CHAPTER 25 #3
And what have you gotten yourself involved in Misfit?
For one awful moment, the room felt dangerous again. Not because of the broken glass or the bruised man groaning on the floor, but because I could feel the presence of a life I wasn’t supposed to see, and I was standing right in it.
I was still trying to figure out if what I’d just seen really happened; it wouldn’t have been the first time my mind played taunting tricks on me.
Manic's eyes lingered on Misfit for a while longer, as if they were having a silent conversation, when one of the men arrived, holding two Manila envelopes and accompanied by a relaxed smile.
“This one is yours, every penny plus a little extra for the inconvenience.” Holding it between two fingers towards Manic, she snatched it from his hand, tearing open her envelope, accessing the cash like it was a party favour.
“Pleasure as always, Mack. Until next time.”
She gave a final flick of her eyes between Misfit and me before heading for the door, glancing back at her.
“Give me a call so we can talk work,” followed by a quick wink, allowing the heavy door to slam behind her. The tension evaporated instantly, but my chest still felt tight. My skin was hot with the adrenaline that had nowhere to go now.
Misfit leaned back against the wall, casual again, or at least trying to be. Cigarette lit, smoke curling around her. Meanwhile, I was still standing stiff, my mind racing through all the things I wasn’t supposed to understand.
I was the outsider. The observer who wasn’t supposed to be here, and it was painfully obvious.
I turned to Misfit, but she didn’t look at me.
I could feel the weight of her awareness, as if she knew I was staring; knew I was unravelling with curiosity and didn’t want to deal with it yet.
And honestly? I wasn’t sure I could even form the questions I wanted to ask.
Mack’s voice cut through my spiralling thoughts like a blade. He was laughing as Jay stumbled over, looking like a man halfway through a murder scene. His throat was blotched with bruises, and the way he coughed sounded like something dying.
And Mack? He just kept grinning.
“Well, you deserved everything you got. Fancy gambling away the money before we’d even settled on a buyer, you dumb fuck! Lucky, I did find someone, isn’t it? 'Cause I reckon you’d be mince if I didn’t," he said, like this was all hilarious. Jay spat blood to the floor,
“She wasn’t supposed to be coming to collect for another few days! And why would you let her nearly fucking kill me, knowing full well you’d been paid?”
Mack’s laughter settled slightly, “'Cause it’s funny.”
Jay whispered from behind him, still rubbing his throat, “Prick.”
Then, just like that, Mack turned to Misfit, “Anyway, now that everything’s cleared up, here.” He casually handed the other envelope to her, and she took it, shoving it into her back pocket.
“Thanks.”
His eyes fell on me, as if he now remembered I was a person. “Sorry about all that. I’m Mack, and this idiot is Jay.” He extended a hand toward me. I stared at it for a second too long. But eventually I reached out, more from reflex than intent. My grip was steady, but my thoughts were far from it.
“So, you got a name, kid?” he asked, after a pause. His eyes flicked between me and Misfit. I couldn’t get my mouth to work; it was like my brain was buffering. The ring of death constantly circling over my ability to speak.
I didn’t belong here. My dealings were crack heads and perverts. Not this. It wasn’t just back-alley deals or shady people. This was something bigger than me.
Misfit stepped in before I could embarrass myself further. “It’s Screech.”
He gave a brief nod followed by an awkward grin before his sights returned back to Misfit.
“So, Misfit, how are things with you and Omen?”
My head snapped in her direction, brows furrowed at the mention of a name I hadn’t heard before. The shift in her expression alerted something in me; her eyes widened the instant Mack mentioned the name. Who the fuck was Omen?
The urgency of her retort told me it was yet another part of her life she didn’t want me to know about.
Was she seeing someone? Slipping off to see some other guy on the nights she wasn’t all soft breaths and curves at my side.
“Actually, I really need to get going.”
I kept flicking my gaze between Mack and Misfit, waiting for something. A clue, a glance, a slip. Something to tell me what the hell was going on, but all I got was tension.
Misfit’s hand tapped my arm quickly and nervously before she moved toward the door. I followed because I had no better option. Should I ask in front of everyone? Try to understand what just happened while Mack grinned like a con artist and Jay coughed up blood in the corner? No. Not now.
