Winter's Fury - Volume Two of The Saga of the Twelves (7 page)

After all, it was Anthony
they were talking about. Though he was the quietest of their group,
he was still a member, maybe the leading one at that. More often
than not, they ended up doing what Anthony had suggested or talked
about a given topic he had brought up. Would they have still been
hanging out if it had not been for him in the first place? Had he
not been the one that helped forge their clique back when they were
first starting out at the high school? They had all been nothing
more than a bunch of tight-assed geeks about ready to shit
themselves with nervousness. With a more subdued demeanor, Anthony
had been calmer than those around him. He was the one who brought
them together over those first precarious weeks and
months.

Richard remembered it all
too well. Maybe Daniel had forgotten or maybe it was less a factor
in his life now that he had Mariah.

But fuck, man, the dude
and his sisters have been kidnapped! What kind of messed up shit is
that?

Daniel broke eye contact
first, glancing about Colorado Blvd. Then, he peered about the
transit stop where they were awaiting the arrival of their
girlfriends. They were crawling down the wide avenue, ensconced in
the MTA’s 181 bus. The fact their route took them passed the scene
of the now missing Eagle Rock Plaza had delayed them by more than a
half hour. Finding alternate ways around the devastation wrought in
that part of Los Angeles was still a nightmare.

This had made Daniel a
little antsy. He had not seen his girlfriend since Wednesday. That
was the day everything had gone down and wanted nothing more than
to have her luscious lips on his. He peered back at Richard.
“You’re a dick,” was all Daniel could think to say.

Richard’s head snapped
back in surprise. “Imma dick? Me?” He was pointing at
himself.

“
Yeah, man, you’re acting
like my Dad, all worried and shit over how much I used my
iPhone.”

“
Hey, ass-munch, I’m
trying to talk to you about Anthony and all you can do is send text
after text to your chick. What the fuck’s up with that?” Richard
stood, walking to the back of the bench, resting his forearms along
the top of it.

Daniel closed his eyes.
“You ever think she’s the one who’s helping me get through all this
shit?”

Richard’s frown deepened,
but stayed silent when the other continued.

“
Fuck, man, I’ve known the
dude since he started going to high school. I was like one of his
first friends, remember? He introduced me to you!” Daniel’s look
betrayed raw emotion that Richard had not expected to see, because
the guy had hidden it so well.

Could it be true, though?
Was Mariah the one responsible for his level-headedness? Was that
why he was so wrapped up in her junk? Was she the one talking him
through the smorgasbord of emotions he was chomping through right
now? Could they be that close? Really?

“
Mariah is helping me,
ok?”

It was Richard’s turn to
sigh. “Ah shit, man, I’m sorry. I didn’t know -.”

“
Mariah and I are tight,
Rich. Real tight.”

Is he reading minds
now?

“
And, it’s not just about
the sex and all that crap. She’s my friend too, ok?” he finished
with a shake of his head.

Richard thoughts turned
him inward, trying to comprehend what his friend was saying. Things
between him and Melanie were different. This was most likely due to
the fact his girlfriend was not as endearing as Daniel’s. She had a
more pragmatic approach to their relationship. She did not like to
delve into the “mushy-shit” they had seen time and again at the
movies. Sex between them was fever-pitched, animalistic, leaving
little space for romance or chivalric gestures. Melanie liked the
raw essence of it, plain and simple, and Richard liked that too.
She was a welcomed respite to the commitment obsessed,
brown-skinned girls he had dated in the past. He was so sick of the
“wanna meet my parents” and the “if we have sex, we should consider
getting married” types of girls. He did not want that. He never
had.

And yet, as he thought
about it, there was a down side to the sort of relationship he had
with Melanie. Call it a lack of depth or an inability to dive down
deeper than the surface. Though he would not trade his girl for any
other, it still left him thinking. Maybe having someone he trusted
to talk to was sometimes important. He and Melanie did not have
that degree of faith when hit came to the others’ innermost
thoughts. Because of that, he had not talked about what had
happened to Anthony and his sisters, and so many others. When she
had asked if he was okay, he said he was fine despite the
decimation of the teen population in their neighborhood. They were
not built that way. They had not forged those bridges, so there
were wide gulfs of uncertainty. He did not know how to tell her how
much he was hurting inside. Speaking about how much losing his
friend had left a giant hole in his chest was impossible for him.
Heck, he never even known the guy occupied such a space until a few
days ago.

He could not tell her,
though he had not known the others as well as Anthony, he had known
enough about them to make him sad, introspective. Sophie Reed – the
fine-ass cheerleader. Hyun Kwon – the fine-ass gymnast. Joaquin
Barrientos – the wrestler. Jason Fong – the Kung-fu guru. Kimberly
Madison – the fine-ass Emo waif. Marianna White-Horse – the
fine-ass new chick. Derek Benson – the underclassman.

As with Anthony, they had
all attended their school – Eagle Rock Junior/Senior High - all
eight of them, and that had not been all. There had been more of
them. Anthony’s two sisters as well as a tenth grader from Franklin
High and a fifth grader from Annandale Elementary. On the day
before Thanksgiving, kids had been getting snatched up all over
their part of town. Though, he would never admit it out loud, it
had scared the crap out of him. It was frightening to think someone
had been so thorough with the scoping-out of their neighborhood. It
was only way they could have abducted so many with such impunity.
It was fucken bold and it was terrible. Every time he thought about
it, it sent shivers up and down his spine.

How was he going to tell
Melanie that? How was he going to tell her how worried he was over
becoming a victim himself? She would think was a dweeb or
something. He could not tell her. He could not tell
anyone.

He peered over at Daniel,
who was as still as a statue, his orbs locked on something across
the wide expanse of Colorado Blvd. “I’m sorry, man,” he said
again.

