Flirting With Chaos (20 page)

“And before Dad could finish…what he was doing to me, Mom burst through the door. I don’t know how she heard me crying, but she ran in there and started hitting him. That was when Dad finally realized that he’d been…with me the whole time. She saved me because she loved me so damn much. She came to the rescue, and I wasn’t alone.”

My vision blurred with tears. At least the crying was real. I cried for my dark soul and the ease I had at being a manipulative liar. I cried for how simple it was to slip into this new reality and not have to deal with the actual one that haunted my past.

“He just kept saying ‘Rainbow’ over and over and over. I covered my ears and screamed. Mom ran off and came back with her gun. I was so scared. I thought she was going to shoot him, but instead she told him to get out. He did.”

“You don’t have to—”

“No.” I shook my head. “No. You don’t get to turn this off like a faucet just because it displeases you. You asked questions. Here are your answers.”

Kaden’s face reddened.

“Mom put the gun on my dresser, ran to the bed, and held me. But you see, Dad didn’t leave the room completely. And instead of getting out of there, he grabbed the gun. Only I saw him. Mom was too busy crying and rocking me in her arms. He stared at me as he walked over to my bathroom on the other side of the room and closed the door. A few minutes passed and then the gun blasted, and his body hit the floor.”

Kaden squinted his eyes, as if he was confused. “But how could your mom have been with you? I thought they found her in the basement.”

“The police lied about that to protect her from suspicion with the press. You know how underhanded newspapers and tabloids can be.”

He froze for a few seconds. His Adam’s apple slid up and down his throat as he swallowed. “Rainbow, what are you talking about?”

“Mom held me until the police got there. She told me that everything was going to be all right. She kept me from looking at all of the blood.” I frowned. “There was so much blood. It was everywhere.”

“But…your mom—”

“Is amazing.” I shrugged. “I know we don’t always get along or haven’t spent much time together since that night, but she’s doing just fine.”

Kaden shut his eyes.

“Dad thought I was broken and couldn’t be fixed.” I touched my chest. “He didn’t even try to pick up the pieces that he shattered. He just fucking left because life wasn’t fun anymore, and his little girl wasn’t the same anymore. Mom stayed and took care of everything.”

He leaned over and held me.

I struggled with getting away, realizing I’d taken the lie too far. The last thing I needed was him holding me. I didn’t deserve it. Plus, he reminded me of Dad. It made me question why I found Kaden attractive. Why I sometimes touched myself with his image in my head. It reminded me of how truly broken I was after all.

“Don’t touch me.” I pushed at him.

Commotion exploded outside. It sounded like someone was fighting or arguing. Then the door on my side burst open.

Jude stood outside. “Let her fucking go!”

“I was just trying to console her—”

Jude reached his hand out to me. “What the hell did you say to her to make you think you needed to hold her?”

“I didn’t know that she was…crazy.” Kaden shook his head from side to side. “I had no idea.”

“She’s not crazy. What did you tell him?” Jude studied me with sad eyes and I hated it. I didn’t need anybody’s pity.

“I told him what I needed to.”

Jude nodded, probably understanding that his father hadn’t heard the truth. Only two people knew what had really happened: Jude and me.

“Come here, Rainy. Let’s go.” He motioned for me to go to him.

I waved him away. “I just need to be alone. Both of you, please leave.”

This time, Kaden had no problem hurrying out of there.

Jude leaned inside the doorway. “Rainy—”

“I’ll talk to you later.” I turned away from him. “Could you tell Thompson to get me out of here?”

“Can we talk just for a minute?”

“I’m done talking.” I shrugged.

“Then can I just ride with you to wherever you’re going?”

“No.”

He hadn’t wanted me around him today. There was no reason now to sit around me out of pity. “Please, just get Thompson.”

Jude sighed and closed the door.

My phone rang. I knew it would be Mom without looking at it. Her assistant had my name on Google alert. Any time my name showed up online, the news went to the assistant’s email inbox and then was forwarded to Mom.

I’ll have to make up a reason for why I was here today. She’ll hate that.
Mom thought it was bad for my mental health to go to Dad’s grave or be around his friends. I was slowly understanding why.

Thompson finally got in, and the town car sped off.

Chapter 15

Mommy’s Keys

I
F
UMBLED
T
HE
K
EYS
in my hand and they dropped to the floor. I froze and waited to hear if Dad had woken up. Nothing came from upstairs, so I slowly picked the keys back up and tried each one on the basement door. Mom cried from the other side.

“Shh. Mom, don’t cry.” I kept my voice as low as possible. “I’m coming. You’ll be out soon.”

I was on the fifth key by now; so many of them hung on Dad’s key ring. They all looked the same
—
gray and dipped in blood. Fog spread around me. I stood there putting keys into the keyhole. Each time, none of them worked. Over and over I stood there with wobbly knees and tears streaming down my cheeks.

Mom’s cries grew louder.

“Please, Mom. You have to be quiet.” Then all the keys melted in my hands and dripped through my fingers.

Mom screamed, as if she knew that there would be no escape. She screamed and I cried with her as I fell to my knees, searching through the gray, murky liquid for maybe one key to still be there.

