“Squirt,” I said, helped her clean up just enough to make it look like she did something, but leaving enough smelly things out to imply my sister is only as good as a seven-year-old can be. “When does Shelley shoot me up?”
“I don’t know.” Nadia brought my smelly blanket back over to the makeshift scraps on the floor where I slept. “It’s usually at night. After that, she brings me my noodles. I’ll eat and she’ll come to get the bowl and then she’ll jab you in the thigh or shoulder with the needle.”
The only good thing that came about with my extended rest was that my ankle hardly hurt anymore. The problem was the pain in my thigh. I bet anything, that idiot used the same needle over and over again and didn’t bother to sanitize it or anything. This was how drug addicts suffered from infection all of the time and why they carried disease from one to another. There was no telling who she got the syringe from.
“I think you should get her attention like you did before,” Nadia said. “Start tearing up the floor again.”
“And if she freaks out and locks us in?”
“You can blow the door off.”
I sighed. “When have you ever known my powers to work in my favor?”
“Good point.”
The window caught my attention. I went to the glass and noticed nothing but woods and ground beyond. I tried to open it, but it was nailed shut. We had nothing on hand to dig the nails out. Nevertheless, there was still one way out because Shelley didn’t board it up. She probably thought the height was enough to keep us up here since there weren’t any neighbors who would hear our screams for help. More importantly, there was a way to take on Aunt Shelley and keep Nadia safe at the same time.
“Get the blanket,” I said to Nadia.
“What for?” she replied. “It smells.”
“I know, Squirt, but it might be the thing that saves your life.”
I glanced around the room looking for something I could break the glass with. It took longer than I would’ve liked, but I noticed a floorboard that didn’t quite go down from when I had my last psychokinetic episode. I grabbed it by the end, careful not to stab myself with one of the exposed nails.
“What are you doing?” Nadia dropped the blanket at my feet.
“I need you to tear that piece of crap into strips about as wide as your foot.” Given how tattered the thing was, that shouldn’t be too hard.
It took some pull, but the piece of wood didn’t snap like I thought it would. It must have been original to the house, which was probably built well before my time. Maybe even before my mom’s.
I glanced at the sun. It was nowhere near as high in the sky as before, so we needed to move fast. I started at the other end of the blanket and began tearing it into strips, too. By the time I finished, my hands were already hurting.
We began knotting the ends together, hoping it was enough to get Nadia to safety. She found a pair of pants that she could use as a harness since I wasn’t too sure about how her climbing skills were or how she handled heights. The only place to tie it off the other end was to a radiator a few feet from the window. Once we were in place and knew the plan, I gave my sister reassurances that this would work. It had to.
Throwing everything into it, including a little psychokinetic power, I hoped, I slammed the board into the window. Glass smashed outward into the frigid air. I cleared off as much as I could with the rest of the board, then motioned for Nadia to approach. I threw the makeshift rope out the window and tied Nadia to it as best I could before helping her out. I prayed to God it held because we didn’t have anything else.
Ranting and stomping came toward the door. Aunt Shelley was going to kill us. We had to be quick.
“Phae.” Nadia held onto the outside ledge when she tapped me on the back of my hand. “The rope doesn’t go all the way to the ground.”
Oh man! I stuck my head out of the window and noticed she still had a good eight or ten feet to go. There was no way she’d make it down safely.
The door slammed open.
“What the hell?” Aunt Shelley shouted.
“Down,” I yelled at Nadia. “Down!”
I yanked away from the window just as Shelley trained a tranquilizer gun on me. I hoped she was a worse shot at about twenty feet away than she was at point-blank range. I felt around behind me and grabbed the board I had used to break the glass.
“I told those idiots they needed to board up that window,” she griped.
She pulled the trigger.
I went to raise the board and my body snatched itself to the left, slamming me into the wooded wall where it angled up into the roof. My head bounced against the surface sending flashing points of light into my vision.
Aunt Shelley ran to the window and looked out. She found one of the knots we had put into a section of rope and dug her fingernails into it to untie it.
I regained my senses enough to realize what she was doing. She was going to let my sister drop to her death. Beyond the window, Nadia was screaming and crying, begging her not to do it.
Rage went through me. The last time I heard that I had to send my brain into a happy place or risk killing us all. The one person I cared about was safe and now she was trying to take that away from me, too. No way in hell!
I lunged for my aunt, tackling her to the floor. I grabbed her by her hair and slammed her head as hard as I could into the floorboards, wishing I could bash her brains out of her skull.
Our bodies shot straight upward, slammed into the ceiling, and crashed down onto the floor, mine landing on top of hers. I wasn’t sure who got the worst of it, but my back was hurting like someone had taken a shovel to it.
I rolled off my dazed aunt and scrambled to the door. I had to get downstairs before Nadia fell off the rope.
“No.” Aunt Shelley grabbed my leg and dragged me back down to the floor. “You’re not going anywhere. They paid good money for you.”
“Go to hell!”
