by Faulks, Kim
And I would. For them I’d try anything. I lowered my gaze to the bottle in his hand, for them I’d pretend I was normal…pretend that this storm inside me was nothing but a figment of my imagination.
Even when my skies darkened.
Even when I breathed deep and the air turned thick and hungry. The storm waited like a ravenous beast, seething and brewing, building inside until I can’t hold on…and a rumble of thunder slips though.
I’d swallow that storm, drag it all the way into my bones where the drugs never reached. And I’d hold on, just like I was holding on now. My fear was that tiny peal of thunder, just a whisper of the hurricane inside. “Something bad is going to happen.”
Dad flinched and then stilled, warm fingers curling to hold my hand. “I know you’re scared, but we have the best bodyguards money can buy. No one’s getting through them, not to get to us, or, to get to you.”
Leah took a step, running a hand through her disheveled hair. “I’ve double, and triple checked everything. No one’s getting to you, sweetheart. They’re scared, don’t get me wrong and yes, it’s scary, but after tomorrow it’s not going to be up to us to drive this case anymore. The public will know and they’ll be outraged, and that’s the kind of runaway train we want.”
She was so sure, so utterly sure. Her conviction was in the gleam of her eyes, and the strength of her spine. Trust me, her eyes were screaming. Trust that I can protect you…that I can protect all of you.
“We’ve got to get ready now,” Dad murmured, sliding his hand along my arm to grip my shoulder and pull me close. “The car will be here any minute. But we’ll be back tomorrow night. You won’t even have time to miss us, I promise. Mona’s coming by later, she’s going to cook your favorite chicken casserole, just so you have someone in the house.” He turned his head to the movement outside. “Someone who isn’t a bodyguard that is.”
His hand slipped from mine. I couldn’t help but reach out to grasp his arm, the words spilling out before I had a chance to stop them cold. “Maybe I should come with you.”
Dad stopped, turned his head to look at Leah before he turned back. “You sure that’s a good idea? They’re going to be there, Spark, standing right there in front of you. It could get nasty.”
“It’s not a good idea, sweetheart.” Leah shook her head. “These people, they’re sick and twisted. They’ll say and do anything to get away with what they’ve done. I’m hoping this hearing will go smoothly, but if it doesn’t…”
But that was just it.
I did know these people. I knew their lies and their betrayal. I looked down to the numbers on the inside of my wrist, but I also knew what stood between us…no, not a what…a who…
Agony flared across my chest. “Mom…”
She stiffened at the word. I hardly used it, hardly called her by that name. I didn’t know why. I couldn’t put into words the fathom of distance stretched between us…that’d always been between us.
I knew I needed her. We all needed her, me, the girl with the purple hair, and Gabriella. We needed her to fight, to yell and scream, to be the voice we couldn’t be.
I saw her now, saw the toll this took on her. Saw the toll it took on both of them. My throat thickened, clenching like a fist. Tears fought through the dullness of the drugs to blur her face. “I love you.”
Her lips mashed tight, eyes widened just a little. Her throat muscles worked hard. “I love you too,” she murmured. “I may not have been the kind of mother you wanted, or even hoped for. But you…you are the kind of daughter I hoped for. You are my everything, so let me do what I need to do. Let me take care of you. Let me fight for you.”
She took a step as dad dropped the bottle of pills against the counter. She smelled of pain and perfume as she wrapped around me. I’d never felt her arms, never felt the softness of her body, never smelled the scent of her hair. She splayed her hands against my back and held on.
Dad turned to stare out of the window as he swiped his eyes.
“We’re going to be fine.” Mom gripped me harder. “You hear me? We’re going to be just fine. When this is done, I’m retiring from all this. We can move, anywhere you want. Maybe somewhere warm and sunny like California? I know it’s a little late, and you’re twenty-three now. We can start over, buy a small antiques shop somewhere down in Mississippi and run it together.”
I hated antiques. Hated the scent of dust and the decayed. But for her I would. For her I’d say yes and pack my bags right now. I gripped the back of her silk shirt and held on. “Yes, I’d like that.”
A tremor coursed through her body. She pulled away, stared into my gaze with red tear-stained eyes. “You would? You’d really do that?”
My lip trembled as I nodded. My entire life was living here with them. They were all I knew, all I wanted to know. But everything would change now, from this moment on, everything would change…
Fear welled in the pit of my stomach, weighing me down like a rock. “What if they expose us? What if it gets out, not only what they’ve done but what we are?”
Dad turned his head, but it was Leah who held my gaze. “We’ve talked about this. The names will be redacted. All personal information kept as private as we can. But if that happens, then we’ll be prepared. We’ll go into hiding, open that antiques store and wait for someone to figure out a cure.”
A shudder tore free, spreading out like a growl of thunder trapped in my skin. A cure for this constant sound inside my head…a sound that made me want to…
“Spark?” Dad called.
I lifted my gaze. “Yeah?”
His brow narrowed, as he pulled his focus from my hand. “You’re bleeding sweetheart.”
“Jesus,” Mom murmured and rushed toward the sink.
I looked down as the crimson bead spilled from under my nails. The trail raced, sliding toward my wrist as I lifted my hand.
