Main Cell (Part 2)

A/N: This is incredibly rough. There's so many inconsistencies in this novel at the moment... but it's a first draft, and so there's still time. Just wanted to warn whoever braves this read, that it is FAR from pretty. Also it's a little long (around 3000 words) and that's because I made the first chapter too small when I posted it, and so I'm compensating for that. I'm not really sure what I want for feedback. There's tons I already want to change. In particular I'm curious just of what crosses your mind as you read this.

***

“I guess that explains the smell.” I said, cringing.

The drunk bastard chuckled, though he seemed a little more subdued, his eyelids drooping slightly. That was too times today that I’d been surprised and startled. I didn’t like it.

“Alright, enough nonsense please; who’s running things now?” I said, refraining from putting a hand on my hip. I didn’t want to look like one of those little feisty girls who people ended up calling cute instead of taking seriously. He already barely took me seriously.

He sighed and rubbed his temples. “Oh y’know, it’s kind of a group effort,” he said.

I felt a frown steal my lips. “A group effort?” I said, shaking my head. That’s not how these things worked. These types of people didn’t work together because it wasn’t exactly a community-minded bunch of do-gooders; it was a jail. A seemingly abandoned jail. And as inhabits jails, these were criminals. There was no such thing as a group effort.

“You seem agitated,” he said, making his way back to the door. “Maybe you’d like to play some chess with us- loosen those shoulders up with a shot or four.”

“No thank you, I have to go,” I said, managing to refrain from a much ruder comment about where he could shove his shots and chess board. I followed him back to the kitchen where the others awaited eagerly.

“So… did you give him the message?” one of them asked, giggling. Hearing a grown man giggle is an interesting experience. He didn’t chuckle, he giggled. I had no clue what to say in response to his question.

“Yes, he said he was delighted to see me and invited me back for a tea-party.” I said dryly.

I really wanted to get this over with and leave, but I wasn’t sure what to do now that Allen was dead, plus something was negging at me to ask how he’d kicked the bucket. So I did.

“Well.” Mr. Drunky said, “that’s none of your business.”

I raised an eyebrow. Someone obviously didn’t know how to discreetly avoid a question. It didn’t matter though, I just needed to get home at this point.

“Whatever.” I said, “He’s dead. So. I’ll have to leave the message with you.”

***

I was shaking by the time I got out of the jail. I hadn't realized how anxious I was until then. My entire body shuddering from the stress. It was bad enough that I had to go there in the first place, but then when Allen turned out to be dead, and the state of the men there, and everything just made it worse. Like I needed another bad day. I had college the next day and it was my first day there and I was nervous about that as well. The last thing I needed was more paperwork.

"It'll teach you discipline," my father had said when is tried to argue that I didn't really need to go to college. I thought it was dumb to go without knowing what I wanted to do- and the thing was I was taking over my father's business anyway, so I wasn't going to need collage. But he wanted me to explore other options. We both knew I didn't have a future, and the only thing close would be taking over his business.

My father wrote eulogies by day, and was in the drug trade at night. We knew Allen because his men did odd jobs, sometimes jobs for my father, and sometimes they brought us work- by killing someone higher up, and sending the family to our funeral home. Sometimes they found buyers for us, as well.

It wasn't exactly my idea of a summer job, but it's not something I could really get out of. Especially now that my father was dead. He'd choked on a cough drop a few days ago, and so it was just me now. Taking over the family businesses sooner than I'd expected. No one knew he was dead yet, and I needed to keep it that way. The minute someone found out, he'll would fall on our house, and people would think they could mess with me and the business. That was the last thing I needed. I'd slipped him into the coffin in the living room that he'd used as a coffee table, and hadn't looked at him since. Maybe that's why I hadn't been too startled when I saw Allen's eyes staring out at me.

When I arrived home, I took off my jacket and my wings unraveled. I stretched them out, the tips only feet away from the walls. It wasn't common to have wings; I'd got them from my great grandfather, and no one else in our family had gotten them. I knew one other person who had wings; a mom of a girl who I went to highschool with. And it was even rarer for someone with wings to know how to fly, I'd never learnt, either. Though time after time I'd feel the wind beating against my wings and through my feathers and I'd think /now. Now's the time/ and I'd start beating my wings, and I'd feel myself start to get lighter, but I could never get more than a couple metres in the air, for only a few seconds, and then I'd crash into the pavement. It wasn't good for people to know you had wings, or that's what I was taught. For one, people would gauche at you, and for another thing, wings went for a lot in the market. Our market. It was surprising my dad hadn't cut them off years ago, and sold them himself.

Everyone said it wasn't my fault, that it was incredibly hard to fly. Hardly anyone these days that had wings could. But I still felt like a failure.