If she wanted this fight, then I’d bring it. I punched her several times in the head, slamming my sore knuckles across her face, forehead, and anywhere I made contact. I wanted her off me.
She grabbed my pant leg and bit down hard where she had infected it earlier with the dirty needle, probably tearing into my flesh. Shrieking, I grabbed a ball of her hair. She dug her nails into the back of my hand and raked them across my flesh. I rammed my elbow into her nose.
I crawled toward the window and noticed the board on the floor where I must have dropped it when my powers sent me flying. I grabbed the board and turned around.
Aunt Shelley had the tranquilizer gun in her hand but was wavering while she was on her feet. Blood streamed out of her lopsided nose. I slammed the board into her right knee. She howled in pain. I got to my feet and hammered the board across the side of her head. She staggered to the right, lost her footing, and fell into our pile of dirty clothes.
I dropped the board and grabbed the makeshift rope, pulling Nadia back up through the window. It was freezing outside, something I hadn’t anticipated. The plan was for her to climb down, I’d toss our duffle out the window and climb out after it. Together, we’d run off into the woods. So much for that plan. The longer Nadia stayed out there, the less likely she would’ve been able to simply hold on.
Once I got her inside, I gave her a quick hug and tried to warm her shivering body. We grabbed the tranquilizer gun and I hustled my little sister to the door. I glanced back at Aunt Shelley and thought about hitting her one more time for good measure, but I hoped that was enough to knock some sense into her. If she ever messes with us again, she’d have that board embedded in her chest.
We both hurried down the staircase and came to the second floor. Nadia pointed in the direction of the next set of staircases that lead downstairs. I moved her behind me, so I could lead with the tranquilizer gun in hand.
When we got to the first floor, I wanted nothing more than to get out of that house. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any money or any idea where we w
ere.
“The door is there.” Nadia pointed.
“I know, but we can’t leave, yet.” I handed her the gun. “I need you to point that up the stairs and keep an eye out for Shelley. If you see or hear anything, let me know.”
“O-o-okay.” She did as she was told, but with the way her hands were shaking, I couldn’t leave her standing guard for too long.
I ran around the living room looking for money and a set of car keys. When I didn’t find that, I grabbed the blanket off the couch and headed into the kitchen. We were both so hungry, but I didn’t have any time to shop. I still needed money and keys. Again, there was nothing.
On my way out from the kitchen, I noticed a side room that looked more like a tiny office. My satchel was on the floor in the corner along with Nadia’s backpack. I didn’t have time to check it, but if her stuffed llama and panda were inside, that would mean the world to her. I grabbed both and headed into the other room.
The front door opened. A gust of frigid air slipped around a man and woman as they sauntered inside. All of us stopped in our tracks and stared.
I screamed, slamming all of my emotions into it, dredging up the memory of when I accidentally blew my mom and Kurt through the roof of the house. Brought up memories of Nadia pleading with Aunt Shelley because she was scared to death of getting another beating. The memory of when I was twelve years old and Aunt Shelley fisted a bunch of my hair and forced me to drink a can of beer with her because she wanted a drinking partner. Against our mom’s better judgment, she had no choice but to recruit her younger sister to take care of me and Nadia. When I spit it up all over her, she smacked me so hard that I hit the wall and didn’t wake up until sometime that night with my two-year-old sister snuggled up to me wearing nothing more than a dirty diaper. It had happened again, only this time it was worse. She put us in the attic as a reminder that we were no better than our “psychotic, worthless mother.” She was the reason why mom had lost faith in the rest of our screwed-up family and why she never sought them out for help again.
These people were just as guilty as she was and they needed to pay. They had to have known we were up there. Had to have known what was going on and how she treated us. They. Did. Nothing. They were monsters. These people didn’t just make me sick. They dredged up the type of anger so deep within my soul that it had to have come from some pit in hell.
Both strangers were thrown backward off their feet, the woman slamming so hard against the doorframe that her back snapped across the edge and flung the rest of her outside the door like a boomerang. The man crashed into the grandfather clock behind him and landed on the floor with a large glass shard sticking out of his upper left back. The only thing left moving was the wind blowing snowflakes into the house.
When I turned, Nadia wasn’t there.
Chapter Fifteen
Panic tore through me. I ran to the staircase and looked up, almost scared to call her name and give out my location. If Shelley had her, I’d kill her. Simple as that. I didn’t want to kill anyone, but I wanted my sister back and would do whatever it took to make sure she was safe. I went up the first step.
“Phae?” A tiny voice said. Nadia peeked out from behind a love seat and stared at me. “Is it okay to come out now?”
A relieved sigh slipped out of me. I ran to the side of the love seat and pulled her into my arms. I kissed her and held her some more just to be sure it was her.
“You’re amazing, you know that?” I asked. “How did you know to hide?”
“I knew because I know how you are,” she replied. “Are those bad people gone?”
“No, but they won’t be bothering us.” I sat her down and pulled a throw around her. “I need you to stay here, okay? Don’t come out. It’s messy in here and I don’t want you to see it. Understand?”
