Temper: Book One of the Taboo Series, page 19
She repeatedly glanced in my direction. Her own anxiety made her pale enough to glow in the dark. “I haven’t told you this, but I wanted to come with you for ulterior reasons.”
“Dimitri hinted at that. Plus, you’re not difficult to read.” I recalled whiteness of her face when I first mentioned my need to go to Memphis.
She tried to smile but her lips wouldn't obey. “My mother disappeared in her own way after my sister died. My step-father is still missing, running from what he’s done.” I waited for her to continue as she stared out into the street. “He’s been hiding in Memphis.”
I knew she’d eventually tell me about the loose ends she needed to tie. I didn’t know how much good we could do against a man- a tangible being. My battle was an inner one against ghosts and history. “Can you find him?”
Her eyes flashed to mine. Beneath the fear was a hard determination I couldn’t help but respect. “I have a lead. It might fall through but there’s no harm in trying.”
We drove through the early morning until the sun shimmered against the mist above the city. We drove past hospitals, government buildings, and a strange, shining pyramid along the river.
Anya followed the directions of the GPS. She drove slowly through the neighborhood streets lined with more broken buildings the further we went. As we turned onto a hole-filled street with no outlet my hands began to knot.
Many of the houses were empty and a few looked as though they had burned. A mother led her two children from their home with chipped green paint as they pulled backpacks over thin winter coats.
Anya’s eyes were glued to the end of the street. I braved a glance.
There was a lot filled with dirt, worn by tires over years. To the right sat a white house, the most pristine on the street. The fresh paint and ornately carved wooden door seemed out of place. Across from it was the home that bore nightmares.
Anya turned in the empty lot and pulled to the side of the street. We stared in silence as her hand reached out to touch mine and grant me strength.
“You don’t have to go in,” she whispered. Numbness began filling my mind. I opened the door to the lavish vehicle and pulled myself from the soft leather seat.
The car itself seemed to belong to a different world. I knew I did. I had grown up so differently. I had never witnessed such poverty. Through the bare supports of one of the decrepit houses, I watched a man stand from the floor with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
I yearned to help him but didn’t know if he would accept it. I hated the anxiety of offending him. I turned back towards the house to examine the broken, rusted iron fence and the sagging wooden steps.
I tried to hide the timidity in my bones as I ventured into the yard. Anya followed with quiet feet. I felt her searching the house in her own way but kept her hands in her pockets. I tested my weight on a step before climbing the porch and knocking.
Anya expected the house to be empty. She nudged me to the side with a card in her hand. I covered a nervous, paranoid laugh as she twisted the locked knob and shimmied the door open.
I looked down, noticing the stained wood of the porch. Heavy drops were faded and yellowed but obviously remnants of blood. I stepped back, feeling as though I was standing on sacred ground but the wrong kind.
The door swung in and my eyes adjusted to the dim space of the room. Anya stood back, allowing me to plunge us both into the darkness that once consumed my mother.
My heart thundered so hard I could feel it in my head. I followed the trail of old, bleached blood into the house. I faltered as I stared at the tangible memory of carnage. The stench of dust and stale smoke made my stomach turn. The stains across the floor made me gag.
I couldn't imagine one person having held so much blood. It was everywhere. I took in the ceiling spotted with the same, making me imagine Ruth writhing, screaming, and flinging herself. Her life was a tragedy and all that remained of her were stains.
I noticed the large, rectangular area of clean wood as though there once was a thick rug or even a bed against the window. I stepped towards the floral couch, noticing the splatter.
Ruth emptied herself back home. I witnessed the saturation of the room yet walked into the new trap of horror willingly. There was nowhere in the room I could turn to in escape.
A wall was cracked in a strange oval pattern, the shape of a large person. I assumed the monster had hurt others in the house.
The fear and my imagination twisted until I grew dizzy but I kept searching. There was an answer somewhere though I didn't know the question. I couldn't give up.