“Honey, you okay?” Mom pressed the damp towel to my hand and squeezed.
I nodded. I was okay, we were okay.
“We have to get ready,” Dad said. “We can’t miss the flight.”
I forced a smile and lifted my other hand to the cloth, driving it into the sting of my palm. “Go, it’s okay. I’ll be okay.”
Her finger slipped from under mine. She took a step, holding my gaze for a second more before she turned away.
I was just as lost with them as I was without. I wanted to leave, had thought about leaving many times, even tried to after the last hypnotherapy session when Gready’s face came back to haunt me. I ran, and wanted to keep running.
I lifted my head to the faint sound of them moving around in their bedroom at the end of the hall. But I couldn’t leave them, even if I wanted to. I strangled the cloth in my palm and closed my eyes.
Tick…tick…tick…
Tires crunched on the driveway. I turned to see their driver stop at the back door of the house. His door opened. He was a blur of black as he rounded the back of the car and opened the rear doors.
They were gone before I had a chance to lift my hand. Gone before I had a chance to change my mind. My pulse boomed, chest shuddered as I turned away.
But the ache never left me, instead it grew hard and hungry, filling my head with images of men in suits spewing their lies.
You’ll be a good girl, won’t you? My little sleeper cell…
I strode toward the TV and grabbed the remote.
Click.
Mossman Gready, a close friend and ally of President Harper is due to stand before the committee at nine a.m. tomorrow morning to answer to allegations brought forward by Senator Leah Williams on charges of child abuse and trafficking. Allegations that will send shockwaves through the Presidential office.
The President’s face filled the screen, staring straight at me. Hard jaw, and cold eyes. There was hunger in those eyes, a hunger that ran deep. “It’s not just about power with you, is it?” I murmured and stared at the screen. “You’re rotten to the core.”
Tick…
tick…tick…I winced at the sound as it pushed through.
Everything else seemed to blur from view. There was only him here, only him and the drug-dulled echoes of my past fighting to get through.
Tick…tick…tick.
I took a step closer to the screen and lifted my hand.
You’ll be a good girl, won’t you?
Those words filled me, changing and morphing. Flashes stabbed though the fog inside my head. It wasn’t Gready’s face I saw now. It wasn’t Gready’s voice I heard inside my head. It was his. His words, in my ears. His hands on my arms holding me down.
My little sleeper cell…
I closed my eyes and the room began to sway.
You’ll be a good girl…
Good girl…
Good girl…
Good girl…
“Miss Elizabeth?”
I flinched at the name and opened my eyes. Mona stood in front of me, hand hovering in the air as though she were afraid…and she was, of more than me…
A sudden snarl of thunder filled the air. She flinched and then looked at my hand. “You need me to call your father?”
Good girl…
His voice was all I could hear as the crack of thunder answered, sending shockwaves through the sky.
You’ll be a good girl.
You’ll be a good girl…
I stumbled for the kitchen and the vial of pills. My hands were shaking, spilling the white tablets free along the counter as it opened. I snatched them, shoved the tablets into my mouth and cupped my hand under the tap on the sink.
“Miss Elizabeth, you’re scaring me,” Mona called.
My body trembled. I held my breath. Just like the drugs had been holding my breath all this time, keeping everything down in the dark.
“Miss Elizabeth…”
“I’m okay,” I whispered and lifted my head.
But I wasn’t. I wasn’t anywhere near okay. Thunder snarled and savaged the sky above me. I closed my eyes and searched for the dull roar inside my head. The drugs were no longer working, no longer smothering that ache inside me…that need to hurt.
Don’t look at them…look at me.
Her voice cut through the panic, anchoring me…right here…that’s it.
I turned to that voice now, just as I’d done all those years before in the darkness of that place.
The room brightened with the faint flash of lightning. I stared at her across the divide of our beds, fingers outstretched…needing.
Look at me, she whispered. Don’t look at her…I flinched with the word…her? In the echo of my mind the lie tried to change the word…don’t look at them…don’t look at them…
Purple hair licked her lips and whispered, don’t look at her. They make her do it. They make her hurt us…
Fear snaked its way along my spine. I closed my eyes in that kitchen, just as I had when I was a child. Still I could feel it, feel that terror, feel that pain…feel that girl behind me, the one who pressed against my mind.
She hurt me…made my mind tremble, made my mind weak.
She put the sound inside my head.
Tick…tick…tick…
The piercing sound sent vibrations racing, shuddering with each call.
They make her…the girl with the purple hair whispered. They make her do this to us.
Footsteps sounded through that darkened room. A whimper tore from my lips, and it resounded girl after girl, except for the one with purple hair…she held my gaze as the thud of footsteps came near.
Don’t look at them, look at me, she whispered. The memory so clear now, as though there were no secrets, no shroud.
I could hear the bedsprings creak behind me. Hear the men’s hushed voices as they picked her out of the others, just as they always did.
Time to work, the man growled.
My belly clenched with the sound. I knew that voice…knew it like I knew the sweet scent of cologne as it slipped through the air.
Cool Water…
The snarl of thunder echoed outside the building.
