Silent Scream (Bittersweet Series, Book 2)

by Marcia Colette

  I chuckled.

  “Oh my god!” Aunt Shelley yelled. “Do I have to come up there? What the hell is wrong with you people? Give me my goddamn nieces. Now!”

  “Oh, I can't wait to throw her against the ceiling.” I left the group hug first and picked up our backpacks.

  Bree offered to take the duffle downstairs while holding Nadia’s hand. She made sure her jacket was zipped up and she had all of her books from school in her backpack since we could still do our classes remotely. I had what little clothes we came with as I used my crutches to help me navigate the staircase. Ian and Jayden followed.

  When we got to the first floor, Aunt Shelley was already on her way out the door. As she stepped down, she missed one of the brick steps and tripped her way down to the ground. Had it not been for her grabbing the railing, she would’ve landed on her face.

  Grinning, I turned to Jayden who was smiling back. She winked once and I shook my head.

  “You think that’s funny?” Aunt Shelley sniped.

  “Yes,” Jayden replied, her face as emotionless as possible. Both of us knew she was tearing up with laughter inside.

  “We’ll see how funny it is if I sue you maniacs.” She stormed toward a car that looked too new for her to afford. She yanked open the back door. “Get in.”

  After Ian loaded on our things in the trunk, all of us hugged and kissed goodbye. Nadia got in first, but crawled over my lap so she could plaster her face against the window and see the Kendricks. Jayden stood next to her mom, angrier than anything else. When Bree tried to give her a side hug, Jayden darted away from her and ran into the house. Ian looked like he wanted to say something, but decided to let her be. Instead, he slipped his arm around his wife.

  Aunt Shelley peeled out of the driveway so fast that she bounced us off the curb and sped down the street. With the way she was driving, you would’ve thought she was running from the cops.

  “Where are we going?” Nadia asked in a barely audible tone.

  “Where do you think?” Aunt Shelley replied. “Back to my home in Chicago.”

  “Chicago?” I sat up so fast that I thought I’d go through the windshield. “Our home is here in North Carolina. Not out in the midwest somewhere.”

  “Are you two really that stupid? Did you think I was going to move here to take care of you?” She laughed, though there was nothing delightful about it. “We’re going to Chicago. But don’t worry. Kurt can visit whenever he likes.”

  “Wow. The ashes aren’t even smoldering in our home and here you are ready to lay claim to the kindling. Who even told you about our house to begin with?”

  “Who do you think?” She glanced back at me from the rearview mirror. “Your brother wanted to make sure you and your sister were taken care of.”

  That was bullshit and she knew it. Kurt would never sell us out like that. He would’ve confessed when I talked to him on the phone. She only said that to drive a wedge between us. It was the only thing that made sense in her desperate brain.

  “You’re lying,” Nadia shouted.

  “Don’t you talk to me like that, you little piece of shit.” Aunt Shelley began searching for something in the passenger’s seat.

  When she looked like she found what she wanted, she pulled the car over into a strip mall and parked away from other people. Again, she reached for the passenger’s seat, clicked something, and then aimed a gun at me. Nadia gasped, her eyes widened.

  “You’re not in control like you think you are, Phaedra.” She fired.

  A dart slammed into my upper shoulder. Before I could pull it out, heaviness came over my eyes and limbs.

  “You bitch,” I managed to squeeze out.

  “Takes one to know one.” Her face remained aloof. She stared as though I was some helpless lizard in an aquarium. “We have a long drive ahead of us and I’m not about to put up with your crap. If your little sister moves, I’ll shoot her, too.”

  I opened my mouth to say something else, but slumped sideways. Nadia touched my head, begging me to wake up. Within seconds, darkness found me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  My days turned into night and back into days, everything running into each other. I watched as the sun set and rose in the sky from behind the blinds on the other side of the room. I had no idea how I had gotten here or when. There were some instances when I thought time was going backwards. There were nightmares, too. Like someone was entering the room and stabbing me until I went unconscious. Once in a while, I remembered seeing Nadia, but as soon as she came into the picture, someone would drag her out screaming. I tried to call out to her or reach her, but that’s when I was kicked or punched and passed out. Whatever this nightmare was, I wanted out of it.

