Chapter 188: 5.19

Where's the nearest fire station? I tilted my head to the right, gazing at the blaze in the distance reflected in the side mirror.

Eventually, a passerby would report the random fire in the desert. We hadn't seen any other cars on the road so far. If we were lucky, no one would bother calling the police or the fire department before everything burned down. If someone would call the authorities, I hoped that a firetruck would take a long time to get here in the middle of the desert.

"Our traces would be burned before anyone can put out the fire," Deen told me, guessing what I was thinking about.

"Ah, right..." I trailed off, pretending I had plenty of worry frolicking in my mind.

"The only evidence left behind is the tire tracks of this car. Maybe some of our footprints too? That's too little to lead any investigation to us, I think. There's no need to worry."

"You're right," I said, slowly shaking my head as if to clear my fake troubled head. "It’s just…okay, I'm not going to overthink about it anymore."

Remembering what happened at the Sanders mall after we were attacked in its parking area, Deen suggested that we burn everything. She surmised that back then, our 'mysterious attacker' had set fire to the mall to cover their tracks, and that sounded like a good idea for our situation.

Of course, Deen still didn't know that it was Myra who tried to kill us. But she was right about the reason that the stupid group of hero wannabes, Emcee especially, burned down the mall.

I agreed with her plan. It wasn't like we could hide everything here. The bodies, maybe yes. But the truck and car? Definitely no. Unless we dug a very, very deep ditch for the two vehicles or something? But that was such a fucking hassle. It was also next to impossible to wipe away all the blood stains, hairs, fingerprints, and whatever other evidence was out there.

So, with the presumption that the police would eventually find the site of the massacre anyway, give or take a few days depending on how soon those frat boys were reported missing, might as well burn everything. The only downside was having the place discovered by the authorities earlier.

By burning everything, I meant the vehicles, the bodies, and the store.

Deen drove the pickup truck into the store, just crashing it through the wall. Then we worked together to push the car through the hole the truck made. There was a mangled body in the car's driver's seat; no way either of us was getting inside to drive it.

I wanted to ask Deen what the fuck she did to the poor guy, but that probably wasn't a good idea. I wouldn't want things to get awkward between us.

Next were the bodies by the hills.

Deen told me to wait by her car while she collected the corpses. I wanted to go with her because it was really difficult to describe where they were located. But she adamantly told me to stay—something about not getting traumatized further. Fucking hilarious she thought of that given everything I had gone through since I became an Adumbrae.

If anything, it should be me who should shelter Deen from traumatic sights.

At any rate, it cemented my belief that my best friend was super reliable and was indeed my best friend. Although there was just this nagging feeling that something wasn't exactly right with her. She killed three people, three normal humans at that. And she didn't really seem that bothered at all.

Given what I knew of Deen, I'd expect her to agonize over this. Perhaps she was dealing with this issue inside her mind, sparing me all the drama? That sounded like something she’d do.

Fortunately, I didn't do my shtick of being a rabid, hungry Adumbrae when it came to the four guys I killed by the hills. It would've been a huge mess dragging them back to the store if I had torn them into dozens of pieces. Deen dragged them two at a time, only having a bit of trouble with Main Character Guy, the one whom I decapitated; the rest were in sorta one piece.

That's why she was asking me if I wasn't hungry anymore! It puzzled me back then since we had just eaten at the diner. I thought she wanted us to eat at another restaurant to calm my nerves down or something.

Only now did I realize the meaning of Deen's question. She noticed that I didn't 'eat' the bodies outside the store. I told her that I wasn't hungry, and I now knew why she was so relieved by my answer.

After Deen dumped the bodies into the back of the truck, we wiped the blood on our skin and changed our clothes. The mixture of rubbing alcohol and water did the trick. The cool minty feeling left by the rubbing alcohol made me forget the disgusting crustiness of dried blood.

