His oppression

Warning

Chapter Twenty-Six: WARNING

“Can we tell the people in the shop what our condition is?” I asked Radcliff the next day, looking for an abandoned site so we could dig down to bury the objects we have used the night before. 

Radcliff just looked at me before sighing. “Well I can’t do anything about it anymore. And what could happen if we tell them? The worst thing that can happen is that they laugh.”

“They probably will,” I shrugged standing up and grabbing the shovel before situating the dirt on the hole again. “But they kind of seem legitimate? How did they know I was with you if they didn’t feel it?”

 “To… I don’t know, convince you that they were?” he asked with a complacent tone of voice. “But nothing bad’s going to happen if we go to them, seek aid.”

Suspicious. He’s acting a bit strange again and from what I’ve accumulated between his lies and acting, he sure is pretty obvious about it and I’m just oblivious to that fact. Maybe I just need more human contact.

“We’re really losing nothing but money here at this point, you know. If they up the prices for their services then so be it. Even though we both know now that I may or may be competent with handling this, I can’t really deal with something as big as this is or help.”

“You’ve been a massive help, Aria. How many times do I have to tell you that?” he smiled at me. “Noticing me alone is already--”

“But you knew I was going to notice you way before and you pretended to be surprised that I could.” I cut him off before looking at the dirt patch that was really noticeable. “Will the police assume we dumped a dead body here?”

“Wouldn’t that be too obvious?” Radcliff asked, “I mean if you’re going to murder someone, dump their body to the ocean, put some weight on them so they wouldn’t float back up.”

I was genuinely horrified at what came out of Radcliff. If I didn’t think he was bad enough before, he is now for thinking that way.

“Radcliff! Have you done such a thing!?” I asked, my eyes widening before a thought popped into my head. “Oh wait, that’s how witches were tested back then if they were innocent or not, yeah?”

“Yes, but the ocean is vast and most of it is unclaimed by what you call ‘Science’ and advancement over the years, so I think if you were to get rid of someone without being caught, you could do that.”

“I’m terrified of you right now, do you know that?” I asked him before squinting at him. “How would you know that if you weren’t allowed to leave the house?”

“Amanda, three or four generations before you, had a very obsessive fascination toward crime and mystery novels back then. She would not keep quiet about it and keep babbling on and on about things I do not really entirely care about. I might think she has something going on with her head.” The look of disgust on his face was just so funny to me.

“You don’t care about what she talked about yet here you are, telling me things she said.” I pointed out with a slight chuckle. “Is that what you were planning to do after I release you?”

“It might be or it might not, I guess we’ll never know now considering that my plans have changed. And emotions got through.” he winked at me.

I’ve gotten used to how coy he often is but somehow I still feel something, like a joyous feeling of some sort. Maybe I believe that when you’re too happy, something bad’s bound to happen after and I don’t want another disaster to happen, I can’t afford it anymore in all aspects of my state of being so I’m limiting my reactions to his words. And also with his actions which seemed he was being too comfortable with me but I have to contain myself. I’m the one who’s going to take the wheel to adjust to his advances.

“Sure, you’ve changed plans.” I replied sarcastically, walking back to my car and went inside, forgetting he couldn’t open the car door so I had to lean my body entirely before opening it for him. “We’re going to the lady again, okay?”

He nodded his head when he got inside. “Can we pay for her time?”

“What do you mean?” I started the engine and drove off once I placed the shovel in the backseat.

Unhygienic, I know. But my trunk is so laborious to open, it gets stuck every time so I wasn’t really pulling my muscles today, thank you very much. I’d rather clean the back of my car than to open my trunk and that’s really saying something.

“What I mean is she’ll be the one doing the ritual to break the curse.” Radcliff cleared. “Or we can approach other people too.”

“I’m just worried we’ll get scammed. I’ve already been scammed by you and I don’t want that again.”

“Bringing it up again in every conversation we have.” he laughed, turning his head to look at me. “Don’t you get tired of it?”

“I won’t shut up about it as much as that Amanda chick who talked about murder all the time did. Do you not care about it too?” I asked him with a frown.

I can’t believe him. I really have no idea what was up with him up until this point in time or what goes through his mind and he just keeps surprising me. He just doesn’t seem to think twice about what he’s going to say now rather than before when he was being a secretive bastard.

“I do care about it but if we have to bring it up all the time, we won’t really reach an ending to it.”