  A bright light cut across my closed eyelids. Despite feeling so heavy and myself completely drained of energy, I edged them open. Blazing sunlight spilled between the blinds from the only windows in the room. I held up my hand.

  “No.” Nadia grabbed it and put it down. She shushed me. “You have to be quiet or she’ll hear.”

  “Huh?” I would’ve said more, but my throat was so dry and it hurt to speak.

  “Aunt Shelley.” Nadia pulled a blanket over my shoulder. “She’s always listening. Said if you wake up, she’ll keep you down like she has for the last few days.”

  “Days?” I took a moment to clear my scratchy throat. A stench caught the edge of my nose. “Oh my god. What’s that smell?”

  Nadia came from around my head and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of me, blocking out the sun’s rays. She lowered her head and began fidgeting with her fingers.

  A mark near her eye caught my attention. I reached for her face, but she pulled back. I reached for her again, putting one hand on her knee and smoothing her wild hair from her face. Every heartbeat, every breath, every thought inside me, stopped. It was a nasty, purple bruise.

  “Son of a—”

  “No.” Nadia touched my shoulders as if to stop me. “You can’t. She’ll hear. If she hears, she’ll come and she’ll make you sleep again. Phae, please. Don’t get mad. She said if you got mad and something happened to her, she would beat me again.”

  “That bitch put her hands on you?”

  “Shhhhh. She’ll hear.”

  The floorboards rumbled around us. Some of the old boards squeaked, pulling up nails at one end.

  “Please, Phae.” Nadia began crying. “Please don’t. Pleaseeeee.”

  “What’s the noise in there?” Aunt Shelley’s footfalls stomped down the hall toward us.

  “Oh my god,” Nadia pleaded, staring at the ceiling. “Please stop. Please. Put your powers to sleep.”

  I closed my eyes and forced myself to be calm. To fall back into the grogginess that had contained me. I filled my mind with images of happier times when we had all taken a road trip down to Wilmington Beach. Mason made it so that our mom could spend all day with us there. We had a picnic, swam in the ocean, and even found seashells for Nadia to collect. Mom and I took in some people watching under our umbrella while Kurt and Nadia did little work to keep both of their kites up in the air. When hers came down, he’d hand her his kite while he worked to get hers in the air again. I wanted to go parasailing, but we couldn’t risk it since our time was limited. Just as the sun was about to set, we loaded up the car and came back. We said our goodnights and locked Mom back up in the attic. Even though it was just a day trip, it was one of the best days of our lives.

  The door slammed open behind me, gusting up dust in its wake.

  “What the hell was that?” Aunt Shelley demanded.

  “Nothing.” Nadia’s voice sounded so weak, so scared.

  “I heard something.” More footfalls. She grabbed my shoulder and shoved me onto my back.

  I didn’t wake up. I played dead for my little sister’s sake. Another stench suffused into my nostrils. It was hard to miss the stank of alcohol on someone’s breath, but it was mixed with something else. She must have been right in front of me, pr
obably searching for any signs of wakefulness. That was assuming she could see anything at all, other than double.

  “Are you sure she didn’t wake up?” Aunt Shelley hovered close. “Because if you’re lying to me, so help me, I’ll break your freaking nose this time”

  “She didn’t wake up. I swear. She didn’t. You would know if she did, Auntie.”

  “Then what the hell was that noise?”

  “I don’t know.” Nadia paused. “I didn’t hear anything other than the pipes and then the TV.”

  Now that she mentioned it, it was pretty loud if I could hear it all the way down the hall. I hoped for both our sakes, that bitch would buy it.

  “Clean up this mess!” Aunt Shelley moved somewhere else in the room, perhaps even outside it. Then, something thumped onto the floor. “If your sister soils her damn pants one more time, I’m going to rub your stinking little face in it.”

  “But...she’s heavy.”

