Black
A soft rumbling drags me back to wakefulness but it’s a real struggle to crack open my eyes. The rumbling stops and all I want to do is sink back down into sleep again but something tugs at my conscience. Something important. I start to lose the battle again, letting go and drifting off but that rumble starts up again and my tired, foggy brain sluggishly makes the connection…garage door. The rumble is a garage door opening and then closing again. It takes a few seconds but then my brain fires away and my hand lashes out to where Blue should be but all it hits is a piece of paper. Fuck! The owners must have come back early. We need to get out of here!
I roll to the side and shove at my brothers to wake them up.
“Get up! Get up! We have to go.”
They both bounce up immediately. Years of sleeping on the edge, being ready to move and dodge away from the danger our druggie parents were is ingrained and most likely will never leave us.
“What’s happening?” Green asks as he looks around frantically.
“Where’s Blue?” Red yells.
His eyes zero in on the paper that rests on the pillow I was just sleeping on. He snatches it up as I drag on my clothes.
“Aww fuck. You have got to be kidding me.” He curses out in a pissed-off tone and then holds the paper out to me with a furious expression. I snatch it from his hand leaving my jeans unbuttoned and read the words that have rage filling me.
Hey guys,
Had a great time. REALLY enjoyed all the dick but I’ve got to jet.
Gig’s over and I need to move on.
Don’t leave the room without your masks on. The cameras are now live.
Thanks for the treats, sorry about the trick
Happy Halloween!
Blue
The paper drops from my hand and I bark, “Search the house. She might not have left yet.”
I know it’s fruitless. I know she’s gone but I need to check just in case. That rumble that woke me up was her clearing out. Red goes down the stairs, Green starts searching the rooms on this floor and I climb the stairs to the third floor.
What I find has my jaw dropping and me reevaluating every moment, every word that came out of Blue’s mouth. The owner’s office is trashed and there’s a huge painting swung away from the wall with a safe door wide open showing that it’s been cleared out. Blue did this. She was running a heist of her own and we barged right into the middle of it.
My gaze takes in the trashed office again but this time I look closer and realize it’s not trashed, it’s papered. I move in closer for a better look. Every wall, all the floor space. Every piece of furniture is papered with…fuck…it’s papered with obituaries.
Pictures of people and tributes of their lives. Old, young, adult, children. Everywhere. Dozens, hundreds.
My eyes lift to the dripping paint on the only spot not papered over, the wall behind the huge glass desk.
YOUR GREED KILLED THEM ALL
Underneath the red-painted words is a picture of a plastic-looking couple smiling for the camera. It’s held to the wall by a letter opener stabbed through the middle of it and the red paint has dripped over it making it look like blood is running over them.
Damn, that’s fucking savage.
Green and Red burst into the room and curse.
“What the fuck is this?” Green asks in surprise but it’s Red’s words that have my head whipping in his direction.
“She cleaned us out, guys. Well…almost.”
I clench my teeth and spit out, “What does almost mean?”
He holds up three stacks of cash.
“This is all that she left.
It’s only a fraction of what we had taken from that asshole tonight. I slowly turn away and scan the office again, marveling at how easily she sucked us in and played us. Innocent bystander? Wrong place at the wrong time? She deserves better?
A smile starts to form and then a chuckle breaks free at how good she is at the game. This… this changes everything. Fucking everything, because Blue, she’s fucking perfect for us and she just kicked the door open on it.
“What are we going to do?” Red asks.
I bark another laugh and turn my back on the mess she left. I meet my brothers’ gazes and start nodding.
“We find her.”
To be continued…