Rescue (Emily and Mason)

by Seiters, Nadene

  Text copyright © 2013 Nadene N Seiters

  Image Copyright © Yuliya Yafimik

  Image Copyright © Aleshyn_Andrei

  Cover Art © Nadene N Seiters

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Rescue

  Nadene Seiters

  For my Great Grandmother and Grandmother, the two women in my life who taught me that all life matters.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Acknowledgements

  More By Nadene Seiters

  Chapter One

  Emily

  The light filters in through my window blinding me even though my head is under a sheet. I roll over, sniffing at the fresh sheets that smell like Gain, my mother’s favorite laundry detergent. The only problem is I’m not in my mother’s home because she’s dead. My eyes fly open, and I look at the corpse of my mother lying next to me in bed.

  She looks just like she did when she died, about eight months ago. Her mouth is slightly agape, her gray eyes wide and unseeing, and her skin is so pale a sheet of white paper could not compare. I hold my breath as I stare at the corpse, wondering if this is a nightmare or reality. Then her head slowly begins to turn, her eyes still unseeing and her mouth still wide open.

  My lips part and I thrash in the covers, trying to find my way out as her stiff arm begins to move towards me. It’s making a horrifying creaking noise as it moves and for some reason I cannot find my way out of the sheets. Just as her hand is about to touch my shoulder, I feel as if I’m falling.

  I wake up on my bedroom floor with my sheets tangled around me, and my butt aching. As reality hits and I realize that it was just another nightmare, my hand dangles between my knees as I fight not to dry heave. Eight months of nightmares and not one therapist has been able to help me. The last one told me that I had to be willing to help myself before I went back.

  I assured her I was definitely up for helping myself, as long as it didn’t involve seeing my mother’s grave. And she insisted that I do just that. “Closure,” she told me.

  The dry laugh that comes out of my raw throat echoes through my cheery, light blue room. Just as I’m trying to untangle myself from the white sheets, someone knocks on my bedroom door. It must be Laura, my ward for the time being. “Come in!” I call out to her, straightening the tank top I wore to bed.

  She’s a homely woman in her mid-thirties with mousy brown hair and brown eyes to match. There’s a dusting of freckles across her round face. I’m comforted by her presence, mostly because she looks nothing like my blonde haired, gray eyed mother with a tall, modelesque stature.

  “I heard a thump, another nightmare?” Laura knows all about the nightmares. It’s one of the requirements that a foster parent know about the child’s mental status when they agree to foster a child.

  “Yeah, the same one.” I’ve never told her what the nightmare is, but about five days a week I end up on the floor of my bedroom rather than waking up in bed. Laura’s been there every morning since the first one seven and a half months ago. I had spent two weeks in the facilities before she found me.

  “Come down and have some breakfast before you start school, I’ll make you some coffee.” The smile that blooms across my face must tell her just how much I appreciate the gesture of coffee. She bustles out of my room, leaving behind the scent of lilacs.

  Just as a precaution, I sniff the sheets. They smell like the organic laundry detergent Laura switched to after I explained the dangers of non-organic detergents. I also told her about the cruelty imposed upon animals to test those non-organic detergents. She was appalled at the informative essay I had showed her before I presented it to my online English class.

  I begged Laura to let me finish my senior year online, not wanting the stares from other students and the classic ‘poor girl lost her mother’ sympathy from teachers. Laura agreed after about three days of pleading, only relenting when I suggested that I could volunteer at a local animal shelter after I finished my work.

  After I’m sure that nothing in the room smells like Gain, I change into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. There’s no need to dress for class when you’re just sitting down at a computer. I’ve finished the entire curriculum for my classes already, months ago. It’s the last four months of my senior year.

  There’s a cup of steaming coffee waiting on the desk by the computer.

  “Thanks, Laura!” I call out the kitchen, settling down at my simple desk with the laptop on it. I flip the screen open and take a sip of the steaming liquid, smiling at the sweet taste of six tablespoons of sugar and about two of cream. It’s a wonder the coffee can fit in the cup after all those additives.

  Unlike my mother, I never worried about my weight and still don’t. I’m a clean one hundred and ten pounds and five foot three. If I lose just five pounds, I’ll probably be considered underweight. My height and my metabolism did not come from my mother’s side, and I’m not entirely sure if it came from my father’s or not. I never knew the man.

  My clear coated nails hit the keyboard at a phenomenal rate, entering in the assignments for each one of my classes today. After I’m finished entering them into the designated area, I sit back and read the discussion board questions and answers, quickly answering a few. It takes me about an hour total to get my work done, at which time it’s around eight in the morning. I can’t show up at the shelter for another two hours.

  “Done already?” Laura asks me when I mosey into the kitchen with an empty coffee mug.

  “Yeah, nothing extravagant today. What’re you up to?” She may be my foster parent, but Laura’s more like a friend than an actual mother figure. Sure, she’s reprimanded me for missing an assignment here and there or forgetting to clean up a mess in the kitchen after one of my famous ‘experiments’ with cooking. But most of the time she treats me like an adult. In two months, I technically will be.

