Get Bent!

by Rick Gualtieri

  I tried to power my way out, but his strength was incredible. As strong as I guessed I was, he managed to maintain his grip. Pity for him, I wasn’t out of tricks.

  “Can you please calm...”

  I shifted my weight, dropped low, and twisted. Dad was pulled off-balance, letting go enough for me to launch him over my shoulder.

  He smashed through our coffee table, landing on his back with a satisfying crunch of glass and wood.

  The commotion was enough to rouse Riva, who’d continued to slumber on the couch up until then. She woke with a start, her mouth opening and closing mutely at the sight before her.

  “Mom,” I called over my shoulder, “take Riva and get out of here. I’ve got this.” In reality, I didn’t have a clue as to whether I had anything, but it seemed a reassuring thing to say.

  “Oh, enough is enough!” Mom shot back. “I will not have you ruining my furniture because of some misguided temper tantrum.”

  I was about to ask what the hell was wrong with her, but the only thing that came out of my mouth was a surprised cry as something knocked me off my feet from behind.

  One of the easy chairs had somehow slid across the living room floor, seemingly of its own accord, dropping me butt-first into it.

  Before I could stand, Mom shouted something. “Dhó Slabhrai!” Whatever that meant, it again came out sounding as if she had three invisible backup singers screaming it out along with her.

  But if I thought that was odd, it was nothing compared to the whips of bright orange light that appeared from out of nowhere and tangled themselves around me. No, that wasn’t quite right. Light was intangible. Whatever this crap was, it felt solid. They wrapped around my arms and legs, holding me fast to the chair.

  “Bent!”

  “Don’t make me tie you down, too,” Mom scolded my friend before turning back to me. “I said that’s enough.”

  I struggled against the ... bonds, I guess, but whatever they were they had me caught like a rat in a trap. Sadly, I didn’t have a great deal of leverage, otherwise I’d have...

  “Stop fooling around, Curtis, and help me here.”

  My father pushed himself to a sitting position and glanced sidelong at my mother. “You know, that actually did kinda hurt.”

  “Now is not the time for melodrama.”

  They looked at each other for a moment, then both turned to me. I braced myself, uncertain what was going on or what would come next. Whatever they had planned for me, though, I’d fight them tooth and nail. I’d...

  Dad got to his feet and leaned down over me. “Are you calm now, honey?”

  Huh?!

  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it hadn’t been that.

  CHAPTER 9

  Mom folded her arms in front of her and pursed her lips. “Don’t baby her like that, Curtis. She’s not a toddler anymore.”

  “I’m just trying to reassure her that everything is okay.”

  I quickly glanced over at Riva. There was a look of total confusion on her face. Yep, no help there.

  After a moment, as my parents continued to bicker, I began to get the sense that maybe Dad wasn’t going to gut me after all. As for my mother, well, I wasn’t sure what to think there.

  Finally, I got a hold of myself enough to speak up. “Could you guys maybe talk to me like I’m actually here?”

  “Sorry, Tam Tam,” Dad said. “You’re probably a bit confused at the moment.”

  “A bit?” I raised an eyebrow. “I’m tied to a chair with laser beams and you think I’m a bit confused?”

  “Oh, yeah, that. We’ll let you go if you promise not to overreact.”

  “That means no destroying the furniture,” Mom added. “You know the rule about fighting in the house.”

  Strange didn’t begin to describe this day so far. The fact that, after everything that had just occurred, my parents were talking to me like ... parents ... wasn’t doing much to alleviate that.

  “Maybe, I should go.”

  Mom froze Riva in place with a glare. “Sit down, young lady.”

  “A-are you going to knock me out again?”

  Dad looked at Mom with something akin to minor disapproval on his face. “You didn’t.”

  “It was just a minor sleep compulsion.”

  “Really, Lissa?” he asked, his tone stern but not surprised.

  “What was I supposed to do?”

  “You could have tried talking to her.”

