Page 114 of Cruel Debts
I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Whoever she was, I'd never seen her before in my life. Or if I had, I couldn't remember it.
I needed to figure this out, and fast, before I lost my damn mind entirely.
Ending up at the local mall wasn't in my plans, but the chaos of the crowd oddly helped to soothe my racing thoughts. I stumbled around like a lost vagrant, well aware of the hesitant glances and worried, hushed whispers behind hands as I meandered like some sickly psycho. The way I looked, they probably thought I belonged in the psych ward, but that place had long-ago been converted to some kind of cult.
The Guild.
Everyone knew about them. Few lived to tell tales from the inside.
Time ticked by slowly as I stumbled into a nearby abandoned storefront and watched more people pass by, faces blurred, just like my dreams. I didn't register anything until a voice so familiar it tugged at my heart echoed out and reached my ears.
And that's when I saw her.
She looked older than in my dreams, not by much, but by enough. She wasn't a teenager anymore, and her hair wasn't in pigtails, but it was her. Ithad to beher. There was no other explanation.
I had to figure out who she was.
Discretion was the furthest thing from my mind as I struggled to stay upright. I stumbled down the street after her as she wandered obliviously, her eyes tracking things in the windows around her, hands clasped behind her back, pure joy in her eyes. It was like the darkness of life hadn't touched her soul,like she'd been kept carefully locked away like some fairytale princess in a safe castle parapet high above the world.
I followed her blindly, like a man possessed, my head hurting more and more with every step I took after her. But I couldn't stop. Stopping wasn't an option that my body would recognize, no matter how much pain it was in. No matter how blinding the headaches became with every step I took in her direction.
She stopped before a window display, and I wondered if this was it. If this was the moment where I'd reach out and touch her shoulder, and say?—
Say what, exactly? Hi, I'm Johnny, you don't know me, and I don't know you, but I've been dreaming about a younger you for a week or so now, and I need to know why?—
"I don't know who the hell you are, buddy, but I wanna know why the fuck you're following my girl."
Strong hands grabbed me and dragged me around the corner into a dark alley, where the girl stood with two other men, both of whom wore murderous expressions as they put their hands on her shoulders and tucked her between them. The third, his hands on my shoulders, shoved me roughly against the wall, and I cried out when the brick knocked the wind out of me.
My head bounced against the hard surface, and a searing pain shot through my skull as flashes of those dreams morphed and surfaced in broad daylight.
"Come on, don't tease me like that!"
"You're just jealous that mom and dad like me better."
"Who wants a brother like you? You're too bossy."
"World's most annoying sister award goes to you, Tee."
"Keehn, don't intimidate the boys at school. At this rate, I'll never get a date."
Tee. Keehn.
Who were those people? Why did I know their names, but not know what they looked like?
"I asked you a question, you sick fuck?—"
The man in front of me pulled back his fist and prepared to swing, and my mind broke, splintering into a million little pieces. I scrambled to pick them all up, but it was futile. Like picking up every piece of straw in a hay barn in winter.
Pointless. Because no matter how much you picked up, no matter how much you grabbed, there would always be more slipping free while your back was turned.
"Tee," I muttered, struggling to figure out what was was up and what was down. "Tee, I?—"
"What did you just say?"
The man with his fist up lowered it a fraction, pausing to stare into my eyes. The girl shot out like a bolt of lightning, and as I slipped to my knees, she followed, her hands reaching for my face as I flinched away.
But one look in her eyes, and the sound of a name I'd not heard outside of my dreams and memories, snapped everything into place.