The walk to the front of the shop felt heavy, like trudging through unseen mud. My hands stayed deep in my jacket pockets, fists clenched. I kept my gaze on the ground, not trusting my face not to reveal how fast my mind was racing.
Every moment replayed: Manic’s voice, her look as if I were a child with a bomb, the word 'veil' sinking like a coin into water. Misfit’s panic. Her silence. The quiet exchange with Mack, probably about the next job. Yet… she remained silent.
Myra gave a chirpy goodbye as we passed, and for a second, I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and ask, what the fuck was that back there? What am I not seeing? What am I not being told?
But I didn’t. I just followed Misfit out the door like a good little shadow.
Outside I stopped next to her, waiting. Maybe hoping she would start with an explanation, but she didn’t.
I moved to the car, unlocked it, and slid in.
But I didn’t start it. I didn’t even reach for the key.
I just stared straight ahead, hands on the wheel, like maybe I’d figure out what just happened if I stared long enough.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her still standing there.
She didn’t leave, just hesitant to face the upcoming questions that wanted to fall from my face.
But if I did ask, I didn’t know what worried me more, the answer, or the way she might lie to keep it from me. Karma's a bitch, I guess.
After a beat, she climbed into the car, as if nothing had happened. As if we hadn’t just witnessed someone do something impossible. She didn’t speak, and neither did I at first.
I kept my eyes scanning the street, trying to anchor myself in something normal—streetlights, potholes, anything that made sense. I turned to her slowly, and she met my gaze with that unreadable look.
“What was that Misfit?”
“What was what?” Acting oblivious to my concern.
“I just saw a woman … one-handed pick up a guy by his throat … like it was nothing, what the fuck?”
All she could muster was a feeble shrug, “She works out.”
I scoffed, dry and sharp. It wasn’t even funny, but the absurdity twisted something in me. “She works out. Fuck off Misfit.”
I was losing my grip on calm, “That’s not working out. That’s … something else.”
She tried again, her voice too flat, too forced. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s drugs.”
More excuses. More scraps of half-truths flung at me like breadcrumbs, and suddenly it was all too clear: she had a script. Maybe always had.
My gaze lingered on her while I processed, “And I suppose the red eyes were drugs as well?” A stupid comment, but one I knew showed I wasn’t buying what she was trying to sell me.
“No, don’t be stupid. She likes to wear weird contacts.” She was quick, I’ll give her that. But not fast enough to mention how they changed fucking colour.
“That was not contacts,” my eyes wide, eyebrows raised at the undeniable fact.
She snapped, “Well, what was it then Screech? Since you know more than I do. Go on.” She turned it around on me with such precision I stalled.
The worst part was that I had no answer.
Apart from Manic, another name kept running rings around my mind.
I didn’t want to admit that it tugged on some strange jealousy within me.
“Who’s Omen? —”
“No one.”
“Are you seeing someone?” I asked, desperately disguising the fact that I didn’t want it to be true.
She looked surprised by the question, her brows raising as she locked eyes with me. “What? No.”
“Then why would he ask like that? ‘How are things with you and Omen?’”
I mean, if she were, I’d rather know. It wouldn’t be the first time I had been kept a dirty little secret. Just didn’t expect it from her. But after today, did I really know anything about her? Or just the parts she wanted me to see.
Her hands ran through her hair, my gaze following the motion, catching her grip tighten on the strands. “It’s complicated, alright.”
“Complicated?” I scoffed, rolling my eyes as I shifted my sight back towards the empty street.
Only to follow it with that fucking line.
“Do you know what? Forget it; I’ll walk.
” And just like that, the car door slammed, and she was gone.
For a moment, I just sat there, frozen. Then I opened my own door and followed, a storm of emotions burning within me.
My footsteps were fast and loud. I wasn’t letting her disappear without explaining this bullshit.
“Misfit, you’re not walking away from me,” I said, catching up. “I know you’re lying. You need to tell me what the fuck all this is.”
She spun, sharp, stopping short. “Oh, do I? You mean like you so freely tell me everything about your work?”
That hit harder than I wanted to admit.
“I don’t owe you anything when you can’t even tell me the truth.” Her voice grew colder with every word, calm and precise, like a surgeon dissecting my trust.