I just need one key, then I can save her.

I woke up with screams ripping through my throat. I’d gone a whole year without this nightmare.

Why did it come back? Will the others return?

I thought the melting key dream was the worst of them all. It made me think of what would have happened if I’d never found the key to free my mom. My heart sank at the thought. All those damn memories that I’d managed to not think about for a year surged back into my head.

Dad had gone on an acid binge for two weeks. Out of all the drugs he took, acid had scared me the worst. Cocaine had sent him into the studio to work twenty-four-seven. Marijuana had calmed him down and kept him in a relaxed mood. Some of my most favorite times had been hanging with him while he smoked from his bong. But, when he’d done acid, I stayed away. He acted crazy. It wasn’t unusual to catch him twirling a sharp knife in his hand while he talked to himself, or for him to sling darts at my mother and I as we walked by, explaining that a demon lurked near us.

The last two weeks of Dad’s life, he’d been varying his drug usage between smoking angel dust and eating acid strips. He didn’t sleep or eat. During the day, he and Kaden had sat in the studio behind the house, partying, tripping, and writing music. Jude had hung with me a lot, calming me down when he could with his stories of what girl he’d banged or the next girl he was considering. At night, however, there’d been no distractions. Mom and he fought. She would call the cops and kick him out. He’d return the next morning in the same clothes, with flowers, saying he was done with drugs and ready to change. By the afternoon, he would be high again.

Four nights before Dad died, he woke me up at four in the morning with a flashlight shining in my face and a gun pointed at my head.

“Are you a duppy like your mother, or are you my Rainbow?”

My body froze. I held in my scream. “I’m your Rainbow.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “I told you it’s okay. Rainbow didn’t fall.”

I checked to see who he was talking to. No one was there. For some reason, his talking to imaginary people scared me more than the gun to my head.

“You know what a duppy is, right?”

The cold metal dug into my flesh. “Yes, Daddy.”

“Tell them, so they’ll believe you.” His eyes widened in fear. His skin grayed in patches around his eyes and forehead.

What’s on his skin?

He checked behind him again. “Damn it! Give her a chance. Just give her one chance. Go ahead, sweetheart. Tell them what a duppy is.”

I swallowed down my fear. “A duppy is a bad spirit. We all have two souls, one good and one made from the earth. When we die, the spirits up in heaven draw the good soul to them and give it to God to judge.”

The gun shook against my head. “What happens to the other one?”

“It stays on earth inside the dead body. If certain prayers aren’t chanted and herbal arrangements made, the soul could leave and transform into a duppy.”

Dad waited and nodded every other minute as he took council with the shadows in my room.

My heart pounded in my ears. I knew I was being judged by his imaginary people. They assessed me, analyzing if in fact I was a duppy like Mom. The gun was too close, my dad too strong. I could only lay there and wait to either live or die.

But what scared me the most was that he’d said Mom was already a duppy. I couldn’t hear her in the house. Did that mean he’d already killed her?

I gripped the sides of my head and screamed. “Stop thinking about it! Stop thinking about it!”

Footsteps sounded downstairs. Banging fists hit my door.

“Miss Rain, are you okay?” Thompson rattled the door knob.

“Yes. I’m fine.” I hid back under my covers. “It was the television. I just turned it off. I’m going back to sleep.”

I decided to just change my thoughts. The brain is a powerful thing. What I perceive is only what my brain perceives. I can change it all like it never happened. I can rewrite that night.

And so I did. I shut my eyes tight and pictured a slightly better night, one that didn’t end with blood everywhere.

After several long minutes, Dad removed the gun and cried into his hands. “They said you are okay. We’re safe for now.”

I sat up.

He jerked back. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing, Daddy.” I tensed and remained where I sat. “I’m just waiting to find out what we should do next. You said Mom is a duppy.”

“That’s what they said, but I couldn’t kill her.”

I dug my nails into my skin. “Where is she?”

“I locked her in the basement and nailed rosary beads on the door. We should pray for her soul for three days, and if the duppy does not leave her body, then we’ll have to kill her.” Tears spilled out of his eyes. “You shouldn’t have to go through this, my Rainbow. You shouldn’t. But God’s plan is never known to us. You understand?”

I cried and wiped away my own tears. “Yes. I understand.”

“Pray for her.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

“I love you, Rainbow.” He fell asleep in front of my bedroom door inside my room with the gun in his hand, and I never went back to sleep.

I sat in the corner, in my own urine, waiting for him to let go of the weapon. Once he woke up an hour later, he ordered me to clean myself up and relieved all of the staff for the rest of the week. I was no longer allowed to go to school or down to the basement to see Mom. He claimed we needed my prayers all day and that the strength of my chants would lessen if I was far away in school. He locked away my phone and computer. All the other phones in the house were hidden too. I had no way of contacting the police. He even turned on the house alarm so that he would know if I tried to leave.

If it hadn’t been for my friendship with Jude, my mother and I would have never survived. After a few days of me not answering my phone calls, he came to the house, pissed. My dad made excuses for why I couldn’t see him, saying I was sick, sleeping, and wouldn’t be in school for the rest of the week. Jude left without another response.