  “Figure it out. If it weren’t for her being a monster, you wouldn’t have to suffer the consequences. Now get to work or you'll get no dinner tonight.” Footfalls followed and the door slammed hard. The locks slid into place.

  I opened my eyes again and forced myself to sit up. Nadia kept her distance from me as she sat on her bent knees. She seemed to be just as afraid of me as she was of our Aunt.

  Pain tore through my right shoulder. When I pulled my smelly shirt down, I noticed a lot of bruising like someone had been pounding away at me. I glanced down at my naked thigh and noticed an area about the size of a tennis ball with red tenderness and yellow puss dotting the center. But that wasn’t the thing that smelled like a sewer had exploded.

  I threw the scrappy blanket off the rest of my body and noticed I was wearing an adult diaper that was soiled from the crotch and up my backside. I had been sleeping in my own piss and shit and heaven only knew for how long. I closed my eyes, fighting back the vomit that wanted to spew across the floor. As if I needed something else nasty and disgusting coming out of me.

  “What the heck happened?” I asked, not expecting Nadia to answer.

  “Shhhh. Ever since she shot you in the car, you’ve been mostly asleep.” Nadia pulled the grotesque blanket away and tossed it in the corner of our decrepit confinement. She kept putting something in your food and then at night, she would give you a shot. She said it was to keep you quiet and her house in one piece.”

  “Wait. What?” I shook my foggy head as though that would help me remember something. I had nothing.

  “In the morning, she would give you some nasty green juice to drink. I saw her put some stuff in it once. I asked her what it was and she told me to shut up or she’d put some in mine. Then, you would be out cold and I couldn't wake you. The few times you wake up, you might use the bathroom, but it got so bad that Aunt Shelley had to buy you these nasty adult diapers to put on.”

  I hated not remembering any of it. It was like I had been knocked out and just woke up from a nap. But my body told a different story. I was drained and achy all over like I was suffering from a horrible flu bug.

  So many horrors went through my mind. Nadia was basically left alone with this nutball of a relative, smacked around, and no telling what else had been done. I had to get Nadia out of here. Even if it meant tearing a hole through the walls of this house and sending Shelley to her grave, I didn’t care. She had my little sister living in terror and from the looks of it, hardly fed. Her clothes were dirty from the filth of this place and there was no telling when she last brushed her teeth or had a clean shower.

  I wasn’t ready to stand, but I wasn’t letting Nadia clean me off either. How many times did she have to change my diaper? I didn’t want to think about that anymore.

  “Phae—”

  “Don’t.” I held a hand up to stop her from coming anywhere near me. “It’s not that I don’t love you. I do. I swear. I just don’t want you to touch me while I like this. You deserve better, Squirt. Soooooo much better.”

  “Don’t cry.” Panic lined Nadia’s face. “Please, don’t. If you get upset, it’ll happen again and I don’t know what she’ll think this time.”

  “You mean she’ll take it out on you, won’t she?”

  She gulped and nodded, her head lowering.

  “How did that happen to your face? And don’t lie to me, Nadia. I mean it.”

  She went to a dark corner of the room and picked up a half-filled bottle of water and handed it to me. “I cleaned the kitchen floor last night. Let some water drip from the pail by mistake and she slipped on it. So, she punched me.”

  Again, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear anymore, but I had to know. I needed my anger if my powers were going to be the key to getting us out of here.

  “I want to know exactly how long we’ve been here. And why am I awake now and not before?”

  She half-smiled. “Aunt Shelley got a phone call before she could finish that nasty looking green juice she usually gave you. I don’t know who she was talking to, but they made her really mad. She went into the other room and was screaming at them. So, I took the clear liquid in that little bottle and poured it out. Added water instead. When she came back into the kitchen, that’s when she slipped and then punched me. I don’t think there was enough water for her to slip, but she had been drinking. Anyway, she dropped a couple of drops in your juice with the dropper and mixed it up. So instead of getting your junk juice—that’s what I called it—you got regular juice. I wanted you to wake up before she came tonight to give you your shot.”

