The Lost Girl

  “Harry! What the hell?”

  And only then did I remember I wasn’t in my room.

  Recollections of the night drifted through my blurry head as I remembered how I had fallen asleep in Harry’s bed. With Harry. Who was now sitting by my side, with the same stunned expression on his sleepy face.

  “J-Jackie?” he asked, confused.

  Holy Moses. It was his girlfriend. This was soooo not good.

  “Yeah, damn right it’s Jackie!” she shouted again. “I came back from the club with your friends because I missed you, and this is what I find? This is beyond fucked up, Harry!”

  “Wait, Jackie, it’s not what you’re thinking …” I started to say, but stopped when I realized how lame it sounded. That was so the typical reply people came up with when they were caught cheating. Even though it was the truth; this was not what she thought it was!

  She snapped her angry eyes back to me, jealousy and anger pounding like a sledge hammer, making me flinch under the intensity of her fury.

  “Tell her to get the fuck out!” she spat.

  “Jackie, please …” Harry said, but she turned her outraged glare on him, and he stopped whatever it was he’d been about to say. “Joe, could you please leave us alone for a second?” he said, his eyes fixed on Jackie the whole time.

  I nodded and walked out in a hurry. As soon I stepped out of Harry’s room, Jackie slammed the door behind me, making me flinch again. Everybody was standing in the living room and turned their heads to stare at me as I emerged downstairs.

  “Joey, what happened?” Tristan asked, coming up to me, all worried.

  “Oh, God! What should I do?” I repeated to myself in panic, wringing my hands anxiously. “It’s all my fault. I-I was scared to be alone in my room, so I asked if I could stay with Harry until you came back from the party.”

  “Jackie walked in and saw you guys sleeping together.” Tristan connected the dots. “God. I’m sorry, I didn’t think … We met her in the club, and she wanted to see Harry,” Tristan explained. “I should have thought …”

  “No, it’s all my fault. If I had stayed in my own room, like I was supposed to—”

  “No, Joe. It’s my fault. I should’ve stayed with you. I knew you would be scared being alone after what happened yesterday. I’m sorry …” Tristan cut in.

  We could all hear shouting coming from Harry’s room.

  “So? What’s the big deal? You were hanging with Harry in his room, waiting for Tristan to get back, so what?” Amanda asked, standing at Sam’s side. “Do you remember, Sam, when you were watching that chick flick in your room with Joey? And you two fell asleep and I walked in and caught you two drooling over each other,” she said, chuckling lightly. “It was so funny!”

  “Yeah, very funny! And for the record, it was not a chick flick. It was a thriller, a very scary movie!” Sam corrected, embarrassed.

  “Right. So, anyway, what’s the big deal? You guys crash in each others’ room all the time,” she said with a shrug.

  The shouting intensified in Harry’s room, making everyone in the living room shuffle awkwardly. The fight was getting intense up there. It was to be expected, since they both had fiery personalities.

  “Should we just … go to our rooms? To give them privacy?” Josh asked uncomfortably, but it was already too late, because the bedroom door burst open and Jackie barged out with fury in her step.

  We all froze as she stormed down the stairs to the front door.

  “Jackie! Wait, let me explain, this is all a big misunderstanding!” I said, pulling my arm free from Tristan’s grasp and hurrying towards her. I had to try to say something, to explain myself. This was all my fault; I had to do something!

  Jackie stopped by the door and stood with her back to us for a few seconds, as if she was holding her breath, waiting for a big explosion to come. The ticking time bomb was down to its last seconds. Tick. Tock. But she just turned slowly to look at me, her eyes fixed on me in a furious, cold stare.

  “Save it. I don’t wanna hear your lies, Gray.” Her voice dripped with contempt. “My friends were right all along. They kept telling me this was happening and I just didn’t want to believe it. I should’ve listened to them.”

  Harry was running downstairs, trying to catch up with her.

