"You're friend?" She cocked her to the man, wearing all black across the street who slowly retreated to blend among the foot traffic.
Briare followed her gaze and smiled proudly at her as if he was her father or something.
"You're impressive, Lalin. Your aunt was smart enough to reach out to us."
"That's the second time you called me impressive. There's nothing impressive with me," she clicked her tongue, glaring at the man, standing a foot behind her.
Briare chuckled. "Believe me, Lalin. You are impressive by noticing those people. Finding me even. There are people who will look at you with admiration if they know that you found me so easily."
"What do you want from me, Briare?" She asked, ignoring his flattery.
"Uncle. Call me, uncle without my name."
Lalin scoffed and shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans that got washed too many times already, she needed to stop using them but she was scraping all the money she could save, and this man who was asking her to call him uncle has her money.
"Are you a pervert? This is your deal?"
Briare threw his head back and laughed so hard, the few people on the sidewalk stopped to stare at them. An off couple at this time of the day. With Lalin's flaming red hair, they weren't looking like they had some blood relation at all.
"Oh my, I haven't laughed that hard for a long time. Lalin, will you let me take you for some coffee or milk tea? Is that what kids your age prefer?"
"I don't know what kids my age prefer. But if you're asking me, I prefer that you give back my money and leave me alone."
Briare exhaled a deep sigh. The amusement in his eyes was slowly disappearing. It was clear that Lalin wasn't like any other kids and he was not with kids or girls her age.
"You may not believe it but I want your safety and—-"
"And I want my money."
Briare smiled at her. "Yes. I'll give you your money back. But don't you want to hear what I can offer and the reason why your aunt reached out to us?"
"Why would I know that my aunt really did what you're saying she did?"
Briare chuckled hearing the doubt in her voice. "How did you think we knew about your secret stash?"
"The same way you know where I'm staying," she said in a tone implying her disbelief in him.
Briare's chuckles turned into a peal of full-blown laughter. "I do really like you, Lalin. You're going places.
"But you're right. Here," he said, handing her a white envelope. "You don't have to discuss what was in the letter with me tonight. Just don't leave the hotel. You're safer here. I have people watching you so that the man in all black won't get to you."
Lalin took the letter that Briare handed her because she recognized the familiar handwriting in the white envelope. It was her aunt's scrawl. She put it inside her jeans pocket without a word.
And they stood in silence for a few minutes before Lalin turned around and walked back to the hotel. She did not say goodbye or good night to Briare. She was not in the mood to be polite. The man, despite saying he meant well, still turned her plans upside down. If he did not steal her and her aunt's savings, she could have proceeded with her plan without a hitch. But Briare had decided to put his nose where it did not belong.
She returned to her room in autopilot mode. Her mind was too occupied, thinking of all the possibilities now that her original plan went down the drain.
She put the deadbolt on her door as soon as she entered her room, opened all the lights, and check every inch and corner of her room. When she was satisfied that she was all alone in the room, she turned off all the unnecessary lights, leaving the lamp on her bedside table.
She gingerly climbed the bed, not bothering to take off her shoes which would for sure get her a scolding if her mother and her aunt were alive. But the two women in her life, the only ones that she called family were now both gone.
The corner of her eyes watered and Lalin put her arm over her eyes. She remained in that position for a long time before she remembered what she was meant to do.
With her hand, shaking, she pulled the envelope from her pockets. The white envelope had her name across the front. Just one word. Lalin. In her aunt's usual scrawling. But Lalin had always liked the way her aunt write her letter L.
She turned around the white envelope and found it sealed. She put it under the lamp to see the paper inside and when she saw that it was smaller than the envelope, she tore the envelope to the side, pulling the two pages of paper inside.
Lalin eyes stung when she noticed that the paper her aunt used was the pages of her old notebooks which she just carefully cut the edges to make it like normal stationery.
She heaved a heavy breath before she unfolded the paper and read the letter. After reading the first three sentences in the letter, Lalin put down the letter and cried. She cried, not her usual cry with no sounds but her ugly cry, sobbing with her shoulders violently shaking, because she just confirmed her hunch that her aunt's death wasn't a natural death.
There was something wrong with the way she died that day. Lalin knew it in her guts but she did not focus on her hunch because she had to survive. But reading her aunt's letter, confirming her hunch, Lalin cried at the fact that she wasn't able to do something for her aunt.
Her aunt who wasn't her blood but treated her like she was her own daughter, letting those hateful men abuse her emotionally and physically to ensure that they had a roof over their heads, and food on the table.
"They are going to pay," she muttered full of rage. "I'm going to make them pay!"