Renee

by Brandie Davis

  “No! No! No! Help me! Somebody help me!” she yelled.

  Sheila pulled against the ropes binding her and frantically rattled the metal chair. The chair slid just a little on top of the plastic-covered floor. The more she moved, the more the ropes rubbed against her skin and dug into her cuts. Sheila whimpered and tried to will away the pain.

  “You’re not getting out,” Dane informed her.

  Sheila’s head shot up. “Who said that? Where are you?”

  Husband and wife walked out of the corner that cloaked their identity. Sheila laid eyes on the two of them just as the events of the night came back to her—the late-night drive, her pulling over, then being attacked. Blood trickled down her face and fell on the plastic floor, which her toenails scraped against.

  “Please! Why are you doing this?” Sheila sobbed. She twisted around as best she could, trying to loosen the ropes around her legs and arms, as she ground her teeth and took on the pain.

  “I’m going to be honest with you, Sheila. I want to know why I’m doing this too.” Dane folded her arms.

  “I don’t understand.” Sheila wished her tears would stop falling. The more she cried, the more the tears burned her cuts.

  “I was sent by Renee. You remember Renee, don’t you?”

  Sheila’s eyes grew wide, and her mouth opened slightly. “Renee . . . ,” she whispered.

  “Yes, your daughter. Now that we can all agree that we know her, I think you have some explaining to do. Why would your daughter send me to torture you?”

  Sheila fell silent. She thought she would die from the pain; however, her mind still focused on her daughter while she gazed up at what was left of the basement ceiling.

  She’s alive?

  Even though Sheila was trying to gather her thoughts, Dane didn’t like being ignored. Dane looked over at Metro and nodded her head. He pulled out a jar filled with rubbing alcohol and threw half of it on Sheila. A high-pitched noise arose from Sheila, and her big toes banged against the floor.

  “Now that I’ve got your attention, I’m only going to repeat this once more. Why would your daughter send me to torture you and then kill you?”

  Sheila’s head whipped in Dane’s direction. Her blood and tears mixed together. “You’re going to kill me?”

  “If you don’t tell me what I want to know,” Dane lied.

  Sheila fidgeted in her seat, using the remainder of her strength to try to break free of her restraints, but to no avail. She took a deep breath, cut out the crying, and nodded. “I bet it’s about what it’s always about. My husband.” Sheila clenched her teeth. It hurt to blink.

  Sheila went on. “When Renee was young, her father died in a car crash. We moved from Miami to New York, where I met my second husband, Curtis. We got married and had a daughter together soon after. I was blessed with a second love after losing my first.” She gave a small smile that didn’t last long. “Things were great. Then Renee started to flirt with Curtis. At first, I took it as an innocent crush, but then she seduced him and started sleeping with him.” A tear slid down Sheila’s face, and she shivered.

  “How old was Renee when your husband first slept with her?” Metro asked.

  “I don’t know, but I know it had to be before the little slut was a teenager.”

  Metro smirked. “There’s a kid and a grown-ass man, and in your eyes, your daughter was the one doing the seducing and she forced herself on him?”

  Sheila gave a small nod. “What else could it be?”

  Dane pushed out her breath. Her hands formed into fists. “So your husband has no part in this at all, huh?”

  Sheila looked over to Dane. “Of course not. If you’re insinuating that he raped her, then you’re wrong. All he was doing was being a man and taking what was flaunted in his face.”

  Dane’s head was spinning. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Everything was making sense now. She now understood why Renee hated her mother and didn’t want to tell her why. Dane knew nothing about this, but she knew Renee had not thrown herself at Curtis. She’d been raped.

  Dane looked at Sheila. She had Renee written all over her. She looked like an older version of her daughter, older thanks to the wrinkles and the bags underneath her eyes, products of years of being angry, in pain, and stressed out. She had been making herself age faster than God intended.

  “You’re sick if you actually believe your husband had no hand in any of this. Your husband raped your daughter, and you did nothing? What did you do? Listen while he raped her? Does that get you off or something?” Dane snarled.