  “I’m not lyin—” I tried to say, but she raised her palm, making me stop mid-sentence.

  “You know what? Don’t. You win, okay? I’m done with it,” she said, looking coldly at me. “You can have him. He’s all yours. I won’t put up with this crap any more. You pull his strings and play with him like he’s your damned puppet.

  “I don’t know how you stand it,” she said, turning to Tristan. “How do you stand it, Tristan? Watching her rub against all your friends in front of your very own eyes, all day long, every day? It’s like she’s bewitched you. You’re all like her lapdogs, obeying every snap of her fingers.”

  She turned back to me again without waiting for Tristan to reply. “All you do is manipulate them. All of them! ‘Your boys’. You seduce and spin them around in your web of lies. I’m done with this,” she said, with hurt in her eyes, looking directly at Harry. “We are done.”

  And she turned and left the house.

  Everybody stood there in shocked silence, staring at the open door.

  Sam was the first to snap out of it. “Whoa. What a bit—”

  “Sam!” I cut in sharply. Harry was still there, right behind us. Whatever Sam had been going to say, it would only hurt his feelings. Sam shut his mouth and pursed his lips, understanding my warning glare.

  Harry snapped out of his daze and ran outside after Jackie.

  I hunched down on the couch, burying my face in my hands in despair. What had I done? Had I ruined Harry’s relationship just because I couldn’t handle being alone for a few hours in my own room? How pathetic was that? How was Harry ever going to forgive me for this?

  Tristan sat by my side and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “Joey, come on. Don’t be like that. Jackie was upset. People can say awful things when they’re angry,” he said, trying to console me.

  “I just … feel so bad. This is all my fault. Harry is going to hate me now,” I mumbled through my clasped hands.

  Harry walked back into the house then; his hair was disheveled and messy and his eyes sad and tired. “She didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. Maybe it’s for the best …” he muttered, visibly upset. “I’m not sure I even want to carry it on anyway. If she can’t get past this, if she can’t accept that Joey is my friend … I’m tired of fighting over this.”

  “I’m so sorry, Harry. I can talk to Jackie and explain what happened and … I’ll apologize to her,” I offered.

  “Apologize for what, Joe? None of this is your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “Listen, it’s all right. I’ll be fine.”

  I was almost in tears hearing how brokenhearted Harry sounded. I looked pleadingly at Tristan and he squeezed my shoulder, trying to reassure me that everything was going to be all right.

  “Listen, everybody, we all need to get some rest now, okay?” he commanded to our gathered group in the living room. “Things will feel better in the light of a new day.”

  I went to sleep with a heavy heart and woke up feeling weary and tired. The light of a new day turned out to be bleary, gloomy and full of bad news.

  After storming out of our house, Jackie had gone and “let slip” the news about her break-up to a few paparazzi. By the next day, a “few” paparazzi escalated to the whole press, all TV channels, blogs and gossip sites, radio stations, everyone.

  Harry sat in front of the TV, his eyes shining with a mixture of sadness and anger as he watched people discussing his personal life on the flatscreen for all the world to see. After a while he shook his head, turned the TV off and stood up, his jaw clenched in rage.

  “Well, I guess that makes it official, then.”

  The boys tried
to cheer him up, talking about other things to take his mind off the blasted news. Fortunately, we had a big, important meeting scheduled with Mr. Silver at his main office that afternoon, so the appointment took everybody’s mind off the unwelcome topic for a while.

  We were told at the meeting that we still had one last event to attend before our vacation finally kicked in: A National Music Awards ceremony that The Lost Boys would be attending as musical guests as well as nominees for the Best Album of the Year Award.

  We were going to play one song live between award acceptances, and one of us had to present the Outstanding Artist Award as well. We drew straws to decide which one of us would be the lucky one to go up onstage to deliver it, and to my upmost joy – note the sarcasm – I picked the short straw. I wasn’t very fond of public speaking, as it always made me nervous. Singing was one thing, but to be a host (even if it was just to present one award) was a whole different tune to dance to. But the straw contest had been a tradition since the band’s first official engagements and I had no choice but to abide by its rules. Being a wimp last night had already caused me enough trouble as it was.

