Page 97 of Hearts Held
She gives the poor brute a delicate wave, “Hi, darling, I missed you.” All at once, he rushes her, picking her up and crashing to the floor as he cradles her in his arms.
“Tilly!Tilly?This is real? Tilly, please tell me this isreal!?” he pathetically begs. It makes me want to vomit.
She giggles as he brushes the hair from her face, positioning her in his lap as he sits on the dusty floor.
His brow furrows as tears collect in his eyes. I peer over at Everett, who has one arm around that stupid whore Brielle, perching his chin atop her head. His gun hangs from his other hand as he watches his brother’s pathetic reunion.
“Is anyone going to explain to me what the fuck is going on!?” I scream in irritation.
“Not that you deserve an explanation,” my mother says as she sits onmycouch, crossing one leg over the other and perching her hands atop her knee. “I found out you set up the girls at the hospital. Aiding in their kidnapping—despicable. Providing one of our ambulances to Sabini and having Freddy be the getaway driver.”
She shifts in her seat, then pulls out a stack of letters.Familiar letters.
No.
“Once I was able to bring Tilly back to life, I needed her to become one of ‘the dead,’ just like your brother, Jacob.” She looks up, her gaze sweeping around the room, then her eyes stop on Bobby, who is still sitting on the floor perplexed. “As you know Jacob has been alive for some time, performing small missions for me. Sorry I kept Tilly a secret from you, Everett.” She nods toward Everett, as I sneer.
“It’s all right, Baba.” He stares so admiring at her. I find it absolutely disgusting.
She continues, “I had them follow you and Freddy.” She points at me and her face changes into a dark, hexing expression. “You both are very, very good with changing up your routes. Providing letters to Sabini with encrypted messages. Luckily, George deciphered them and we realized not only were you stealing from the family and murdering those poor girls, but conspiring to have Brielle killed by any means possible. Tilly found out about your hidden cottage and we trailed you here.”
After listing off my sins, she shakes her head in disapproval.
“I always knew you were evil after you killed your twin in the womb, but this is just nothingness. Evil has a purpose, a reason, an emotion behind it, but this is just a lack of respect for life. You have never tried to be good, no matter the circumstance, during any stage of your life,” she explains.
“Fuck off!” I shout. “Sabini was the first to worship me! He saw my potential. He saw me as a queen! You wretched arseholes call yourselves my family, but you don’t talk to me or treat me the way I should be!”
Quickly my mother is before me, her hand outstretched before aslapechoes off the cottage walls. “You are so entitled. It is as true as the sun sets and the moon rises each night that respect is not given, it is earned. You are given respect when you give it. It is not bestowed upon you. It is given when you care for others, but all you have done is care for yourself. You strived for the attention of being pregnant, and when that did not suit you anymore, you gained the attention you desired from another man—a man who is also theenemy. You fell right into his trap. He read you like abookand wrote out the tale of yourdemisebecause of your lack of awareness. I pity you, daughter. You had your ownhusband killed when that man truly loved you—you refused to accept the love he gave, for you wanted a worshiper, not a partner. You are not a goddess but a mortal. You should respect the life that has been bestowed upon you.”
“SHUT UP! SHUT UP, SHUT UP! Always fucking lecturing me, you old hag!” I shout in her face, my teeth out like the crazed animal I am.
“You killed dad?” Freddy’s pathetic voice sounds from beside me. Of course he would be upset about that. He admired his father. His father was his hero. Makes me want to gag.
A hateful voice rings out, louder than Freddy’s. “Youset up Tilly and Brielle to be kidnapped.Youdrove the ambulance?” Bobby’s face is dark. His eyes are unrecognizable and filled with violence. He grasps the tops of Freddy and I’s heads, as he squats abruptly, forcing our faces into the floor.
Then he continues relentlessly slamming our faces into the ground. Splinters settle in my cheek and nose. I can feel the blood rushing from my nasal passage as the metallic taste flows into mymouth.
“You fucking cunts!” Bobby yells. Then I feel his hands release from my hair as someone pulls him off of us.
Rolling to my side I peer up to see Jacob—holding Bobby back as he thrashes within his grasp. “Let me at them! Kill ’em now! I’ll kill ’em with my bare fuckin’ hands!” He looks like a bloody madman.
Everett is looking down at me. If I didn’t know any better it would almost look like pity. An actual form of tender emotion toward me, but it is pity, instead of remorse or love. Justpity. “Greg, Kenneth. You and some of the boys take Mother to the station. Make sure she gets on the train. Her luggage is packed and in the back of the Crossley out front. Make sure she gets to her destination and doesn’t try to run anywhere else,” Everett orders as the men reply in unison, “Yes.”
I’m lifted off the floor by an Adder as I see a black shadow rush toward Frederick.
Bobby springs toward Freddy, his knife plunging into the side of Freddy’s neck. Bobby drags it down to the collarbone, blood spurting across his maddened face. Then he lunges toward me, but his arms are caught by Kenneth and George.
“Brother, she ain’t worth it,” Kenneth states, glaring down at me.
“Bobby.” Everett stands behind him, one hand on his shoulder, as Bobby’s chest is heaving. His eyes are crazed as he looks at me, calculating where to sink his knife. “Let fate take care of her. Her death won’t sit well with your conscience,” Everett explains to his baby brother.
As Bobby is lifted up and away from me, Baba places both hands on his chest. “The gods do not like those who kill their parents. They can forgive those who kill their siblings, but those who harm the ones who gave them life they will curse for eternity. As Everett said, let the fates take care of her.”
Bobby chuckles then sneers at me. “Too bad my conscience has been eviscerated.”
I’m hauled out toward one of the waiting Crossleys. Everyone begins exiting the cottage. I peer around, realizing this will be the last time I see something that ismine. Something I made withmyown name.Myown plans.
Which have becomemy demise.