  Right when Dane was finished speaking, Sheila tried with all her might to get out of the chair. It started to wiggle, and she nearly tipped it over. Her cuts were so deep that she screamed while trying to move.

  “She’s the sick one!” Sheila shouted. “She knew how devastated I was when her father died. She knew that if I could, I would have died right along with him. It didn’t matter to her. She still had to take Curtis from me when she saw I had found happiness again! She was Daddy’s little girl, got all her father’s attention, and that’s exactly what she was trying to do with Curtis. Have all his attention, leaving nothing for me.”

  Her words bothered Metro so much, he walked toward her to give her one good back slap, but Dane held out her hand and stopped him. Sheila sat in her chair, crying uncontrollably now. She had never actually sat down and told someone exactly how she felt concerning her husband and her daughter. Her tears burned her cuts so bad, but she couldn’t stop crying.

  “Do you know how it feels to have to compete with your daughter every day? To always be reminded that no matter what you do, you can never compare? She had her father’s heart under lock and key. There wasn’t a day that went by that Daniel could forget about Renee for just one second. Just one second, so that it could be about me and him. It was always about what schools we should start looking into for Renee once high school and college rolled around. What career we believed best fit her, and what activities we should get her into. It was the Renee show twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. When he died, that show went off the air. Because of that, she looked to Curtis to give her what she wanted.” Sheila finally calmed down, and her tears started to let up.

  She went on. “I miss Daniel. I know he was only being a good father. He didn’t have sex with Renee or even put one finger on her, not even to discipline her. And I’ll admit, from time to time, he showed me a lot of affection, unlike Curtis. It’s just that I wanted more. I wanted more of his time, without Renee around to interrupt. I wanted it to be the way it was before she was born.” Sheila’s head hung low. She knew she was wrong to feel this way about Renee, and she refused to look anyone in the eye.

  “I don’t feel bad for you. You’re a monster. Because of your selfish tendencies, you allowed your daughter to be raped under your own roof. I should kill you now.” With every word Dane spoke, she spit venom.

  Her hair covering her face, her eyes barely visible, Sheila looked at Dane. Her face was so cut up, she looked like an evil villain. “She just wouldn’t learn. I did everything in my power to try to keep her away from Curtis. I beat her, treated her like a stepchild by making her do any and everything. I even made it my business to tell her daily how she disgusted me and how I couldn’t stand her. But every time I turned around, she was with him again. Screaming and crying like she didn’t want it, like she didn’t ask for it. She seduced him to the point where he started putting her first. He stopped sleeping with me. He even killed for her.”

  Dane and Metro looked at each other after she made her last statement.

  “What do you mean, he killed for her?” Metro walked closer to Sheila.

  Sheila bit down on her lips, and when she did, she was surprised that her lips weren’t cut too. “When Renee was a teenager, there was a girl her age that lived in our neighborhood and went to school with her. The two didn’t get along. Every other day I was getting calls from school, telling me how the girl was ha
rassing Renee. It was never Renee’s fault. The girl started with Renee every chance she got. Teachers and students said the girl did it because she believed Renee took her boyfriend. In actuality, Renee didn’t take the girl’s boyfriend. The boy left her because he liked Renee, but Renee wouldn’t give him the time of day. One day the girl got suspended for opening the door to the classroom Renee was in and throwing a textbook at her. Later that day, when Renee was walking home, the girl and a bunch of her friends jumped her. She came home with a busted lip and a broken nose. I will never forget that day.” Sheila stopped talking and looked up in the air, as if she was reliving every moment.

  She continued. “I’ll never forget how it creeped me out when she didn’t cry. She walked into the house and headed straight for the bathroom to clean herself up. Boy, was her face messed up. I watched her apply alcohol and bandages to her face, and she didn’t even flinch from the sting I knew the alcohol was giving her. She just cleaned herself up, as if she was cleaning a paper cut on her finger. When she was finished, I asked her if she was okay, and she gave me this look . . . this look that shook me down to my soul. The look in her eye, I had never seen before. It scared the hell out of me. She looked like she was in a trance. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I left the room.

