Amity

Chapter 7: Inside the Mansion

As they walked closer to the crimson Oak door, they could hear a man shout, "What in the name of the goddess is with that?!" before two other men laughed.

"Sounds like everyone's having fun," Megumi said, turning the glass doorknob.

Dré gaped as he looked around the living room. The inside of her home looked like something that Dré had only expected to see in movies. The room was painted a peanut-butter brown, halved by white on the upper section of the walls. A crystal chandelier dangled over the large living room, where an almost theater-sized flat screen TV hung in front of two white suede couches with a black suede armchair to match.

Under the TV were more game systems than Dré could count. Almost every system between the Atari 2500 to the PlayStation 2 was neatly aligned in square cubby holes. The PlayStation 2 was currently being used by two men who looked to be in their mid-40s. Raheem Wolf, Dré's father, was sitting on the armchair, rapidly hitting the buttons on the controller. His sharp, angular face was wrinkled by a deep scowl, his dreadlocks draped down his back, tied together by a piece of hemp string. The other man, a barrel-chested man with the same rounded face and deep blue eyes as Megumi, sat in the suede chair with a big grin on his face. He was wearing a red T-shirt that barely fit over his muscled frame and a baggy pair of jeans that reached down to the middle of his shins.

Megumi cheerfully walked to him and tried to greet him, but he shushed her, kindly saying, "Sorry, Megumi. Daddy's delivering some long overdue butt-whupping."

"The butt-whupping ain't gonna last long, Toney. Believe m- Aw, what?!" Raheem bellowed as Toney scored yet another touchdown. "Does the D-Line not know how to block anymore?!"

Toney laughed as he said, "It's not your defense, bro. It's my offense."

Isaiah popped his head up from behind a short couch. "Yo, Dré. Don't just stand there, man. Come watch pops get embarrassed for the sixth time today."

Dré made his way deeper into the living room as Isaiah shook his head in shame. "Twenty-nine to zero. And in the first quarter." Raheem remained silent as he continued clicking on the controller.

"Why is everyone here?" he asked Isaiah.

"I donno. Toney said that we would find out at about three, once everything got ready. Y'all might wanna wait to introduce yourselves. They're too into the game to pay attention."

"Well, if that's the case," Megumi said, pulling on Dré's arm, "I'll give you a tour of the house."

She pulled Dré into the narrow hallway, where many pictures of the Gladestone family hung, along with three war medals encased in a small brown box. In the pictures with Megumi as a child, Dré noticed that she had short black hair, as opposed to her long dark red hair of today. In some pictures, he saw a girl who looked slightly older, darker skinned than Megumi, with braided hair in most of the pictures she was featured in. He wanted to ask her about it until Megumi stopped him in front of a white wooden door. The bottom of the door was blocked by a damp towel.

"This is the guest room," Megumi said as she knocked on the door. Once the door creaked open, a wall of smoke and the sour scent of marijuana hit Dré and Megumi square in the nose, making both of them cough.

"Huh? Oh, hey 8-Bit," an olive-skinned man said in a slur with a same sharp face as Tiffany. He was wearing a black cowboy hat over his braided, black hair. His hazel eyes were half opened as he grinned drunkenly at them. "How's it going? Father called me over to talk about something 'urgent.' Wait a minute." He had a sudden look of realization on his face. "Aren't you were supposed to be in school right now? You know, if you're going to drop out, I can use a sandwich. Since, you know, you'll be making a living doing it."

"Something came up," Megumi irritably said. "Did daddy tell you what the urgent news was?"

"Nope. Is it important?"

Megumi opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Instead, she squinted her eyes as she asked him, "How high are you?"

The man chuckled as he said, "High as a kite. Thanks for asking. Ain't that right, Loyalty?" he asked inside the room.

"Loyalty's in there?" Dré finally spoke. He felt uncomfortable blurting out something without being introduced first.

The man leaned closer to Dré. The rancid smell of marijuana was overwhelming. "Who are you?" he asked.

Megumi pushed the man's head back as she said, "Joel, this is Dré Wolf. He helped me get rid of a persistent pest in school."

Dré shot her a hard glare. "Really? Again with this story?" Megumi shushed him.

Joel stood up straight with a hardened face. "Couldn't you have gotten rid of him yourself?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Of course, but Dré said it wouldn't look good for the school if a new person suddenly started beating up everyone."

Joel's inebriated grin appeared on his face once again as he laid a hand on Megumi's head. "I bet 8-Bit was too short to reach the guy's head, huh Dré?"

Megumi pouted as she looked up at her brother, then at Dré, half expecting an answer from him.

Dré wanted to agree with Joel, but he knew from Megumi's deadly glare that doing so would result in disastrous repercussions. In fact, it appeared that everybody in Megumi's family towered over her. It must have sucked. "Uh...You said that Loyalty was back there?" Dré asked nervously, attempting to change the subject and possibly save his life.

"Yeah," he said as he opened the door further. Aside from the bed, television, and stereo, the room was bare; there were no posters on the white walls, no curtains, and no dresser. A dark-skinned man sat on the couch, his head resting on the top of the backrest. He was wearing a red jumpsuit with the name "Loyalty" stitched on the chest and a pair of worn-out sneakers. Loyalty rose his head with a grunt, his eyes half opened. He had the same sharp features as Raheem, but instead of the long dreadlocks that were draped down Raheem's head, his hair was shaved, his trimmed goatee free of graying hair.

"What's up, bro?" he said to Dré.

"Have you two been smoking all day?"

"Nope. Smoking and drinking," Loyalty corrected him. "You got any more of these mini muffins, man?" he asked, turning to Joel as he held up a half-full bag of blueberry mini muffins.

Joel's eyes widened, fully displaying his almond-shaped eyes as he looked warily from Loyalty to Megumi. She looked furious at the both of them. Her eyebrow twitched as her full lips pouted. "Are those my muffins?"

"I don't know. Joel gave 'em to me. He said you wouldn't mind. Right, Joel?" he asked Joel, who was trying to discreetly silence him.

"You gave away my mini muffins?" she asked, her sinister voice slightly above whispering.

"Now, 8-Bit" Joel began, holding his hands in front of him, "let's try to be reasonable about this. This isn't anything to-" he quickly shut the door in both of their faces.

Megumi inhaled deeply through her nose before saying, "Let's continue, then." She walked down the hallway before Dré could respond.

The hallway was longer than most houses he'd been in. Pictures were perched above each doorway. The doorway of the guest room had a group picture of the whole family, the next door adjacent to the guest room had pictures of Toney and Tiffany, and the door at the end of the hallway had pictures of Megumi.

She stopped in front of the door under the pictures of her and put her hand on the doorknob. The door had an anime poster of a young boy with spiky, golden-blonde hair and purple martial-arts clothing firing a bluish-white beam out of his hand. "This is my room. It's not much, because my stuff still isn't here yet, but it'll do for now."