The bulb dangling above blinded his eyes as he slowly opened his lids. His head tilted back on a metal edge, Chump groaned in pain.
A severe headache struck him when he attempted to move his head forward, making him nauseous. He shook his head repeatedly to keep himself awake.
Chump pressed and blinked his eyes several times, trying to get a clear vision of his surroundings. Unable to properly move his legs and arms, and his heavy head hanging from his neck, he quickly understood the situation."You're awake." The voice came from a dark corner, as the tiny bulb illuminated only the area where he was kept.
"Where am I?" His voice and body- weak. Chump conceded that whatever he was given had weakened his body and that the old man had outsmarted him. But being unable to accept his fate, he glanced around, surveying for a way to free himself. With wooden stairs nearby, he concluded that it had to be a basement of some sort in the house itself, as the old guy couldn't have carried him far.
"Here, drink this." The man offered Chump a small bottle containing a liquid of some sort.
"What did you do to me?" He weakly growled at the man.
He took notice of how the man had completely changed his clothes as well as how he carried himself. The respectable elderly man in his polo shirt, ironed trousers, who served him cookies, was now replaced with rugged jeans, an old shirt, and some dirt boots. A rifle behind his back.
"Something my wife taught me years ago." The man unsealed the glass bottle and put it near his victim's mouth.
"The fuck do I look like. No!" He blurted, using his remaining strength.
"Fine. But you're going to be in that chair for the whole night, and I'm not willing to risk it. So I might just drive you off somewhere else." The old man nagged Chump.
Chump took a few gulps unwillingly. He shook his head at the test of potent serum. "My wife made these cookies before she died, getting sentimental and shit." He took a jab at the old man.
"It wasn't in the cookies!" The old man snapped back. "My wife would have never condoned whatever I did today." He paused, "Heck, we didn't know if it would work."
"What do you mean? It's the first time you've drugged someone? You could have killed me!" Chump retorted, with a little strength he was gaining.
"Listen here, you-! I did not ask for any of this, or you. You showed up at my door, asking questions one shouldn't have been asking." The old man retreated.
It went quiet for a few minutes as the two people in the dingy room pondered to themselves.
"Well, it was fun while it lasted." Chump ripped the ropes with a little strength and stood up.
He got up from a chair and dusted himself. "Thank you for your hospitality, I mean, we do it differently where I come from. But hey, who am I to judge?" He teased the old man on his way out, to clear the air- his body still shaky.
"If you leave right now, you will never find out who you came for." The man said as he saw him taking the creaky stairs.
"You know I could kill right now and rummage through your house for everything you have." Eyes ahead and his back to the man, Chump said menacingly. "And maybe I will take whatever you have, your wife's jewelry, probably some money, and leave in a few hours. You see, I have superpowers that make me go really fast. It will all be over in just minutes." Chump put his one foot downstairs.
The old man looked at him through his blank eyes and passed the gun to him. "This will make it easier. Go on, be quick with it, my neighbors will not hear a thing- trust me. But whatever I know will be going with me. I'm old, I have seen and been through it all, so nothing you say or do will make me give it up. And the way you were willing to show up at a stranger's home looking for answers is making me feel like all your other options have failed."
The smugness in his face disappeared. "What the fuck do you want?" Chump vented out.
''Easy! You help me get what I want, and I tell you everything." The man was eager and hopeful.
"Oh, so now you wanna talk?! How easy, right? It didn't occur to you then...or?
"It was you or me, situation." The man expressed himself with cynical eyes.
"And now you know?".
"Two times I bought this gun in front of you, couldn't tell it was a dud to save your life." The man cheekily added.
Chump bit his lips tightly, letting out a forced smile. "I fucking hate old people."
------
"Mom…." Rayla kicked her feet and whined alone, seemingly waiting for someone at the entrance to the driveway.
Her fingers tightly gripped her iPhone as she scratched and poked the stickers on the phone case; her eyes surveyed every passing car.
"Mom!" Her eyes widened, and she rushed to the car, attempting to park nearby on the side of a residential road.
"Are you okay?" Mary quickly got out and examined her daughter and tightly hugged her.
"Where is she?"
"Still in the house. I was scared, Mama." Her eyes bugged out.
"It's okay."
"Hi, sweety." The other woman poked her head out of the back seat of a Benz; her hair was messy with bedhead.
"Aunt Mercy?"
" Yes, it's me!" The woman dragged herself out of the car, looking disoriented.
"Oh my god.. Look at you. All grown." She fixed herself, covering her loose silk top with an outer robe, as she approached the girl.
"Look at you, look at your hair. Aah.. come here, you." She pulled the 19-year-old in for a hug.
