The Eternal Sleep

The Graffiti Retribution

    Olivia held up her end of the bargain very well, shooting both Jay and Luca for initially touching the book and summoning the owl. Luca was genuinely surprised that she remembered, the pact was the last thing on his mind considering the madness he’d witnessed just minutes before. Of course, Luca didn’t let her get the last say, grinning madly and gesturing a curse as he logged out.

            Luca sat up from his bed and stretched, gently placing the headgear to the side, and running his hand through his hair. It was late Sunday morning and Jasper was home, he wanted to bug him about their last ‘outing’ and Rick’s van, surely he had some information after a week.

            He winced as he pulled himself to his feet, placing his foot gingerly on the floor. After driving home from Jasper’s college that day, Sean had declared that Luca had gotten some really bad gashes, but nothing was displaced or broken, wrapping his knee tightly and grounding him to the couch or his bed.

            Luca had initially thrown a small protest, but Jasper insisted on it, promising him fast food for three months if he stayed off his feet as much as possible, Luca wasn’t about to pass up such an offer. Sean had asked for an explanation for the injury, but Luca managed to scrape together a story on Jasper and him wild playing and tripping in a parking lot… which technically was not a lie.

            Sean clearly did not buy the story, merely raising an eyebrow but saying nothing more. Luca was sure he’d glimpsed a smirk and a small shake of the head when he thought they weren’t looking however, but Luca wasn’t going to push his luck by asking. Jasper took a drop to college from his friend the next day, promising to tell him all that he found out of the incident the next time he came over.

            Thankfully, that day was today. He carefully limped his way down the stairs, beelining to the table and plopping himself comfortably on a chair to the side of Jasper. Jasper said nothing as the teenager grabbed a couple biscuits from the pack near his arm, choosing to grin and stare at his phone until the other talked.

            “So…” It was hardly a minute before he leaned closer, trying to peer at his phone. Jasper snorted and pulled the phone away, turning to face the eager teenager properly.

            “So…”

            “Come on, you know why I’m here.” Luca groaned, pushing the chair back and propping his foot on the table. He leaned back to check if his mother were anywhere in the room, she would have his head if she caught him putting his feet up on the table, injury or not.

            “Yea, but it’s still fun to watch you grovel.” Luca stuck his tongue out at him, leaning over once more to steal the pack of biscuits that was just out of his reach, “Besides, it’s very rarely I have something over your head, it’s kind of a weird feeling and I’m going to enjoy it for a few minutes.”

            “I, for one, never grovel, and you have nothing over my head.” Luca grunted as Jasper picked up the pack and held it just out of reach of his fingers, he sniffed and sat back in the chair with a fake scowl, “If I wanted to find out, I would’ve found a way, I’m just asking out of respect.”

            “So you keep telling yourself… but I’m sure your just dying to find out just how well the van is going?” Jasper smirked, knowing that he’d won this round. He tossed the biscuits on Luca’s lap and waved his phone, scooting his chair a little closer so they could both see the screen.

            “Thanks.”

            “So, you remember how Rick already had extra work to do and stuff, right?” Jasper pulled up one of his social media accounts, showing him pictures of Rick’s damaged car, “This got posted everywhere.”

            “Yikes, that has got to suck, pretty sure Rick’s not taking that to well.” Luca whistled at the number of comments that supported the individuals responsible for the damage of the van.

            “That’s not all, looks like someone got us in the pic too...” Mostly finished with the spray-paint art, two figures could be seen dashing from the van, cans scattered everywhere. The hoodies and masks gave the ‘criminals’ a dangerous vibe, highlighting their blatant disregard for Rick’s anger. “Apparently, people were much more supportive of it than we realized.”

            “Did they figure out it was us?”

            “Nah, but they did give us a name...” Jasper ginned as he showed him the hashtag on the picture, “The Graffiti Retribution.”

            “Strange name…”

            “Not really a name for us exactly, but we may have started a trend by accident,” Jasper’s smug smile faded into a small wince, scrolling down, and showing the teenager more pictures. Luca leaned forward in surprise.

            “What on earth?”

            “Looks like people are taking this as a stand up to their bullies. They’re painting whatever they could get their hands on, their cars, houses, school lockers, desks.” Luca watched the same tag appear on countless pictures, people showing the world how someone stood up to people who messed with their lives.

            “So… uh, well…” Luca struggled for worlds. He looked at Jasper and gave into the chuckle building up in his chest, the pair breaking into hysterical laughter after a few seconds.

            That was how Sean found them minutes later, a heavily confused look on his face, “You kid’s okay?”

            Jasper scrambled to hide his phone, exiting the screen, and tossing it haphazardly on the table. Luca pulled his leg off the table with a slight hiss, shoving another biscuit in his mouth and throwing the rest of the pack to Jasper. Sean raised an eyebrow at their antics, resting his newspapers and keys on the table and grabbing glass of water from the kitchen without another word.

            “So…daddy-o, what’s you doing home so early.” Jasper winced at the death glare Luca directed at him, keeping his eyes on his father.

            “Yea, thought you would be out with mom.” Luca smiled as innocently as he could, grimacing as the pain now flaring in his knee from the reckless movement.

            “I was, but now I’m here and clearly I walked into something I wasn’t supposed to.” Sean chuckled at their painful expressions, shaking his head at their stuttered responses.

            “I was just telling Jasper about the game.” Luca finally blurted out.

            “The game?”

            “Yea, uh, that game Luca was talking about…” Jasper played along, “We were talking about that thing.”

            “Thing?”

            “Uh, yea… so I was telling Jas how we got to find the big library in Eternal Sleep, it’s got almost every book you could think off.”

            “Is that so?” Sean placed his full attention on Luca, munching nonchalantly on a biscuit Jasper passed to him, “You got to read anything interesting?”

            “Yea…” Luca frowned, remembering the conversation he had with his friends barely an hour ago, “Speaking of which, you wouldn’t happen to know if mom has to work tomorrow?”

            “Yea, she told me she has a shift in the morning, is everything okay?”

            “Yea, yea.” Luca sighed lightly as Jasper raised a questioning eyebrow at him, “It’s just that I wanted to visit one of B.C.I’s branches tomorrow.”

            “What for?” Jasper frowned.

            “One of the books I was looking for, the branch has it so I was wondering if I could get a look at it.”

            “I could take you there.” Sean said casually, brushing off some crumbs from his jersey.

            “Wait… for real?” Luca asked hesitantly, surprised at Sean’s offer.

            “Yep, along as you don’t have school.”

            “I don’t, not tomorrow.” Luca lied, he did have school but he wasn’t doing anything important, Besides, his teacher had been pushing him to take a break since the exams so he highly doubted he’d be missed, “You sure you don’t have any plans tomorrow?”

            “Nope, looks like we’re going book hunting tomorrow.” Sean chuckled at the approval on Jasper’s face, his son hiding behind Luca to give him a big thumbs up. He didn’t mind doing this for Luca one bit, besides, the kid had never asked him for anything before, so he was more than happy to oblige.