by Laura Del
“Bye,” both Pops and Moms said at the same time, before we left.
We got into his car, and he drove us the five minutes to Sandy’s house. Of course, we could have walked, but there was no way I was walking in the four-inch heels my mother had bought me, and besides, I didn’t have a jacket and it was freezing.
When we reached Sandy’s house, he parked about a block away and as we walked, Jim wrapped his cape around me. But before we were about to go into Sandy’s house, he stopped.
“Oh, come on, Jim,” I said bouncing on my heels when he pulled away from me, “I’m freezing.”
“Patricia,” he began, taking the apple from my hand and kneeling down, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I replied, wondering why he was acting so weird. Besides that, I was cold.
He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. I remembered thinking that he had better hurry up with what he was doing when he said, “Since you’ve been in my life my world has changed for the better, and I… uh… know that I can’t live without you.” He stopped, cracking open the apple to reveal a little black box. Suddenly, I wasn’t cold anymore. “Patricia Anne Wyatt,” he paused, opening the box for me to see a white gold ring with the prettiest emerald in it, “will you marry me?”
I stood there for a moment, speechless, and then I began to nod. “Yes,” I laughed. “Yes.”
His hand was shaking when he placed the ring on my finger. Then he got up off his knees and kissed me. Applause erupted from inside the house, and I finally noticed that everyone was watching. I laughed and kissed him again.
I blinked back to reality, realizing that I had eaten all of my breakfast, and my hand had started hurting. I decided to go downstairs to get my pain medicine, taking the tray to be helpful. It was a bit of a chore getting it downstairs with only one good hand, but I managed, and barefoot too. When I reached the bottom step, I heard someone’s car pulling up outside.
Cindy came up to me, giving me a look. “Patricia,” she scolded gently, “you are in no shape to be carrying that heavy tray all the way down the stairs.”
“I needed my pills,” I explained, a little perturbed that she sounded like she was trying to be my mother. Handing her the tray, I went over to the window, opening the curtain. There was a town car parked in front of the house. Someone opened the door, and before I had a chance to steady myself with the medicine, Jessica Lynn Wyatt got out of the car, wearing a fur coat and sunglasses. For all I knew she was naked underneath because the coat went down to her knees and there was no cloth below that. She stood looking at the house for a minute before she slammed the door behind her and started to walk. I watched her struggle up the gravel in her black stilettos and then when she got to the front step, she tripped.
I laughed, letting go of the curtain before she saw me. Then Tina said from behind me, “Why are you outta bed?” She was walking down the stairs and before I could answer her, Jessica knocked on the door.
“Who’s that?” Tina asked, and I gave her a look. “No. Fucking. Way.”
I nodded, opening the door with my good hand, trying to keep a pleasant smile for Cindy’s sake. “Hello, Jessica.”
“Patricia,” she replied, but there was something off. She wasn’t her usual cocky self. I mean, she called me Patricia, and not Patty Watty. Something was wrong.
“Come in,” I told her, gesturing for her to come inside.
Tina had finally made it down the stairs and was sneering at her, but I shook my head and she stopped. She looked at me, asking a silent ‘why’ and I shrugged. I just didn’t know the reason for her not to give my sister what for, but I knew in my gut that she shouldn’t.
Jessica walked inside taking off her coat and throwing it on the banister, revealing that she was wearing the tightest black dress I had ever seen. The sunglasses came next, but when she took them off even the makeup couldn’t hide the bags under her eyes. Life with Samuel had taken its toll on her. She was thinner and definitely paler. And I could see the bite marks running down her neck. They were faded, but still there. It actually looked like they were from more than one vampire.
I stared at her, jaw clenched. “Could I talk to you for a minute?” I asked, and she just blinked at me. “Now.” Taking Jessica by the arm, I dragged her into the living room without Cindy seeing us. Tina knew to leave us alone. After all, she had seen the marks too, and I really needed her to distract Cindy while I discussed them with my sister.