Rayla turned her nose as she got near her face. She couldn't help but stare at the woman's smudged eye makeup with glitter smeared all around the lids, and her uneven red lips, which were accentuated with every word she spoke.
"You're so beautiful." The woman continued.
Rayla willingly smiled at all the praises she was receiving at the moment, which already made her feel better after whatever she had seen for the day. Her smile dropped instantly as she saw another person coming out of the back seat. "What is she doing here?"
Lyra rolled her eyes and slammed the car shut. She walked with a lazy pace, unwilling to associate with sudden pestering, her arms folded in defense, and the wire of her earphones dangled across her oversized printed tee, swaying with a phone inside her checkered pyjama pockets.
"Mom!" Rayla glared at her mom and ranted.
"That's enough!" Mary told off her daughter.
"Alright now, ladies." The woman gently squeezed the arms of the other girl, stretched her hands at the other, and motioned her to get closer, trying to get the two to work together. "Your mother's right. If we want to help your sister, we're going to need all Witches on deck. Okay!" Her brows furrowed in admiration for the two.
-----
The vehicle crept along the roadside, its sidelights illuminating only the rough curbs ahead. The elderly man turned off the engine of an old truck and got out.
"What do you want?" The uncommunicative old person finally spoke, asking the person on the passenger seat through the window.
"A Coke- Coca-Cola, will be just fine." Chump, who was comfortably seated, answered.
He watched the old grumpy man walk a few metres away from the truck into a remote corner store. He cautiously glanced around the unfamiliar location he had been brought to for the day; tall pole lights, placed distant from each other, led to a place foreign to him. He bit his patchy, dry lips and rubbed them with his fingers. He sighed as he saw a glimpse of flickering lights of the nearby town from afar.
Chump threw his head back in the damp seat and let out a deep breath. "What the fuck am I doing?" He uttered to himself and puffed out his mouth, letting the air out of his lungs, trying to calm his nerves.
"I just dug a fucking grave! Yeah. That's what I fucking did." He pulled and tucked his hair. "It's fine, I'm fine. It comes with the job. Except I could get arrested!"
Chump went through pits of all kinds of emotions in just a few minutes.
"Fuck! You scared me." He jolted as the door swung open on the driver's side.
"They didn't have the one you asked for. The old man said nonchalantly.
Chump rummaged through the plastic bag and chugged the bubbly, almost emptying the can at one go. "Wow! That felt good." He turned the mini purple can, attempting to read in the minimal lighting. "Grape soda. I'm not into this kinda drink, but it's pretty good." He clicked his tongue, savoring the last drop.
The old man silently watched as the young person scrabbled through everything in the bag, picking and tearing every packet- like a child.
"It was my daughter's favorite." He said- his voice monotonous, and his eyes back on the smooth asphalt.
"Owhhhh...kay." Chump pretended to look outside with un-open can in his mouth. He observed the man from the corner of his eye, as the situation inside had become awkward - just briefly.
"That's all she would ask for, before she. That's all she wanted." The old man added.
"Before she died? Chump glanced at the man, who currently lacked all emotions on his face as well as his demeanor.
So what now? You think it's that Michael guy? I mean, even if it's him, I doubt you'll be able to do anything about it. After all, you guys did lie. And whoever or whatever it is, it's pissed enough at you to remove your daughter's remains." He remarked, his voice croaky from constant chugging of a sweet drink.
The old man let out a sigh of exhaustion
"I always thought I was a good man, raised by hard-working, humble farmers. Life wasn't gonna be much, but whatever it was, it was gonna be a decent one. So when I saw this woman at our grocery store, I knew she was gonna be my wife- I was scared shitless; new in town, well learned, beautiful. I thought, 'Hey, what's someone like got to lose. Saw her for the third I asked her out."
"She said yes." Chump, who now has his head turned towards the old man, asked with a smirk on his face.
"No. She asked me how old I was- said I looked younger than her."
"Later found out she was 35 and I was only 27 at that time." The duo chuckled on the silent road.
"But I was persistent, I kept asking till she had know choice but to say yes."
"Really.. Chump took a sip. "You know it's cute, it was probably normal back then. Nowadays, you'd be in jail, probably married a year later."
"Yup." The man gently smiled.
"I knew it." Chump slapped his thighs and raised his drinks; the youngster was getting the hang of it.
"Another year later, she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. But there were some complications, and the doctors said she was never gonna give birth again, but we were so happy, nothing mattered in front of our new joy. She was going to be our world."
"And she was." His voice broke at the last sentence and was taken over by silence.
