I happened to note that there was no breaking of glasses or destroying of property in the house, so it must have happened recently.

What were their names? Camilla scribbled.

"Their mom was called, I don't know Maratha, and the sons were, Hillary and... I don't know. Its been over twenty years okay!"

We couldn't blame him. Not like I had lived for twenty years, and I had already forgotten millions of stuff. Out of questions we were, so we exchanged glances amongst ourselves wishing an important helpful quiz would pop up like a bulb above our heads.

Why would anyone want us to do a research about an ugly family that lived ages past? Not unless it had a link to the Wade.

I guessed that was another dead end, or there was a wall in between the truth and us but it was so unbreakable. I wished I could just have a peek at what was on the other side.

Noodles snatched a piece of paper from Camilla and a pen.

Tension begging to build, warming up the surrounding air, she slowly scribbled down her popped up quiz. Letter after the other. Like she had forgotten her handwriting, she did it slow and steady like a toddler learning how to write. Then she revealed her written down text.

Did they eat?

Nitwit.

"Yes you idiot, they had a small farm behind their house where they grew fruits and beverages. Is she the stupidest between the four of you? Coz she looks like one."

F

I snatched the paper before she had finished scribbling rubbish.

"We should get out of here," I suggested.

"Yeah, but we are not going to leave him here, are we?"

"Of course no," I remarked before Isabella could remark the exact opposite.

But how do we...

"Why did you do that Noodles?!" I exclaimed.

"He keeps pissing me off," she said having slammed the old guy with the same antique object, but this time he did not pass out.

He shook his head back to live.

She raised the object to slam him once again but Isabella was swift to hold her hand back, "you will kill him."

"I thought that was what he wanted," we gave her looks like, he didn't say he needed a catalyst for that. "He is going to die anyway," Noodles groaned after being denied permission to turn him off. "Well, how do we carry him by foot to uptown?"

"Who said anything about walking?" Isabella enquired in a familiar tone like she knew something we didn't.

"No one, I literally said by foot which is technically walking so.. yeah... Yeah I'm the one who said it," Noodles argued with herself, "wait, is there something I'm missing?"

We dragged the old guy still on the chair to his own garage. He mumbled a million words that I gave less attention to. Most of which were insults.

Isabella said that she had seen something covered in nylon in the garage through the half open garage door outside. She wasn't sure whether it was a locomotive or anything that could move, but she used movie scenarios and suspected that it could be car.

We stood back and gave her the first class seat, to pull off the vast, covering, black, nylon paper. She did it animatedly and our eager eyes met a car, but not what we were expecting.

It looked like one that was made I don't know..... When the first car was invented.

Small, vintage, blue I guessed colored, dingy, aged, 19s model car. Old piece of crap was how Noodles defined it as. Immediately after succeeding to uncover it something from its inside dropped with a vigorous bang, like a loosen screw had  fallen off. I swallowed a lump of saliva in doubt of making it out with it.

I even doubted it had an engine. I ran to check it out.

Opening the bonnet, I was met by a disturbing amount of dust. Like the engine had been poured on a bag of dust. It had cobwebs too, and I could almost swear it was a habitat for dirty rodents and pests.

I wiped some of the dust off with my hands to avoid causing a dust tsunami in the room. It did have an engine but it looked like it was last started way before my great grandfather was born.

Suddenly, one of the bonnet hinges broke lose making the old rusted bonnet slip off of my fingers, flapping itself closed. A cloud of dust filled the room chocking all of us. I almost broke my lungs in the rough coughing itching my throat.

Glad the garage door was half open and there were some vents sucking out the dust, so it disappeared as drastic as it had appeared.

Isabella yanked the car's door open and jumped in. The seat coughed out a voluminous amount of dust immediately it was sat on, filling Isabella's soaked coat with dust. She first slid open all the windows and opened the passenger door. There was no way she could lock herself in there unless she wanted to suffocate herself to death.

We stood outside to see if it could move an inch. Of course each one of us including the old guy doubted the capability of the old engine.

The car key was hidden on the flapped visor.

She pulled it out, inserted it in the ignition lock cylinder besides the wooden steering wheel, and delicately turned it coughing the disabled engine. As expected, it did not work.

She coughed the engine once again and even worse its bonnet fell off clouding the room again with pixel sized dust particles.