“Who did that to you?” I whispered, pointing to her slightly tanned neck. Jessica was taller than me, around five-foot-ten, but she looked almost shriveled somehow. Broken. Her once blue, bitchy eyes were dull and filled with sadness and just plain exhaustion. Even her fake boobs looked deflated. She actually looked sick, and I was worried. I mean, she wasn’t my favorite person in the world, but she was still my sister.
Jessica touched her neck. “No one,” her voice was small as if she was scared out of her mind.
“What’s going on? Is he hurting you? Because I swear to God, Jess, if he hit you or had one of his friends do something to you, I will kill him.”
She looked at my wrists then looked down at her shoes. “You can’t touch him, Patricia, no one can.”
“I can,” it wasn’t just a statement, it was a promise.
She shook her head, looking up at me with a bitch face, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “No. You can’t.” She walked past me, down the hall and into the kitchen where I heard her say ‘hi’ to Cindy and ignore Tina.
I took a deep breath before walking out of the living room, and I ran smack dab into Andrew. “Your sister’s scared.”
“Really, Andrew?” I asked sarcastically. “God, you’re so perceptive.”
He laughed. “I know, it’s not the best insight in the world, but it’s the only one I’ve got. Someone has messed with her memory and her past. I can’t get a handle on it.”
I sighed. “Shit.”
“Yup,” he agreed, and we both walked into the kitchen together.
Tina came over to me, handing me my pill and a glass of water. “You’re gonna need this.”
Placing the pill in my mouth, I took a gulp of water and swallowed it, handing the glass back to her. “Have I mentioned that I love you?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling at me, and all three of us made our way over to where Cindy and Jessica where standing on opposite sides of the median. It looked like a standoff.
“So,” Jessica was saying, “what do I have to do for this thing? And when do I get fitted for my ugly dress?”
“They’re very nice,” I chimed in, and Cindy looked relieved.
“Yeah, whatever,” Jessica was not amused, then she looked at Cindy again. “You look a little fatter, Cindy. Maybe you need to cut back on the sweets.”
Oh, shit, the little voice in my head yelled. Jessica didn’t know that Cindy was pregnant. And before I could stop Cindy from telling her, she blurted, “Maybe it’s because I’m pregnant.”
Jessica started to laugh. “Yeah, right. You’re just saying that because you want sympathy for gaining weight. Well, it ain’t happenin’.”
“No,” Cindy said sincerely, “I’m pregnant. Your father and I are going to have a baby.”
Jessica’s face went blank and then she lunged over the median, grabbing Cindy by the hair. My heart leapt into overdrive as I rushed over to them, trying to get Jessica off her. “You whore,” she screamed at her, “it’s not even Pops’!”
I got Jessica by the waist, but she was too strong for me to pull her off. Cindy was crying for her to let go, but I could see my sister’s grip tighten. Finally, I looked over at a stunned Tina and Andrew and yelled, “Help me!”
They jerked into gear, and Tina tried to get Jessica’s hands out of Cindy’s hair before something bad happened while Andrew held Cindy, trying gently to get her out of Jessica’s grasp.<
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After what seemed like forever, Tina finally got my sister’s hands free of Cindy’s hair, and I threw her across the room. She landed on her butt, and when she got up again, her eyes looked wild. When she came toward me, I pulled back my good hand and punched her right in the face. The way my fist hit her, she staggered back again before falling onto the floor unconscious.
“Jesus Christ,” Tina breathed from behind me, and I turned to see her holding her sides. Then she smiled. “Good shot.”
chapter
TWELVE
The painkillers finally kicked in and it was a good thing too, because my other hand was bruise to hell and my body was killing me after the adrenaline wore off. Cindy had gotten me some ice while Jessica was lying on the couch still unconscious. As I placed the bag of ice on my hand, I smiled at her. “You okay?” I asked, and she nodded. “You sure?”
She frowned. “I didn’t think she would act like that.”
