Allie's War Episodes 1-4(7)

I nodded. I remembered.
“That’s creepy, Al.”
I said, “Where’s Jon?”
Cass aimed a finger at the bar.
My brother sprawled over a counter stool like an adult in a child’s chair. Catching my glance, he waved a hand sharply for me to come over. I shook my head.
“In a minute,” I mouthed. “Chill out!”
When Jon threw a spoon at me, I ducked, smiling, and glanced at Cass. She was still staring at Mr. Mono, her lips scrunched in vague puzzlement.
When she saw Jon motioning us over again, she turned with a grin and started sashaying in his direction. I knew Cass couldn’t help but flirt with Jon. She knew she lacked the requisite, er, equipment, to catch my brother’s eye...but she’d had a crush on him since kindergarten.
Watching Jon’s knee jiggle up and down, I got a flash of what he’d been like back then, when most people still called him “Bug.” Skinny and pale with thick glasses and too-large hands like his father, he’d been mostly a non-entity in high school, despite getting bullied by some of the real turds in his class. He started doing martial arts before Dad died, tired of being stuffed in lockers and covered in ketchup packets for “being a little faggot” by the mentally-challenged of gym class. Now he had the broad-shouldered, sinewy body of a career athlete. His old coke-bottle glasses had been replaced by contacts over green-flecked hazel eyes about ten years earlier, and he’d grown into the hands, too.
Jon’s refusal to conform politically extended to his body in the form of streaked blond and black hair and the tattoos he’d started to collect in his early teens. He’d gone a few steps further than me with the barcode, decorating its lines with words about oppression in like six languages.
Personally, I didn’t need any more reasons for the cops to notice me.
According to Jaden, Jon and I were a little creepy for brother and sister—even adopted brother and sister—in that we hung out together so much. But I wasn’t about to ditch Jon as a friend just because his parents were cool enough to adopt me.
Anyway, Jon wasn’t into girls. He never had been, even when we were kids.
I watched his eyes swivel to the dark-haired man in the corner booth.
As soon as I got close enough, he let go with a not particularly stealthy whisper.
“Why didn’t you call me? I told you to call me!”
“I didn’t know.”
“How long has he been here?” Jon demanded.
“Well, if I knew that, I would have known when he got here, right?” I folded my arms. “I didn’t. Know, I mean.”
For an instant this stumped Jon. He squinted at me.
Cass said, “I don’t know, Al.” Her lips pursed. “You sure you don’t want to talk to this one? Before Jon goes all kung fu on his ass...?”
It was my turn to stare at Cass. “What?”
She nodded towards Mr. Monochrome. “Him. Look at him.”
I felt my jaw tighten, even as Jon gave Cass an incredulous look. Then both of us turned, following her gaze to the man with the coal-black hair.
I knew Cass was right, in a way.
Mr. Mono had little in common with my usual breed of stalker. He didn’t stare at me nervously, clutching flowers or bad poetry that rhymed. He didn’t talk to himself. I’d never seen him wear crosses or pentagrams or so much as a Buddha T-shirt. He didn’t look particularly unstable to me, either...or even like he wanted anything from me. Most of the kooks I came across seemed to be looking for something. A savior, maybe.
This guy didn’t seem to need or want anything like that, though. Not from me, not from anyone. In fact, he seemed to have all kinds of purpose already.
He practically breathed purpose.
In fact, if I didn’t know better, I would think he was on the clock right then. Although, in looking at him, he appeared to be sitting alone in a dingy diner, staring at his own hands splayed on the scratched formica. Still, he must want something from me. No way he could be all right, if he got his kicks following people around.
Unless someone hired him to follow me around.
The idea made me pause.
Still, it felt closer to the truth. The longer I thought about it, the more true it felt. He was a PI maybe. Maybe even a cop. Had I done anything that would warrant a cop following me, though? Even with recent freakout in the bar and the GPS, I figured I was pretty much a nonentity in their eyes. First time offender, no previous history of drugs or violence. I was pretty sure my public defense lawyer convinced them of the “temporary insanity” thing, even if it didn’t get me off the hook with community service or my suspended sentence.
I still found Mr. Mono’s ethnicity impossible to pinpoint, too. His mouth broke an angular face in a narrow line below a thick nose and those lamp-like eyes. He touched the formica tabletop with long-fingered hands, staring down at his own digits with the same almond-shaped eyes, the same eerily pale irises. I could gauge no emotion there, or even a precise color for the irises themselves.