  “That night Curtis went out and didn’t come home till after three in the morning. I waited up for him. I was worried. When he finally came home, he was dressed in clothes he didn’t have on when he left the house. I asked him where the clothes he’d had on earlier were, and why he’d changed. He didn’t answer me until we got to our bedroom, and when we did, he went to the window and glanced out of it and smiled.” Tears dropped from Sheila’s eyes. “As he held the curtain open, he looked at me and said, ‘I did it. I killed the little bitch. Now she’ll never mess with my girl again. Never.’”

  Sheila paused to catch her breath. “The next day the girl’s body was found in a Dumpster miles from our home. She had been raped, and her throat was slit. The little girl’s name was Leslie. It was at that moment that I knew he was in love with Renee, knew I could never capture his heart as she had. I ended all communication with Renee after that. I pretended she didn’t exist. It was incredible how everyone loved Renee except for me and that girl who died. She had it all, little boys running after her, gorgeous looks, and brains to match. She was the belle of the ball, a princess. I gave birth to her, so why couldn’t that be me? Why couldn’t I possess the same qualities as her?” Sheila looked into Dane’s eyes, truly asking these questions and awaiting answers. When she didn’t get any, she took a deep breath.

  “Renee wound up going to the police and got Curtis locked up,” Sheila continued. “Then, around a year later, she disappeared. I never seen or heard from her again. It’s been so long, I thought she was dead. Her leaving crushed Curtis. He went into a deep depression for months while in prison. He always asked if we had heard anything about her. He always held on to the thought that one day she’d come back. And I always held on to the hope that she wouldn’t. When I saw that she was never coming back, I was happy, and I thought Curtis would be too, since she’s the reason he’s in prison. Charging him with rape, that little bitch!” Sheila stopped for a second, slowly shaking her head. “After that, it was just me and my baby, Page. Just me and my baby.”

  Dane just stared at Sheila. “So tell me, are you jealous of Page, like you are Renee?”

  “Of course not. She’s my baby girl. Yes, she’s gorgeous and smart, but she’s nothing compared to Renee. Renee is the type of woman you have to look out for, the type of woman who’s the total package and can be dangerous if she discovers it and uses it. Why do you think I always put her down? Of course, it’s because she took my husband, but it’s also because she is who I always wanted to be. A woman like that can never reach her full potential if she doesn’t know what she has, and if I didn’t have it, I’d be damned if she would. Anyone, anyone, I tell you, but her should be so lucky.”

  Sheila paused for a second. “Page is no threat. I hated Renee for Page just as much as I hated her for myself. I never treated them the same or loved them the same, because if I had, Page would forever be living in her sister’s shadow and would have only tried to be, if not better, just as good as Renee. And that is something I know Page can never accomplish. She just doesn’t have what it takes.”

  For two minutes, the basement was quiet. No one had a word left to say. Everything Sheila had just said blew Dane’s and Metro’s minds. To hear such hate aimed at a daughter coming from a mother’s mouth was unreal.

  “Well, at least I know why your daughter wants you dead. And I can’t say that I blame her,” Dane noted.

  “Is there anything that I can say to make you change your mind?” Sheila gasped.

  Metro laughed. “Don’t you think you said enough?”

  Sheila put her head down and bit down on her lip, holding back her tears. When she wasn’t looking, Dane nodded in her direction.

  Metro took out an X-Acto knife used for artwork and cutting. He walked over to Sheila and began cutting into the cuts she already had. He made many of the cuts deeper than they were. Sheila thought she would pass out from the pain. It hurt so much, she could no longer scream, let alone open her eyes. When he was done, Metro untied her arms and legs. She was so weak from the pain, she could not even sit up straight. She just let her body fall forward. Metro grabbed her and picked her up. Then he carried her over to a bathtub filled with liquid and dropped her in it. Immediately, Sheila found her voice and started to scream. The tub was filled with nothing but alcohol and peroxide. Dane and Metro just stood there and watched her scream, all emotion absent from their faces.