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere. I’m just going to check them for some money and car keys, okay? We need to get out of here and we can’t do it without a ride. Not in that weather. I’ll be right back.” I kissed the top of her head and darted off toward them.
The woman was still lying halfway out the door, so I left her alone and went to the man. He was still alive and trying to reach for the six inches of glass still sticking out of his back. Blood was pooling on the floor underneath him.
When he saw me, he narrowed his eyes to a sharp focus.
My head started to hurt. It was as though someone had let loose a horde of hyenas to tear at my flesh. I grabbed my temple and staggered toward him. Wetness dripped off my nose. When I touched it, blood coated my fingertips.
“Are you doing that?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. He kept his razor-sharp gaze on me.
Tapping down the pain, I hurried to where he lay. He grabbed my pant leg as if to shove me away, but I snatched up a leather glove near him. Using the glove to protect my hand, I got my fingers around the glass shard and twisted it harder into his back. He yelled and started punching at my leg to get me away from him.
“Do it again,” I warned. “I’ll shove this thing all the way down to the hardwood floor underneath you.”
His anguish turned into a smirk. “You’re good. Better than your mother.”
“What do you know about my mother?” I kicked his legs since I didn’t want to be within arm’s reach of him again. “Talk!”
“What? That she’s psychokinetic like you are? Probably two of the most powerful ones anyone has seen in a long time? Most likely you just throw cups off shelves and maybe a book or two. But you two? You have the power to change the world.”
“And you’re going to lose the ability to change your boxers if you don’t talk. Where’s my mother? Did you try to burn our house down? What do you want with my sister and me?”
His chuckle was cut short when he coughed up blood onto the back of his hand. “You and your mother have powers you can’t even begin to understand. Powers that we can show you how to control by shoving all of your psychokinetic energy into this house just as you did yours. You want to know why the preternatural society has such a stranglehold on you and your family? It’s not because they shun you. They fear what you can do. As my wife and I do now.”
I glanced at her unmoving body. I wasn’t a killer, no matter how much I was willing to go that way to protect my loved ones. I wasn’t a monster.
“Your aunt wanted to do things her way,” he said. “She thought it was best to break you before we talked to you.”
“Well, I broke her. Do you want the details?”
He chuckled. “Not necessary. But your aunt had been given twenty thousand dollars and the use of this house to convince you to listen to us. All we want to do is nurture yours and your mother’s powers.”
“And my brother and sister?”
He sighed. “Your brother is practically a psychokinetic eunuch. The best he can do now is probably blow some papers off a desk. Even your little sister is more valuable than he is.”
“How so?” When he wasn’t forthcoming with the information, I kicked his legs again, only harder. “Answer me!”
He spat more blood on the floor. “She’s not psychokinetic, but she knows how to read people in a way that would make an ordinary person question if she’s psychic. She was tested at school and she’s not, so no worries there. Nadia just has an unusually high acuity for people reading. A survival instinct she had to learn on her own due to living with two of the most psychokinetic people on the planet. A talent that could come in handy for the rest of us.”
“So you didn’t burn down my house?”
“No. We only seized an opportunity. One that I’m offering you now, little girl. Your aunt was given twenty grand to bring you here and we would take care of the rest. She got greedy and wanted more when she learned of our plans for you. Said she could get you to listen to us. Our boss agreed, but I guess the deal is off.”
Movement upstairs caught my attention. I dropped to my knees and placed my hand on the glass shard again. “I w
ant your wallet, phone, and car keys. Pin numbers for your credit cards, too. Otherwise, I’ll shove this thing past the muscle and into whatever vessels or arteries that are still pumping blood to and from your heart.”
“We can help you.”
“You can bleed out. Now, give me the money.”
I held out my hand as he struggled to reach for his back pocket. He tossed both his wallet and phone out onto the floor.
“The keys are with my wife.”
I grabbed everything off the floor, shoved them in my satchel and ran to Nadia. Keeping the blanket pulled over her head, I grabbed another one from the sofa before guiding her around the carnage, out the front door, and to an awaiting car. Once she was a safe distance away, I went back to the house, grabbed the woman’s purse and found the keys inside. I triggered the locks on the car and motioned for Nadia to get inside.
The woman was still out cold and she had a gash across her forehead. If her spine wasn’t broken, she was going to need some serious physical therapy to get her back on her feet.
Even though these people were the reason why we had been taken across the country and had no contact with Kurt or anyone else for an entire week, I didn’t want this woman to die. Once again, I had to reassure myself I wasn’t a murderer. I wasn’t like these people. They pushed me to a place I never wanted to go again. This was the reason why Kurt was hurt so bad and my mom was missing, probably hurt herself. All I wanted to do was be left alone.
I grabbed her wallet and cell phone and tossed her purse next to her before going back into the house. I dropped her phone next to him.
“Keep it,” I said. “You and your wife are going to need help. But if you dial 9-1-1 and send the cops in our direction, my little sister and I are going to have a blast telling them the truth about how we came to know each other.”
Silent Scream (Bittersweet Series, Book 2) Page 12