Thana: After killing Justice

Ironically, it’s the sickly loud silence that wakes me up the next morning. I don’t know how I manage to pry my eyelids open because last night I squeezed them painfully shut to blackout all images of Justice’s half milky white eyeball looking up at me. I learnt a valuable thing from the surreal night. That fear was my stalker. It followed me from Fox Park all the way home. It crawled up on me like a creeping living thing till I woke up in between hours with a strangled cry only I could hear.

Events from last night come rushing to me. I remember peeling off my blood-stained clothes thankful that I had dressed in black and dumped them on my bathroom floor. It wasn’t easy getting back into my room because every time I so much as moved a muscle on that old rickety ladder behind my window, I feared I would wake someone up. My dad and Nabil are heavy sleepers but not Kieran. My stepmother normally wakes up in the middle of the night to make herself a cup of chamomile tea—she’s constantly drinking that kind of stuff—or she’s watching a late-night show. Lucky no one heard me crying under the shower and I still have no clue why I was mourning my bully.

Scanning around me, I fumble under the duvet for my phone and feel my heart cave in when no group notifications pops up on the screen. Ava and Skylar got out, that much I know but a sad insecure part of myself knows once Justice’s body becomes cold in the grave we would soon dig for her, my temporary pact with those girls would be buried too. I expected it but it still hurts. We had no mutual friends, no interests in common, no nothing whatsoever.

All of a sudden, my bedroom door bursts open and my eyes bulge out of their sockets. Nabil stands in the doorway in his grey sweatpants and black V neck shirt that clings to his taut muscles. He frowns at me. “Hey. Why aren’t you up yet?”

Everything seems so normal watching him sip from a mug which emanates the smell of coffee like I wasn’t beside a dead girl five hours ago. “W-why didn’t you knock?” That awful stuttering starts again.

He cocks his head to the side observing me as though I’m forgetting something. “You do remember there’s an open door policy at home right?” He tells me, pulling my mind from its guilt-ridden place.

I don’t point out the only reason Kieran devised a rule like that was because he refused to open his door after news of his girlfriend’s death reached us two months ago. Kayla was killed in a hit-and-run and her parents never got justice. The Circle Police Department couldn’t catch the driver because apparently there were no CCTV cameras around Circe Hill Street. Nabil was a zombie afterwards and hence, the open door policy. It shouldn’t apply to me since I barely exist most of the time.

“Anyway,” he says, still looking at me concerned. “Did you by any chance take out the ladder from the storeroom?”

My insides instantly curl into themselves and I have no clue how to lie to him. He always catches me. “No why?”

“Well Kieran made me water the plants this morning and I saw it under your window. That’s dangerous. Anyone could’ve climbed it and entered your room.” My overprotective brother says and I wish I could get up and perk his cheek to dispel his worry away but I don’t trust my legs not to buckle under my weight.

“The electrician probably forgot to place it back.” I invent, remembering the bulb on top of my window that needed fixing yesterday.

“Most likely.” He regards me with warm eyes and his face cracks into a smile. Nabil is the smiling child always has been but I’ve never had anything to smile about and certainly not today of all days. He lifts his mug to me. “Want some?”

Unintentionally, my face scrunches up into a frown because I really hate coffee but the smell is welcoming. “Your loss. You’ll have to get used to it though when you become a senior and A level hits you in the face like a truck.”

Without asking, he saunters into my bathroom and before I can spring into action he already gets a whiff of the smell. I hope he doesn’t smell the blood however small it was it’s still a familiar coppery scent. He dumps the remaining coffee in the sink as I stand in the doorway having a silent fit. “Why does it smell like a hospital in here?” He remarks, referring to the concentrated smell of the bleach I had used last night to scrub away my muddy footprints on the tiles.

“Why are you here again?” I ask sweetly because I don’t have a single mean bone in my body to throw him out. I’m so scared of what’s going to happen tonight that Im not thinking clearly now and having Nabil scrutinize my bathroom isn’t helping my nerves.

He flicks my nose and says, “Trying to get rid of me so soon? Don’t forget I won’t be here next month.” At the very least his mind has travelled to his early Christmas trip instead of the bleach smell so I hang on to that.

“I’ll miss you,” I confess and hug him knowing full well that he’s the only one I openly talk to in this enormous house. Nabil is taking an extended art trip before he graduates next year and starts being a paid artist. He’s going to skip college and although he says it’s not meant for him I know it only reminds him of Kayla and her crazy dominate-the-world plans.

“Hurry up and get ready for breakfast. Kieran has the place all set for us.” It doesn’t go unnoticed that he placed an emphasis on ‘us’. Suddenly, I remember the lame excuse I gave the weird-looking security guard last night. Talking to him might not give me an airtight alibi if the police ever came around, in fact, me being there all together looks bad.

When he leaves, I hurriedly gather my clothes into an opaque rubber and stash it under my bed. I’ll get rid of them properly during the day. It’s Saturday so I have a lot of time on my hands. As I brush my teeth, a notification comes from my phone halting me in the process. Peeking over the sink, I see it’s from Ava on the group:

Meet at Crimson Hideaway at 11:45 pm tonight.

