A Deal With The Brute

“When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie.”

― Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Elwyn slips into an uncontrollable frenzy every Halloween and that's not even the worst part. He would experiment on me the never-seen-before, conventionally crazy as he would call it; costumes. I would involuntarily become his lab rat for two months every year and that is how I came up with the idea of using the siren from last year which Elwyn kept in his locker for a reason I am yet unaware of. We managed to protect Loralie but we also needed to constantly come up with plans and skills of on-the-spot improvisation to champion her.

Back in the basketball court, we saw the Aita brothers and the fourth, Delran returning with pants. Someone had delivered to them a message saying Loralie had fainted and was taken to the infirmary before they entered the court. The infirmary is the farthest place from here, thanks to whoever built this school.

"That crafty fox had the crust to deceive the Aita brothers? He's playing with fire, that Callan. I personally think he's on nose candy now. Once they get wind of what Megan and the others tried to do to Loralie, they'll squash the whole lot like stuffing tuna in cans and ship them to the republic of Congo as food for cannibals."

Elwyn ranted and ranted about how rotten people were, including Loralie because she wasn't grateful to him. I paid him no attention because I was busy wondering what my eyes looked like to her. Aurora Borealis? Not even my mom had ever compared the color of my eyes to something so majestic. All my life, I was called ugly, deformed and what not. Every time mom came to know I was made fun of my looks, she told me the bullies are all worthless garbage and I am smarter than they'll ever be. But not even once did she compliment my face, not that I'm complaining but this is a new feeling I want to bask in. It's too early to begin disregarding this warmth in me. Or I must be getting fever from stress.

This girl, I'm sure, sooner or later will louse up my life completely.

"We need to find this teenage malefactor before it's a person's turn for his coffin. How did this fellow manage to procure generous amounts of cyanide when it's illegal? Blaine, bring your head back from the clouds or I swear I'll show you stars in daylight."

I gave him an annoying look and he replied with the same expression. I tell you, he is exceptionally adept in ticking me off. Bringing my mind back to reality, I started pondering over the killings. To bring in contrabands and use them out in the open like this, the criminal must be either very rich or discretely dangerous like a phantom nobody knows about. If they were planning on murder, they would have gone for their target

long ago rather than taking the effort to practice methods on animals. I could deduct two possibilities on this:

Possibility 1: As the amount of cyanide used to kill varies with different creatures, the murderer must be wanting a close-to-perfect estimation on how much of cyanide would be ample to almost instantly kill an animal. Since cyanide becomes more noxious when inhaled more than when ingested, that must be why even the birds dropped dead. (Thanks to Mrs. Barclay who went beyond the textbook on the explanation of the cyano group in chemistry.)

Possibility 2: The deaths could be a distraction to the media and newspapers to prevent any kind of attention from something, or someone bigger.

But who would want to be so careless but meticulous just to murder someone? Whoever it is, either they have no proficiency in committing crimes or they're plain stupid, assuming nobody would be sharp enough to find them out.

I wrote to Elwyn, 'What did you hear?'

"Glad you asked. There was a babel of voices at first like hushed whispers so it's hard to recognize who the voices belong to. I heard, 'Make sure nobody sees us taking these cyanide extracts. One wrong move, everything gets messed up and we don't want that. How much did it take for the animals?', then another voice spoke saying, 'A few sprays in one spot and another few trailing to Luxus street, so not much,' then the previous voice said, 'We'll kill him in his godforsaken house so his family will know that what has been done to us is irreversible and this is how they will pay for it, the same way they made us suffer.'"

Well, crap.

At least I was right about that part where the animals died due to inhalation.

Suddenly, a smack on my head threw me out of my thoughts and I paled seeing Callan behind me, smirking.

"You know how I like greeting you, don't you Blaine?"

He grabbed my wrist and held it as tightly as he could, doing his level best trying to crush my weak bones. Damn this calcium deficiency. I held my head low squirming from the pain.

"I'm pretty sure it hurts a lot and you don't even squeal? That's good. You better stay that way your whole life, Blaine. You know what I'll do to your mother if you rebel against me. She's an orphan so she won't have anyone except for her ugly, worthless fraidy-cat of a son to sorrow over her death. Wait, scratch that; you won't even find her corpse and I'll make you live here all your life under my claws till you breathe your last. Think about it. This is not a bad deal. You trade your mother's life and your freedom in return for your voice. I see you're being friendly with my contenders, the Aita brothers and I'm pinning my hopes on you that you won't bring mutiny to my doorstep. I need you to do something for me and I know you're too good of a friend to refuse this old pal of yours."

He clasped my hand tighter at the last part of the sentence, making me feel as if my hand would break any moment. I rapidly nodded with tears dripping from my eyes.

"I need you to stalk someone for me. A girl."

No...don't tell me it's-

"Loralie is her name. It's not hard to shadow her since you're pretty much acquaintances now. You know this; she is the Aita brothers' cousin. They're looking for a piano tutor so you must fill in for the post and let me know anything and everything about her. She's too...alarming for someone who has a clean background. Her father is a world-famous doctor, almost like a celebrity or greater of eminence from what I've heard. You probably wouldn't know him. You're dumb."

Oh yeah? Okay.

"If I let that girl crawl all over school breaking the unuttered rules and hierarchy I made, word will next spread into town and everyone will begin to forget who the boss is. You know who the boss is, don't you?"

He smiled like a mad man lusting after power, just like his damned father. None of them deserve to live. Unable to tolerate the pain, I answered his question pointing at him, which seemed to satisfy him, judging the way his eyebrows relaxed and his forehead turned fold-less like usual.

Slowly, he loosened his grip.

"I'm happy with your answer, but sadly you're wrong. My father is the boss. But don't worry, I shall succeed that position too. This is why you're my favorite. You know your place and mine."

I wish you die the worst death, Callan Armstrong. I wish nobody would mourn your death. I wish you'd die like roadkill; pitched and forgotten.

"Go now. Use my plan and you know better than delaying my orders."

Saying that, he pushed me and went on his way.

After a long day of the physical check-up, I came home tired than ever but mom was home too, luckily. I pulled my sleeve to see a purple bruise from fingermarks hugging my skin like an ugly bracelet. This one will take a few days to heal. After I sat down at the dining table, mom placed a huge bowl in front of me.

"I've ordered chicken soup because why not? Drink it while it's hot, honey. You're getting skinnier by the day."

The soup looked hot. I'm not referring to the spicy kind of hot. It was the one-drop-and-you-will-suffer-a-second-degree-burn type of hot. Now this is one of the warmest, but strangest things about mothers. The hotter foods they serve, the more love they pour on us is what they think all the time. 'Eat your pancakes while they're hot', 'Drink the hot chocolate while it's steaming', all expressions of love with no regards to the death of our taste buds as soon as our tongues touch the sweltering edibles. I've always thought they abide by this unspoken theorem that the amount of love mothers have for their children is directly proportional to the temperature of the foods they serve them. Such unique sources of fascination mothers are.