Wilson James Taylor

"--He told me we were going to be with his friends. He drove us in my car to a house - somewhere far out, like, an hour. We went down to the, um, basement and there were, like, four guys. Yeah, four other guys, and one girl. I'd never seen them before, they looked dirty and older. The basement: there was a couch, a twitchy lamp, a half bath, oh, and the mattress on the floor. They told me t-to entertain them. The girl, she pulled me up and made me dance with her. I went to the bathroom, to call you, but my phone was dead. When I was about to leave, I saw them-- she was on the mattress, naked, so were they. They stood around the mattress, over top of her... cumming on her on camera. Then one guy asked for me, said they wanted some girl-on-girl. Wes and the other one said they were going to take turns with me. That's when I finally ran and Wes chased me but," Sydney filled me in.

Not even from the likes of Wes did I expect any of that, and why would she make it up?

I grabbed a box of tissues for Sydney but she pushed them away.

"I'm fine. Life goes on," she said, standing.

"You don't have to be okay right now, Sydney," I agonized, grabbing her hands.

"Besides, you should go to work," she replied. "Really."

I inhaled deeply, frustrated, and switched off dominate legs in my stance. "Do you think you can show me where the house is?"

SLAM! I got out the Jeep and glared Sydney's way. 

As she met me at the head of the truck, I heard her feet in the Adidas white sneakers shuffle atop the gravel.

"This it?" I asked Sydney.

She didn't seem sure, but nodded her head.

"Look," she gasped at the sight of something shiny in the dirt. 

She bent down and picked something up. I watched intently as she blew it off.

"My necklace," she noted, putting it in the pocket of the black hoodie I let her borrow.

"I remember this place," I assessed, looking around at the land.

"You've been here?" she asked in a judging tone.

I proceeded forward with my hands in the pocket of my jacket on the sluggish, foggy Friday morning.

I just looked over my shoulder and then walked up the three or four creaking wooden stairs.

"Condemned," Sydney read the sign in bold on the door.

"Hm," she sounded. "I don't remember that being there last night..."

I pushed the door open and dared to enter.

Once I stood inside what would be the living room, I assume, I signaled for Sydney to follow.

With caution, she stepped foot inside the dusty two-story house. 

"It's empty," I observed.

I coughed under the falling fibers from the ceiling and walls. 

"It wasn't last night," she panicked. "I don't get it?"

"The kitchen. Dining room," I listed the rooms I was familiar with. I stomped through the kitchen and located the out house out back. 

"This is an old frat house, Wes's older brother threw the craziest parties here. Huh? I thought they burned it down years ago," I recalled.

Sydney paced around, snapping her neck my way. "Maybe they were supposed to," she said, alluding to the gasoline and posters in the far corner.

"Figured it was something wrong here," she mumbled.

I smoothed my arm over the posters and read things like:

save the Beta house

I had some of the craziest experiences in the Beta house, I remembered. . .

"Will," Sydney called out from a hallway closet.

In her hand, racy photos and newspaper articles about Wes's older brother, Colby.

"Oh, yeah," I rasped, standing over her shoulders. "You didn't hear about this?"

Sydney shook her head in disagreement so I went on to explain.

"It was a big thing. Colby raped this girl in college, but because he was captain of the football team -- destined to go pro-- and their parents are fuckin' loaded, he just got a smack on the wrist."

"That's fucked up," Sydney raged, looking up at me.

I agreed. I took the evidence from her hands and read over everything. 

"So, where is he now? Just free?" she wondered.

I hunched both shoulders. "I think. Last I heard, his parents flew him to Cuba, or something. They're both doctors, don't want him ruining their rep, y'know, so they send him hush money, or so Wes says. If you ask me, I think he stays in their house - only comes out when the family's away."

Sydney looked shaken so I eased up on the conspiracy theories for a second.

Her phone rang suddenly, making us both jump put of our skin, I'll admit.

Sydney said, "It's Chyna," and answered the call.

"Hey, Chy, I'm kinda in the middle of something, can I call you back-- what?!"

I watched her facial expression turn down into a look of horror. It wasn't like her.