I don’t want to…the girl whimpered and the bedsprings howled. I don’t want to hurt them…they’re my friends…
I felt that weight now, felt it like that ticking in my head. Pushing me, hurting me…like shards of glass inside my skull.
“Miss Elizabeth?” Mona’s panic pushed through. “Miss Elizabeth there’s a man walking down the driveway.”
Pain flared, pressing against my head. I gripped the counter and swayed as the drugs rushed through my system.
Floating, pushing that ticking further away, and that cold fist of desperation eased.
“Miss Elizabeth!” Mona’s cry wrenched me from the past. “Wait…no…no no no!”
The crack of a gunshot followed, shattering the silence…
I jerked open my eyes to the full length window as a man with gun raised high came along the driveway. Flashes flared in the darkness as shots rang out again.
Boom…boom…boom…
The grunt of a bodyguard followed the heavy thud as he fell against the outside wall. Headlights flared at the end of the driveway as a car rolled toward the house. I was frozen, watching through the windows at the edge of the kitchen as the man stepped in front of the rolling car and strode toward the house with a gun raised high. He stepped to the side, moving between the pines to step onto the porch.
The shooter lifted his head. Through the window, cold blue eyes met mine. He was older…but I remembered him just the same.
Do not touch me, the words raced back to me. Don’t talk to me, don’t turn your head toward me. You make one move toward me and I’ll shoot. Do you understand?
It was him. The man in the car. The man from that place.
The man who haunted my dreams.
He was gone in a heartbeat, stepping out of view.
But I could hear him, hear the shots of the pistol.
Hear the crack against the front door as he broke through.
The sickening scent of Davidoff’s Cool Water consumed me as Mona’s screams pierced my head. She stumbled backwards as he strode toward the kitchen and lifted his aim. “Don’t need you.”
The crack was instant, shattering the air inside the house. Mona stumbled backwards. Blood bloomed at the front of her shirt as she looked down.
“No!” I lunged forward, grabbing her as she buckled, driving us both to the ground. Fingers slipped in the warm blood as I pressed against her chest.
“Don’t bother,” the killer answered. “She’s already dead.”
Her eyes were opened, fixed on mine. But there was a shadow now…desperation as the end rushed to fill her eyes.
I tried to call on my power, tried to summon my strength.
But there was nothing but the dull roar inside my head.
“You mother should’ve taken the deal when it was offered.” He wiped the muzzle of his gun with a cloth. “And she should’ve listened to the damn threats. If she did, we wouldn’t be here, would we?”
I jerked my head upwards, panic filled me with hate close behind. “What the fuck do you want from me?”
He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a phone and then tossed it into the air. “Call your mother, Elizabeth. Tell her to get her ass on the next plane home.”
The cell flipped end over end toward me. It was instinct, reaching out to grab it. Instinct to want to obey.
“Just remember when this is all over, it was her fault we were here, her damn fault we triggered you.”
Triggered me?
My head was spinning as the thud of the car door came from outside. “I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t. See, that was the plan. You were never supposed to.”
Movement came from the doorway.
Agony was a shotgun blast to my head.
I slapped my hands over my ears as a cry tore free.
She was a blur, slipping into the room to stop at his side.
Through the detonating blasts inside
my head I saw her, thin, small. Dark cropped hair stark against pale skin. But it was her eyes that gripped me, wide, bottomless goddamn eyes held mine.
“She has quite an effect, doesn’t she, Elizabeth. That is what they’re calling you now, right? Elizabeth.”
I whimpered at the blinding pain and kicked my feet against the floor, driving myself backwards through the kitchen.
“You weren’t always Elizabeth, you know.”
My stomach clenched, punching acid into the back of my throat. I stilled, heart hammering as he spoke. “Your real name is Constance…Constance King.”
The agony slowly died, and my stomach rolled, the tension seeping out of it. “That’s not…that’s not my name.”
He stepped forward, glancing at Mona’s slumped body as he headed toward me. “I can assure you it is. I should know, I’m the one who named you. It’s okay, Elizabeth.” His sick words softened as I hit the kitchen wall.
There was nowhere I could go now, nowhere I could run as he knelt in front of me and murmured, “Daddy’s home.”
Finley
2019
Senator Leah Williams looked older than she had over the last few years. Crow’s feet at the corner of her eyes looked like gouges. Her navy-blue suit looked crumpled, frayed almost. And even though she squared her shoulders and met the reporters with a smile…I could tell it was a lie.
I lifted the phone closer, widened the live feed to the man at her side, and then the bodyguards as a pang of desperation tore free.
I wanted to see her. The girl with the blue eyes. I wanted to see what kind of woman the girl who commanded lightning had become.
But she wasn’t there, not when the camera panned outwards, or even when their cars pulled up outside the Marriott hotel.
I should know…I was there, waiting.
My pulse sped as three of the Hotel’s doormen rushed forward when three sleek black Chryslers pulled to a stop. Doors opened, and her guards were out, sweeping the area before she stepped from the vehicle.
I pressed the button on my phone and the live feed closed. Police crowded the footpath, holding back those few reporters who dared keep up. Three aimed their phones as the Senator lowered her gaze and rushed toward the open doors.
