Spoiler
If anyone is good at Spanish and would like to check the Spanish I put in here, feel free. Also this has only been corrected by me, so any corrections you find would be great. Thanks and enjoy!
Chapter 6:
Reni watched as Finch goofed off with her brother. All day she had tried to remember that night any differently, but all she saw was what she always saw. Come on Reni, that can’t be all there is, because then it gets all fuzzy… there has to be more. Keep thinking it’ll come to you. She sighed.
They had snuck out of the motel while the manager and the one other worker switched out for the day. “When are you going to take us to the new portal, Finch, we can’t stay here forever,” Reni said as they walked down the street clinging to the shadowy walls of buildings.
“Calm down Reni, I’ll get you into the Break,” Finch reasoned. “We have to be ready.”
“I am ready,” she mumbled. There was no explaining why she hated this kid more than she ever hated anyone before, but she did, and she wanted him gone. “When are you going to take us? Because we’re either going tonight, or Tyler and I are going to find another portal ourselves, and you had better stay outta' our way this time.”
“Good luck there, the next opening will be in Las Vegas.”
Reni grabbed her brother’s hand and came between him and Finch. “Then we’ll go to Las Vegas, I have no problem with that.”
“How long have you been looking for a way into the Break?” Finch wondered.
She shrugged. “About two years, give or take a few days, why?”
“Ok, how many portals have you actually found in your two year search?”
Reni stopped for a split second to think about it. “Two, we found one about five months back, and another a year and a half ago.”
“And what happened? Why aren’t you there now?”
Reni began walking again. “There were… complications, some things came up and, we had to get outta there quickly,” she didn’t say anything more and he could tell from the way she was holding herself that she wasn’t going to say anything else about the subject. “This is the third one and this time you ruined it. Tonight… you’re taking us there tonight, or we’re outta here.”
“Fine, I’ll take you there tonight, we’ll go into the Break and you can die, and I’ll laugh and say I told you so.”
“If we’re dead, whose face are you going to rub it in?” Reni shot back. Tyler laughed and Finch chuckled.
“Well, look whose joking around, that’s a start. I’ll get you to trust me Reni; you wait and see, you’ll trust me in no time.” Finch looked at her from the corner of his eye. You’ll trust me in no time. Finch thought as he looked back at his feet before going into the café.
______
As the sun began to set, the three companions gathered around the table in Reni’s motel room. Finch said that if they were to get into the Break tonight, they’d have to be ready for anything. “Don’t you have a map or somethin’ we could use?” Reni asked as she blew her red bangs out of her eyes.
“No… why would I have a map of the tunnel?” Finch asked making a face.
Reni grew defensive. “What, that’s not an all around stupid question. I mean, isn’t it your job as a Guardian to guide people when they get into the Tunnel of the Damned?”
“Yea… but we wouldn’t have to do that if we did our main job in the first place and kept stupid people like you from getting into it.”
“Then why help us?” Reni shot back, getting to her feet.
He didn’t answer, but instead went back to her original question. “I don’t have a map because the Tunnel of the Damned changes, it’s always different. A new person, a new fear, a new path to choose from, or a new monster in the shadows,” he shrugged like this was nothing new and she should have known this.
“What do you mean it changes?” Tyler asked looking at his sister while he spoke to Finch.
Finch ruffled the boy’s hair and smiled down at him. “Have you ever heard of a labyrinth? Well the tunnel is like that; it moves while you’re in it, it moves while you’re out of it, and it’ll continue to move as long as people fear others, and people give in to temptation and greed,” Finch explained. Reni rolled her eyes in an effort to look tough, but she was frightened. She hadn’t been told that the tunnel would move and she wasn’t aware that the tunnel fed on the fears and imperfections of humans.
“Next you’re going to be telling me that the Break does the same thing?” she said with a clipped voice. She didn’t want him to know she was scared.
“Nah, it doesn’t move, but it does get bigger, and more demons grow as more people give up on hope,” Finch told her.
“Well aren’t you a downer,” she muttered.
Finch smirked and turned to Tyler. “Since you sister doesn’t seem to be up for anything but killing me, I’m going to tell you everything, and if she choices to listen she can. Now do you have paper?” he asked.
Reni sighed and went to the nightstand on the side of the bed. She tossed him a small pad with the motel’s address and name scrawled on the top in brown writing. The girl threw a pen at his head and sat back down in her chair. Finch’s smile was smug when he caught them both, and turned back to Tyler and placed the pad in front of him. “Now, look at this,” the Guardian scribbled randomly on the paper and then sat back. “That’s like the Tunnel of the Damned. Can you find the end of it?” he wondered.
Tyler focused on the drawing and Finch turned back to Reni as she spoke. “That’s nothing but a scribble, how is that supposed to help us?”