  “The usual, work at eleven until seven tonight at the ER, some fussing over what to make for dinner, and then arriving home to find out that either you or Jim cooked for me.” She smiles at me as she dries one of the plates from the dishwasher. She uses it because it uses less water than washing dishes herself, but she’s explained to me over and over again that the drying cycle is unnecessary.

  “Don’t look at me for dinner tonight; I’ve got stuff to do.” Laura rolls her eyes at me and puts the plate in the cupboard. It’s a high one that she has to stand on her tiptoes to reach.

  “Right, a hot date with the computer?” She teases, giving me a small smile over her shoulder. I can see the melancholy swimming in her eyes but choose to ignore it today. Instead, I give her a cocky smile back and elbow her aside so I can rinse out my coffee cup and wash it. There’s no need to put it into the already empty dishwasher.

  “Yeah, a hot date with a computer is all a girl ever needs! It’s intelligent and a really great listener.” The comment has the desired effect and Laura giggles, putting her delicate hand over her mouth to cover her open mouthed smile. She’s always been discontent with her smile.

  I put my coffee mug away and give Laura a ki
ss on the cheek before I head up the stairs to my other computer, the one that’s for personal use only. Lately, I’ve been working on some web design projects for a few people on gig websites. The money I’ve been collecting has gone towards my college fund. For me, college used to be a given.

  When my mother committed suicide and left me with absolutely nothing, that dream faded away along with every other dream I ever had. Dreams of having kids that my mother would meet and traveling the world with her when I was out of high school. I had planned on going to college online, but now I’m thinking about an actual brick and mortar college.

  I log onto the computer and tap my forefinger on my lip as I wait for the machine to bring me up my desktop. It takes about thirty seconds, but it’s thirty seconds too long for me. When it comes to technology, I like to have things at my fingertips. First I check my email for some new gigs and find none. That’s alright, maybe tomorrow.

  I open up the music application on my desktop and play some hardcore metal, quietly. Laura doesn’t appreciate some of the lyrics and thinks that this music makes me depressed. The truth is it keeps me alive inside. That and the fact that Laura makes coffee for me every morning just like my mother used to.

  Mason

  An incessant noise drowns out my dream of two brunettes from school getting it on. My palm slamming down on the cheap, plastic alarm clock has it shutting up for the time being, but the dream has faded. I groan as I roll out of bed directly onto the floor, about a one foot drop. I don’t like sleeping up high on an actual bed, not ever since I started falling out of bed when I was about four.

  My nose squashes against the floor as I lay there for about five seconds, and then I begin the routine. I do thirty pushups to wake myself, and then I peel off the clinging, dark blue sheet and toss it back onto my mattress. The clatter of my little brother getting ready for school begins, except he’s about an hour late. I’m going to have to drive the twerp to school again.

  My once precisely spiked hair is now sticking up at all different angles, making me look like a porcupine. I catch sight of this phenomenon in my bedroom mirror adorned with pictures of my rides. Bikes, not women. At least, most of them are bikes. I smile at one in particular before I run my fingers through my hair to get it into organized disarray.

  It’s a picture of a blond I dated six months ago who ripped out my heart and stomped all over it. I like to remind myself of women like her every morning, that way I’m leery of them when they come along again. Drop dead gorgeous and a man eater, that’s what she was.

  My stomach growls, and I forget about my hair. Just before I waltz out the door in my boxers I grab a pair of jeans from the back of a chair, I’m pretty sure they’re clean. I hop into them as I make my way down the hall. Then the alarm clock goes off again, and I have to turn around and actually shut it off instead of putting it into snooze.

  The sound of the door slamming downstairs tells me that my little brother chose to walk this morning rather than ride in my car. It’s not a bad car; it’s just flashy and embarrasses his delicate sensibilities. Personally, I like the painting of the alien chick on the hood. I got the car that way, and I won’t change it. I’ve kicked around a few names like Lola for the alien on the hood, but I haven’t decided yet.

  The coffee pot is empty when I get downstairs, and there’s a note on the fridge that states we’re completely out, so I’ll have to take my sorry ass out to the grocery store to get some. My father tends to call me a sorry ass every chance he gets, considering I now work at an animal shelter. I just got the job yesterday as the resident vet technician.

  Today will be my first day, starting at two this afternoon. And I don’t even have a cup of coffee. The clock on the stove tells me it’s nine fifteen in the morning. I try to stifle my yawn with a fist and end up searching for anything with caffeine in the house. I find an old tea bag in one of the cupboards, but it looks and smells weird, so that’s out of the question.

  Frustrated, I stomp back up the wooden steps to the second level and down the hall to my room. My father’s at work having left at seven this morning as he does every morning. I grab another pair of pants from the dresser and a clean t-shirt. My morning shower is cold and quick, considering I need something to wake me up before I go driving around town.

