Chapter 6: Darkest Before The Dawn
The next day, Nick couldn't focus on anything but Sierra. He finally left campus early and skipped the rest of his afternoon classes just so he could go home and masturbate to the memory of last night. He could still smell her perfume on the bed, her scent quickly bringing him back a full 12 hours into the past. He eventually made his way to work and was able to distract himself in the campus bookstore one customer at a time. But he eventually built up a thick tolerance to that and quickly found his mind wandering again. He sighed heavily, greatly anticipating the moment he may run into Sierra next...
The sun fell closer to the horizon and the little hand on the clock moved that much closer to the number twelve.
It was seven o'clock in the evening on the dot and the night had officially begun.
--
Nikki drove down a street in a distant suburb of Los Angeles County called Irwindale. Just the night before, Nikki had been fucked in front of Sierra by the locally renowned skateboarder Jack Pitts. It was business, but there was something about that girl that turned her on. She just couldn't put her finger on it. Nikki eventually pulled off the main rode and drove through a maze of warehouses. She parked her car deep inside a ratty alley and exited the vehicle.
She was nervous, almost paranoid -- she continuously checked over her shoulders as if she were under the impression somebody had been following her. She made her way down the alley, alone, and found an old door with a chain and padlock on it. She fished through her pockets for her key and unlocked the lock -- it popped opened.
Nikki stepped inside a dark, abandoned warehouse, long forgotten by time.
Her only guests a number of rats and cockroaches nibbling off of what remnants of decay and mold had managed to survive over the past handful of decades. But when she found her way to a doorway connected to an adjacent hallway, a figure crossed into the shadows far behind her.
Somebody was there, and she didn't even know it.
Nikki slipped down a rotting hallway past doors with faded names and offices with large rotting holes in the walls. Ceilings were stained from decades worth of water damage, the pungent odor overwhelming to the senses. As she rounded a corner, Nikki came to a locked door. She fumbled a key into the keyhole -- something moved behind her, she nearly jumped out of her skin. It was nothing. The hallway was eerily still. She scanned the darkness.
Nothing.
She returned to the locked door and opened it.
When she stepped inside, her heart sank when she saw an intimidating man sitting at a desk, two thugs standing on either side of him. It was exactly the last man she wanted to meet here too. This was the worst-case scenario. She had just been caught red handed. The man, a skeleton of a figure with cold dead eyes and slicked back hair, stared back at her like a wild animal just before the kill.
"Oh, small world," he said abruptly, almost theatrically.
"Marcus, this isn't -- I can explain," stammered Nikki, nervous as hell.
"Oh, I'm sure you can. You, uh, stabbed me in the fucking back -- is that about right?" he exploded.
"No, it wasn't like that..."
"Then why is half of my product sitting under this desk in a locked safe?"
Nikki didn't know what to say -- she just turned to run and was immediately struck hard in the head by a shadowy figure behind her.
The world began spinning and a dark tunnel enveloped her vision. She felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, only that she may never find out the deeper truth to the mystery. This may not have been her story. All of her greatest fears had just been confirmed as she collapsed to the ground and fell face first into a dusty carpet. Then it all left her.
Then there was blackness followed by nothingness.
--
The sun burned on the horizon, violent rays shot up into the intruding darkness, but it was no match. This was the dance. Every day. The night always won, but the day always came back stronger than ever in the second round. For now, the day was over, and the night only just beginning. Eventually, the light at the end of the horizon dimmed and all was dark.
--
Sierra was stepping out of her apartment, dressed in a revealing outfit - tight jeans with a lot of rips in them (no underwear to add insult to injury), a thick bra, and a plush jacket to keep warm. Her makeup was heavily accentuated. She couldn't believe what she was doing anymore. She had lost all connection to her life in San Diego. In Los Angeles, she was literally a different person. And she knew she was only a tourist, but why not enjoy herself? She was still a little sore from last night's fuckfest, but somehow she still found the courage to put on the wardrobe and go out for just another night.
Her feelings were tormenting her all the while. How could she feel so closely to this boy when she knew so little of him? Not to mention that not only did he know next to nothing about her, what little he did know or assume was all based on premeditated lies. This was not the best way to start a healthy relationship. Not that they had a "relationship" in the normal sense of the word.
