Experiment in Terror 05.5 Old Blood (17 page)

Where was he?

What happened to him?

I eyed the arm above my head and felt the world drop away beneath my feet.

~~~

A hard nudge into the side of my stomach again.

I winced and grabbed it, expecting to find the sharp, snow-dusted rock embedded there but found a dainty hand instead and long fingers that wrapped around mine.

My eyes flew open and I looked beside me. It was Ada, poking me with a quiet smile on her face.

We were in the back of my dad’s car. Of course we were.

My father was at the wheel, nervously eyeing me in the rear view mirror. My mom was beside him in the passenger seat, looking out the window. Ada was beside me, getting stuck with the bitch seat, as the hulking douchecanoe, Maximus, was on the other side of her.

“
Are you feeling OK?” she asked, keeping her voice low even though everyone in the damn car could hear her. “You fell asleep there. You were drooling.”

I wiped at my mouth and the puddle on my collar.

“
Well, I’ve sort of had a long day.”

My eyes met my dad’s in the mirror again. He looked so much older than he did the other day. Was it possible to drive someone to an early grave?

“
We’re almost home, pumpkin,” my dad said.

I nodded and felt eyes boring into the side of my head. Reluctantly I looked past Ada and at Maximus who was staring at me intently.

“
What the hell are you looking at?” I sniped.

His expression didn’t change and he didn’t look away, just kept on trying to read me with those green eyes of his.

This is all your fault
, I projected at him, hoping he could hear it in some way. It kind of creeped me out that it looked like he nodded in return.

“
Perry,” my dad warned, though his voice had lost the edge it normally had. I guess when your daughter is borderline psycho and may or may not have just been kidnapped along with your 15-year old, it’s best to use the kid gloves.

I sighed and looked out the window at the darkening Portland cityscape. I thought about Dex and if he was OK. Jail. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, the idea of Dex in jail wasn’t all too surprising because I’ve always had the impression that he’d been in a cell many times, but he was there on account of me. On account of my parents. On account of Maximus. The unfairness of it all boiled my blood and caused my face to heat up.

After Dex, Ada and I returned home from Idaho and the exorcism, all my fears came to a head and right in my parent’s front yard.

Dex was hauled off by the cops on account of kidnapping charges, which was totally bunk considering both Ada and I had willingly gone with him. At first, my loving Doctor Freedman thought I wasn’t in my right mind to give consent so he convinced the police and my parents to take me to the hospital to get checked-out. All I wanted to do was holler and fight and scream but that probably would have only helped his case. I very reluctantly took Maximus’s advice to just go along with it. I didn’t believe for a second that he’d have my back when he said he wouldn’t let anything happen to me.

Well, I guess he did keep his word because nothing happened to me, though I won’t give him all the credit. It helped that by the time I got to the hospital and was given the once over, I proved to everyone how coherent I was. Because, well, I was. The demons weren’t haunting me anymore. Abby was long gone. I left them all with Roman in those dusted hills of Idaho. I’d be lying if I said I felt 100% better. But that had nothing to do with ghosts or my mental state. I was just extremely tired and felt…off. Like a lot of extra energy was pooling around in my bones with nowhere to go. Two very contradictory feelings at once and it was doing my head in.

Anyway, Ada also helped me by ruthlessly sticking to her story: That I had been nutso because I was sick and had a terrible fever. In a panic, she called Dex because he would know what to do and that he took us to a medicine man who applied a bunch of herbs and shit during a healing session and voila! The fever broke, I was cured. No more crazy Perry.

I could tell that no one really wanted to believe that story but they had no choice. Like the truth would have made any more sense and the truth is what would have gotten me in trouble. At least with this version, my psychosis was blamed on an external and mildly believable circumstance. Plus it was hard to argue with it when I was sitting there in the examining room, talking like normal and acting like myself.

And Maximus, well he didn’t turn on me like I thought he would. He backed up Ada’s story and even interjected some observations such as “I knew there was something physically wrong with her. I just wasn’t sure what and hearing about Perry’s history, I jumped to the wrong conclusion.” A total lie, but one I appreciated. It didn’t mean I didn’t want to kick the ginger right in his freckled balls.

And so I left the hospital with a clean bill of health. Dr. Freedman seemed disappointed, though I couldn’t fathom why. It was like he wanted me to be sick. It didn’t help that I caught him pulling my mother aside and telling her to watch me very carefully. I had a feeling that he didn’t mean for today, or the next few days or the next few weeks.

He meant for the rest of my life.

My thoughts drifted over to Pippa. My grandmother. It would take me a long time to come to terms with that, even though deep in my soul I knew we were related. Maybe in some ways I always knew, maybe I had seen her in my childhood. Maybe you could feel yourself in someone’s blood.

It broke my heart to learn what my mother had done to her. I didn’t have kids, but I still couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have your daughter put you away, to condemn you to a horrible life and a certain lonely death. It made waves of nausea simmer in my belly.

I looked over at my mom, keeping my actions subtle. She was still staring at the window and so I couldn’t see her face. That was just as well. I didn’t think I could ever look her in her eyes again, knowing everything that I knew now. I didn’t know how I’d even survive in the house with my mother watching my every move for the rest of my life, waiting for me to screw up. I had no reason, really, to believe my mom would act the same way with me as she did with Pippa, I mean my grandmother, but…

My mother always acted like she was scared of me. I now understood why, to watch the signs of “mental illness” creeping up in your daughter, knowing what might lay ahead. But now, everything had changed. She was afraid of me and I was afraid of her.

“
Afraid of her?” Ada asked.

I jumped in my seat and turned to see everyone in the car looking at Ada, including my mother. I quickly averted my eyes from hers to Ada’s questioning face.

“
Did…I just say something out loud?” I asked, my heart tight. I hoped to god I wasn’t babbling on about my mother. That
really
wouldn’t have helped.

But while Ada said, “Yes,” everyone else in the car said “No.”

Oh great, now she was acting loony too.

She raised her brows at me and a flash of fear sparked in her eyes. I stared right back at her, willing her to not say anything else.

Finally Maximus laughed awkwardly. “I reckon it’s been a long day for everyone, myself included.”

My mom smiled gratefully at him then shot her daughters a suspicious look, and turned back in her seat.

No one said anything for the rest of the car ride.

