Page 43 of Wandering in Darkness
Ned is now too curious about pig tricks to turn me down and waves for me to go ahead.
I rush over to Brigs, and when Brigs trots over to see what I’m doing, I gracefully stumble over him. I slam into Ned’s desk, sliding two paper clips off and into my hand.
“Shit. Sorry. Brigs seems to think that a human sacrifice every now and then is just what he needs to brighten his day. Okay, Brigs, it’s your time to shine.”
“It sure does seem like you have little to no control over that thing.”
“You don’t need control over Brigs. You need love. Now Brigs, are you ready?”
Brigs is quickly growing bored because the only thing he’s ever ready for is a snack. And when there’s no snack involved, he wanders off to find his next victim.
I aim a finger gun at him. “Bang!”
He pokes my finger gun with his snout. Then he hurries off to see if the stranger will give him more of his apple.
“Brigs. Buddy. Pal… come back. You’re making us look a bit foolish,” I complain, but he’s wandered off on his next adventure.
“Wow… that was impressive,” Ned says with ample sarcasm before there’s a knock on the door. The woman who’d brought Copper to us comes over and whispers something to Ned.
“Can you escort these two back to their room?”
“Of course,” she says. “Come along.”
She holds the door open, and even though Brigs was willing to ditch me for the apple during our talent show, he generally doesn’t want me out of his sight, so he trots after me.
“Hi, I’m Felix.”
“Emma,” she says with a smile.
“This is Lane, Copper, and Brigs. I have a crisp five-dollar bill in my pocket if you lead us out to the car so we can be on our merry way. I was craving some pizza for lunch. I’ll even get you a slice.”
“All of that for five dollars? That’s impressive. I could probably retire with that.”
“I hear you, but you would gain my friendship, which is priceless.”
Emma eyes me while she seems to consider this proposition. “Oh man… I’m actually one of those people where I like the idea of making friends, but when it comes down to actually being friends with someone, it sounds like too much work. Like meeting up for lunch in three weeks sounds like a fantastic idea now, but the day of, I’ll beg and hope and pray that you cancel. You know?”
“I’ll even give you the euphoria of canceling every time we make plans. We could pretend to be friends,” I say. “My friends love me.”
“They might love you… but they might also regret being with you,” Lane teases.
“Excuse me, Mr. Innocent. You were right there with me as we jumped out of that vehicle. You werealsoright there with me at all of the other points as well! Hell! Before you, I was boring!”
“Are you sure being a petty thief who has done what you’ve done is boring? Hell, justbeingyou is definitely not boring.”
“Significantly boring.”
“You two actually seem fun,” she says.
“So are you going to let us go free?” I ask.
Emma gives me a rather sweet smile. “Absolutely not.”
“You’re slightly evil… I like it.”
She waves us into a room. “Welcome back to our newly appointed torture chamber. We used to just like… smoke weed in here. There are no windows so you’d just suffocate a little, but in a good way. Now we use it for the people we abduct. A little different, but I’m not one to judge… we now have to smoke weed outside, though… which is less fun.”
“I’dloveto smoke some weed. Do you have some?” I ask.