But still, they had something, and that counted.
"Kendra!" came a distantly familiar voice.
Sierra stopped and turned on her heel just as she approached her car.
A slender figure emerged from the shadows -- it was her best friend from back home, Heather. She was about the same height as Sierra, but a much more pale complexion with green eyes, auburn hair that was tinted the slightest shade of red, pouty lips, and a tiny little bust and ass. Heather was the girl next door. Sierra was the opposite in a lot of ways, with much sharper features -- the contrast only more dramatic in her current getup.
Heather looked Sierra up and down and Sierra looked like a deer in headlights.
"Catch you at a bad time?" she asked, clearly a heavy weight on her shoulders.
"Heather! What are you... how did you find me?"
"That's not exactly a warming welcome," Heather said. Sierra just stared back at her, a million thoughts racing through her mind. She felt like Clark Kent, caught tearing off his shirt halfway to takeoff.
Moments later, Sierra was making her a cup of warm tea in her tiny kitchen. She lived in a cramped studio in Santa Monica on the second floor of an old office building that was currently being renovated. She was used to the noise by now and didn't mind that there were always helping hands around in case anything broke in her apartment.
Heather just stared back at Sierra. She had just finished telling her best friend what she was doing in Los Angeles, but not about the night before with Nick. Heather tried to process it as best she could considering she was already dealing with her own drama that practically outweighed Sierra's illicit confession.
"You sure you know what you're doing?" Heather asked, genuinely concerned for her friend's well being.
"You don't seem so shocked..."
"I guess I have a lot on my mind," she admitted.
"It must be heavy, whatever it is," Sierra added. Heather shifted uneasily in her seat, as if choosing the words carefully in her head before speaking them aloud.
"I just found out... that David's been cheating on me for the last year or so of our relationship," Heather said, tears immediately forming in her deep green eyes. She held up her hands to wipe the tears away as Sierra immediately reached for a tissue.
"I'm sorry..."
"Jesus Christ, that's awful. I'm so sorry," Sierra said.
"Yeah," she said while wiping the tears from her eyes and smearing her makeup across her perfect skin.
"When did you find out?"
"I came home early from work just as he was kissing her at her car around the corner. He wouldn't even own up to it until I told him I saw them too!"
"I'm so sorry hun," Sierra said soothingly, trying to console her friend as best she could.
Sierra and Heather grew up together in San Diego, had gone to school with each other for years. They had met freshman year at Columbia High and just sort of clicked. They were very similar in how introverted they could both get, but it was more of a story of opposites attracting more than anything.
Sierra (Kendra that is) had always been able to go her own way. She took things one day at a time and didn't hold much stock into the future. Sure, she had trouble at home, but who didn't? It wasn't anyone's business anyway. Heather, on the other hand, came from a very different upbringing. She came from a loving family, a religious family -- nothing strict or repressive mind you, but religious in 2010 was perceived only negatively by most of the popular kids at their school. Making friends as part of a the Christian Youth Club was not an easy thing to do, and while she was one of the prettier girls at school, guys seemed only interested in one thing for a long time -- her cherry.
Heather met David sophomore year and Sierra had just always known them as a couple. She knew how she felt about sex, and that she had just never bloomed in that way emotionally -- while physically she was quite the little Lolita.
David seemed nice enough, but she always had her reservations about him.
Sierra knew they fought about sex, and that frustrated her. She could see David's side of things sometimes. Sierra knew Heather could be a prude, and was completely grossed out by oral. But Heather was the kind of girl you waited for, and that was just a fact. You certainly didn't cheat on a girl you supposedly wanted to marry either, and that's exactly what David had told Heather he had wanted to do on one of the nights just before Sierra left for Los Angeles at the beginning of the summer. It wasn't an official proposal, but it was a promise that one was coming.
'So much for that future,' Sierra thought.
Sierra kind of fell out of contact with everyone when she moved to Los Angeles, including Heather, so she was missing a big chunk of important history right now. Then, Sierra thought of something that peaked her interest.
"How did you find me?"
"Your Mom," Heather said. Sierra just shrugged. "Do you not want me here?"
"What? God no! Please, stay with me. I know it's not the Marriot, but... you need a friend tonight. And stay as long as you want too. This is your home for now."