I laughed even though it wasn’t funny. “I saw that coming from a mile away. My sister is unstable.”
“She’s a bitch,” Tina said, sitting down with us at the kitchen table.
“That too,” I agreed.
“Well,” Andrew sighed, “she’s knocked out cold. Nothin’ we can do but wait until she wakes up.”
“Great,” I said slowly, taking a deep breath. “Then I’ll have to hear about how I punched her for the rest of my life.” Leave it to Jessica Wyatt never to let anything go. She was still obsessing about the time I took her bike and the handlebars came off. I was ten.
“Didn’t she sleep with your fiancé?” Cindy asked, and Tina grew pale.
“Yes,” I answered, “she did.”
“Well,” Cindy sighed, rubbing her scalp, “I think you’re even now.”
“You don’t know Jessica,” both Tina and I said at the same time, and Andrew laughed.
“Okay, Sanderson sisters,” he said, and I narrowed my eyes at him. I enjoyed the Hocus Pocus reference, but he was also calling us witches.
Tina hit his arm. “Very funny.” He winked at her, and she smiled at him. The flirting between them was palpable, and I felt excited for her. She needed someone who made her happy.
“How’s your head?” I asked Cindy because I noticed she was rubbing her scalp more and more.
“It’s really sore,” she answered and before I could hand her my bag of ice, I heard something crash in the living room.
All of us looked at one another, getting up as fast as we could, running down the hall and into the living room. Jessica had woken up and was smashing everything in sight, including Pops’ new T.V. Tina and I ran up behind her, but Tina was the one to pin her arms down by her side. Glass from Moms’ favorite vase was all over the hardwood floor while the poker from the fireplace was still sticking out of the screen of the television.
“Enough,” I screamed, walking in front of her while Tina tightened her grasp. “It’s enough, Jess!”
She squirmed in her arms, but I knew my best friend was not letting go. “Get the fuck off me, bitch!” She tried to move her arms, but Tina had them good and pinned by her sides.
“Stop it, Jessica,” Cindy said from the archway, “or I’m calling the cops on you.”
“Fuck you!” my sister actually spat at her, still trying to get loose.
“Stop this right now, or I’m calling Samuel,” I hissed, and she stopped struggling, hanging her head.
Her body began to visibly shake with strain or fear, and since I couldn’t see her face I couldn’t tell which one it was. “You wouldn’t dare,” she whispered and by the sound of it, she was frightened.
“I would,” I told her, and she went limp. “Could you all just leave us alone for a minute?” I asked.
Cindy and Andrew nodded, and when they were gone I tapped Tina on the shoulder. She let go of my sister, and Jessica sank to the floor.
“You sure?” my best friend asked, glaring daggers at my sister. I nodded and in an instant, I was alone with Jess.
I stood there in front of her, noticing that she was kneeling on some broken glass, but it didn’t seem to bother her. “What is wrong with you?”
She looked up at me. I thought she was crying, but her face was set in stone. “Nothing,” her voice was void of all emotion, and when I looked into her eyes, the fear that was once there was replaced with emptiness. Jessica Lynn Wyatt’s eyes were dead.
My chest gave me a pain, and when I looked down, I saw that my shirt had spots of blood on it. The stupid wounds on my chest had bled through the gauze. It must have been from the tussle in the kitchen. But I pushed the pain aside, telling myself that I would deal with it later. Right now, I had to focus on Jessica. Never thought I would ever think those words, but I did. “What is going on with you? You come in here looking like hell in a handbasket, and then you freak out on Cindy when you find out she’s going to have a baby? What’s wrong?”
“I said,” she hissed, getting up off her knees, straightening up to her full over five-ten height, “nothing! But I’m telling you that I’m not standing with that woman,” she paused pointing in the direction of the kitchen, “on this fucking fake as fuck wedding day.” She went over to the banister, grabbing her fur coat and purse. Then she looked at me with hatred in her eyes. “You stay away from Samuel, little sister, or you will find yourself six feet under.” It may have sounded like a threat, but something was off about it; it was more of her warning me than an actual death threat.