We threw our bloodied clothes and towels into the store and lit it on fire. The gasoline cans we found inside the pickup truck surely came in handy. The rotting dry wood made our work easier.

Driving away from the large blaze was sort of like the equivalent of walking away from an explosion in movies. In all, I was very satisfied with the ending to this night.

Night or day? Should I ask Deen about it, or would I sound stupid?

"Have you completely healed?" Deen asked

"Yeah," I said. "In a few seconds, my bullet wounds were already gone." She was probably just concerned with me. Typical Deen.

"Even if we heal really fast, it's still painful if we get injured. As your friend, naturally, I don't want you to get hurt."

That's true...should I ask about her injuries too like a good friend?

When we were changing clothes, I noticed that the blood on her shirt didn't look like splatters. I was no forensic blood expert or whatever those crime scene investigation people were called, but I could tell she had bled. With her Guardian Angel, there was no way she would’ve gotten shot.

Unless she allowed herself to get hit.

I didn't inquire about it because I bet it was something stupid like her conscience and stuff. And that was fucking annoying. I remembered when we were at the Eve underground arena—at that time, I was using my Blanchette body—Deen forced herself to look at the people getting killed by the mutants even if it was obviously causing her distress.

She probably let herself get shot as penance for killing some of those frat boys back there. Well, if that's her thing, I won't judge her stupidity.

"Just forget about everything here, okay?" Deen softly said.

I meekly nodded. The fire disappeared on the horizon.

"Look, the sun is starting to show up." She nodded ahead. There was a hint of light in the sky. "It's been a long night."

So, it really is considered night, I thought. And then the day would begin when there was light. Another random question was answered; this might be a sign of good things to come. "Yeah, really a long night. And we still have probably an hour until we reach Vegas."

"Maybe an hour and a half."

I groaned. "I really want a hot bath and then have a nice long sleep."

"You should take a nap for now. I'll wake you up when we're in Vegas."

"But what about my turn to drive? That was our agreement when we left La Esperanza, right? We take turns? I should drive—"

"No, no, it's fine," Deen said. "You need some rest. And I'm not sleeping."

"Um, just a thirty-minute nap then," I said as I took off my glasses. I wore them while we were searching the sand for stuff that we might've missed like cellphones and other items that the ACO guys could've dropped. I placed my glasses in the glove compartment and shut my eyes. "I'm going to take over later."

"Sure," she replied. "We might be somewhere near civilization by then," she added with a chuckle.

I breathed a contented sigh as I slumped in my seat.

Overall, it was a fun new experience. Well, I had experienced a ton of new stuff since that stupid day I met Myra's Adumbrae sister. But I didn't mean that kind of new.

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I was referring to a new face I wore—the face of a normal girl who turned out to be an Adumbrae. It was such an exciting face.

However, I still wasn't certain of the interaction of my Rules. Wearing the face of an Adumbrae, I was expected to be an evil monster, killing people and that kind of stuff—Rule #7: Don’t do anything that would break the character of the face I have on. But how should I act in relation to Rule #4: I wouldn’t bother the world if it wouldn’t bother me?

Those two Rules seemingly clashed with each other when it came to my girl-secretly-an-Adumbrae face. Good thing those jackasses earlier had bothered me first, so any conflict was averted. But I should settle this problem for the next time I wore that face.

I had lots of fun with it that I might try it out again someday...

 

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"Wha-what's going on?" I grumbled. My voice was hoarse from having just woken up. The incessant honking of horns made my head hurt. I blinked away the sleepiness from my eyes as I stared outside.

Cars, buildings. Lots of cars, and lots of buildings rising way up in the sky. Attached to these buildings were dozens and dozens of screens displaying brightly colored ads. They sold products ranging from the latest phones to the most advanced bioaugmentronics. Services were also shown like limbs extension and replacing organs with mechanical ones.

It was like the buildings were trees in a concrete jungle and the screens were the canopy.

