34. Rose
ROSE
"Beatie…" My heart pounds like a rabbit frantically fighting to escape my chest and my stomach knots tighten even further as I raise both hands. "Beatie… put the knife down."
"The whole time," Beatie snarls as the tears build in her eyes.
"The whole time Mom and Dad and me were with them, suffering through everything they did to us, you were here!
You were here in this big fucking house being treated like a princess!
The whole time, you were safe! Being waited on hand and foot, being protected by guards and people who wouldn't dare raise a hand to you! "
She surges forward with the knife outstretched and I lurch backward in fright. "Beatie, please!"
"How could you do this?! You were supposed to help us! You were supposed to save us!"
"Please put the knife down!"
"No!" Her voice pitches and cracks. "He was right about you. You don't care about us. You never cared about us! All you ever cared about was yourself!"
"What? Beatie, that's not true! Everything I've done, everything I've been doing has been to keep you safe!"
"Safe?!" She advances again. "Do I look safe?
You left me, Rose! You left me all alone and I have to protect Mom.
And then Dad ditched us and I realized no one was coming for me.
No one cared about me. No one was going to protect me and Mom so I had to step up and do it!
And now the only way for me to get the fix I need and save her is to kill you!
" Beatie laughs weakly. "I thought it would be hard.
I thought he was asking me to do something impossible but look at you.
Look at your life here. You never gave a shit, did you? "
The steak knife glints in the light and I remain frozen in place as words that don't even sound like Beatie pour from her lips.
How can she think that I don't care?
How can she stand there and yell that at me like I haven't been killing myself trying to save my family?
"Rose?" Calvin's sudden appearance in the kitchen is like a spark igniting a fuse.
His voice makes Beatie jump and he doesn't see the knife until Beatie lunges at me with a furious yell.
"Beatie!" I throw my arms in front of my face to protect myself but the blow doesn't come.
"Rose!" Calvin's yell tears through the air, and it's swiftly followed by a screech from Beatie.
Dropping my arms, I watch her arms and legs flail in the air as Calvin scoops her up.
The realization that Beatie is armed flashes across Calvin's face with such alarm that my heart drops down into my gut.
Beatie twists like a snake as she writhes in his arms.
Then the knife vanishes and Calvin's face pales immediately. He stops moving and slowly relaxes his grip around Beatie.
As she falls, she stumbles backward, and her hands remain around the knife handle with the blade embedded deep in Calvin's gut, high near his ribs.
"Calvin!"
Beatie lifts her watery eyes and looks at me and then she twists the knife.
The grunt of pain from Calvin is nothing compared to the cry that rips from him or the scream of panic from me as she rips the blade free and Calvin crumples to the floor.
"No!" With little thought, I throw myself forward and land hard on the tiled floor on my knees, thrusting both hands over the pouring wound as Calvin collapses. Beatie stumbles away and trips over herself, almost as if she can't believe what she's done.
"Calvin! Oh my god, oh my god!" I wrench my head up and glare at my sister. "Go and get help!"
She doesn't move. She stands there with wide eyes, tears trailing down her pale cheeks, the knife clasped in her hand. Blood drips off the blade and stains the floor, but it's nothing compared to the rapid pulse of blood against my palms from Calvin's wounds.
"Beatie!" I scream her name and she blinks. "Get help!"
"He said it would be easy," Beatie mumbles and her eyes are locked on Calvin's writhing form. "He said… it would be like cutting chicken. I'd have to do it once and then he'd let Mom go."
"What?!"
"He said it would be easy," she repeats softly.
"Calvin? Oh my god, please don't die. Please don't fucking die!" I lean over him and use all my weight to cover the wound with as much pressure as I can. "I don't know what to do, fuck!"
"You—" Calvin croaks, but his eyelids are heavy, and each blink seems to be a fight with himself to stay away. "Keep pressure," he croaks.
"Pressure. I can do pressure." I lift my head again. "Beatie, for the love of everything, please go and get someone!"
"You left me," Beatie whimpers. "You left me all alone."
"No!" I yell back at her. "I didn't leave you!
Why do you keep saying that? Didn't you see everything I did to keep you safe?
While you and Mom were chilling in that back room, do you know what I was doing?
I was fucking those cunts to keep them distracted and away from you.
I was doing everything, everything I could to buy Dad time and keep you and Mom safe because there was no one else! And then they basically sold me!"
"No," Beatie whimpers. "That's not true."
"It is true! They married me to Kon so they could kill him and a whole bunch of other stuff and I did it because it was supposed to keep you safe! It was supposed to keep all of you safe!"
Calvin gurgles beneath me and his body spasms as tears drip down my cheeks and Beatie stares at me like she's not quite seeing me.
"You left and got married. You came here and had a nice life. You left us."
"No Beatie."
"You left us!"
"No I didn't! I didn't leave in the way you think I did! Who told you that, was it Mathew?"
Beatie's wrist flexes slightly as she tightens her grip on the knife.
"It was, wasn't it? Was he also the fucker who put the first needle in your arm?"
"It helps," Beatie murmurs. "Makes me feel safer and warmer than you ever did."
