Rockstar Serenade: The Verse

Ch 18: She Cried A River And Her Spirit Was Caged

KAILEY

 

The last thing I’d wish for is the disturbance of a phone call, when I’m already slowly drifting into my own realm of fantasy at almost midnight. Groaning since ignoring the call seems futile, I rise up from my bed slowly then take small, minimal paces which is obviously a drag. Who knew walking towards my table across the room could be such a torture.

I press the answer button without checking the annoying caller, and my trance vanishes quickly when the caller yells on the other line before I could even mutter a word.

“Put down the gun! Put down the gun!”

What gun?!

I turn pale at what I hear, though I know that the caller obviously isn’t speaking to me. The intensified sound of harsh breathing and rasp wails in the background makes me grow stupefied; I am too petrified to move my lips.

“Terra, put down the gun!”

Terra? A gun?!

It’s only after a few seconds of perceiving horrifying cries I recognize Oliver’s voice, shaking and trembling. And it’s Terra crying hysterically. I open my mouth, but my throat is raw to utter a word.

“I’m better off another casualty!” Terra screams.

There’s a drop of something on the floor, something ceramic or something glass. The sound is too crisp over the line.

“Terraaaaa!”

“O-Oliver?” My lips quiver as I finally had the courage to ask. “Oliver w-what’s going on?!”

The other line suddenly sounds muffled. It takes long before Oliver speaks up. “Kailey! Kailey, you gotta come here quick! Please!”

I pace around my room nervously. Something’s definitely wrong. “Terra! What’s happening to Terra?!”

There’s another crash of something breakable from the other line. “Hold her off, Amelia!” Oliver shouts. “Fuck!”

“Give me back the gun!” Terra cries.

“Kailey!” A panting Oliver returns on the phone. “I’m begging you, please come here, I really don’t know what to do and I don’t think force could restrict Terra any longer and I really need your help, and, and, god-fuckin’-dammit come here please!”

“But how?!” I ask. “I don’t know where the hell you are and how I’m supposed to get there, the taxi bay’s too far, and it’s almost midnight!”

“I’ll just meet you by the entrance of the headquarters!”

“Eh, but...”

“Kailey, please! I don’t know what to do anymore!”

For the very moment I curse myself for hesitating. Terra is crying. Why would Terra be crying, and howling, and breaking things, and grab hold of a gun? Terra is unstable and Oliver’s panicking. “F-fine, I’ll meet you there!”

Dashing downstairs, with my sudden presence I shock Marge who is busy working on her piles of papers. “Kailey, why are you still—”

“A friend is in distress, I need to go,” I say, unable to restrain the panic in my voice. Without further explanation I run outside my house with nothing but my pyjamas on and my phone clutched in my hand.

The night gales run their chilly fingers through my face and under my sleepwear, that hugging myself is the only thing I could do to provide heat so I could keep rushing to the headquarters. It’s dark, and although fear of the dangers of being alone in the streets at night envelops me, I thought of Terra’s cries and how paralyzing they were. Forget the dangers in the dark. The sound of her suffering were so afflicting I feel like crying myself.