I walked through the short hall. The kitchen counters gleamed but the appliances were dusty as though no one had cooked in there for years. At the end of the hall was a small bathroom. It was clean but for the overflowing ashtray on the porcelain sink.
I backed away, realizing the partial cleanliness was meaningful and the scent of cigarettes too fresh.
I spun back to Anya lingering in the living room, her eyes glued to the ceiling as though she could feel the devastation of whoever had spilled their life and writhed in pain.
Anxiety made the blood pump deafeningly in my ears until my eyes caught the collection pictures gleaming on the wall in the hallway. Their glass held no fingerprints or a speck of dust. I stepped closer as one, in particular, caught my attention.
My teeth clenched painfully as I scrutinized his wide grin, full lips, and dark eyes against long lashes. I glared at William, the handsome creature of devastation. I noticed his chipped tooth and the benevolence in his eyes for whoever snapped the picture.
The glass splintered into my knuckles before I realized I lifted my hand. A scream of rage ripped through my throat as I lifted the fake golden frame from the wall, tearing the nail through the plaster. I flung his picture against the floor and slammed my sneaker into it until the shredded photograph was everywhere. His teeth, lips, eyes, and the glass all scattered.
I leaned against the wall, trying to block my despair. The rage refused to simmer as Ruth’s pale blue eyes clashed with mine from the wall.
Her young smile was pristine. Her hair captured the orange of the flash to make her look as though she wore a fiery halo.
I slumped and slid as I stared at the picture of Ruth. She looked so happy with the beast’s lips pressed to her cheek.
I recognized the background to be a mural on a river wall. Ruth often took me as a child to sit in the parking lot. We would watch the sun lower against the paintings and shimmer on the water beyond the wall. Even my best memories were tainted by him.
Chapter 39- Pressed
I looked up at the sound of heavy feet on the boards of the stairs and stared through the open front door.
“What the hell are you doing in my house?” the man asked with a hand reaching for something behind his back.
I couldn’t move even as Anya rushed toward me. “He’s got a gun, get up,” she whispered vehemently. She began shaking me vigorously though her eyes weren’t filled with fear. She truly was too stubborn.
“I recognize you,” I said from the floor. I nodded at the short, aging, dark skinned man. “Reese, is it?”
He nodded, his body relaxing but the lines of his face deepened. “You're Ruth's baby?”
“So this is where it happened?” My voice sounded numb and devoid of emotion. The disgust choking me made my back straighten as he stepped toward me.
“You have no idea what happened here.” His eyes were trained on the image scouring my soul. There was a wistful innocence in his thoughts.
Anya slipped the knife I hadn’t noticed back into her pocket as the voice of an elderly woman called from outside, “What’s going on in there?”
Reese’s eyes sparkled a touch as he turned to me. “It’s alright Ma. We have some visitors.”
The lady moved into the doorway. Her dark skin was puckered and her frail hand shook as she steadied herself on the doorway. Her thick hair was rolled, coiffed, and bright white.
Anya reached to help the woman who gave her an impatient wave and shuffled into the house independently.
Reese’s mother looked over Anya shortly but froze as she turned to me. Her thin hand pushed her son out of the way as she stepped closer. The glass from the picture scraped at the wood as she slid over it. “Where did you get those eyes, Sugar?”
“From my father,” I replied, throwing Anya a confused glance.
“But the rest of you is your mother.” There was no question in the words as she straightened. “And your mother’s mother, obviously,” her disgust was palpable at the mention of Elizabeth. She turned her back to me as she shuffled toward the couch while still speaking. “I met your grandmother once. Horrid woman. But dear lord you do look identical to her, though with Ruth’s softness. That’s why I called her Baby. Her heart was full and hopeful. Determined and wise, yes. But, regardless of what happened to her, you couldn’t take her light.”
I stood, unsure of how to react. She nodded at me knowingly as she sat back on the cushions of the couch.