  A smile bowed my lips and happy tears—for a change—welled up in my eyes. Just when I thought I couldn't love my sister anymore, she turns around and does something so smart, and yet so dangerous. My little ward was my savior for a change. What I felt for her was beyond love.

  “How long?” I asked, desperate to know.

  “About a week, I think.”

  A week too long. I needed to figure a way out of this before she killed us or I killed her. Either way, the only person who was sure to survive was Nadia. I’d risk my life to make it so.

  #

  Aunt Shelley had stashed Nadia and me in the attic of an old house somewhere out in the country. At this point, I wasn’t even sure if we were even in Chicago. Being three stories up and no trees outside our window, making it nearly impossible to sneak out. A dirt road or driveway was below us. Shelley had left a note on the window that read, “If you break this glass, you’ll freeze to death. I’m not fixing it.” I believed her. The note did the same thing a pair of expensive bars would. It kept us in place...for now.

  Ever since Shelley tranquilized me back in North Carolina, she had driven most of the day to get to wherever we were. When it came to feeding Nadia, Shelley threw a brown bag in the backseat and let her have whatever fries had spilled out inside it. When we finally reached our destination, Shelley had it out with two people Nadia didn’t recognize before they finally handed her the keys to this place. The guy tossed me over his shoulder and carried me up the stairs to the attic and dumped me on a mattress. The next day, Shelley removed the mattresses because she didn’t think we deserved them. She tossed us some blankets instead. The same people returned about two days ago to “check” on things. Naturally, Shelley acted like a fool and basically sent them away after she got some sort of payment. Nadia was locked up here with me for two days, so it was hard to tell what was going on during that time. But, that’s when Shelley brought Nadia downstairs as if to prove to those people that she was okay and we were both still alive. From that point onward, instead of getting scraps of bread and some crackers, she got cheap noodles once a day and bottled water. Nadia was so hungry that she didn’t care. The only reason why I got juice was because she put enough in it to provide somewhat of a meal for the whole day. Hunger pangs tearing away at my insides said otherwise. Shelley made my green juice but tasked Nadia with feeding it to me through a straw.

  Shelley had been nothing less than a
monster toward Nadia. She took my little sister out of the attic long enough to clean for hours on end before locking her back up here with me. To make matters worse, Nadia was in charge of keeping me clean. If she didn’t, then Shelley wasted no time grabbing her by her hair and shoving her face into my soiled diaper. To make her point, she either kicked or punched me while I was in my drug-induced slumber. That only made Nadia scream more and promise to make things right.

  I wanted to hold my little sister, but I couldn’t. Even though it took everything inside me to get my body working again, the first thing I did was take the baby monitor shoved on a ledge high in the corner and turn it off. That's how Shelley kept tabs on us. Next, I used some of the other bottled water to clean myself off for a change. Thankfully, Aunt Shelley tossed us in this room with our duffle bag, so we had a change of clothes. The problem was, we only had so many changes due to our stuff probably still sitting at our burnt-out home. Nadia had gone through the few clothes she had, so she only had dirty clothes left to wear. Some of them she used to cover up with at night because it got so cold in our solitary confinement.

  Once I got myself into a manageable state, I cleaned Nadia. I gave her one of my shirts so she could feel somewhat human again, even if it was big on her. Once I deemed us partially human again—Nadia didn’t wait for me to say so—she slammed herself into me with such a fierce hug that she almost knocked me over. When a tremor ran through her narrow body, I embraced her as tight as I could, stroking her head.

  “It’ll be okay,” I said, kissing her. “No more from Aunt Shelley.”

  “But what are we going to do?” Nadia asked.

  “We’re going to break out of here or die trying.” I had no idea what to do next, but if I didn’t come up with something soon, that last part might come true.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The setting sun only told me one thing. I needed to do something before Aunt Shelley came up to give me another sedative for the night. Nadia would be defenseless if she started in on her. But the only plan I had was to rush the inebriated inmate running this asylum. The only problem with that was Nadia might get hurt. She had been hurt enough. Unfortunately, it was the only option.