(no subject)
I’m lost…I’m really lost!
Serena was cursing herself for being so stupid as to skip school on the coldest day of the month to follow the homeless girl off the bus. When she had tried to speak to the girl, the right words were not only a struggle for her to think of, but they died in her throat before she could even gather the courage to open her mouth.
It wasn’t that there was nothing she could think of saying to the girl; there were hundreds of things she wanted to ask.
What’s your name? Where are your parents? Do you go to school? Are you hungry? How can I help?
Had this been a story in a novel, Serena would have known just what to say and do to have the homeless girl open her heart to her and trust her. They would become friends and by the end of the story Serena would have an adopted sister.
Real life literally smacked her in the face when the bus driver had stopped suddenly to keep from missing his stop, making Serena launch forward in her seat and slam her forehead into the back of the seat in front of her. The homeless girl didn’t even bother to hide the amusement in her smile as Serena whimpered and held her cold nose with both her mitten hands.
But it was this painful stop where the homeless girl got up, bumping Serena’s legs as she moved past her, and got off the bus. Serena felt as if a once in a life time chance was escaping. Would she turn away and be glad that the homeless girl was leaving? What would that say about her, and then what would she do if she ever saw the girl panhandling on the street again? Ignore her like she had seen those people do to her before? Ignore whatever pleas the girl was making as she held her hand out to someone, anyone, who had enough heart to show some kindness?
Was it really this hard to care about another human being?
The whirlwind of emotions was just part of the storm in Serena’s heart that thundered with logic and uprooted reason, causing her to do what her friends at school told her she was famous for; acting first and thinking last.
This was how Serena found herself in a part of town she didn’t recognize, cold and feeling scared of everything. The buildings in this part of town looked run down. The street had numerous cracks and potholes with flattened weeds that had been growing inside them. She kept a good distance away from the homeless girl, but she wasn’t alone.
When she had got off the bus Serena had just a few seconds to make it look as if this was her natural stop. She felt like a spy, tracking this homeless girl to see if she would be okay or not. It made no sense to anyone other than her why she should care, only that it would be senseless for her not to care. Seeing the homeless girl meet up with someone who might have been a big brother should have put Serena’s heart at easy, but it only made her feel more concerned.
The man was tall, handsome but with a demeanor that screamed cockiness. He had thick black hair like model, a clean angular face, sunglasses despite that there was no sun out, and a expensive looking leather jacket that made no sense to her, given the light snow still falling. When the homeless girl stepped in front of him, she looked him over once as if she had never seen him before, than started walking towards the rundown buildings with the young man following close enough behind her that there was no way the girl couldn't have know he was walking behind her.
Not only did Serena notice the two not speak a word to each other, but it seemed as if they couldn’t possibly be related, not even in the sense of friendship. Her friends might have called her a ditz and an airhead, but Serena was very sensitive to the body language of other people; it was what made her so understanding of others. The homeless girl walked with her hands stuffed into her tight jeans. It seemed the jeans were too tight to really offer protection against the cold snow around them, and it made her butt really stand out. When Serena thought about it, she looked again towards the man following the girl and could tell where his eyes were looking as he started following her.
With that, Serena followed the pair at a safe distance.
It wasn’t a safe idea, but the thought of the homeless girl being followed by this pig who was eyeing her ass like an apple gave Serena the strength of character to not turn her back and shrug her shoulders like her mother would have done. She followed the pair for twenty freezing minutes, going deeper and deeper into the city where the only adults Serena encountered were a bag lady with a black and white cat in her shopping cart and a man in dirty, mud stained cloths sleeping in a doorway with a dark brown, broken bottle near by. At least, Serena hoped he was sleeping, given how very cold it was. He was using newspaper as a blanket.
As Serena started to feel panicked that she’d never make it back to any place she would recognize, the homeless girl had pulled back part of a chain link fence separating the cracked street from a brick building missing a whole side of its wall. Multi-colored gang symbols were painted on the outside and inside of the building, and just looking at it made Serena feel nervous, as if she were looking at a place that was forbidden to her.
The leering pig of a man followed the girl past the fence, and Serena lost sight of them.
If I had a cell phone I would so call the cops now…
She stopped and looked behind her. She had no sense of direction and knew it would take an hour or more to retrace her steps; the snow falling was already covering her tracks. Turning back also meant leaving the homeless girl alone with that guy that Serena felt was anything but good.
What if he is a really bad guy…and no one heard her cries for help?
It was enough for Serena to decide it was best to keep going. She had already come so far; to turn back now would be a huge wasted effort.
And she would never want to be left alone with a guy that stared at her ass like that pig had been doing to the homeless girl.
With her heart banging against her chest Serena approached the fence, carefully looking out for the homeless girl and the guy following her. She couldn’t see them, and gently pulled the fence back like she had seen and entered the broken down brick building. The ceiling was still partially held up, and the floor was dry but the building itself held very little warmth. There were rocks and weeds all over, softening Serena’s careful steps as she headed for a depression in the building. It was a stairway leading underground, and the crushed weeds on the ground proved that the homeless girl and that man had headed for that area.
This is such a bad idea…if I turn back - no, if I turn back this was all for nothing. But what if he’s dangerous and hurts her, and then hurts me?
Picking up a few decent sized rocks and placing them in the many pockets her thick jacket had, Serena walked down the steps leading to an aged door with faded paint, left open just a crack. Carefully stepping to the door, Serena pressed her ear close to the crack in the doorway and could hear someone, the girl no doubt, speaking to who she thought had to be the man that followed her. Her heart stopped cold at what she heard.
“2000 yen for a blowjob, 4000 to let you fuck me, and only with a condom.”
“Or, I could get both and not cut your throat.” The man said.