The old guy made an irking guffaw that made Noodles feel like slamming him again. My eyes were swift to telepathically tell her not to even think of it, which she already had but had not yet put into action.

Isabella did not give up she coughed it once again. It coughed to live, vibrated for a second then died.

The fact that maybe everything we were doing was supposed to be happening made me wonder, what Wade had planned for us next, whether he knew where we were, or what we were doing, how we were doing it, or anything.

The fact that he only killed guys I went close to, meant that he had a good stalking eye or I had a mole in my clique. I quickly snapped the thought of paranoia away. I trusted on my friends.

I skimmed the room to make sure there was no red blinking dot for a surveillance camera or an unexpected visitors peeking somewhere.

There wasn't any. What if Wade wanted us to toddle our way back to uptown and then something would happen to us on our way?

Isabella was beginning to give up. Honesty, everything that we had gone through already was weary enough. Adding more stress to it would be poison. She felt the steering wheel with her hand hopping she could connect with it like her yoga teacher had taught her to connect with nature.

It didn't work even after coughing it again and again.

I decided to skim the engine to make sure it had all parts and that was not where the problem was generating from. I wasn't new to engines so I let my fingers graze on it skimming for mishaps.

When I was young after being brought from the orphanage, I had to find hobbies. MM taught me how to fix car engines hopping it would be a hobby but, I didn't like it that much though I did learn some things from him.

The engine was fine. Nothing missing, and nothing peculiar.

Isabella didn't quit starting the engine. She sighed and did it even harder. It coughed twice and sprang to life one second later it died.

"I guess we should call it a quit," I had already quit myself.

Isabella clenched a fist and slammed the car steering wheel and in disappointment. Making it shake like it was light as a feather, "c'mon, c'mon," she crossed her fingers and once again coughed the engine. It sprang to live with a loud groan.

Expecting it to die, Isabella closed her eyes and tightened her crossed fingers. I joined her in crossing my fingers. It didn't die. She opened her eyes sluggishly in disbelief. "Yes!" She exclaimed, then it died.

The old fella almost fell with his chair guffawing like one that had been sprayed laughing gas on. This time I was unable to stop Noodles, she had already blacked out the old guy by the time I swiveled my head.

"What did you do that for?"

"He was pissing me off."

I groaned in disappointment.

"Finally," Isabella whispered after trying to burst the car to start, and seemingly it was hanging on a little longer than all the previous times.

We gave the engine a few more second to cope and see if it would turn us down again like the previously times. We all stayed silent like our voices would make the engine to stop working. At least it didn't. I sighed.

I had already begun picturing us toddling through the stormy town dragging an old guy with us. All getting soaked.

"Should we untie him?" I quizzed signing at the old guy.

Noodles idea was terrible but you know who else's was way worse, Isabella. We tossed him in the car trunk. At least that was the best idea between the both. Noodles wasn't going to let Neptune get away with her necklace. She unknotted it as soon as we dashed him in the trunk.

Camilla was just watching everything that way taking place, no talking, no acting, no moving, like she had undergone a serious brain freeze.

"Hey, Camilla," I called.

"I just wanna go home," she jumped into the car's drivers seat pushing Isabella away. Isabella didn't argue, not like she had a stable leg to step properly on the gas. She hated to admit it, that her leg was not in a very good condition.

Having sacrificed our lives to go to that side of town, we were to go back empty handed. I failed to believe it but the faces of all the others made me believe. Each more disappointed than the other.

Maybe we weren't empty handed, but what we had found out wasn't helpful enough to stop Wade from killing my boyfriends.

The car took off vigorously, rocking us like we were in the middle of an earthquake, and leaving a dark cloud of smoke behind. Global warming officers could have charge us millions, only for that kick off smoke.

The rain outside was not getting any tolerable. I could guess so by the noisy crushing water plops that collided with the roof of the car, and the falling drops that were visible through the window.

The car's roof was rusted but lucky it protected us from the ongoing heavy rain apart from small drops that found their way on Noodles' head.

Thinking of it, the ordeal with my hand relenting could relate to that of the ugly families magic trick. There could have been someone at the other end of my dressing mirror controlling my hand to make that drawing.

Was Wade a descendant of the ugly family, or were we pointing our guns at the wrong target?