“Do you not hear yourself?” I asked him again. It seems like he’s also deaf by his own words. “You just don’t put down and ignore the problems you caused. We’re never hearing the end of it when we have not resolved it.”

“I thought we did? You just said that you’re going to break the curse. That’s it.”

“I said that as a solution to your problem that I’m not even technically a part of.” I’m frustrated yet again but am I surprised? Of course not. “It’s not the solution for why you lied to me.”

“I presume you understand by now what I was trying to do-- to lie for my sake. That’s what people do when they are desperate for the help they need.”

Honestly, it’s just a hassle to communicate with him if he had that mindset. I don’t know what kind but he has to change that or not-- he could be gone tomorrow, who knows. Am I going to be sad about it, probably. But if he’s bringing me more problems than being a good influence on me then I’m not really going to argue with myself anymore.

“I get that, okay? I do.” I responded a little quickly for my liking. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand my situation and if you pretended before, thank you, but it doesn’t mean you really know what it’s like. You just acted like you know and that’s more offensive.”

“I didn’t say I don’t know what you feel like--”

I sighed loudly, not really wanting him to continue what he was saying when I know it’s not going to end well for either of us. “Really? Is this why you’re saying insensitive things right now? Or are you really just that way?”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying--”

“Exactly, just shut up. You can take the hint that I don’t want to talk about it, can’t you?”

“But you were the one who brought the topic up, why are you putting the blame on me?” he just asked, his voice raising up.

“I told you to shut up.” I muttered under my breath, trying to control the frustration I was dealing with right now.

“I just don’t get how I’m being blamed for something you brought up.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t understand. And when people don’t understand things, they keep quiet about it and they do their research. Okay?” I forced myself to stay calm even though I really wanted to blow up right there.

He’s insulting me. I feel like he is.

He might be lying about liking me too just to further accentuate that he is, in fact, trying to insult me. But you know what? He might be going somewhere else there as I am, as a matter of fact, insulted. Need I say more? Just purely disgusting of him to do.

I’ve been very thoughtful all throughout; spending my time to research so I don’t get things confused, let down my guard so I can sympathise with him which I never do to anyone, and trusted him with all that I am. The least he could do is just to shut up about it if he’s going to continue thinking like he does at the moment.

When we got to the witchcraft store that we went to buy some stuff before, the atmosphere seemed a little heavy and that kind of threw me off but nevertheless, I went to the counter where I was greeted by a young woman, probably younger than I was.

She smiled at me, putting on her customer smile. I should know that very well.

“Hello, could we talk to the owner of this place? We bought stuff from a few weeks ago but there wasn’t any result. She told me we could get back here to try other ways?”

One thing that I’m certain I could do is to talk politely with retail workers. I sure hell don’t want any rude customers so I’m not going to be one.

“Oh, you mean Jackielyn?”

“I didn’t catch her name, but she’s the old woman, yes?” I just asked, looking around the place.

“Jackielyn is in the hospital right now. It was a few weeks ago, too, she suffered a stroke but thankfully she’s still alive. It’s initially from a shock, Collin said. I don’t know if she’s allowed visitors at the time being but I could call in Collin.”

Poor woman. She does look really fragile but she didn’t deserve what happened to her.

“I’m… sorry to hear about that. And yes please, Collin is the son? Grandson?” I just asked, feeling a little awkward because I don’t know how to react to something sad. 

“Grandson, I was hired when she was sent to the hospital. He’s the one looking over things here.” she said, walking away as she did to call the Collin dude she was talking about probably.

“Do healthy old people still get a stroke? I think it isn’t like a health-related problem but more of the fact that she got shocked?” I asked to myself, confused whilst I was waiting for Collin to get here.

“You… you are not allowed here anymore!”

I jumped back at least a few feet when a loud voice came out from the back room. The man was the same man that I met with the old lady. He was the grandson? Did he say that back then or I just wasn’t paying much attention?

“W-what?”

“You’re not allowed here anymore, leave!”

“B-but why??” I was terrified at this point and when he was pushing me out of the store, that just surprised me.

Why was he so angry at me? We barely know each other!

“Why am I not allowed here!? What did I do!?” I asked, putting my arms forward to stop him from getting me out before turning my body around to look at him. “What did I do!?”

“Take yourself and your curse out of here! We don’t need any more negativity in here!”

“What did I do!?” I just asked, my heart beating fast.

“You’re the reason my grandmother is in the hospital. If you don’t want me filing against you, get out of here.”

I’m the reason!? But I didn’t even do anything!