“You know what I call Hugh?”
She watched me pale at his name. Anya slid in front of me as though to shield me from the words “How do you know my cousin?” My fingers wrapped around her arms, ready to hold her back- if I could.
Ma cocked her head at Anya, “I could see how you being related would seem believable.”
Anya shook her head in confusion. “How do you know Hugh?” she repeated. The rage building in her shook the air.
Reese’s eyes glued to me as he responded for his mother, “He came here a few months ago, broke in too. Wanted answers.” He glanced to the hallway. “Destroyed the same damn picture. Have to make another copy.”
The chaos of the day overwhelmed me. I never anticipated people. I had expected a tomb for my mind to conclude its own answers from yet my bones were thrilled with the possibility of closure.
I recognized the pity in his eyes as he stared at me. Was it from something Hugh mentioned, or for what happened to Ruth? “What did you tell him?”
“What he needed to hear and nothing more,” said the woman as she lifted her face to Anya, whose eyes clashed with hers in defiance. “Now that,” she lifted a shaking finger at Anya, “was my Will’s favorite expression.”
“Your ‘Will’?” I asked.
She nodded, patting the cushion next to her in invitation. My distrust in them mounted as I looked between them. Her Will. His house. I began to feel as though they were part of it all.
She nodded to herself as she realized I wouldn’t near her. She never truly expected me to. “Hugh came once, but his visit was short. He was pain personified. His eyes, his soul, his lips. I’ve never seen so much agony in one being.” Her skeletal hands shook to her mouth as she recalled Hugh.
Reese nodded from the corner in agreement. Anya stepped from me, drawn to the woman who seemed to have the most recent access to Hugh.
“Was he alright?” she asked with hope gleaming in her eyes.
Reese’s mother lifted her face to mine, “He misses his heart.” There was no doubt of the meaning in her words.
I shook my head at her. My chin lifted in defiance as though demanding her to stop speaking. I couldn't risk the welcoming of those emotions. They would rock me more than the strange picture on the wall of William and Ruth.
“Careful,” the puckered woman whispered to me. “You resemble Ruth when you do that.”
I studied her, mentally questioning her part in Mother’s past. “Can you tell me what happened to her? Where all of this-” I gestured to the stained surroundings, “came from?”
Ma became lost in memories as she spoke.
Anya watched me as Reese paced the floor, shaking his head and muttering at Ma’s words. His voice caught most of my attention. My mind dripped in his arguments.
Every sentence Ma completed, he reiterated her views by making his memories too vivid. His words were paint being splashed over a masterpiece. The colors overwhelmed as they drowned out the original with impeccable distortion.
She told us an abridged version of William's horrendous childhood. His mother died young. Elizabeth brought him into difficult situations he could never seem to unravel in his mind.
Ma honestly believed the little boy she raised couldn’t be inherently evil. To her, any wrong he did in his life originated from Elizabeth's sleight of hand.
“What about what he did to Ruth?” I growled.
I tried to be compassionate and understand Ma loved the man. I was certain she had been torn apart by his actions. Her denial wasn't surprising.
“I don't know much about that. I met your mother through William when they lived here with my son and his husband.”
I glanced to Reese. His eyes filled with grief as he stared at me.
“I'm sorry,” was he could say. The tremble in his voice crashed my world into his until I couldn't decipher the smell of blood from dust as my eyes filled.
“Did you help him?” I asked him. “Did you do nothing but sit by in your own house, listening to her scream and not intervene?”
Anya's hand lifted to my shoulder in comfort. I stepped away from her. I lurched towards the dismal man who seemed so small.
“He was my best friend,” Reese answered in defense. He knew the words weren’t an answer.
His vision focused on the corner of the room. I glanced over my shoulder to where he focused- the abnormally clean rectangle of floor. When I turned back he wore a nostalgic smile.