Before I could say anything, she was out the front door. As I pulled the curtain aside, I watched her get into the town car, which had been waiting for her since she came in, from the window, and it finally sped away. I took a deep breath. That was definitely the last we would hear from Jessica Lynn Wyatt for a while, and I was a little grateful, but a lot concerned.
“What the hell was that about?” Tina asked from behind me, and I turned around finally seeing what she was wearing. It was a bright pink maxi dress with floral belt and bunny slippers. I couldn’t help myself. I laughed loud and hard. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked concerned and then got a look at my shirt. “Patty, you’re bleeding.”
“I know,” I managed to say through laughter. “And there’s nothing wrong with me. It’s just… bunny slippers? Really?”
“Come on,” she said, looking down at her feet, “there not that…” her voice faded, and she started cracking up. We laughed so loud and hard that Andrew came into the hall looking at us as if we were crazy.
“What’s wrong with you two?” he asked, troubled. We looked at him, sobering up for a second before crumpling into a pile of laughter again. He shook his head, walking into the kitchen to let us laugh together over nothing.
Once we calmed down, Tina took a breath and asked, “Why did she act like that? Do you know?”
“I have an idea,” I sniffed, “but I’m not quite sure. I think that Samuel might be doing a number on her.”
“What’re we gonna do?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She was quiet for a minute, and I could see the wheels turning in her head. I knew what she was going to ask before she asked it. “What happened yesterday?”
I sighed. “If I tell you, will you promise not to freak out on me?”
“When have I ever…” her voice faded when I cocked a brow at her. “All right,” she conceded with a sigh, “I promise.”
“Well,” and I told her all about Mike and Angel and the situation with the pack. I explained that I was going to fight tooth and claw for him. “What do you think?” I asked after I was done telling her everything.
Tina smiled. “I’d say that they better get the hell out of your way, Patty. Because you are one determined head bitch.” With that she winked at me, and we began to laugh again. “Seriously,” she said after a minute, “are you sure ya know what you’re doing?”
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nbsp; I shrugged again. “Not really, but who the hell does in these kind of situations?”
She nodded. “True.” Tina started walking into the kitchen, and I followed her. Then she stopped and asked, “Jessica isn’t coming back, is she?” I shook my head, and she hung hers. “Great timing your sister has, ya know that? What’s Cindy gonna do now? I mean, there has to be more than you standing up there with her.”
“Especially since she really doesn’t have any friends or family,” I explained, and Tina’s face grew sad. “Yup, she told me when she brought me breakfast.”
“You mean, you asked her and forced her to tell you, babe.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “That’s not—” I stopped talking when she pursed her lips. “Okay, I may have asked her, but I sure as hell didn’t force her.”
“Uh-huh. And I’m sure you didn’t give her the big hazel eyes treatment, ya know, because you would never do that.”
“I didn’t,” I pleaded my innocence, “I swear.”
“We’ll see,” she said slyly, and I knew that once we were in the kitchen Tina would ask her. The Benedict Arnold. And sure enough… “Cindy, did Patty use her hazel eye trick on you to tell her your life story?”
Cindy looked up from the table and shook her head. “Not that I recall. Why?”
“See? I told you,” I whispered in Tina’s ear, and she stuck her tongue out at me. “No reason,” I said to Cindy.
Sitting back down at the table again, all four of us took a collective breath. “What a day,” Andrew said, closing his eyes.
“Yeah,” Tina agreed, placing chin on her knuckles, “and it’s only just begun.”
Cindy sat in silence for a minute with the ice on her head, then she asked, “So is your sister coming back?” All three of us just looked at her. “I just want to know if I’m going to need a helmet anytime soon.”
It wasn’t funny, but I sort of laughed anyway. Just the visual alone made me smile a little. What can I say? I have a warped sense of humor. “No,” I answered, “I don’t think she’ll be a problem anymore.”