Sweet Sixteen, Chapter 20 ~ Falls Apart
Elly awoke in the early morning hours to the solemn face of the Lost One watching her across the room. She had not gone to sleep with Sam, instead going downstairs after he had finished, to sleep on the leather couch. The couch was cold; leather was nice to look at but not to sleep on.
It became colder still when the Lost One woke her, with the force of staring at her, invading her dreams so that all she could see in sleeping was dark waters and the chill of waking death.
“You should have gone with him,” said the ghostly child, from her pale lifeless lips. Elly wasn’t happy to be woken up, reminded of where she was, who she was with; who she was not with and where she was not.
She sat up and said bitterly: “He didn’t give me much chance, did he?”
“I suppose not.”
“Why do you care? I suppose that was how I was to save you; go to Airidan, become their Queen,” Elly reflected.
Something like a smile passed; it seemed morbid on such a miserable face. “It would have been a start.”
“I’ll never be the Queen now.”
The Lost One said nothing to this, only continued to look serious and dead. Elly realized how tired, how very tired, she was of being haunted by this strange and demanding spirit. She was tired of everything. “I just want to go home,” she sighed.
Her cellphone lay nearby, blinking with seven missed calls; five from her parents, two from Jani. There were voicemails she hadn’t listened to, but she imagined they were concerned and wondering where she was. She felt a great desire to pick up her phone and beg her father to come take her home; but she couldn’t do that without ruining whatever illusion he still had of her as his little girl. It would be hard to explain what she was doing at Sam’s house in the middle of the night.
She sat numbly watching the Lost One watch her. When she did get home she’d have to explain where she’d been all night; it would be worse if her parents had called Jani and learned that she didn’t know where she’d gone, either. Jani would probably be worried enough about her to not think of covering for her. Perhaps they were all out looking for her.
Suddenly the phone vibrated in her hand, and she saw that it was her father calling. She stared at the small screen. She’d assigned a picture to his incoming calls; a shot of him at the breakfast table, looking surly as he squinted at her, not quite awake and in no mood to smile for the camera. She’d thought it was a funny picture. Now it seemed foreboding.
For a moment she thought of ignoring the call, but knew she couldn’t leave her parents in suspense all night. He father, at least, would be crazy by morning.
She punched the button to answer, knowing suddenly what she would do to get out of this. She heard a sharp, stabbing sob come from her own self, and she said, “Daddy,” before breaking down into tears. The Lost One watched her with an expression as numb as she felt inside.
“What’s the matter? Where are you?”
She could tell from his voice that he was truly worried now; whatever concern he might have been feeling before tripled at the sound of her distress.
“I want to go home,” she cried. “Please . . . .”
“Where are you?” he repeated.
“I’m at S-sam’s house.”
“Sam’s?” he echoed, as if he didn’t know anyone by that name.
“Conner,” she clarified, shakily. “With Sam.”
There was a pause on the other end; he was trying to digest the information, obviously this was not one of the places he’d considered she might be. And why should he? As far as her father knew, she had barely anything to do with any of his bandmates, beyond her uncle.
“What happened?” he finally asked, sounding almost eerily calm.
“I was at a party,” she said, between crying gulps. “And, and I wanted to go home but my friends were drunk, and Sam was there, and he said he’d drive me home.”
“I’m coming to get you right now,” came the interruption. “Are you alright? What happened at the party?”
“N-nothing really, I just got tired and it was late and . . . Daddy,” she paused to make more bleating and weeping noises. “I . . . I don’t know how it happened, I—”
“What happened?”
“He raped me.”
There was dead silence on the other end. Maybe he was in shock, or felt such rage that he couldn’t speak. The Lost One watched her with something that may have been disapproval, or maybe she just imagined it, and there was nothing more than the same dead despair in those black eyes. But it was those eyes Elly stared into as she said, “Daddy?”
“I’m here,” came the reply. “Who . . . who hurt you?” He couldn’t even repeat the word.
