk Ways?"
"Pardon?"
"Do you want some Mars Bars or a Milky Ways?" Max waggled the phone he was holding in his hand, "Mum's ringing from the gas station and she's getting us something since we ran out of chocolate. So what do you want, some Mars Bars or some Milky Ways. It's all they've got left,"
"Oh. Mars Bars,"
"Ok,"
Max put the phone back to his ear, "Mum, Kai wants Mars Bars…yeah, sure…"
The sound of Max conversing moved off down the corridor and downstairs. Kai sat back in his chair, and slipped the newspaper article out from under his book that he had been reading earlier. It was the missing person's profile from earlier. There was something about the boy in the picture he was sure he recognised. He knew he hadn't seen the guy in the flesh, or he would have remembered him for sure. He closed his book and put his mind to finding out where he had seen this Morgan Demsey before. And eventually, it clicked.
"Those photographs," he breathed. Morgan! This Morgan guy, was the Morgan guy Rei had told him about! He couldn't believe what an idiot he had been! Why hadn't the name Morgan clicked in his head the second time he heard it! The missing boy was the boythat Rei knew. Kai shook his head. He'd told Max about the Morgan guy too. So how did both of them miss the connection? Kicking himself inwardly, he left his room to find Max.
"Max,"
"Yup?"
"The guy in the missing person's profile,"
"Um…oh yeah. What about him?"
"He's Morgan,"
"Yeah, I know. It said his name,"
"No, Max. It's Morgan. As in the Morgan I told you about. The one I told you not to talk about in front of Rei or get involved in unless he asked us to?"
"Oh yeah! I remember,"
"Rei said that Morgan's got his cousin. That he could be coming back to punish Rei. I told you not to get involved and I promised myself I wouldn't get involved too but maybe…now, we should,"
Max blinked, "Did someone give you happy pills or something Kai, that's more than you've said in a week,"
Kai ignored the comment and took in the face staring back at him from the newspaper clipping.
"We shouldn't have ignored it," he said under his breath.
"Yeah," Max mumbled, switching off the TV, "I mean. It's big. And we knew about it. I suppose we shouldn't have left Rei to hide from it on his own,"
Kai shook his head. Why did he think it was better to let Rei heal on his own? It was obvious Morgan really was coming at Rei from all directions. How could Rei stand that on his own?
"So what do we do? We know next to nothing about this guy. Apart from the fact he's missing. And he's after Rei,"
Kai nodded. He put down the clipping. Max thought for a long moment before getting up and grabbing his jacket.
"Max-"
"Come on. We're going to see Rei,"
"We can't,"
"Why not? We'll leave a note for Mum, saying that we've gone to a friend's house. She won't mind. We've got a key to lock the door. Come on,"
Kai, slightly baffled at Max's sudden clear way of thinking, followed Max out of the door.
"Hello?"
"Um…hi. Can we talk to Rei, please?"
"He's gone out. He said…," the woman at the door put her hand on her hip and surveyed the two boys stood huddled in the rain.
"You two are Max and Kai, aren't you?"
Max nodded mutely. She shook her head, "I don't believe this. Rei said he was going over to your house. Something about one of you not understanding a history paper that needed to be in for tomorrow. I…I don't believe him!"
"What's going on?" a voice floated from behind the Rei's mother.
"Shing, Rei's gone missing,"
"What?"
A face appeared around the doorway.
"Do you boys want to come in, you're soaked through,"
"No, we're good. Thank you," Max gabbled, turning to walk away, "Thanks anyway Mrs Kon!"
"Where are you going!-"
A few minutes down the road, Kai spoke up over the wind, "Max why did we just walk away from them?"
"Well…well what use was it staying there? They obviously have no idea where Rei's gone. They'd probably blame us too," Max shrugged further into his jacket. He briefly noticed Kai wasn't wearing them, although he knew very well his brother seemed almost immune to temperature change.
"We should try the park," Max thought out-loud.
"Why would he go to the park?"
"To think,"
"In the rain?"
Max sighed in frustration, "Then where did he go? Um…where would you go, Kai, if you'd just told Mum that you were staying at someone else's house, but weren't really?"
Kai frowned, "I'm not telling you where I go. But I think I know where Rei's gone,"
"What, really? Where? Why can't you tell me where you go? Where do you go?"
"Just follow me Max,"
Max trotted along after Kai as he strode off, "It's not anywhere shady is it? I thought you said that you went to the park! Where do you really go Kai?"
Kai ignored him. He continued to ignore him for the rest of the trip, even though Max's doubts were beginning to filter through, "Maybe I was a little adventurous suggesting this,"
"Why?"
"Kai; it's the docks. It's full of fighting clubs. And it smells like dead fish and other…stuff,"
"The minute we find Rei we'll get out of here,"
"Are you sure he'll be in one of these?"