I walked the the kitchen and opened the fridge. There were some buns from a few nights ago when we made burgers for dinner, when my father was still alive, so I grabbed those and a block of cheese. But when I opened the cheese wrapper I saw the edges were fuzzy and green. I wondered if that would happen to my father- if his edges would mould and fuzz would start to grow on his eyeballs.

The mould turned me off supper, so I just nibbled on a half a bun and once I was done I cut off the mouldy bits of cheese and put the rest back in the fridge. Maybe tomorrow it would seem more appealing.

After that I checked my dad's email. There were two new messages. The first one was from Allen Main. I raised an eyebrow, and clicked on it.

It read:

Good evening, Meeker. So good of you to send your daughter to me today- my oh my has she turned into a lovely little lady. Unfortunately, she kept us in mystery as to why you sent her! You'll have to speak to her about wasting people's time- I can't afford to have tea Paris with her, unfortunately, as much as I'd like to, Meeker, I'm a busy man. If you'd send her back next week, we'll have a job for you. Maybe she'll tell us why she came today, as well. That would be nice. You know how I hate cliffhangers.

Warmest regards,

Al

*

Whoever wrote this either didn't get the message that we- or I - knew that Allen was dead, or was trying to mess with my father. Though no one ever talked to my father that way, and he was the one normally shovelling out the "jobs". So it appeared that they were rather messing with me.

*

The next day I found myself in a lecture hall, surrounded by people, normal people who had nothing to do with drugs or murder. People who probably only ever saw dead people at funerals, and people who did not have dead fathers in coffins in their living rooms. I wondered what kinds of things normal people worried about, while I worried who was imitating Allen and trying to intimidate me. I guess you could say it was working.

Today was just orientation. It was an introduction to university, of sorts. The man talking was wearing slacks and a dress shirt and kept using words like "future" and "potential" and "education". It was almost as if he thought we had all those things. Maybe some of these students did, but for me this was just, what we called, a 'tarp'- because secret identity sounds like something from an 80's tv series. So this was my tarp. I'd go to school, get a degree or something, have a lovely career, but it would all be simply camouflage over what I really do.

The lecture took several hours. There were some breaks for refreshments, which I was pretty sure didn't happen in actual classes. Once it was over I got out of there as fast as possible. There was no need to stand around and continue pretending to be like the others. I showed up, I sat through a three hour lecture outlining my potential. My father would have to be fine with that.

Outside the college, city lights flickered on, signalling the fall of night. I grumbled to myself; it would be completely dark by the time I made it home. My chest tightened and my arms tingled. Our house always felt odd after dark, but it felt worse to me when you entered it after dark, while the lights were still off inside.

A raindrop plopped onto my hoodie sleeve, and while I was wondering if there was more where that came from, something whooshed up beside me. It would have been startling, except I felt like a zombie. Brain working a lot slower than normally. So I simply glanced up.

A winged man fell in stride with me, his face all too familiar; it was the drunk from the old jail.

I grumbled and put my hood up, quickening my pace. I hadn't realized he was a moron with wings. And the fact that he could fly bore a hole in my stomach that made me want to puke.

"You missed me that much, huh?" he said, jogging to catch up.

Tempted to ignore him the whole walk home, I glared at him. Staring into his soul. It felt like a better alternative to complete passiveness.

"You're right," I said, "where are my manners." I took in an exaggerated breath and said "fancy meeting you here- Ol' buddy ol' pal!" The corners of my mouth lifted, forcing my lips apart so he could see my bared teeth, but my eyes remained hard.

He nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I frightened you the other night, didn't I?"

Man he had some gulls, stalking me on the street and then trying to be a concerned citizen.

I wanted to ignore him. I did. But some random bit of integrity or politeness in the back of my mind said would it hurt to be nice to him? and a part of me knew that if I wanted to have a good working relationship with these people, I probably needed to be more professional.

"No, you didn't frighten me." I said, chewing on my cheek. It wasn't entirely a lie; I had been anxious but that was in general, the whole experience of going to the old jail and meeting with them, not particularly him per say.

We walked for awhile in silence. It felt a little awkward, him walking beside me with no explanation as to why he was there. And it occurred to me I didn't know his name. So I asked him.

"Leo," he said, "and you're of course Meeker's daughter, Phia, am I right?"

I nodded. Too tired to put more effort into the conversation. I wanted to ask him about his wings. But given our relationship so far, I didn't want to give him the impression that I was 'accepting' him as a decent human being. It was bad enough that I'd conversed with him thus far. He probably thought I was all but hitting on him. Oh shit.