“
Don’t sweat it.” Daniel
spoke, his voice wooden.

“
It’s all just so fucked
up.”

The large teen swiveled
his head around. “How many shrinks do you think there’ll be on
campus come Monday?”

Richard snickered. “A
freakin’ shit-ton!”

“
Yeah, you got that
right.” He blew air through his lips. His eyes were far away again.
“Not like it’s gonna help one damn bit. Tony will still be
gone…”

Richard swallowed hard.
“You don’t think they’ll hurt him and all the others, do
you?”

“
We live in a sick fucken’
world…”

Richard’s mind kept
sliding toward those unspeakable things he heard without exception
on the TV or read on the ‘net. People did nasty things to kids
nowadays. He could not help but think about the girls. All four of
them had been pretty. Fuckers in this day and age kept girls like
that locked up for decades. They did not have a days’ worth fun
with them and then whack them anymore. Naw, they kept them. They
raped them daily and got them pregnant, and raised their
kids…

Yeah, Daniel was right. We
live in a sick fucken’ world.

“
I sure hope they’re found
soon,” he said aloud instead. His thoughts were far too
grim.

“
Me too,” replied the
large teen. He stood up of a sudden, which got Richard’s attention
immediately.

A few blocks down the
street they could see the bus lumbering down the road.

Daniel's face lit up,
beaming as he gazed down at his phone. He looked back at his
companion. “Mariah says she can see us.”

Not sure why, Richard
smiled. Despite what had happened, they were going to make the best
of a bad situation. Armed with a couple months of allowance and
saved-up work money, he and Daniel were going to show the girls a
good time. They needed it.

They all needed
it.

Anthony was missing. So
many others were missing and there was not a god damned thing he or
Daniel could do about it.

...A sick fucken
world.

~~~~~~~<<<
ᴥ
>>>~~~~~~~

~ 4 ~

The Missing
Panther

Friday, November
26
^th
,
the Day after Thanksgiving, 2:55 pm…

Lynn Loren twirled a
strand of her waist-long, dirty-blonde hair between her thumb and
forefinger. Listening into her handset, her bright pink lips
puckered in thought. The eyelids about her green/blue orbs squinted
as she considered what her friend was saying through the phone. She
was tall for a girl of sixteen years, five-foot nine, full-figured.
Though she often struggled with her complexion, there was still no
doubt, one day, she would grow into a beautiful woman.

“…
calling his house, but his grandmother answered. She only
speaks Spanish. I'm only part-fluent, though I understand a lot
more when I hear it. I just never know how to say anything in
return.”
Vanessa Menendez breathed deep,
having talked all the air out of her lings. But, she continued
before Lynn could get a word in edgewise.
“Anyhow, girl, his grandmother and I went back and forth a
few times. But, we just couldn’t understand what the other was
saying, so I just said I was sorry and hung up.

“
It sounds pretty bad over
there, you know. It wasn’t just Andrew who went missing. His Dad
blew-up in the terrorist bomb as well, so now his younger brother
and sisters are like screwed for someone to take care of them. I
mean, I know the grandmother’s there, but she’s like so old. How is
she going to raise all those young kids by herself? Andrew’s Mom
has been out of the picture so long, I have no idea what they’re
going to do.”

Vanessa's inhalation was
loud into the phone. The second time she'd done so.
“What have you heard?”

“
Oh,” began Lynn, sucking
on the tips of the hair she had twirled about a few of her fingers,
“you’re finally going to let me talk?”

There was a sharp snort
through the line.
“Don’t be such a brat,
Lynn! You know things like this make all flustered. And, when I get
flustered I talk a lot. You know this!”

“
Yeah, I know…” She wasn’t
lying as far as Lynn could tell.

“
Then why you acting so
mean?”

She exhaled with annoyance
she should not have felt, but did all the same. “I’m sorry. I guess
I’m a little uneasy myself. Ever since I heard two more girls went
missing today, I’ve been as jittery as one of my
parakeets.”

“
Yeah, I know. I wonder
what this is all about.”

“
You got me,” replied the
long-limbed teen. She was sitting on her bed, one foot dangling off
to the floor, the other tucked under her butt. She was wearing
tight-fitting, high-waisted jeans. A gossamer cotton blouse over a
spaghetti-strapped halter top, accentuating her ample bosom. If
there was one thing said about her, it was she was well developed
for a sixteen-year-old. She had a body at her tender age that most
twenty-something’s would die for.

Her toes itched of a
sudden and she twisted to rub them through her thin, white socks,
holding her Galaxy 5s with her chin. “I hope Andrew is alright,”
she said. Then thought about how much work she was going to have to
do on the school paper now that he was not there to help
her.

They had been a team now
for almost a year – her, the photographer, and he, her field
technician. It was something she was sure he did, because we wanted
to get close enough to her to ask her out in the future. She had
known he had an ulterior motive for quite some time. But as time
went by and she got to know the kid better, she found herself not
at all that bothered by it. She liked Andrew. He was kind,
thoughtful, a gentleman whenever he was around her. Though she was
certain he peeked, she had never caught him ogling her tits or her
ass or anything of that nature. He never pushed his advantage with
her though they were often in semi-darkness (under infrared light
bulbs) - together for up to forty minutes at a time, developing
film. He was just not like so many other guys she knew. He was
Andrew, sweet smiling Andrew. Plus, they worked well together. His
competence with the school’s high-end photo equipment was
unparalleled. Yeah, his true motivations might have been
clandestine, but she liked him. Maybe with time, she would see him
in a different light and not be all that affronted if he came onto
her. Maybe she would show interest back. Maybe she would date him.
Who knew, right?