Page 104 of Callan

It’s not that I’m not intimidated. I am.But I also hate bullies and people trying to get stuff from me by threatening me.

She and Callan are clearly no longer friends.

And there is some bad blood between them. But I won’t play a role in this.

Not in the way she imagines it.

“And where does this Emmanuel guy live?”

I shrug.

“I have no idea. For sure, he doesn’t live here.”

She looks around the room.

“Where is your phone?” she tosses at me.

My mind goes straight to the nightstand in the other room.

“Why do you need my phone?”

She shifts her stare at me.

“Give me your phone.”

“Why? I don’t have his phone number. We’ve never talked on the phone.”

She looks at the man.

“Grab her,” she says, and before I can protest, the grumpy man lays his hands on me and pulls me to the side.

“Don’t you fucking move, little bird, or I’ll break your neck.”

Feverishly, Carmen starts searching through my apartment. She’s not delicate, either. Pillows fly to the floor. The kitchen drawers are pulled open, and the rugs are tugged to the side.

The back of my TV is checked.

The tidiness that I hold dear goes up in flame.

I lock my jaw to stop myself from commenting. This is probably not the moment to give her a piece of my mind.

While waiting for the search to end––I have no doubt she’ll find my phone––I try to put the pieces of this story together.

These are not good people.

And the fact that Callan has been involved with them casts a shadow on how much of an upstanding citizen he is.

He was after something.And they are after him.

They seem pissed, the stench of betrayal oozing from their pores. He double-crossed them. Took them for fools.

Played them.

Who knows?

He did something… Or maybe they did something to him and hoped to never face his wrath.

My information is scarce and unreliable, and as he himself has said, things have been like that by design.

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