  When Sheila’s screams turned into whimpers, Dane said to her, “You’re not feeling even half the pain you’ve caused your daughter over the years.”

  Dane then slipped a needle filled with the same poison used to kill Curtis out of a pocket of her hoodie. She walked over to Sheila. When Dane got close enough for Sheila to see what she was carrying, Sheila opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Fear consumed her. Dane bent down so that she was at eye level with Sheila, whose body was bloody and weak.

  “There’s something I want you to know. There’s poison in this needle here.” Dane shook the needle in Sheila’s face. “The same poison I used to kill Curtis.”

  Sheila seemed to stop breathing when she heard those words. She didn’t know what to think, say, or do. Hearing Dane had killed Curtis hurt more than sitting in a bathtub filled with alcohol and peroxide when her body was covered in open wounds.

  Dane leaned in closer and whispered something to Sheila. She spoke so low that only Sheila could hear. “And when I’m done with you, maybe I’ll use the same remedy to kill your precious daughter Page.”

  A second later, Dane plunged the needle into Sheila’s neck. She just lay there and took it. What else could she do? She had no energy whatsoever to even try to push Dane away. She closed her eyes as more tears dripped down her mutilated cheeks. She actually found comfort in knowing she was dying the same death as her husband. That made things a lot easier. The only thing that tugged at her soul was the knowledge that her daughter would also die this death.

  Unexpectedly, Sheila’s body became paralyzed. Even though she had been weak before, at least she could move her fingers and toes. Now she could not even do that. Dane stood to her feet and placed the needle back in her pocket.

  “Normally, I watch my victims take their last breath, but after I got to know you tonight, you don’t even deserve to die with someone around. You’ll die the worst death, a lonely death,” Dane told her.

  There was not one body part that Sheila could move. All she could do was watch Dane and Metro leave the basement room and close the door behind them.

  Chapter 29

  Sheila felt her organs shutting down. She knew she couldn’t scream or move her mouth, but she tried, anyway. She knew she was dying, so she thought about her life, starting with when she was a lit
tle girl and going up until now. Sheila was a very angry, negative person, and she now understood why she was in the position she was currently in. All those years she had hated Renee, when she really should have showered her with unconditional love, like a real mother, and formed a bond with her. Besides, if it wasn’t for Renee, Daniel would have left her long before he died.

  Before Renee was born, their relationship had been going downhill. The only reason he stayed with her was that she got pregnant with Renee. After she gave birth, he fell in love with little Renee and completely forgot about leaving, but their happily ever after didn’t last long. When Renee was two, they separated and were on the road to divorce, but once again, because of Renee, he stayed with Sheila and eventually came back home.

  Staring at the ceiling, which was sure to collapse at any second, Sheila thought about when she and Daniel separated. She could still smell the perfume on his clothes and could still see the red lipstick on his shirts. He claimed to have stayed at a hotel while away, but Sheila knew better. She just never said anything, glad to have him home. The memories broke Sheila’s heart all over again, and she cursed Dane and Metro for making her relive this again.

  I’m so glad I didn’t tell them about the separation, about the countless times I cheated on Daniel, which led to me almost losing him not once, but twice. They would have really thought I was a monster then.

  While deep in thought, Page appeared right before Sheila’s eyes. Sheila thought she was hallucinating, but she soon realized that the person before her was indeed Page. A wave of relief came over Sheila, and she promised herself that since she was now getting a second chance at life, she would change.

  Page hovered over her mother and didn’t say a word. But when she did open her mouth, Sheila wished she had done what Dane intended for her to do, die alone.

  “I’m nothing compared to Renee?” Page screeched.

  Sheila couldn’t speak. All she could do was let one last tear drop from her eyes.