"Very sure,"
"Morgan,"
Morgan turned his head to look over his shoulder. Some scrawny kid he vaguely remembered meeting last week was stood behind him, scratching his elbow.
"What?"
"You know that guy we had to look out for? He's just walked in. Right now,"
Morgan turned fully. He raised his eyebrows. "Oh, really?" he laughed, "I can't believe he's back for more. After last time. Well, lets go and say hello then. Where is he?"
"By the bar. Looking pretty depressed if you ask me,"
"I didn't ask you, but thank you," Morgan replied smoothly, brushing past him.
Leaving the younger boy behind, Morgan moved through the crowd towards the bar. The young men gave little respect to the teenager in their midst and ignored him. So it was helpful that Morgan's piercing glare was a good crowd-parter. After a few seconds searching, Morgan found who he wanted. He moved slowly up behind them. The fight at the ring was beginning to reach it's pique. The crowd roared as a beefy man with an overhanging brow slammed a poor young guy down onto the floor. Morgan took his chance and moved forward, sliding his hand around his target's mouth and pulling him backwards off the stool. He used his elbows to pin the boy's arms to his sides.
Peters was waiting by the door, grinning like the maniac Morgan appreciated him being. You couldn't have entirely sane runaways on your side or they'd get ethical. Morgan didn't exactly like ethics. It's not like anyone actually paid attention to them. He threw the boy in his arms to the floor.
"Morgan, I-"
"Shut up," Morgan said, primly. He knelt down to his level, "Believe me, you don't have to say a thing,"
Kai watched Max talk to the barman from his post at the door. He didn't particularly like being here, just like Max. It was too crowded and noisy for his taste. Full of egotistic megalomaniacs. Kai thought briefly that if he hadn't been adopted by the Tate's he could have easily gone down this road.
"Kai!" Max tripped up in front of him, hair in his eyes. He swiped it away hurriedly, "The barman said he saw some kid in here soaked through. Said he couldn't get a look at his face because it was too dark where he was sitting. But…I mean, that could be him, right. I can imagine Rei walking through torrential rain when he's depressed,"
"I don't know. Where did he go?"
"Barman said he just suddenly disappeared. Did you ask anyone about Morgan?"
"I heard someone talking about him. He said he was in the back,"
"You think we should…go and see him?"
"Go and see him? And do what?"
"I don't know. Tell him to leave Rei alone,"
"I doubt that'll work, Max,"
Max sighed, "Well. If Rei's not here, we're going to have to go. And wait until morning,"
"OK," Kai resented. Together they shunned their way through the crowd. As they passed the bar again, their senses were flooded with an overpowering smell of cigarette smoke and dry laughter, "Ha-ha, he's going to screw him up good. Can't wait to see it,"
Kai paused, watching the pair out of the corner of his eye. He was aware Max had stopped and was watching him carefully, trying to figure out what he was doing.
"Where's he doing it?"
"Out in the back. No-one's going to hear someone making a noise back there. You know he's been chasing that guy for, like, months," the first drawled. He was probably about twenty one, with an overhanging brow and broad shoulders, his thick fingers making his cigarette look like a twig in comparison. A bruise cast a shadow over his right eye. Kai mused that he could have easily been a regular fighter here.
"That kid's a complete psycho. He's, what, fifteen? Sixteen?"
"Like you can talk Mitch. You were knifing people when you were thirteen!" the second laughed. The other shrugged and sniffed heavily, stubbing his cigarette out.
"Whatever man, I was never that crazy,"
A horrible sense of nausea and adrenaline gripped Kai's stomach.
"There's nothing to be said. I believe you've said everything to me in the past,"
One of the handful of Morgan's friends surrounding them grabbed his shoulders and lifted him to his feet, pinning a hand over his mouth. Wide eyes stared out over the top of the beefy hand, the only sound the muted, thrumming beats from the bar and the harsh panting.
"You've caused me enough trouble, you know. And I don't like having my time wasted," he came very close and grabbed a fistful of dark hair, "You always called me a complete psycho, didn't you? Behind my back. Even to my face. A lot after you left. I also don't like being called names,"
He lunged his hand forward, the sharp blade concealed in his palm driving home. Morgan smiled an eerie, small smile. He slid the blade out and watched the eyes narrow in pain. Peters flung the half-limp body onto the concrete. Morgan stood back to watch, his smile wide and gleeful.
"Oh shit,"
Morgan frowned and turned to look over his shoulder, "Who the hell let them in?"
Max swallowed heavily, staring at the blood. He'd gone very pale.
Morgan scoffed, "Great security guys," he muttered, shouldering past Peters, brandishing the knife again.
A:S: if you're gonna shoot me don't shoot to kill, cos the next chapter is gonna come up soon!