  “Yeah,” I replied, still stuck fast. “Talking’s good. Much better than ... frying her brain, or whatever you did.”

  “Frying my brain?” Riva echoed in a small voice.

  Mom’s eyes narrowed as she surveyed the three of us. “Very well. She can remain conscious. But I’m warning you both, what is said in this house does not leave this house. Am I crystal clear?”

  Riva lifted a hand and tentatively crossed her heart.

  “I’d ask you to swear on Ernmas’s good graces, but you probably don’t know who that is. So I guess that will have to be good enough for now...”

  “Would it help if I swore on her good graces?” I asked. “Because I’m still kinda stuck here.”

  “Oh, sorry about that.” Mom waved her hand dismissively and the strands of light around me immediately dissipated.

  I moved my arms and found myself once again free, so I stood up before she could change her mind.

  “Now behave,” she said in a scolding manner, “or it’s back in the chair.”

  All at once, I felt like I was five again and being told to go stand in the corner. Yeah, she was Mom, all right. Or at least she was playing the part convincingly.

  I figured it was best to breach that subject right away before anything else odd happened. “Who are you?”

  My mother raised an eyebrow. “Please tell me you did not just ask that. Who do you think we are, young lady?”

  Dad stepped behind her and began massaging her shoulders. “Be nice, dear. I’m sure this is kind of strange for her, too.”

  “Strange is one word for it,” I replied, facing them both. “Especially since I don’t recall you being a werewolf or you being a ... wait. Are you one, too?”

  One corner of Mom’s mouth raised in a half grin. “Of course not. I’m a witch.”

  “Oh, of course. I guess that makes Chris, what? A gremlin? Or maybe an imp?”

  “Your brother is perfectly normal,” she replied. “In his own unique way, at least. He doesn’t know. And I’d prefer we keep it that way.”

  “Are you sure he’s not?”

  “Positive.”

  It figured. The one person in the house I was certain had been conjured from the netherworld was the only non-freak. It’s like nothing made sense anymore. “Okay, fine. So how long have you two been...”

  “Always,” Dad said, looking somewhat embarrassed. “We’ve just been good at hiding it, up until last night anyway.”

  Mom pulled away from him to glare at me. “It would still be a secret if someone had stayed away from the hollows and taken their meds like they were supposed to.”

  My meds...

  I studied Dad’s eyes as she said this, a sense of dread beginning to form in my gut. He’d always been easier to read than Mom. I saw concern in them, but no hint of surprise either.

  The werewolf and witch thing was going to seriously freak me out once it had a chance to sink in, but this? If what I feared was true, then freaked out was gonna need to take a back seat to royally pissed off. “I’m not sick, am I?”

  My parents both looked at each other – a meaningful glance as if they knew this day would come, like this was a conversation about the birds and the bees or something mundane like that.

  Finally, Dad shook his head. “No. You’re not.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I won’t mince words. I kind of lost my shit. In the wake of all the other questions I had, about how my life had apparently been one giant game of monster charades, this was the thing that really set me off. Be
trayal didn’t even begin to cover it. This wasn’t just about their secrets, whether it was howling at the moon or casting laser rope spells. This was about me, their daughter. For nearly my entire life, I’d lived with a death sentence hanging over my head. Do you know what that does to someone? I’d been certain I was going to die out in those woods and not because of some stupid wolfman either.

  “Was I ever sick?”

  The silence from them was all the answer I needed.

  “I can’t believe this! All of that crap about the pills, about me being sick. All of it was bullshit? How could you do that to your own daughter?”

  If Riva had been frightened by my parents, she absolutely shrank into the couch cushions as I laid into them. I felt bad about that, but reassuring her that she wasn’t the target of my ire would have taken the edge off. Right then, I wanted that anger.

  I deserved that anger.

  “Listen, you’re upset right now, not thinking clearly...”