For the second time that day I lifted my hand to bruise and bloody my knuckles. His head snapped with my temper.
When he turned back I could see the danger in his eyes. His past reflected harm and vengeance glowing against the dark brown.
I nodded in understanding. “You helped him,” I answered myself.
I threw a look back to Ma. She puckered her lips as though amused.
“You hit like Ruth, too,” Reese hissed with a hand on his jaw.
I wanted to throw myself at him, to take the trauma he helped create that burned its way into my life and inflict it on him.
Anya grabbed my wrists, twisted my shoulder blades back, and nailed my palms to the back of my head.
I stilled and relaxed, trying to convey I was calm even as the growls in my soul grew to a deafening roar. Reese stepped forward.
Anya hesitated. Her grip loosened as she readied to release me to defend myself.
My thoughts tossed and mingled with his words as I realized his instability, “I loved Ruth. I loved William. I lost my life the moment they were taken away. However strange it seems, it was their life. Now leave their memories alone before you find some shit you can't get off your shoe.”
“HE TOOK HER LIFE,” I screamed, inches from his face. “It might have taken years to beat her down so thoroughly, but he killed her and you know it.”
“That's truer than you'll ever know.” He answered, lighting a joint he pulled from his pocket.
He had the audacity to offer it to me. As I was about to knock it from his smug hand when Anya grabbed it.
I watched in incredulity as she puffed, grabbed my wrist, and lead me to the door. Ma called out behind us.
“Tell Baby Blue we miss him,” she said, undeniably referring to Hugh. I spun and glared yet she smiled calmly.
Chapter 40- Thicken
We stopped at a diner in the heart of the city. It was where Anya said she’d find her path. We sat and listened to customers order barbecue, fried foods, and openly trade drugs as they passed old friends.
I tried to push away my seething rage and compartmentalize what happened. I gained no answers but felt as though I found a form of peace.
I knew who my villains were and Anya had her own. She helped me yet I didn’t know how to do the same for her.
Anya, the thin yet curvy bottomless pit, ordered a cup of black coffee. I narrowed my eyes, knowing she preferred her coffee sweet and flavored like me. The way her eyes bore into faces as though looking for someone familiar made me more alert.
She paled and straightened as she caught sight of a pretty waitress. Her long, dark auburn hair waved in a ponytail down her back. Her black, thick-rimmed glasses shined the reflection of her phone. I recognized the smile of new love she flashed at the message received.
Anya craned her neck to keep sight as the waitress neared. We could hear her whispering to another young woman in an apron about stepping out back for a smoke.
Anya threw me a short nod and a wad of money onto the table. She moved fast.
It took too long for my mind to register Anya was already dashing away.
I didn’t know what would happen, what Anya was looking for, or what information she picked up on. All I knew was she had been there for me. I was determined to do the same.
I shot out of my seat as Anya flew out the front door. Her curls bounced and legs pumped beneath her with trained strength. There was so much to her I didn’t know. I suddenly saw the barriers she kept us all blind to. My fondness for her swelled. She was human and breakable after all.
Anya halted as she rounded the building. Her face reddened in rage as she took in the scene of an older man holding the waitress to the wall. The woman’s smile slipped.
She didn’t see us but caught sight of something dark within the man. Anya said nothing as she flung herself down the alley towards them, her steps quiet and knife drawn.
The waitress screamed in horror and clung to the wall as Anya grabbed the man.
She spun him to face her as she lifted a foot and brought him to his knees with one wide, spinning jerk.
He kneeled before her with his wrist clasped in her grip. I realized how useless I was as I observed. Anya lifted the blade and I remembered the pain in her eyes as she told me the edited reasons for her need to come to Memphis.
Her lead came through. She found the stepfather- her own villain.
“Do it,” I urged. She deserved her justice even if I could never grasp my own.
The waitress pushed away from the wall as she realized Anya’s intent. I lunged, grasping her substantial waist and heaving her back.