She gestured to my car, “Your money? That fancy fucking car?” I couldn’t find the words. She kept going, driving her point home with that bitter smirk, mocking my grasp on the altered reality I'd just been thrown into.
“I didn’t have to bring you here. And as for Manic, I’ve told you what I’ve told you, take it or leave it.
Or you can always go around telling everyone you saw a freakishly strong woman with glowing red eyes.
Then let’s see who’s chewing their way out of a padded cell.
” By the time she stepped forward, closing the distance, my heart was pounding loud enough to hear in my ears.
“It was nothing,” she said. “Whatever you thought you saw wasn’t it.”
But I had seen it. I wasn’t going crazy, fighting against my own defiance to stand my ground against her blatant lies. She turned from me, taking a few purposeful steps.
“And this Omen—”
“Oh my god!” spinning on the spot, irritably gripping her hair. “I am constantly with you.”
I closed the distance, the unanswered questions burning between us.
“Except when you’re not. You disappear, all the time.”
“And so do you! Why do you fucking care?”
She stared at me, her eyes still, and for a moment, I saw something flicker. She regretted involving me in the first place.
“I’ll see you around, Screech.”
And then she was gone again. I stood there, not moving, hands curled into fists at my sides. I felt… heavy. Not just with frustration, or even betrayal, but disappointment.
Returning to the car, my body slumped into the leather seat, head lolling back in defeat. My eyes glance to the now-empty seat beside me.
Well done, Screech. Should have kept your mouth shut. An internal battle set off as my brows creased. I knew what I saw. My hand reached for the key, igniting the engine, speeding off down the road in pure vexation at what had just taken place.
Fuck her, I can imagine that she will soon enough show up acting like nothing happened. I just hated the feeling that sat in my throat that I had probably just shoved her further into the arms of this ‘Omen’.
The silence in the car was thick as I drove back. My hands were clenching the wheel too hard, knuckles pale under the dashboard lights. Every second of that fucked-up meeting replayed behind my eyes like a glitching tape I couldn’t eject.
I almost missed the turn-off to the flat. Didn’t even notice until the tires bumped the curb. Swearing under my breath. I threw it into reverse and parked with a rough jerk.
I couldn’t sit still. The flat felt too quiet. I paced from one end of the room to the other, then again, and again.
Music didn’t help.
Surprisingly, alcohol didn’t help either.
I stared at my phone, considered texting her, but I refrained.
Instead, I grabbed my jacket and left again.
I ended up outside Selene’s. She welcomed me in with no hesitation.
Let her lips distract me. But even when her hands found mine, even when she dragged me to the bedroom, all I could see were red eyes.
I didn’t sleep that night. Just sat on the doorstep with a cigarette burning between my fingers and a bottle of something stronger at my feet. I tried to convince myself that I hadn’t seen what I saw. I failed.
The next night, I went looking for a distraction again. Found it in the form of a model type, statuesque, barely talked, just smirked a lot. She came back to mine and stripped before I even offered a drink. I should’ve been into it. She was textbook perfect.
But she wasn’t her. Misfit finding her way into my brain, her dark eyes glaring at me from the opposite side of the bed, a touch of a smile on her lips. I made up some shitty excuse about being tired, and she left without saying anything. I punched the wall after the door closed.
I started Googling shit, women with red eyes, unnatural strength, black market enhancers.
Urban legends, real sightings. It spiralled from there.
I found a few conspiracy threads, some dark forums that mentioned veiled ones, as well as weird accounts about some dense forest just outside the city.
Wardenwood. But nothing solid. Nothing I could trust. Just madding accounts masquerading as truth.
But even that madness started to feel less crazy than what I’d seen in person.
I thought about following Misfit, checking where she went.
Seeing who she spoke to. But that felt like a line I shouldn’t cross; I wasn’t up to gaining a stalker status.
Didn’t stop me from thinking about it though.
I hadn’t even opened any messages from Squeeks in a couple of days; no doubt she would be showing up soon.
But when I did eventually drift off to sleep, I was startled awake in the early hours from a nightmare. Manic gripping me, her eyes burning brighter, like flares. Misfit stood behind her, not moving, not speaking, just watching as I tried to cling to life.
I sat up, drenched in sweat. I didn’t hesitate this time. Reaching over for my phone, I called her. It rang. And rang until hitting voicemail. But I couldn’t bring myself to leave one.