Chapter Sixty-Eight – Dark House.
Aunt Jenna made a small victory dance around the room then exhaled. “Now, it’s up to Debby.” She grabbed Mr. Stark’s phone and switched it off. “Incase the bitch tries calling him.”
She glanced at Mr. Stark who was on the bed, naked and asleep. Aunt Jenna was wearing no clothes herself. She smiled to herself and went back to bed with him.
Junior tried dialing a driver’s line but he was stopped by Arya just in time. “What are you doing?” she asked. “We’d get caught and sent back inside.”
His eyes widened and he nodded quickly. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s walk all the way… are we going to walk all the way?”
For one, he didn’t exactly know where Arya was heading to.
She breathed in and out before marching towards the bus station. “We’d take the bus. Let’s do this and hurry back.”
Junior had never taken the bus before, he excitedly agreed, walking ahead of Arya. “You’d handle the bus fees. I don’t know a thing about taking a bus.”
The bus arrived five minutes later and they boarded. The Stark’s apartment wasn’t very far away from the hotel so they arrived within twenty minutes.
Arya had to explain what’s going in before taking Junior in. He was already having a confused expression. “This is where I grew up in. My father’s house.” She started.
He went back. “This?”
Arya wasn’t sure if it was because it was less flashy and smaller than houses he was used to or because it looked like no one had been in it for years but she didn’t like his “This?”
“Yes. This. I’m no nurse, unless to my father, and he’s in need of medical attention. Turned out that the group had hit on him. I don’t know much details.” She advanced to the house.
Junior stopped her, his eyes darting about. “You’re sure that someone lives here. It looks really rundown to me.”
It was no surprise to Arya. She was the one who cleaned the house before. Her father was a really lazy man and could live with pigs as long as they fed him and let him sleep.
Arya took down Junior’s hands that stopped her from advancing. “I literally said I grew up here. Give it some respect. I know it looks hopeless.” She sighed.
Hearing her, Junior folded and let it go. The house surely gave him the creeps but not because it was rundown. But because it was silent.
If there was anything his games told him, it was that any rundown looking house that’s oddly quite, have lots of traps or enemies in it.
But again, they were in the real world. “Let’s go in then. But are you really on good terms with her father?”
Arya snapped her head at him. Why’d he think she wasn’t?
The only reason she wasn’t in good terms with her father was because he sold her, coupled with how he treated her for the past years.
Anyways, Junior wasn’t supposed to know that as he doesn’t know the marriage was arranged. “Um… well, why do you think I’m not in good terms with them?”
Junior scratched his head. “Well, you never speak of him. And, he didn’t attend your court wedding so I thought you guys aren’t on good terms. Anna is like your only family.”
Arya exhaled. So he didn’t catch them after all. And he was right, her father wasn’t her family anymore. Anna was all she had. “Oh, yeah. He didn’t attend. But that’s by the way.”
No matter what, her father was still his in law so she didn’t want to ridicule or talk down on him in front of Junior.
She opened the door, after knocking for a while. “I wasn’t really expecting my father to open up. He’d probably be holed up somewhere waiting to die.”
Junior glanced at her and then forward. “You seem to hate him very much.”
Arya clasped her lips together. Maybe she shouldn’t say anything that’d out the fact her father was such a scum.
They went in and the door closed behind them. The inside was dark and Arya reached for the switch. The light didn’t turn on when she switched it.
“Goodness, the house became worse than I left it.” She dropped her bag on the ground and felt her way to the kitchen. “I’d go look for candle or something.”
“Let’s just find your dad.” Junior switched on his phone light. The place looked dumped and abandoned. Mr. Stark must be a human pig to endure living in such conditions.
Arya returned to him. “Yeah. But where’s he? He should be yelling at us by now for entering without his permission.”
Junior and Arya advanced the stairs and into the rooms. She tried the switches along the way but none were working.
“Could it be he didn’t pay the electricity bills?” she wondered. “I don’t see anyone here. Let me call my Aunt.”
She tried running downstairs to get her bag but surprisingly the hall way door she passed to get to the room they were in, wasn’t opening up. “It’s locked?”
Junior glared at the door. “It’s locked. And from the outside.”
Arya stared at him. What was he implying? That someone locked them. “The door wasn’t like this before.”
“Arya, doors don’t just lock themselves. Someone locked it from the outside.” Junior explained, pounding on the door.
She went back. How could someone do that? Why would someone do that? Apart from Junior’s phone light, everywhere was dark, really dark.
She wasn’t even with her phone to call her father or Aunt Jenna. What kind of situation have they gotten into?
“Arya, is there another way to the door from here? This door wouldn’t budge!” Junior yelled.
She looked around and caught sight of the kitchen door. It led to the backyard so that should be an escape route. “Here!”
They both ran towards the door and crashed on it. It broke open but the damage wasn’t very detrimental. The kitchen was empty with only the gas.
“Arya, there’s nothing inside this kitchen. Are you sure your father stayed here? Do people live here?” Junior wondered aloud to himself.
Arya looked around the place, even under the cardboards. This was the worst case scenario. Did her father sell these things? Or did he move out…? He must have moved out!
“He got paid $100, 000 dollars, of course. How could I still expect him to live in this rat hole! He’s a money squanderer so he must have rented the best apartment.”
She clenched her fists as those thoughts went through her mind. Why didn’t her Aunt Jenna specify that they weren’t in the old house anymore?
“Arya, something’s off. Is that how the gas is or…?” Junior pointed at the gas. “It’s on, isn’t it? With those flammables around it? Isn’t that dangerous?”
Arya’s eyes enlarged. “Lie down!”
But then there was an explosion, engulfing half the house.