Unsurprisingly, there’s no reply or comeback from Skylar and I know she’s not one to take orders from anyone but her silence is unsettling. I plod down the stairs to the living room and instantly my nose is assaulted by sweet-savoury food. Kieran is the first to spot me. She smiles brightly at me over my dad’s head as he reads every information he can get from The Daily Graphic. Kieran is almost as tall as the ladder I used last night and slender, darker-skinned than all of us with a small pert nose and laughing eyes. She would look like my mum if it wasn’t for the fact that three months ago she cut her hair close to her ears.

“Good morning darling. Did you sleep well?” It’s unlike me to hate her smile. Sometimes I wish she was like Lady Tremaine- Cinderella’s evil stepmother but unfortunately, Kieran hasn’t given me a reason to dislike her. I nod stiffly and manage a smile. Dad doesn’t even regard me while I take a seat beside him. It’s always the same silence every day. We sit, we eat and then I retreat to my room without so much as a goodbye. We’re not the kind of family that sit down and eat breakfast together but Kieran is adamant and my dad indulges her all the time.

Nabil winks at me as he wolfs down his scrambled eggs as though he’s sensed the melancholy leak into my pores. There’s a ring at the doorbell and Gladys springs into action and barrels toward the door. Kieran has no qualms calling her a maid but it doesn’t sit well with me. I guess that’s the only flaw I find in Kieran- her rich persona.

“Can I help you?” I hear Gladys ask from the doorway. I take a sip of my orange juice trying to force it down. If only it were that easy to push away the memories from last night.

“I’m hoping you can.” A familiar voice responds. “I’m Patience Ortega.” Oh God, no.

“I live three houses down from yours. I’m looking for my niece I don’t suppose you’ve seen her come by here?”

I try to stifle my choking with a cough and ignore Kieran’s worried glance. “Are you all right darling?”

“Wrong tube that’s all.” I wish that was the whole story. From the corner of my eye, I see Gladys push away from the door to let Miss Ortega in and the breath that I didn’t even know I was withholding pours out from my mouth. My heart starts doing this crazy pitter-patter thing and I just can’t tame it down. I don’t need to ask what Justice’s aunt is doing here.

“What’s the matter, Gladys?” I hear my dad’s rich ivory voice but it seems so far away like I’m unconsciously drowning all the sound in the room to focus on my breathing. I haven’t had a panic attack since Justice pulled that stunt on me yesterday. Funny how living or dead she can still squeeze one out of me.

Gladys relays the information to us and Kieran is already on her feet, that pageant smile plastered on her face as usual as she walks to Miss Ortega. They exchange pleasantries and make their way to the sitting room. Dad abandons his newspaper and goes to Kieran. His wherever she goes I go attitude kicks in and a bitter taste worms its way in my mouth.

“What do you think that’s about?” Nabil strangely looks worried.

I manage a shrug though my shoulders are shuddering slightly under my cardigan. “I have no clue.”

My room. I need to go to my room. It’s my only safe haven. Pushing away from the dining table, hoping to abscond from them before anyone takes notice.

“Thana, why don’t you join us,” Dad says without looking at me. His intense eyes haven’t peeled from Miss Ortega who is looking far from worried about her niece’s wellbeing. If anything she looks pissed as if Justice is playing hide and seek with her. “Nabil you as well. Cover our food so it doesn’t get cold.”

My mood has torpedoed from giddiness to fear all in the span of a nanosecond. I force myself to sit by Kieran because she’s seated away from Miss Ortega. Gladys places a glass of water down for her and leaves without an utterance. Nabil stands behind our couch, arms folded in front of him.

“Justice didn’t come home last night,” Miss Ortega informs us. “I have no clue where she could be and I’m losing my mind over this. Going from house to house.”

“Maybe she’s staying with a friend,” Kieran suggest and leans in to rest a hand on her knee, assuring her that nothing has happened to Justice. But she’s dead, I want so desperately to tell someone it’s burning a hole in my mind. She’s never coming back.

“Or worst-case scenario she’s missing,” Dad says curtly. He never misses a chance to damper someone’s mood, someone other than Kieran. “You should report this to the police because I think it’s a waste of time parading the neighbourhood looking for her.”

Miss Ortega looks like she’s just swallowed a nasty bug. Her multicoloured top looks as if it had been through the washing machine one too many times and her hair is a wiry mass of red stripes juxtaposed with her black natural colour. Justice’s aunt comes off as reckless and unpredictable. Brazenly, she sizes him. “You two go to school with her,” she says matter-of-factly to Nabil and me because The Circle has only one school. “Did you see her beyond school hours?”

Thankfully, Nabil answers for both of us. “Nope, haven’t seen her. You should try her best friend’s house, maybe you’ll have better luck there.” I can tell this isn’t going well for him. Kayla’s parents came in here asking the same questions hours before the found her battered body.

“I already have.” Her voice is rough and gritty which tells me she either smokes often or she has a serious phlegm problem. She stands up and Kieran does so with her being the benign host she is. Then, her eyes are on me, heavy and cold. “I guess I’ll go to the police then.”

After Miss Ortega has left, I mull everything that happened in my head. I don’t know how this is going to turn out but someone has already started asking questions. Soon there’ll be more.