I stepped closer, grabbing her arm with concern.

Sydney just clammed up, I don't even think she blinked again.

I heard Chyna in the phone going "Sydney? Sydney!"

So I took the phone.

"Chyna?" I called her name.

"Will?" she voiced back, sounding surprised.

"Yeah, hey. Sydney's going through a lot. Is there something I can help with?"

"She-"

Sydney shook her head and pushed me back, snatching her iPhone to rush outside.

Confused, I just wanted to follow and see what that was about. But first, I took the newspaper clippings with me.

On my way across the floor to the door, I heard a banging. My head snapped in the direction of the basement door at the end of the dark, narrow hall.

I clenched my jaw and started down that way, but slowly as I didn't know what it could be - maybe a rabid animal, or something.

My hand had to be about three centimeters from the peeling knob when I heard a 'HONK! HONK!'

I forgot the noise from the basement for now and walked out of the house.

Sydney was in the passenger seat, reaching out to beep the horn. 

I pulled the door open and climbed inside, minding my head. I threw the shit in the back and connected my eyes with her impatient ones.

"What?" I grumbled.

"Can you just drive?" she bossed, stretching the seatbelt across her body.

"You've got some attitude," I snarked.

She uncrossed both arms from over her chest and glared at me.

"Don't think you're off the hook; you still lied to me. I thought you were better than most men. You're not good, Wilson, you're no better than them," she leered, resting her head against the window.

A 'DING' let me know I got a text. Seeing Sydney with her eyes closed, I took my phone out to reply to it because I knew she didn't like when I didn't pay attention to the road, but I've been driving for almost a decade now.

It was from Wes and read:

dinner tonight buddy? my place. 8

I didn't even reply, there was nothing to say. 

He was for sure up to something. Why else would he want to have dinner with me after what he'd done last night?

At the end of the drive, I was parked outside of Delaney's house. Sydney blinked her eyelashes and looked my way. 

I hopped up to let her out.

She dropped my hand and I couldn't read her face to know why.

"Things are about to get crazy," she exhaled.

I agreed, thinking she meant about this Wes situation.

"I'll handle it," I assured her. Mostly because he tried taking advantage of Sydney, otherwise because I was tired of his games and it was time Wes be put in his place.

"Sure," she just said, walking off.

I walked after her to catch her hand in mine.

"You don't believe me?" I asked, staring in her eyes.

"You'll have to forgive me if it's even harder to trust you after all this," she uttered, popping a shoulder.

"No, I get that," I said, understanding.

That's when a car aggressively pulled into Delaney's driveway - a rental.

Through the window of the black Porsche I could see it was Chyna waving to Sydney with a grin plastered across her mocha skin.

"She's back?" I guessed.

Sydney stopped waving at her best friend and sighed.

"There's nothing in L.A. for either of us anymore," she dragged out. "She's the only good thing that's followed me here."

"What does that mean?" I wondered, looking around her face.

"Means we both have things to handle," she exacted, looking past my body at Chyna who was running up with wide open arms. "Excuse me."

Sydney mastered putting on a face that said she was okay when in reality, she wasn't. I bet she'd tell Chyna what happened and it'd only be a matter of time before she tried calling the cops or grilling me about Wes and what happened.

I stepped off of the sidewalk and kept looking back over my shoulder at the girls reuniting as I walked around to the driver's side of the Jeep.

Before I pulled off, Sydney looked back at me. She didn't smile, she didn't even look angry, just emotionless. The second Chyna looked at Sydney, though, she put that front up again.

Hand on the wheel, I was about to pull off when I got a phone call.

"Levi," I breathed out, actually with a smile on my stressed face.

"Brother," he relished. It was nice hearing from someone who wasn't caught up in all this bullshit.

"You have no idea how bad I needed to hear your voice," I laughed dry, putting the truck in drive.

"Remind me to call you more often, then," he chuckled. "How are you, and why haven't you booked your flight to France, yet?"

"Things have gotten crazy," I made up, looking both ways before passing through the 'stop' sign.

I continued with something like Sydney told me before. "But if things don't go my way," I said, "you'll be seeing me a lot sooner than expected."