Page 82 of The Burdens We Share
I nod even though I’m still not convinced. “We should keep moving.”
Aria turns and glances around the room, “We should also find weapons or something we can use just in case.”
I look around the room in search of something to use and notice for the first time it’s the set of Selene’s office. We were using this set to film the scenes where Selene announces Harvey would be babysitting Brody and the scene where Selene announces that Sly and Aria would be entering a fake relationship. There isn’t much weaponry in here.
Brody studies the room and I watch her because if anyone is going to find a weapon from nothing, it’s her. She rushes across the room to the floor lamp that stands taller than me. It’s on a skinny pole with two bulbs attached. She drops to her knees and starts twisting the pole, screwing it out of the base. She retrieves the pole, free of lights, and rises back to her feet, twisting the screw once again in the middle, now making it into two halves. She extends one to me, “Here.”
I accept it, “Thanks.”
Brody hands Aria the other one and asks, “What about you?”
Brody smirks, “So glad you asked.” She rounds Selene’s desk and slowly and silently pulls the chairs away from the desk. She then removes everything from the glass surface and I cock my head at her in confusion. “I may have quit the drugs and the drinking, and all the shit that made me once extremely temperamental, but there will always be a hot head in me.”
Aria raises an unsurprised brow, “Yeah, we know.”
Brody’s smirk widens as she slowly grips the edge of the desk and lowers it to its side on the ground. What the actual fuck is she doing?
“I may be Brody Drake now, the doting and very much zen fiancé and I love Harvey very much, but Sticks will always have a special place inside me,” she says as she drops once again to her knees and starts messing with one of the thick wooden desk legs.
I chuckle. I actually fucking chuckle, “You’re using the table leg as a weapon?”
She looks up at me and I see that spark in her eye. The one she had years ago when she stopped her car in oncoming traffic to completely destroy the windshield of the guy behind her with a crowbar because he honked at her. It’s the same one she had when she vandalized a stranger’s car with profanities in red paint and the same one she had when she streaked ass naked in a hotel with kids present. I know because I was there for all of those things participating, except for the car. I saw it on the tabloids though so it counts, right?
She manages to unscrew the leg from the table and holds it tight in her fist, “You’re damn straight I am and if he gets close enough to me or any of you, he’ll get a taste of what I’m capable of.”
A sense of nostalgia rushes through me. It almost feels like another lifetime ago that we were doing all of that crazy shit and destroying our own lives and our bodies. I don’t miss the girl I was or the things I was doing and I know my friends don’t either. We’re all better people now, better friends. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the fun we had and the chaos and calamity we caused.
Aria’s voice is full of pride, “Someone alert the paps. Sticks has just entered the chat.”
Just as she says it, we hear footsteps from outside the door. We exchange looks before Brody whispers, “Okay, we need a new plan. Fast.”
Aria nods towards the wall on the opposite side of the door, which of course has another door. “If we go out there it leads to another set room.”
I ask, “Are there any exits in there?”
Aria ponders my question before answering, “I think there’s a door that leads to the sound room.”
“Let’s go,” Brody commands as she opens the door for us. We enter the next set room which is still, of course, very dark. Thisset is of the bar I met Brody and Aria at all those years ago. It’s almost fitting we’d find our way back to this scene at a time like this. It’s where our friendship started after all and it’s where it could very well end if we don’t make it out alive.
The door to Selene’s office set barges open and we hear it from inside the new one. We start running towards that other door, but we aren’t fast enough. The door to the bar is kicked open and Calvin enters with a demonic look in his eyes, which of course are focused on me. “Fuck,” I mutter.
We start sprinting towards the sound room door and Calvin follows closely. As Aria fumbles for the handle, Calvin gains on us, and Brody steps in front of me, desk leg in hand as she swings it like a bat and hits him right in the shoulder. He barely moves as he reaches his knife-clenched hand back. “Move!” I shout, shoving Brody aside as his knife connects with the air she just occupied. I feel a stinging sensation and then cold on my forearm and glance down to find a deep slice going from my wrist to my elbow, the flesh jagged and the wound pouring.
Aria swings the door open and I use my lamp pole to swing at him, but it’s no use. I have no momentum with my shitty arm. Brody jabs him in the ribs with the leg and he hunches over, the wind knocked out of him. We waste no time running through that room.
“Fuck, your arm,” Brody worries. “Why did you do that?” She sounds angry at me for saving her life.
I snort, “Because he would’ve killed you.”
Brody argues, “Oh, so it makes more sense to get yourself killed?”
Aria interrupts, “Shut the fuck up, both of you. We need a new fucking plan because there’s four doors in here.”
Calvin is gathering himself in the room behind us. He’ll be in here any second. I take a second to make a decision. All we’re doing is playing cat and mouse and every time he gets closer, itgets more dangerous. I mean, hello? I almost just lost my arm a minute ago. No. We need a new plan that buys us all some time while we wait for the guys to arrive. “Split up,” I assert.
“What?” They both shout at me, complete shock on their faces.
I nod, “We don’t have time to argue. Just trust me. We split up and buy ourselves some time while we wait for the guys.”