"Oh, you're awake?" Deen said. "It was the noises from the traffic, huh? Anyway, welcome to Las Vegas, the bioaugmentronics center of America!”

"We're in Vegas already?" I said. The drone flying above our car, projecting a commercial about a cleaning robot, was enough to tell me where we were. Most cities wouldn't allow anyone to fly drones over main roads, but here, everyone with a permit could do it—and they gave almost everyone a permit. It was such a crazy place.

“And we're just in time to catch the start of the early morning rush.”

"Hey, you didn't wake me up!"

"You said you were going to take a thirty-minute nap. And then it became an hour and a half. Was I supposed to wake you up?"

"Yeah. I was supposed to take over driving from you."

"You were having such a good sleep, I didn't want to interrupt you."

"Um...thanks. I did have a good sleep."

"So, where are we going?" Deen asked. "I remember you mentioned the name of the condo building was 'Premier Highlofts'. But when I checked the map, there are four of them, One Premier Highloft, Two Premier, and so on. One and Two are on the same, but the last two are in different addresses."

"Let's switch seats," I said.

"Huh?"

"I'm going to drive there."

"No, just tell me where to go."

"Oh, come on. Switch seats with me," I insisted. I squeezed myself between the two front seats to get into the back of the car. "The traffic's not moving."

"Whatever," Deen said. But she did transfer to the passenger's seat.

I climbed back to the front and plopped my butt on the driver's seat. "You're supposed to be my guest here, so I'm the one who should drive and show you around town."

 

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"This looks pretty nice," Deen said as we entered the main lobby of the condominium building.

Nothing had changed since the last I'd been here, but it wasn't like I was gone for a long time. Last December, Mom and I stayed here during Christmas. And that was like only two months ago.

I wasn't sure if this lobby was bigger than my condo at La Esperanza—if one was going to be technical about it, this place was indeed bigger due to the fact that my other condo had burned down. This place looked a bit newer though. But that was probably because it was brighter, with all the off-white tiles, the massive chandeliers that were turned on even during the daytime, and the lofty floor-to-ceiling windows lining the facade.

There were also more plants here. Palms bigger than me were inside ceramic pots so large they could be cauldrons for witches. Each pot had a unique tribal-looking carving.

"Yes, it is nice," I said.

"Do you have an ID or something?" said Deen. "How do we get into your room?"

"Mom called them in advance. They know I lost my ID and keys. Plus, they know what I look like anyway."

"Awesome!" she cheerily said. She pulled her luggage and walked ahead. "Let's go. I'm excited to see your room. This is the first time—"

A loud crash made us turn to our right. A person wearing a hoodie had walked into one of the potted palms, probably distracted by something. He hugged the pot to steady it and moved it back into place. Then he briskly headed to the front door and exited the building.

I bet he was staring at Deen, I thought with a smirk. That was the reason he quickly left in embarrassment. "What were you saying, Deen? First time doing what?"

"First time having a sleepover at a friend's house," she said with a huge smile. "I mean, I'm not really sleeping over at your place. More like actually staying here for some time. But I'd like to think that it's a sleepover."

"Are you really serious that you haven't been to a sleepover before? You haven't been invited to one? You're like a queen bee. Everyone should be honored to have you over."

"I do have sleepovers at my house," said Deen. I noticed she didn't try to refute that she was a queen bee. "But my parents won't let me go to a friend’s house.”

Ugh, her parents. I seriously didn't care whatever family issues she had. "I guess for the first night at my place, you can sort of think of it like a sleepover. It’s going to be fun."

Cue in generic pop music blaring to a wide camera shot of the building. Then it’d slowly zoom out to the whole bustling city, kicking off a movie about two girls partying in Las Vegas, ending in them finding their true selves.

I wasn’t a fan of coming-of-age movies—Deen and I were more than two decades old; we had come of age a long time ago. But after a horror movie escapade in the desert, with me starring as the monster, I was hoping for something more relaxed.

I’m jinxing myself, aren’t I?

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