  By the time I’m finished, my flesh is covered in little goose bumps, and my teeth are chattering, but I feel more alert. I manage to brush my teeth without biting off my tongue and pull on my clothes. My hair is an entirely different story. I was instructed that professional attire was required, but my hair has always been put up into spikes before I go out.

  I manage to get it to slick back with a few strands escaping. The sides are buzzed short so that I can put the middle up into a Mohawk when I’m feeling especially rowdy. But today it’ll just have to be slicked back. Breathing a sigh of resignation, I finish dressing and grab my socks and sneakers from my room. I pull them on before I get to the front door, hopping all the way.

  My keys are hanging by the door. I grab them off the hook and shove the twenty tacked to the wall by the door, shoving it into my pocket. The word coffee is written on the margin in big, black letters. Leave it to my father to make it awkward for me even when he’s not around. The man can be a nag sometimes.

  The beautiful Camaro sits alongside the curb. It’s nicely painted, except for that raucous hood. The green alien chick with a blue bikini on and bright red lips smiles cheerily at me, and I rap the hood once as I pass as a good morning. When I start the car, it purrs nicely. My college fund went towards this vehicle.

  I was never the type for college in the first place. It’s bad enough I had to go to school for six months to obtain my tech license, an entire year early. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

  We live in a cul-de-sac. Dad’s worked his entire life to provide for me and my brother as a trucker, delivering gasoline to gas stations. My mother passed when I was two, leaving him to fumble around for several years before he got himself together and managed to raise us proper. I smile at the thought of the word proper, shoving the shifter into first gear and roaring down the street.

  I’m sure my mother wouldn’t have appreciated her son waking up every other lazy neighbor who might still be sleeping. Or interrupting the ones who are trying to get a piece behind their spouse’s backs. I’ve seen plenty of that going around lately. I wave to one of the adulterers, Mr. Yesim. He’s been pursuing Mrs. Hinkle for months now.

  The drive to the store is pretty uneventful other than that. Perhaps a few races here and there that amount to nothing when it’s crappy little ricers trying to beat a pristine vehicle with some actual pep. I change the oil in this car like clockwork and constantly check the tire pressure. Routine maintenance is key in keeping a vehicle running.

  As I turn the corner off one of the shady streets onto a sunnier street, I reach into the console and pull out my sunglasses. Music pours from my speakers as I pull into the small gas station six blocks from my home in rural Pennsylvania. It’s the closest place to get coffee.

  I grab a large can of Folgers and a large coffee from the dispenser at the back for this morning. Then I pay with the twenty my Dad tacked to the wall and the middle-aged woman at the register quirks her eyebrow at the large, scrawling word in my father’s handwriting.

  “Don’t ask,” I tell her in an amused voice. The woman shakes her head at me and hands me my change, not bothering to give me a bag. I don’t care; one item doesn’t really demand a bag.

  As I slide in behind the wheel, I check the time on the dash and lean back as I sip my coffee. It’s only ten in the morning, which means I have four hours to kill before I go off to my first day at a real job. I start my car and take a cruise around the block before I take off for home. By the time I get home, I now have three hours and fifteen minutes to kill.

  I decide I’ll take my chances with Halo today and get started on a server. A song echoes through the room from my computer speakers and I chuckle
as I listen to it. It’s something about going camping, probably because there’re a few players sitting in one spot picking off people as they reappear. By the time I’m ‘Dominating’ in the game, it’s time for me to head out to work.

  After finishing off my coffee and tacking a note beside the door to let my father know where I’ll be at until six tonight, I grab my keys from beside the door and slide in behind the wheel. It takes me only twenty minutes to get to work, a steal considering jobs are hard to find around here anymore. I take one look at myself in the rearview mirror and try not to freak out.

  Chapter Two

  Emily

  Running my hands through the orange, tiger striped cat’s fur, I find another knot and grab my brush. It would be a shame to cut off all his pretty fur. As I’m gingerly working the knot out, one of the other regular volunteers pauses in the doorway to the medical room. She puts her shoulder to the doorframe. Jesse and I have been chatting more and more lately. I would like to consider the raven haired, tall woman a friend, but friends tell each other the complete truth. She has no idea about the fact that I’m a foster kid.

  “No one’s been able to touch that cat since it was brought in last night. He’s been pitching a fit in that cage every second of every hour he’s been here. You get out a brush, and he’s like putty in your hands. How the hell do you do it?” She sounds genuinely stumped over my ability to keep Cream sickle calm. I named him myself; all the fuzz balls in here need a name, so they feel like they’re something to someone.

  “I show him respect, and he shows me respect back.” It’s something I learned when I was just a small child. Most animals are more afraid of the human than the human is of the animal, but a calm, clear respect usually brings them around.

  “Right, well when you get to his butt; make sure to show him plenty of respect as your cutting out those shit balls.” Jesse flips her hair up into a neat ponytail and smiles at me before she walks away. I lean down to the cat to whisper to him that she has no idea what she’s talking about. I won’t be cutting out his shit balls. I’ll wash them out with some wipes and then brush them.