"Oh for fuck’s sake, Beatie!" Frustration and fear collide with anger and for a few seconds, I'm sickeningly overwhelmed with what to do.
The blood pulsing against my palms doesn't stop, but Calvin isn't moving as much anymore.
Beatie keeps the knife in her hand, an ever-present threat if she decides to lunge for me, and somehow no one has heard us shouting.
Calvin did say the estate was quieter today.
"Beatie, listen to me. This isn't what you think, okay?
I'm not mad at you because you don't know what you're doing, okay?
I know you think it's for the best because that's what he told you and all the drugs in your system probably make me seem like the worst sister in the world.
But I promise you I never abandoned you.
Everything I've been doing here has been to protect you and Mom. "
"Then why didn't you come back?"
"Because… fuck. Because Mathew tricked me and kept me here with the same lies he's probably told you. It was him, wasn't it? He told you to kill me and that would save Mom? Well he told me coming here and having Kon's baby would save you and Mom, and look at you, Beatie. You're not safe at all."
Her wide gaze slowly dips down to the knife and then crawls back up to me. "You're lying. He loves me."
"What?!"
"He loves me. He told me."
"You're fucking fifteen, Beatie. He doesn't love you, he's manipulating and using you because he's been torturing us all for months and we don't know any better!"
"You're lying!" Rage unlocks something in her and she suddenly lunges at me with the knife, forcing me to abandon Calvin to save myself from a knife to the neck.
I scramble backward and my wet, blood-stained hands slip on the tiles, but I'm able to create some distance between us.
Beatie lunges at me again as I scramble to my feet and I narrowly avoid her with a twist of my body.
It sends her crashing into the soup pot and she knocks it over, sending broth and soup cascading all over the oven, the counter, and then the floor.
"Beatie, stop!"
She comes at me again and I raise my arm, then scream and the blade slices through my forearm and glances off my elbow.
Blood, hot and thick, runs down my arm as she swings her hand again and tries to stab me once more.
Panic takes over and I grab her wrist, twisting it as hard as I can, and a squeal of pain rises from her before the blade slips from her fingers.
As it clatters to the floor, I throw her against the counter and follow with my own body to pin her there.
"I hate you!" Beatie screams as I get both my arms around her from behind and pin her arms to her torso. "I hate you! I hate you!"
"No you don't," I gasp. "You don't know what you're saying!"
Beatie throws her head back and her skull collides with my mouth. Hot pain flashes across my lower lip where my teeth cut into it, but the pain fades as my adrenaline spikes and I keep my grip on her. Together, we wrestle back from the counter and I keep holding her as tightly as I can.
"You don't hate me!" My embrace tightens. "You're scared and not thinking straight and I get it, Beatie. I do. We've been through hell but it's okay! You're okay now. You're here with me and I'm going to fix things. I'm so sorry I never came back!"
"I h-hate you!" Beatie sobs as she gradually stops fighting me and sags in my arms. "I hate you so much!"
"I know, sweetie. I know!"
"I hate everything…" Her sobs come thick and fast, choking her with each desperate breath and she finally stops moving. "I j-just wanted to save Mom because no one came back for us. I didn't want to be another person who just left."
"I know. I know. It's okay. It's okay. I promise we will help her. I promise."
"It's gonna be too late," Beatie wails as I slowly, cautiously relax my arms. Beatie turns to face me and my heart breaks at the confused distress written across her like a scar. "It's gonna be too late."
"No. No it won't." I cup her tear-stained cheek. "Do you know where she is? Did Mathew ask you to meet him somewhere?"
She nods. "B-But he only gave me a day."
"A day?"
"He said…" She hiccups sharply. "He said when they find out who I am, I'd only have a day. It's been longer."
Shit.
"Okay. Okay, first I gotta— Calvin!" I drop back to my knees next to him, but as I place my hand over his blood-drenched shirt, he grabs my elbow and pushes me away.
"Go," he croaks out weakly.
"I'm not leaving you here!"
"G-Get… Kon," he gasps. "Kon… he… g-get him…" His eyes flutter for the last time, then his grip slips from my elbow. His arm falls limp at his side.
"Calvin?!" I surge over him and grab his shoulders. "Calvin!"
He doesn't respond.
"I-Is he dead?" Beatie asks from behind me, her voice thick. "No… no…"
"No," I say quickly. "He's just… he's tired."
I don't know. I can't tell. There's so much blood mingling between the two of us that I have no idea if he is alive or not, but the paleness of his skin and the sheer volume of blood staining the floor nudges me toward the terrible truth.
What will Kon say if I tell him my sister, in a bout of fear or psychosis or whatever the hell this is, killed Calvin?
This is all my fault. Everything I touch just crumbles.
I slowly climb to my feet and finally wince as the pain from my arm registers in my mind.
"Rose?" Beatie follows me as I rush to the cupboard and snatch up a kitchen towel then wrap it around my arm.
"Beatie." I spin to face her and the impossible knots in my gut twist tighter at the dazed expression on her face. "It's okay. It's all going to be okay. I'm going to fix this. Can you take me to Mom?"
Beatie stares up at me. "What?"
"Take me to Mom. I promise, everything is going to be okay."