~~~

A knock at my door roused me out of my dreamless sleep.

“
Come in,” I groaned, hoping it was someone I wanted to see, which nowadays meant Ada.

It was. She poked her blonde head in my room and squinted at the darkness.

“
Sorry to wake you,” she said as she came in and gently closed the door behind her. She flicked on the lights.

“
Arrrrrgh,” I moaned, throwing my arm over my eyes. “Thanks a lot. What time is it?”

“
It’s almost ten, lazybones,” she said. I felt her come over and sit on the side of my bed.

“
In the morning?”

“
No, at night.”

“
Then why are you waking me up? Can’t a girl sleep?” I mumbled. “I survived an exorcism, you know.”

“
That’s what I came here to talk to you about,” she said lowering her voice.

I took my arm off my face and blinked at her. She looked as serious as anything.

“
OK, what is it?” I whispered. An exorcism was the last thing we wanted to get caught talking about. I was so paranoid now, and apparently so was she.

“
I…I don’t know what happened to you when you were…gone,” she said. She looked very small and scared. “But it hurt. It was…so terrifying. I didn’t know what I’d do without you.”

“
Oh, Ada,” I told her, sitting up. “I’m fine. I came back.”

“
Did you?” she asked. “You seem different.”

I bit my lip. “Well, I feel different. Not in a bad way, but I do. I don’t know what Roman did to me.”

“
You went somewhere…”

I examined her face carefully. Had I talked to her about Pippa, about what I saw in the Thin Veil? I didn’t think so. At least, I didn’t remember.

“
Somewhere?” I asked.

“
I know about our grandmother,” she said deliberately. “Pippa. I know what happened to her.”

My eyes widened, the breath leaving me. “How…did I tell you?”

She smiled, lips tight and closed. “Sort of. I don’t know what’s going on Perry but…OK, this is going to sound really freaking weird but from time to time, I’m, like…hearing your thoughts.”

That threw me for a loop. I almost laughed then I remembered her bizarre question in the car. But…that was impossible.

I looked at her even closer, wondering if she was fucking with me. Not that she would, but there was no explanation that I could grasp. What, I suddenly became telepathic? How come I couldn’t hear anyone else’s thoughts?

She watched me for a few beats and I asked, “All righty, if that’s true, did you hear what I was thinking just now.”

She shook her head.

How about now?
I asked internally, projecting my thoughts onto her with all the concentration my poor brain could muster.

“
Yeah, I heard that one,” she exclaimed quietly, her smile broadening with wonder.

I matched her smile in wattage. This…I couldn’t even begin to fathom
this
discovery. It was like waking up and finding out you had super powers.

“
Oh my god, OK, how about now…OK wait,” I said excitedly.

Is Maximus still in the house?
I thought with power behind it.

Her expression was open, watching me.

“
Well?” I asked.

“
I didn’t hear anything,” she said.

I took in a deep breath and closed my eyes, my insides straining, like I was pushing through a massive headache.

Is the ginger still here? Or has he left?
I asked.

I heard nothing so I opened my eyes to see Ada with her eyes closed.

“
Still nothing?” I prodded her.

She opened her eyes. “No, I was trying to project my thoughts onto you. The assfart left right after you took your nap. He said he was going back home and he’d call you later.”

“
Oh freaking joy,” I snarled. “Well, I can’t hear you. Try again.”

We tried back and forth for a while. Sometimes Ada heard me but only when it felt like I was busting a nut. Otherwise, it didn’t work and I never heard her.

“
Maybe it’s a one-way street,” I mulled it over. One-way street was better than no way, providing I had the choice of whether she heard it or not. I didn’t want my sister to hear everything I thought, no matter how close we had become.

“
Maybe,” she said. “Do you think Pippa passed something on to you?”

I shook my head. “Wouldn’t she have said something?”

“
I don’t know. Perry, I’m scared.”

“
About what?”

It was a stupid question.

She sighed and started picking at the blanket. “About everything she told you. How could mom do something like that to her? What if she does the same thing to you? To me?”