The warehouse is split level and as I walk down the wide metal steps I look over the bottom floor but don’t spot Ruby anywhere. I hope they’ve already left, but I won’t know for sure until I get home. It wouldn’t be like her to stick around this late, especially since I left them.
Ruby is smart and knows how to get my pig headed sister to listen by some crazy miracle usually. I think its’s why their friendship works how it does, but what do I know?
When I get to the bottom of the steps, the cooler air from outside blows around me and I head straight for the open side of the building. I’ll have to walk around the entire building to get to my car but it’s better than having to fight through the dancing bodies occupying most of the downstairs.
There aren’t many people out back, but I see a group of guys over by the dumpsters smoking and I can smell the weed in the air. I keep walking to the side of the building, and I don’t see a single person in the area between the large warehouse and the tree line about fifty yards away.
The night air is crisp and it's not cold but as I walk a chill racks over my body. There’s no one out here but I still feel like I’m being watched as I look out into the shadowed trees. When I hear rustling the tree line I stop and keep my eyes glued in the direction the sound came from.
Realizing I’m probably just trippin’, I pick up my feet again and continue down the length of the building. Unfortunately, it’s the longer side of the building I’m walking and even though I can hear the faint booming of the music, all I can focus on are the sounds coming from the trees. I’m not scared but for some reason my adrenaline is pumping hard.
The closer I get to the corner and the light hanging at the tops of the building the less of the forest I can hear thanks to the amount of people outside the front of the building. So when I hear a loud crack behind me I turn immediately.
A tall man is standing behind me in the darkness of the clearing but his eyes are big and wild as he walks closer, searching my face in the dim light. The orange hue of the lights casts his figure into an even more threatening one, but I scowl at him anyway.
He doesn’t say anything until he gets a couple of feet away. He’s taller than me and I’m leaner than him but he doesn’t look much older. How he carries himself though, is something far more mature than I’ve ever been.
“Why are you back here?” he asks me, his voice low and accusing.
“I’m leaving and came down the back stairs because I didn’t want to fight the crowd,” I say, not sure why I’m explaining myself to a perfect stranger.
“People don’t come back here for good reason, kid. Get the hell on,” he tells me roughly. I could listen to him and leave, but the warning in his voice does something to me and suddenly I want to do the exact opposite of leave.
“Why doesn’t anyone come this way?” I ask.
“Wanna come in those woods with me and find out?” he taunts, but he’s not smiling.
I shake my head because the truth is, I don’t. I don’t know this guy and I want to be back at my house laid up in my bed with Ruby, but my curiosity is still so strong.
“Hollis,” I hear a voice call out from the woods and his head turns away from me momentarily. Hollis.
Fuck.
“I’m fucking coming,” he calls back before turning back to me. “Sure you don’t want to come join the fun, youngin’?”
It’s a dare. He wants to see what I’m made of and I’ve waited all night for this shit. What are the odds he’d be back here when I was trying to leave? This has to be fate.
“I changed my mind,” I tell him, taking a step in his direction. “I’ll come see.”
He doesn’t say another word before turning and heading back into the woods where he came from. I look behind me before following him. There’s no path in the woods, but he seems to know where he’s going just fine, and I follow behind him closely, so I don’t trip on all of the random roots and branches.
There’s a stone building in front of us once we get to a clearing in the trees and it’s only lit by the moon. There’s a dark figure waiting in the shadows of the house, but I can still see him. They don’t speak as we get closer and once we are up on him, I can see the tall guy looking right at me, but he doesn’t question Hollis.
Hollis continues into the building and the other guy cuts between us and I trail behind the both of them. The only light inside the building is the light seeping in through the window on the furthest wall from us. I survey the room as best as I can with the low light and quickly find why they’re out here.
“Who’s the pretty boy?” the tall dark guy asks once we all stop walking.
“Who is the pretty boy?” Hollis repeats, looking at me.
“Si,” I tell them, not wanting to give them my full name yet.
“What’s he doing here?”
“I found him on my way out, only one brave enough to come around back … and alone,” he explains with a low breathy chuckle. It’s dry and I don’t think he actually thinks anything is funny.
The other guy watches me for a few seconds before turning and heading over to the body in the corner. I don’t know how, but I can tell the person is still alive even though the body lies limply on the cement floor. I watch the scene with my head tilted some and a dirty look on my face.
“Have you ever killed anyone, Si?” Hollis asks me, and I turn to look up at him. I don’t respond, I just stare at him because his question is not a question anyone has ever asked me. “I think he should choose what we do with him.”
“Should we tell him what this piece of shit did?” he asks, grabbing the body by the shirt and hauling it up before looking back over at Hollis. His muscles flex as he holds the guy suspended in the air and then he looks at me. “You wanna know what this piece of shit did?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Hollis snaps before I can answer. “Just bring him over here Elijah. He’ll kill him however he wants to.”
“Um …” I start, stepping back, “… I don’t want to kill him.”
“Then I guess you should’ve toughed the crowd to get back to your car like all of the rest of these stupid pinhead kids,” Hollis tells me.
I stand in front of the two men I’ve been searching for all night and I can’t help but to feel the irony in this entire situation. I can run but it’s likely the guns on their hips will catch me long before I even make it out of the trees. The only choice is to kill the dude Elijah now has laying at my feet.
He wasn’t gentle when he tossed the guy down and he hit the concrete hard enough for me to hear his skull crack. He is laying in a wide area of moonlit floor and his bruises are already starting to show, though the low light probably makes them look a little worse.
“You want a gun or a knife?”
My heart is hammering in my chest as I stare at the man I am about to kill. I don’t want to kill him at all. I have no idea what it will feel like and the sick feeling in my stomach tells me I don’t want to know.
“I’ll kill you both if you don’t kill him,” Elijah tells me and I look up at him, still glaring at me.
“Gun or knife?” he asks me again, a gun in his right hand and a knife in his left hand.