  “Do not!” I pointed a finger at Mom. “Upset is you renting my room to a hobo or buying Chris a car before me. This ... this is not upset. Do you know what it’s like to be terrified of leaving the house without your medication? To have to search through your purse in a panic because you can’t find it right away? Do you have any idea what it’s like to be that afraid every fucking day of your life?”

  “Actually, we do,” Dad said in a small voice.

  I ignored him, not even remotely in the mood to share the misery. This was my pity party and I was the only guest of honor. “What are they?”

  “What?”

  “The pills! Are they a placebo? Was it all in my head?”

  “No,” Mom said. “A placebo wouldn’t have done the trick. It needed to be real. You were too powerful otherwise.”

  I turned to her expectantly. Whereas Dad looked guilty as hell, as if he wanted to crawl under the porch and hide, Mom seemed to be holding it together. If the truth was going to come out, I sensed it would be from her. “Go on.”

  “Mind your tone. I’m still your mother.”

  It was all I could do to not grab the nearest heavy object and throw it at her.

  Before I could lay into her again, that thought gave me pause, the anger momentarily abating. It was something I’d need to keep in mind. If what was happening to me was permanent, then I had the potential to really hurt someone if I wasn’t careful.

  I remembered the creep I’d slugged the day before. It had been a moment of anger and I’d lashed out, putting him on his ass. But if I tried that right now, I’d probably knock his head clean off ... an overreaction if ever there was one.

  Mind you, that still didn’t mean I was in the mood to be brow-beaten by my parents. I simply folded my arms and waited.

  “I won’t lie to you, Tamara.” She held up a hand when she saw the look on my face. “Anymore, that is. The pills were my idea.”

  “At first, we were just looking for a way to mask your scent,” Dad said.

  “Why would you need to...”

  “Yes, and at first I agreed,” Mom interrupted. “But then things changed.”

  “Things changed?” I asked. “How?”

  She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Do you remember what happened in Target when you were young?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I had some sort of seizure. I started puking and then passed out. You said I almost died.”

  Mom let out a sigh. “Yes, that’s what we told you. But do you actually remember what happened?”

  I opened my mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “I guess I sort of remember the hospital afterwards. But otherwise no, not really.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t. You were only three.”

  “So you’re saying I didn’t have an episode?”

  My father chuckled uncomfortably. “Oh, you had an episode, all right.”

  That drew a glare from Mom. “The truth is, you had a bit of a tantrum over some toy I wouldn’t buy for you. I forget which one, but it was something stupid that you had to have right at that moment.”

  “How did I end up in the hospital from a tantrum?”

  She looked me in the eye and held my gaze. “You didn’t. I did.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “What?”

  “Yes. I was admitted with a shattered arm ... broken in three places, actually.”

  “What happened? How did you...” I trailed off as stark realization hit. “I did it.”

  “Up until that moment,” Mom continued, “we’d only begun to suspect you possessed somewhat ... inordinate strength for your age. A broken toddler bed here, a crushed playset there. But that, that incident cemented it.”

  “Oh my God. I...”

  “Calm down. That was almost seventeen years ago and I wasn’t about to blame you for it. You didn’t know what you were doing. As far as you were concerned, you were just stamping your feet and throwing a minor snit.” Her tone lightened a bit. “Besides, you punished yourself pretty good afterward. Cried for almost a full day.”

  Dad nodded. “Trust me. I remember that. With your Mom in the hospital, it was up to me to try to cheer you up.”

  “So how did you come up with the pills?” Riva asked, looking more engrossed than scared by this point. Guess I couldn’t blame her. This was some trippy-ass stuff right here.

  Mom leaned against the kitchen door frame. “That took a bit longer. There was considerable trial and error, if you will. That’s probably what you mistake as remembering what happened in Target. Some of our early attempts left you sick as a dog for the duration of the effect.”

  “Wait,” I said. “That doesn’t sound like something a doctor would agree to – using a healthy child as a guinea pig.”