  Then, to close the meeting, Mr. Silver discussed the upgrade to our security system. He had been really worried after hearing about what happened at the bookstore. He asked me a dozen times if I was really all right, assuring us that serious measures were being taken so that incidents like this wouldn’t happen again.

  Harry was still feeling pretty bummed, so the boys arranged to take him out to forget about his problems with a boys’ night out. They were trying anything to make him feel a little less depressed.

  I wasn’t even going to mention the fact that I’d be alone in the house again. I was done with being a wuss. I could die of fright in my room but I wouldn’t say another word about this subject ever again.

  The evening started out quite uneventfully, but when it was time for my shower, I was careful to take some precautions. This time I made sure all the lights were on in the whole house so there wouldn’t be any haunting shadows lurking around.

  Then I went to Josh’s room to retrieve a heavy baseball bat he had stored in his wardrobe, and put it against the tiled bathroom wall for my protection. That should serve as a fine weapon if I needed to smash some lurking murderer’s head in.

  After ten minutes in a steamy hot shower, all my worries were washed away. The tension in my neck slowly melted, leaving me completely relaxed. I whistled along to a song I had been working on inside my head for some time now. It could be our next single for the new album, who knew? It had a catchy rhythm … I needed to work on the lyrics with Seth later.

  When I was done with my shower, I stretched out my hand to open the cubicle and found a dark silhouette standing right outside.

  Someone was standing next to the marble sink.

  Chapter Nine

  Plan of Action

  I clasped my hand to my chest, more surprised than scared. I already knew who was outside the cubicle. The stabbing pain in my wrist was all the sign I needed.

  “Vigil!” I grunted, opening the cubicle door and peeking only my head out.

  He was leaning against the sink, arms crossed over his chest. His habitual gray pants and long-sleeved shirt were impeccable as always. He raised both eyebrows, confused by my reaction.

  “What did I tell you about never, ever appearing in bathroom facilities? Isn’t this, like, our most important rule ever made?” I asked him.

  “Oh. Right. I had completely forgotten. My apologies,” he said, genuinely concerned. “I searched before and Tristan was not in the house, so I thought it was okay to show up with him not present,” he explained.

  “No, no, no. This has got nothing to do with Tristan. The bathroom rule stands, no matter what, you hear?” I said, exasperated.

  Could you imagine if I was doing something else and he just appeared out of thin air? Oh, God! I would die of embarrassment.

  “And when I say, no matter what, Vigil, it means that even if the universe is ending, you do not enter while I am in the bathroom, do you understand?” I said one more time.

  He uncrossed his arms and leaned backwards in a defensive stance. “Yes, I understand. I apologize again. I thought you only worried over Tristan’s … But I am aware now. Never at bathroom facilities. Duly noted,” he stated, slightly annoyed.

  “It is a place where we humans need some privacy, okay?” I explained in a calmer tone, while I grabbed my towel and wrapped it around me. “It’s not very nice making me jump out of my skin with these pop-ins you do – not to mention the threat of heart attacks …”

  “Do not be silly; it is quite impossible for you to jump out of your own skin. And you are in both perfect form and condition; the likelihood of cardiac problems is minimal and improbable.”

  I rolled my eyes, remembering Vigil was never very good with figures of speech.

  “Speaking of pop-ins, have you been around lately, Vigil?” I asked. “I mean, popping up unannounced in the house?” I was thinking about all the weird shadows and the bumping sounds. Could it have been Vigil all along causing all the rumpus and making me worry over nothing?

  He frowned, not quite understanding the question. “No. This is the first time since the hotel bar meeting. Why do you ask?”

  “It’s nothing … I suppose it’s just me going nuts, then: seeing weird shadows and imagining things,” I mumbled, disconcerted.

