Page 67 of Alpha Bait

Disturbed

INDIE

I have never liked surprises.

"Where are you taking me again?" I asked my brother.

He smirked, "you'll see."

I sighed.

"I'm glad we decided we could put this behind us."

"Like I said," Jamal replied, "we need to put the past behind us and do what's best for the company."

"I agree."

I leaned back in the front seat of my brothers new Mercedes. He would only drive during times like this, when we were headed out of the city and when he had the particular urge to drive one of his newest sports cars.

Jamal went through sports cars like some people go through underwear. He wouldn't own them longer than a few months, long enough to take plenty of joy rides out of the city deep upstate or far out on Long Island.

"So this is some kind of exclusive club?"

He grinned again, enjoying his sadistic torture.

"Sort of."

I wanted answers, but there was no way I would get them out of Jamal if he had determined not to give them. He was a master at playing his cards close to the chest and he had always been that way. Even when we were kids imitating our parents' weekly poker games, Jamal had always been an easy winner.

We went West out of the city, in the direction of the red-orange sun that gleamed brilliantly on the horizon.

The houses transformed from hideous rundown brick into more luxurious and contemporary mansions. The farther out of the city we drove the larger the homes, and the larger the space between them. After a few miles, you wouldn't have believed that New York City was only a hop skip and a jump away.

The suburbs were a different world. I noted how quiet it was. My brother must have noticed the silence too because he flipped on the radio as if by pressing need. Us New Yorkers need a certain amount of white noise just to get by I suppose. You grow accustomed to it -- the bustle, the continuous pulsing vibration of the city.

We turned down a private road that didn't seem to lead anywhere in particular. There were no signs and I might have missed the exit completely had my brother not taken a sharp left turn there. Questions burned in my chest as the mystery deepened. The anticipation wasn't a quiet murmur anymore but a yell that rivaled the ones on the rap track that was spinning on the radio.

"You know I hate surprises," I chided.

My brother shrugged.

"Hey, I'm doing this in the spirit of family."

I relaxed and listen to the music for a while as the driveway grew narrower and narrower. Clumps of trees hung over the road and it was as if the deciduous forests had joined together to form a tunnel. Once we emerged from the dark patch of road, the giant colonial house we had been approaching stood only a few hundred feet off. My brother pulled the car to a sharp stop in the driveway, on one side of a large granite fountain with water that smelled like magnolias in the spring.

"We're here," he announced.

The announcement was unnecessary. There was nothing else for miles around. I opened the car door and I could've sworn that I heard an owl hooting. I shuddered. Out of all the horrors I'd witnessed in New York, nothing could get me more shaken up than what other people would consider natural. To me, having animals so nearby you could hear them singing to each other was far more natural than I was accustomed to experiencing.

As we got out of the car, I noticed another one parked in the driveway. The car looked familiar, but I couldn't place who it belonged to. Perhaps one of our second cousins? The shiny black Tesla parked in the driveway was almost invisible in the twilight.

"Who are we meeting?" I asked.

My brother's tone and his mood shifted. Throughout the drive he had been friendly and very nearly chipper. Now that we were both out of the car, that upbeat attitude was gone. His lips curled into a sullen frown and his brow became a furrowed caterpillar on his forehead.

"Enough questions."

That was it. Frustrated, I stepped behind him as he approached the front door of the colonial.

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