Finally we arrived home. It was, as predicted, completely dark out aside from the odd street light. I stopped, and stood at the corner of our yard and the neighbors, wondering if it was a bad idea leading Leo to my house. Now he knew exactly where I lived- though I was pretty sure him and the others knew, Al for sure must have known. But the I wasn't sure how much of that information my father disclosed to them. Debated walking past the house a couple blocks up and trying to lose Louis somehow, but I didn't have the energy nor the brain power to pull something respectable off. So I just looked at him and said.

"Well... thanks for walking me home, I guess." It felt a little ridiculous to say. I'd never had a boy walk me home before, and Leo was looking more and more like a boy. But of course it was the wrong scenario.

"Anytime!" he said, winking at me. yuck I thought. "Hey listen," he said, "I gotta have a word with your dad. There's been a change of plans that I was sent to let him know about."

My heart started panicking. Flipping and flopping in my chest like a goldfish that flew-the-coop. My father was in no state to speak with anyone.

"Now's not the best time," I said. Hopefully that was enough to deter him.

"It's just a quick word," Leo said. "It won't take long. I've come all this way."

I searched my brain for any tiny bit of a lie that I could soon into a bigger lie that could keep Leo satisfied that now was a very bad time to speak with my father.

"...He's been ill lately- the stomach flu," I said, "he's not up for company and you don't want to catch it anyway."

Leo looked a bit skeptical, but he didn't question my story. As a last thought, more on a whim, I said "but if you'd like to come in for a drink, you're more than welcome."

When Leo accepted I could have kicked myself at my sheer stupidity.

I fumble to unlock the door, and we went inside.

"You keep your dad locked up while you go out?" Leo asked, a smirk pulling at the side of his face.

I made the excuse that my father was sleeping most of the day and out of it so I we had locked it. Leo kept smiling but didn't say anything more on the subject.

I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and plopped it on the table as he flopped into one of the kitchen chairs.

“You’re not drinking?” he asked. I shook my head. I could use a beer, but the last one was in his hands. He didn’t need to know that I was out of beer- that would probably add to his suspicion of the state of my house and my father and our business.

We sat in silence for awhile, and as we did so, my mind wandered. I ended up too curious for my own good about Leo and his wings. How did he learn to fly? Did someone teach him? Was it easy? How did it feel? Suddenly he was less of an annoying drunk and more of an interesting specimen that I needed to observe- very closely, as well, because he’s not someone I’d trust.

I was just about to ask him about his wings, I’d worked up enough courage, when I heard a crash in another room and leapt to my feet. In moments, Leo was on his feet too, standing beside me, and then striding to the other room where the sound seemed to have come from. I followed him, a little cautious. If someone was breaking into murder me, they could murder Leo while I ran.

It was still dark in the other room- the living room -because I hadn’t been in that part of the house since I’d come home. Leo squinted into the darkness, trying to make out something. I snuck around behind him to where the light switch was and was just inches away from it when Leo shooted and fell to the floor. I heard thumping and crunching sounds- funiture being knocked over and glass shattering on the hardwood floor. All of this happening in seconds.

I switched on the light and and clung to the wall as if it were a life ring and we were out at sea and there was a giant sea monster trying to eat me. Instead we were in my house and the sea creature was not a sea creature but was still a monster of some sort that I’d never seen before in my life. It stood on all fours, talons dug deep into Leo’s shoulders. Or were those claws? I looked around for anything that I could swing and it or throw at it, but my father was never one for nik-naks. So I screamed at it.

“Hey!” I said, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

It didn’t notice me, and hear me, and was now trying to fit it’s mouth around a flailing Leo’s head.

“Hey!” I screamed louder, taking a few very bold steps forward. This time, to my surprise, it looked up at me, taking it’s mouth off of Leo’s head.

I stepped slowly closer to it, and spoke up again, “I said, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” I sounded incredulous, but it was just me masking how terrified I was- incredulous was the best thing I could manage to do. Leo was perfectly still, save for his heavy breathing. Blood leaked through his shirt.

The creature, which seemed to be a griffin; it looked like a leopard safe for its black wings that matched the rest of it’s coat- stared at me for a good long moment.

“Did I invite you in?” I asked. The griffin blinked at me. “Did I say you could eat this man?” I gestured to Leo who was still pinned under it. The griffin made a low sound that to me seemed like annoyance and maybe, if I was being overly hopeful, a dab of regret and fear. “This is my home and you play by my rules when you visit.” The griffin scowled at me.

Leo twitched and the griffin looked down at him. For horrible moment I thought it was going to go for his head again. But instead it stepped off him, still watching him.

“Go on!” I said, “Get out!” The griffin backed away slowly till it’s hind legs hit the back wall where the broken window blew a breeze in, rustling the curtains. Then it clambered out the window and leapt into the sky.