  Vigil shifted his stance by the sink, suddenly uncomfortable. “Are you seeing weird shadows around the house?” he asked in a cautious tone.

  I glanced up curiously. “Yeah. Don’t tell me you know something about that?”

  “Hmm,” he said hesitantly. I could tell he was trying to hide something as I caught the undercurrent of emotion: worry with a mix of guilt.

  Vigil was really hard to read. The fact that he wasn’t human and that his unearthly race was exceptionally good at concealing emotions made him a master of disguising his true feelings. I had learned through years of being friends with Vigil the right way to understand him and the trick to catch his emotions. Plus, Vigil had been spending a lot of his personal time learning “human things”. The more he learned, the more human he became, the easier it was for me to read him.

  “So, Vigil, what is it that you’re hiding from me?” I said, deadpan, watching him flinch at being caught.

  “Yes, well, about that,” he began, shifting his feet nervously. “Did the weird shadows start after my last visit?” he asked, still being vague.

  I paused, thinking about it. It seemed about right. “Yeah, I guess so. I haven’t thought about it, but it all started soon after your last visit. Shadows and bumps and noises in the dark. And my body seems to react in overdrive for no reason at all. It is driving me nuts here. I thought I was seriously going insane over the past couple of days …”

  He glanced at the floor, deep in thought. “Well, you are certainly not insane. You should trust your instincts; they are giving you the correct reactions, perceiving danger instinctively. It is not just your imagination playing tricks on you,” he stated seriously, looking straight at me now.

  He had a weird look in his eyes, like he’d been caught doing something wrong. That was a major deal for Vigil and his kind. They were sticklers for rules; doing something wrong was a serious cause of shame to them.

  “There is a great possibility that my work may have followed me here somehow,” he confessed. “I always take extreme caution that I am not followed, but this latest job is particularly devious. A sneaky little thing, it is,” he said, pursing his lips. “I am deeply sorry for the inconvenience. But it seems it has tagged on to you and your house.”

  “Tagged on to me? Why?” I asked, startled.

  “I do not know. It has a confusing way of thinking. I do not understand its behavior, which is why I am struggling to capture it.”

  “Capture what? What is this thing?”

  “This creature has been disrupting things in many worlds, breaking in an
d stealing priceless items of special uniqueness. I can’t disclose the importance of these items to you, but their absence is causing serious disturbances in many realities. It is my job to put these items back where they belong and prevent the being from continuing its activities. It needs to be caught at all costs: these are the orders I have received so far.”

  “So, is this thing dangerous? I mean, for me? How worried should I be right now?” I asked, getting slightly agitated.

  On the one hand, I was actually kind of relieved. I wasn’t crazy after all. I wasn’t imagining things; there were indeed monsters lurking in the shadows. But on the other hand, there was some “thing” in the house. But hey, at least now I was aware of it and could properly protect myself.

  “This creature can be very dangerous when cornered,” Vigil replied. “It will fight back fiercely and sometimes nastily to avoid being captured. Which is what I have been trying to do for a long time now: capture the damned thing. It is quite ingenious at escaping. It is sleek and misleading, a dishonest, deceitful being, causing many problems wherever it goes. I have had it in my grasp a few times, but it always manages to slither away. It is most vexing,” Vigil said in a strained voice. “That is why I came to talk to you the last time. I sought advice from you about a new way to trap it.”

  “Okay, let me think … You said you’ve been following it. Can you track this thing, then? What’s its weakness?”

  “It is a very vague tracking I do, but it has slipped off my radar for a while now … to be precise, after our hotel meeting.” He looked guilt-stricken then. “I cannot sense its presence around the house at the moment. It is probably far away from here. But eventually it could try to come back, for whatever reasons it has.”

  “So, what happens if this thing shows up again?”

  “The easiest way for you to find it is to follow the sound. Do not trust your eyes; it has a mimesis mechanism. Trust your ears, then you will not be misled.”