sticks and stones

She glanced up at the voice and Riley quickly stood. Only a tiny bit embarrassed to be caught rifling around in the dirt. “Yes.” She said, clapping her hands together. “That would actually be awesome. I dropped my keys around here somewhere, didn’t notice til I got back to my room.” Her motel was just around the corner. Riley looked to the person and realized she recognized her even in the dimly lit light. Someone else who had been staying in the same place she’s been camping down at. “You’re at the motel too right?”

“Always happens when it’s dark,” Charlie sympathized, turning on her flashlight app and shining the light at the ground. “Yes, I am. Unfortunately. Not quite the RItz, is it? Though I wouldn’t really know what that’s like, either.” She grinned and held out a hand. “I’m Charlotte, most people call me Charlie, though.”

“Fantastic, just fantastic.” Of course this would happen to her. Middle of the night, dead phone and her keys to her motel room dropped somewhere on the ground. With only the light from a street lamp a block away Riley was having rotten luck trying to find them in the dark. She was crouched down, knees in the dirt, hands shuffling around where she thinks they might have landed. “Keys, keys, keys.” She kept mumbling to herself as though that would somehow summon them into her hands. 

Charlie’s hope was starting to fade a little. She’d been there days without seeing him. The town wasn’t that big; it shouldn’t have been difficult to hunt her brother down if he was there. She arrived back to the shitty little motel she’d been staying at extremely late, her feet aching miserably in her heels. When she stepped out of her car she noticed her “neighbor” on her knees on the ground searching frantically. “Need some help?” she asked as she walked up to her, fishing around in her purse so she could use the flashlight on her phone to illuminate the ground.

“There’s been another fire. That marks ten in the last two weeks.” She voiced her thoughts absentmindedly, as if she had no idea they were being spoken out loud. Her fingers twirled the beer bottle, tilted on the edge as she watched it. This was the reason she had stuck around, to uncover who or why these fires continued to happen. And who were these men that continued to show up, naked and covered in soot.