"I knew what we did was wrong, but when you watch your flesh and blood living on the brink of death every day, it does something to you. My wife and I would speak about that boy all the time; it killed me inside every day, thinking about what they were doing to that boy inside that facility." He whimpered.
Chump turned his head as soon as he heard the first information of the day, for someone who, almost forgot for a few minutes. "What facility?" He kept his voice steady.
"The facility where he was kept." The man answered- his voice still shaky.
Chump closed his eyes and cocked his head, seemingly trying to remember something. "Salvation Corps!" He finally said it and shook his finger.
"Grace Medical Facility, it's more or less part of it. They let me work at the security dept at Salvation Corps, so yeah."
"Right..... That's why you get to know the boy." His eyes widened.
"I mean, that was part of it. The deal was that, since they were both kids, might as well let them see each other and spend some time since my daughter's chemo was being provided there and the boy was- probably lonely among adults and professionals." The old man fiddled with his fingers and looked down at it, unwilling to show his face, even though one could tell his nature by his quivering voice.
"He was isolated and alone; he had this look in his eyes like he was asking me for help, as though all the adults around him had failed him. Every day we would see him, his face would light up, like his life was going to change that day. That he would be able to come home with and be with us, our daughter, especially her. He was like a little brother she never had. She seemed happy and hopeful. And we would fail both of them, each time. Sometimes I think my daughter chose to leave us, because of what we had become and didn't wanna be a part of it. At the end, she looked more at peace than she ever was."
The old man rubbed his mouth and put his chest on a wheel, as his old body weakened in sadness.
"She took everything with her as a punishment, a little happiness we had, my wife's laughter, her joy, and her willingness. She became a shell of a person, my wife. Every time she looked at me, she had this look like she was drowning in guilt, like she hated everything, me, our life, and herself. What kind of a scientist would get her child sick?"
"Your wife's a scientist?" Chump, whose attention was at a now lightening sky, questioned.
"Yeah, that was the other part of the deal. She worked for them in return for our daughter's treatment."
Upon hearing the plethora of new details, Chump pressed his lips and faced towards the man, and his mouth was numb.
"So let me get this straight! Your wife worked for the Salvation Corps."
"More or less, yeah. They recruited her, my wife never said anything, but I knew they were after her, since her Oxford. And our daughter's cancer gave them the excuse."
"Your wife was at Oxford?"
"She once told me she used to research genetics and blood, and other things. I never asked her, probably I was one weak piece of shit who had a severe inferiority complex. Younger me probably thought, 'Hey, it doesn't matter, she's my wife now, mother of my child, no matter her education."
The old man shook his head in disappointment at himself.
"Right, but you did ask her why she came here, right?" Chump controlled his words, trying to pry more information out of the old guy.
"She said she had a disagreement with a former colleague about ethics. She said she didn't like how they were approaching certain things. I didn't ask much. Insecurity, I guess. Your English wife, who is much older than you, had a much interesting life than you. Didn't sit well with the younger me. I was a giant piece of shit."
"Your wife's from England."
"Yup, born and raised in Birmingham, came here after the lab incident. Parents died when she was a kid; raised by her aunt. Who eventually died during her college days."
"Wow, this is getting insane!" Chump scratched his head.
"These people are insane and dangerous."
"You keep saying they. Did you see them personally, like? Do these people have weird hairstyles and ugly long coats?"
"I don't know about weird hairs, about they do have crazy big boats, last time checked, the current COO of Salvation Corps is in Paris for his daughter's birthday. It's funny because they will kill other people's children if it means making them money. Do you know these people bring in children from other countries, in the guise of legal adoptions? Especially children from poor countries, most of these kids just disappear or grow out system and never get adopted. While making them billions of dollars."
"It looks like you know your stuff. Is that why you were at the protests?"
"Local NGO's got an anonymous tip about illegal adoptions. When they checked it out; got threatened, got tackled as soon as I started yelling his name."
"Wow, you sounded like a work back in the day."
"I hope I still am, for these pieces of shits?"
"You gotta be careful, they might come for you?"
"Oh, they already have. That's why they took my daughter to shut me up."
"You think it's them."
"I know it's them." The old man brought out a carton box from under the seat. "Everything I have collected all these years before and after my daughter's death, every movement, every news, is here. You will not find these even on the internet. This was in the late ."
"Thank you, Sir." Chump gleefully accepted the medium-sized box.
"I'll drive you to the nearby bus station; you should be able to sort out from there." The elderly man looked at the youngster with all seriousness.
"And then get out here, go back home." He said with a hint of care in his voice.
"Well, are you worried about me, Sir. After all things we've been through."
The old man shook his head, started the engine, the road now getting one car after another as the rays of sun brightened the horizon.
*************