The Lost Ones

V

Luciana woke up as the car was parked outside a diner. Alessandro and Alec had taken turns driving for the rest of the night. It was half past noon when they had decided to stop for food. Zale was sleeping on the seat next to her with his seaweed hair against the window. The car was still running but neither Alec nor Alessandro were to be seen. Luciana took in the surroundings. The diner wasn't too small, but it wasn't exactly big either. It had a sort of vintage old-timey, mom-and-pop shop look to it. It certainly hasn't been renovated in the last 70 years. The parking lot was full of trucks of all sizes. They were all covered in a thick layer of light brown dirt. There were some trees and some other stores that she couldn't make out the name of. The smell of active frying oil drifted out of the diner. A few minutes had passed before Alec and Alessandro returned with styrofoam take-out boxes.

"Good Afternoon, How'd you sleep?", Alessandro settled into his seat as Alec juggled the boxes on his lap.

"Good", her answers were always short and to the point. It was something her mother taught her.

" Well, we figured we'd find a hotel for the rest of the day and plan out what to do tomorrow. We could also do with a shower. " Alessandro quickly took the main road, and they headed out again until they came to the familiar faded red roadside motel sign. The number had faded. The yellow plastic covering was dingy and cracked, but it had vacancies and it was cheap. It probably also has bugs Luciana thought to herself. They sat in the car with their food still warm in silence. No one was really sure what to do. Normally, they would all bunk in a room with two beds. Alec and Alessandro would share and Zale would take the other. But could they leave her alone? They had many things to discuss, and they weren't sure if that was a risk they were willing to take. Would she bunk with Zale? No, that wouldn't work, thought Alessandro. She couldn't bunk with Alec, they'd kill each other. Would he bunk with her? Would she be comfortable with that? Alessandro's brain scrambled for a solution. Zale had woken up when arriving at the hotel and now remained unusually quiet in the back seat. His eyes darted back and forth with everyone before he finally spoke.

"Why don't we just ask for a room with a sofa and someone can sleep there". Zale leaned back in his seat as he watched the tension leave Alessandro's head. After traveling with them for around six months, he had come to notice the little quirks each brother had.

" I'll ask for the room", Alec bolted out of the car towards the motel entrance, nearly leaving a trail of dust. The others sat in silence until Alec returned with the key.

" Room 36 is on the left side, it's on the first floor", Alec pointed out the direction of the room as Alessandro drove the car. All the motel room doors were located on the outside of the motel. Their room was towards the back, enough for them to be hidden away from the heavy traffic of the highway. They each grabbed a bag and Alec grabbed the food bag and unlocked the door. The room was clean and small. A mustard yellow striped wallpaper lined the walls. Luciana couldn't tell if the yellow was intentional or if it had turned that way from the faint smell of cigarettes lingering off of it. It had two beds and a light green small sofa-like seat crammed into its four walls. Upon seeing the shower, Luciana remembered they were still wearing the same blood-stained clothes from the night before. She glanced down at her shirt and felt the crust and stiffness the blood had left. It had darkened to black over the hours, and she thought it might just be best to toss the shirt away. Alessandro and Alec set their bags down and started distributing the food they bought. Zale tossed his bag onto a bed, staking claim, and joined the others on the small bedside table.

Luciana watched as they settled in, undisturbed by the recent events. This was their normal. Luciana suddenly felt nauseous. She felt herself sinking to her feet and then into the hard carpet as she realized the full extent of what happened. Her hands still clutched the handles of the suitcase. She felt stupid. She let three grown men into her apartment and then she just up and left with them in the middle of the night. And now she was in a hotel room with them! What would her mother think of her? She warned her so many times about boys and about men and the things they do that she never wished to imagine.

"This is yours, by the way," Zale's outburst broke her from her trance. Her eyes jerked up, and she noticed him holding up the styrafoam box before placing it in the center of the table. She hadn't seen him get up, and it made her wonder what else she hadn't seen them do.

"If you want to take a shower first, by all means please go ahead," Alessandro continued to eat while he pulled out a map that was littered by colored marker points. What if they were serial killers and that was the map of the victims' bodies? Luciana ran into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. Her stomach protested at the idea of rejecting a warm meal considering it been three days since she'd last eaten. She had a snack bar here and there, but a meal was out of the question.

"It's okay Lucy, no one is going to hurt you, you're fine," she whispered to herself multiple times before she felt herself relax a little. Luciana began to feel just how dirty she was. Her hands felt stiff with dirt and blood spatters. Her clothes felt too tight. She struggled with the buttons before lightly stepping into the shower. The steam from the hot water seemed to suffocate her in the small shower. She switched it to cold and felt herself relax under the stream. Her mother used to give her cold showers as a small child whenever she had a hard day. She didn't understand why she couldn't find comfort in the warmth. Once she felt she had scrubbed away as much of the past days as she could, she stepped out. The bathroom felt icy as she tiptoed over to her suitcase to find clean clothes. If these men came into her life, then she was determined to figure out the reason. These rings were special. That much she knew. She could never find one that looked like it, no matter how hard she searched. They were custom-built and created from a material that she still couldn't identify. Her eyes traced the pattern once more as she repeated the all all-familiar action.

"Well mami and dad, you're going to have to help me figure this stuff out a little bit," she whispered into the world, willing her parents, where ever they were, to listen to her pleas. It was the first time since her mother had left that she felt like a lost child, abandoned and lonely in a desolate world that she knew too well.