  “Of course not,” Mom replied with a sigh. “Modern medicine is wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but it is woefully unprepared for toddlers who can crush cinder blocks with their bare hands.”

  This was getting deep and a wee bit scary, too. I kind of felt like Neo right before entering the Matrix. He was warned the rabbit hole went pretty deep, but took that damned pill anyway. This was my Morpheus moment right here, right now, but I had a feeling I’d already swallowed the wrong pill. We’d come too far to turn back. “But what about Doctor Byrne? Don’t tell me you ... hexed him or something.”

  Dad let out a snort of laughter. “Sorry to break it to you, honey, but he isn’t a doctor, he’s your mom’s uncle.”

  “Don’t be insulting, Curtis.” Mom turned back toward me. “True, he’s family, but he does have a doctorate from Stanford.”

  “Okay, then...”

  “But he’s also a highly skilled alchemist, not to mention the only member of my coven who’s aware of your special circumstances. That’s a status quo we cannot afford to...”

  “Whoa, hold on. Back up. Alchemy?”

  “Of course, it’s a tried and true science despite what your textbooks might tell you. In fact, it was his idea to mix arcane knowledge with modern medicine. The old with the new, if you will.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “Your pills, dear. They’re a mix of alchemical agents meant to suppress your power and render your scent more human, but they’re combined with modern muscle relaxants designed to help keep your strength to more ... manageable levels.”

  “My scent? Why do I need...”

  “Tell her the rest,” Dad said.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, dear.”

  “Tell her,” he repeated. “She’s already heard enough, she should know the rest. We owe it to her.” Dad looked at me and I saw something I didn’t often see in his eyes: shame. “I’m truly sorry, sweetie. You have to believe that. When you were born, we swore we’d do everything in our power to protect you...”

  “Aww, that’s sweet,” Riva said.

  I shut her up with a glare. Now was really not the time. “What do you mean?”

  Mom let out a deep breath. Through all of this, she’d kept her cool, but now her face held
something else – an expression much closer to my Dad’s. “That’s not all. The pills were designed to be ... addictive.”

  What ... the ... fuck? “What do you mean addictive? Like I’m some kind of heroin junkie?”

  “Nothing so crass. But when they wear off, they trigger withdrawal-like symptoms in your brain – nausea, vomiting, dizziness.”

  I let her statement hang in the air for several seconds. “So, in other words, they’re supposed to make me feel like I’m dying.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “I need to get out of here.”

  “Excuse me?” Lissa asked. I was having a real hard time thinking of her as my mother right at that moment.

  “I need some fresh air, time to think.”

  “Tamara...”

  “Don’t.” I held up a hand, one that I really wanted to curl into a fist and punch something with. “You made me a fucking addict!”

  Dad stepped forward, his hands out in a placating manner. “Honey, it’s not like that. You don’t understand.”

  “Understand what? That every time I’ve been late, every time I’ve puked my guts up until I got my next fix, every time I’ve thought I was going to die ... it was just a sick joke? When all along I’ve been perfectly fine.”

  “Are you?” Mom asked.

  “What kind of question is that? No, really. I’m a lot of things right now, but fine isn’t one of them.”

  “I meant physically.”

  “Huh? Yeah. I mean, I’m kind of sick to my stomach by what I just heard, but I don’t think that’s too hard to believe.” I stared at her. “Why are you asking? And don’t give me any bullshit about really being ill.”

  “It’s just that ... the symptoms were designed to last for days if necessary. And here you are, less than twelve hours later, apparently weaned off.”

  “Guess Doctor Byrne isn’t as good of a witch doctor as you thought.”

  “It’s Melissa,” my father said. “I think she did it.”

  “What?” Mom and I asked simultaneously.

  He turned to her first. “We don’t know a lot about how Tamara’s metabolism works, but I think it has something to do with adrenaline. When Melissa stumbled across the girls, they probably thought she meant to hurt them. It’s possible the resulting adrenaline surge flushed things out of her system faster than expected.”