“Sam,” she said, in a whisper. “He brought me here, instead of home, and . . . ”
“I’m coming. Where is he?”
“He’s sleeping. He was drunk, he . . . fell asleep right after he—”
“Listen to me, Elly Ann. Find a knife, from the kitchen, and go into a bathroom and lock the door. Wait for me there.”
“Should I call the police?”
“No.” She heard him take a deep breath, then, “I’ll take care of this. Just make sure you’re safe till I get there.”
“Okay,” she said, in a very small, frightened voice.
“If he manages to get in the bathroom, use the knife. Alright?”
“I will.”
“Elly Ann. I— I— I’m coming. I’ll be there.”
“Okay.”
She hit End, looking down at her phone with a little frown, as if the phone had done all the lying. Sam had not be a great lover; but it could not really be said he had raped her, beyond the statutory kind. The tears and fear had all been forced, that was beyond doubt, her only real feelings were tired and bitter. Disappointment ruled everything, and a desire to be away from this all.
She got up and found the kitchen, but not to grab a knife, she didn’t need one against Sam. If she was in any real danger, she would turn invisible — or hurt him — before cowering in a bathroom. But Sam had no plans to attack her anyway; he was sleeping soundly upstairs and would probably remain so until almost noon, if it wasn’t for the wrath that was coming for him.
He does deserve it, she thought, opening the refrigerator and dispassionately surveying the contents. She took out a bottled water. He was going to molest me when I was six. He’s been harassing me ever since.
It wasn’t Sam’s undoubtedly unpleasant future that really concerned her, though. All she really wanted was for her father to come get her, and not blame her, and still think she was his little girl. A victim, not a willful slut. Sam would be in a world of trouble either way her father viewed the situation; he might as well be the only one.
She went back to other room, and a look around revealed it to be empty of any bitter spirit besides her own. She sat on the couch and grimly drank her water, listening for her father’s car.
Russ was in too much shock to really think over the situation, but he made a few decisions by instinct.
He did not tell Liseli anything. She had been awake, but upstairs, when Elly Ann finally answered the phone. When he went up to tell her, he only said that Elly Ann had called, was at a party, and he was going to go pick her up. He did it all so calmly that even Liseli, who knew him well, didn’t guess that anything was wrong beyond Elly Ann’s disobedience in staying out past her curfew. Russ had been upset all night at her absence, and while Liseli wasn’t pleased with Elly Ann, she hadn’t been worried. In Liseli’s mind, their daughter could take care of herself. There really wasn’t anything to worry about.
Russ went back downstairs, one thing only on his mind. To kill Sam. There wasn’t a lot of room for anything else, beyond the sickness in the back of his mind at the thought of what had been done to Elly Ann. He had never liked Sam all that much, so there were no feelings of betrayed friendship to muddy the waters. A person called Sam, someone he knew, had raped his daughter, and was now going to die. It was all that simple.
“Dad.”
He was almost to the garage door when Marc came up behind him, and he stopped, planning on saying something brief before leaving. “I’m going to pick up your sister,” he said. “I’ll be back later.”
“Dad.” Something in Marc’s voice made him look back. Marc looked extremely serious, a little afraid, but highly determined. “I heard you on the phone.”
Shit. “I have to go, Marc.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No.”
“Let me come with you,” Marc pleaded. He could only be guessing at what was going on from Russ’s half of the conversation, but that would be enough to know that Elly Ann was in some sort of danger. “Let me help you.”
A more rational Russ would probably not have allowed his fifteen-year-old son to come with him on a killing mission, but at that moment any further delay arguing with Marc was too much time to waste.
“Fine,” Russ said bluntly, opening the door. There would be time to discuss things in the car.
next: Sweet Sixteen, Chapter 20, part 2 »
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- Sweet Sixteen, Chapter 19, part 2
- Published:
- 11.3.08 / 2pm
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- See also:
- Alisiyad
- See also:
- Tales of the Queens
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