“Exactly, that’s what the tunnel is like. Once you step through the portal, you have to journey through that,” he motioned at Tyler and the paper. “To get to the Break, and even then you might not get there. The Shadow Warriors of Hell can end up finding you and taking you back to the Devil. Or you can die there; I mean there are ghosts, shades, demons, Shadow Warriors… all kinds of creatures in that tunnel. If by some miracle you make it to the Break, you have to deal with the head honchos, the main demons, and they won’t be happy to see you. If you’re going to try and find your mother, you have to get them to give her back, and they never give someone back without a trade. Are you willing to leave behind Tyler or yourself, to save your mother?”
Reni sat back and sighed. Am I prepared to face hell and get through it, just to stay behind, because there is no way Tyler will stay there? She was silent as she watched Tyler trace the scribbles with his fingers. Yes, I would be able to stay behind if that meant Tyler could have a proper caretaker, and a proper home. He needs his mother. She looked at Finch. “When will the portal be here?” she demanded with a stern face.
Finch smiled lightly at her and then leaned back. “As soon as something sinful happens, it’ll show up.”
He studied Reni with blank eyes thinking. What are you up to Reni? She stared right back at him. Who do you think you are Finch? She growled to herself.Tyler smiled and tugged at Finch’s sleeve. “I found the end, we go in here,” he pointed at the end of the single line Finch had made. “And then we keep going north,” he followed the line up and around corner after corner. Reni smiled at her brother and squeezed his shoulder while Finch congratulated him and ruffled his hair.
______
“Reni, are we going to die?” Tyler asked his sister. Nothing particularly sinful had happened so far, since the portal hadn’t opened up. Reni had insisted that Tyler get to sleep while Finch looked around for something evil.
She ran her fingers through her brother’s hair. “No, I’m going to make sure we get out of this, together, okay buddy?”
Reni knelt on the floor by her brother’s head. “We’re going to get mom back, I promise you that.”
Tyler was quiet and she thought that he had fallen asleep. “Hey, Reni…”
“Yea buddy?”
“I can’t remember mom, every time I try to think of her, I only see your face. Can you tell me something about her?”
Reni leaned back against the nightstand and held her brother’s hand. “I’m nothing like mom was. She always said I was more like dad, but I don’t know dad so I wouldn’t know. You remind me of her Ty. Did you know that you have her hair, strawberry blond? She was also very smart, like you are, and she had a shine in her blue eyes…”
“Eyes like yours?”
Reni smiled. “No… she said I had dad’s eyes. She couldn’t really take anything seriously, and she always played with me before she did anything more… adult. And she told me all kinds of stories, and they always had a happy end with the bad guys loosing and the good guys saving the day. The hero was always a girl, I don’t know why.”
Tyler smiled. “I’d like to see her again, and hear some of her stories.”
“Yea… me too buddy, me too,” she kissed her brother’s head and said goodnight.
______
Finch and Reni sat quietly at the table again in compatible silence; Tyler was snoring soundly in the bed. “I’m going to look around again,” Finch said getting up quickly. She didn’t move, and just stared at the rusty old swing set. “Yea, alright, I’ll be right back, don’t worry I’ll be fine…” still she didn’t move. “Yea… ok.” He left the room and she and her brother were alone again, like it should have been.
Come on, come on… someone kill someone or something! Reni wished impatiently. There was a scream coming from down the hall, followed by shouting and cursing. Reni got up and went to the door. A prostitute was crying as she ran down the hall. A man, who looked drunk, was following her. Reni rolled her eyes. I’m in just as much trouble as you are, yet you decide to take the easy way out and sleep around. I’m sure now you’re getting what you deserve… Reni sighed and went out the door. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” She yelled. The man stopped dragging the girl back down the way they had come and turned to Reni.
Reni closed the door so they didn’t see Tyler and walked closer to them. The woman looked too thin and too sickly. Her mascara was running down her tanned face and her limbs were all cut up. Reni looked at the woman with disgust. “Mind your own business child!” He yelled back, his words slurred.
“Ayúdame, ayúdame, la mató a sangre fría. Yo soy el próximo en morir. Sé que estoy al lado!” the woman cried. Reni stepped back as the man dragged the woman across the floor back to their room.
“What… I don’t speak Spanish…”
“Reni, let’s go its coming!”Finch called from their doorway.
She headed inside but she could hear the woman screaming behind their now closed door. “Ayúdame ayúdame, mamá por favor me ayude!”
When she shut the door and leaned against it, the portal magically appeared as if it had been waiting for her, and the woman’s voice went silent. Finch looked at Reni’s pale face, he didn’t know what had just happened, but Reni did. If she had helped that poor woman, the portal wouldn’t have come, but the girl would still be alive. This is what you wanted Reni, to get into the portal, so who cares how it got here? She scolded herself.
With a plastered on smile she grabbed onto Tyler’s hand and, surprisingly, extended her other to Finch. “Ok, let’s go get mom back.”
