Deceit
“Why is it that I always end up picking you up?” I sat quietly ignoring the complaints of my older brother Anthony while watching the scenery flash by in front of me.
I wasn’t having a kick out of having to be picked up like a little kid either. I was 17 for crying out loud, but that didn’t seem to matter to mom. She believed I was irresponsible and not ready to be driving around town. Of course I completely disagree. My best friend Mark and me had been dreaming of the time in which they’d finally be able to drive around town and pick up girls, but that dream was destroyed as soon as I turned 17 and was told it wasn’t going to happen. Sigh. Pushing those thoughts aside I continued to gaze out the window when I saw a girl walking along the sidewalk. As we drove closer there was a slightly noticeable limp to her gait and feeling bad for the girl I decided to offer her a ride.
“Hey Anthony, you see that girl on the sidewalk?”
“Yeah, what about her?”
“Pull over so we can offer her a ride.” Anthony turned to me with a look of bewilderment probably thinking I had lost his mind. “Look at her. She’s limping. We offer her a ride take her to mom and let her stay a while so she can get better.” Anthony thought about it hard before conceding. “Ok, but if she seems too weird she goes out.” “Yeah. Ok.” He replied with a sense of victory.
As they pulled up to the girl, I rolled down the window and hollered, “Hey, you alright? Do you want a ride?” The girl stopped in her tracks and turned. She had raven black hair, a clear complexion, piercing yellow green-eyes and an amazing body and was dressed in a black tattered shirt, cargo pants, and combat boots. She was obviously hot, even if she was covered in grime. She seemed to have been taken aback by his sudden invitation.
“Um. Well I don’t necessarily have a certain place you can give me a ride to.”
“It’s ok, you can come over with us and we can help you take care of that limp you got.” I was seriously hoping she would say yes and not decide to keep on going on her own.
Debating on whether I was crazy and deciding otherwise, she replied with a relief, “Well in that case, yes, I’d like that very much.”
“Ok. Well get in, looks like it’s going to start raining soon.”
As soon as she got in there was a loud rumbling thunder that seemed to shake him to his very core. With a shiver, he ignored the odd feeling he had gotten and focused on the girl. Even though she seemed to be in bad condition, her demeanor said otherwise. She sat straight up and looked out the window as they sped by through town.
“So…um. Well since I haven’t introduced myself we’ll start with that. Names’ Joseph and our driver here is my older brother Anthony.” She looked at me with an odd gaze and remotely replied.
“I’m Raven, nice to meet you.”

After staying quiet for a while he decided she wasn’t going to elaborate on that so he tried to pick up the conversation.
“So did you run into trouble or something?” At that Raven looked at him with a perplexed gaze.
“No, why would you think that?”
“Well since you have a limp when you walk and you’re covered in dirt, I figured you ran into some trouble. That or you’ve been living out in the forest for a while.” She seemed to contemplate a response before answering.
“Yeah, I had been staying in the forest for a while but I got tired of the bears trying to kill me whenever I went fishing so I decided to walk to the nearest town.”
Raven’s indifferent mood surprised Joseph and only made her that more mysterious. He stayed quiet from then on until they got to his house. The sky looked dark and angry and had a sense of foreboding. As lightning flashed through the clouds and the sky thundered they slowly drove in and parked in the garage. Before going inside the house Anthony abruptly stopped them and turned to face Raven and him.
“Look here’s the deal, mom won’t be too happy about what we did, but just try to stay calm and you..,” he turned to Raven then and looked at her with a stern look, “try to appear innocent and charming. That’ll soften her up and give you a better chance of getting to stay here.” Anthony looked at both of them hard before turning around and walking inside the house.

Raven and Joseph walked behind Anthony towards the kitchen where they knew their mom would be cooking something delicious for dinner. As they walked into the kitchen, the smell of cinnamon and apples wafted through the air. They spotted their mom humming to herself while preparing one of her famous apple pies. Their mom, Angeline, was blonde with blue eyes, just like Anthony and Joseph and hair a shade lighter than theirs. She stopped after hearing them walk in and was startled by finding that Anthony and Joseph had company. With her hands on her hips she turned to us.
“Well hi boys, would you like to tell me who this is?” Anthony turned to me signaling that this was my battle not his and with that I swallowed hard and spoke up.
“Um….yeah, this is Raven.” Raven stepped forward and smiled sweetly.
“Hello, it’s a pleasure to meet you and I’m really looking forward to staying with your family.” Taken aback, Joseph’s mom gazed at him and raised a perfectly arched blond eyebrow questioningly.
“Well you see, we picked up Raven while she was limping on the sidewalk and since you always say that we got to offer help to those who need it, I figured this would be a good time to give it a try.”I waited nervously for her reply as she decided what to do about the situation. Finally figuring they were in big trouble and she wouldn’t let Raven stay, she released her verdict.
“Although I do think you went to the extreme on what I said, I do think that Raven does need some help getting rid of that limp and…” she gazed at Raven and looked her over from head to toe, “all that dirty clothes. So this is how it’s going to go: Joseph show Raven where the bathroom is so she can take a bath while I get her some clothes. Afterward we’re going to sit down in the living room fix that limp and we’ll settle where she’ll be sleeping as well as discuss other stuff.”
Anthony chose that moment to interrupt the conversation with one of his obnoxious perverted comments. “She can sleep in my room with me...” He winked at Raven invitingly.
Their mom shook her head in disapproval, “Not going to happen Tony. Like I said before we’ll discuss it in a bit. Now Joseph, why don’t you take her now?”
“Sure. Let’s go Raven, I’ll show you to the bathroom.” Raven hesitated momentarily before walking towards him and following him through the door.