10 | Sage
Sage
“Why is he doing this?” Chloe asks as we run down the stairs.
I’m pulling her hand as I lead. Tears stream down my eyes.
An expression of horror decorates my face.
Every guilt I felt before we came here about our plan, long now, has vanished.
I am fucking ecstatic. I never knew killing would be such a thrill.
I don’t think Silas knew either. He had only killed once before, but that night wasn’t about fun or revenge.
It was about survival. Killing our mother was the only way he could save me.
“I don’t know.” I turn to look at her; my eyes are full of tears, pooling inside them, as I look straight into her eyes, ready for my best performance ever.
It’s not like it’s hard to play the victim.
Well, for some people, it might be. But when you’ve been one all your life, it’s easier to pretend.
“He said we were just going to visit the town for Halloween.” I lie and prepare myself for my great finale.
I fall to my knees in front of her. She is still standing on the last step of the stairs, as we have just reached the living room.
“I didn’t know. I would never allow this to happen.
I thought someone else was doing this. I tried to save Logan when I saw him.
I was in the kitchen when it happened. That’s why I was covered in blood when I got upstairs,” I explained in case she noticed the blood on me before.
“I didn’t know it was Silas until he texted me to meet him in that room.
I didn’t believe I would walk into a room to find him murdering people.
I tried to save them. I tried to reason with him.
” I sob louder. “I tried so hard to change his mind. Told him this was a bad idea.” That part isn’t a lie.
I did try to abort the damn plan at least five times on the way here.
“What are we going to do? He is going to come for us!” Chloe is in shock.
She isn’t crying, which is progress compared to how I found her when I first came upstairs.
But she isn’t in her right mind either. She keeps her arms folded in front of her, as if she is trying to shield herself.
I am not sure what she thinks her arms can do to protect her.
Unless she is one of those freaks from superhero movies with bulletproof skin, I doubt her position will be any help.
“I hit him hard with something. I don’t know what it was.
Maybe a lamp? He was unconscious when I escaped the room, but I am sure he won’t stay down for long.
Silas is strong. He never got sick a day of his life.
He will recover quickly. We are doomed.” And the Oscar goes to me.
I should have been an actress; I am amazing at this.
“Then we should hide.” Chloe steps up, taking control, and that’s what I wanted. She takes my hand and pulls me to my feet. She leads the way to a guest bedroom that seems locked. She takes a key from her pocket and unlocks the door.
What I see inside makes my skin crawl. It’s not because it’s a dungeon or a secret kill room.
It’s nothing gross or gory. It’s the opposite.
Blue walls surround me as I step inside.
Little clouds are painted on the walls. Fluffy white carpet goes from corner to corner, and a crib stands in the middle of the room. A white crib.
Kyle inherited this house right after his parents passed away a year ago, but as far as I know, they never had another child.
This room seems new. It doesn’t look like it belonged to Kyle at any point.
I am trying to focus my mind as I stand frozen, looking at the crib.
Memories flooding my mind from the last time I was here.
I want Chloe to believe she is saving me because it will sting more when she realizes I betrayed her.
Let her think she is the hero. I want her to believe she will survive.
Like I believed things would get better when she invited me here the night after prom, when they dumped black paint on my dress and told me no one would ever want me here.
The night everyone laughed until Silas came to save me.
This room is a reminder of what I lost that night.
It had been a while since he dumped Diana for me, but no one really knew this.
Not even Diana. I was never territorial with him, but I never liked her being around either.
Dating her, though, served a purpose. It gave us an alibi against any rumors.
We already knew being together wasn’t as bad as people thought.
That was until Kyle saw us kissing as Silas comforted me after their brutal prank.
I remember it as if it had just happened.
I was standing in the backyard with Silas, his arms around me, holding me close.
His kiss was soft, comforting. It was almost an apology.
Then I pulled back and told him one secret I had been hiding from him for longer than I had ever hidden a secret.
I was two months pregnant. Kyle listened in.
He waited. He didn’t interrupt. Then the next day, we walked into school, whispering about the incestuous twins and their freak baby.
I convinced myself it would be fine. We already had a plan to leave town the moment we graduated.
However, what I didn’t know was the fact that rumors had reached the head office of our school.
Our mother was informed. Third period, she came into the school and claimed that I was going to the doctor’s.
I knew when she told me to follow her that this wasn’t where I was going.
She drove me to the house. Silas was already there.
He was handcuffed to the foot of her bed since earlier, when she’d called him to come back from school because of an emergency.
She knew this wouldn’t work with me since she never asked me for anything.
Girls were useless in her mind. Only good for the kitchen and caring for their husbands’ children.
She had to come and pick me up herself instead.
Mother led me to her bedroom. The moment we entered the room and I saw Silas, I knew. Punishment was about to follow. I didn’t expect that punishment would take away my unborn child. I didn’t expect it would almost end my life.
“Why is there a nursery?” I ask Chloe, who’s now sitting in the rocking chair next to the crib. She rocks herself back and forth, her hand on her stomach now. Slow motions of her finger stroke her skin. The realization comes to me. She is pregnant.
“You are pregnant,” I say, voicing my observation.
“I am,” she replies, and my reality shatters.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
This is not how things should be. This little interaction was supposed to end with her blood, but how am I going to kill a woman carrying an innocent life? I can’t. Silas can’t either. I am not sure he will see it this way, though. Silas doesn’t have empathy like I do.
His love is more of a taught emotion. He had to learn how to feel the emotions that, for others, come naturally.
Our Mother’s cruel tortures had cost him his soul along the way.
I doubt he actually feels anything he hasn’t taught himself to feel.
If he understands the emotion, he will pretend he is feeling it.
He knows how to comfort someone when they are crying.
How to smile when something good happens or stay quiet when something is sad.
I know he gets attraction. I know he loves me.
But it’s not exactly a feeling. It’s more of a need.
A connection. An obsession. Something he can’t explain.
He knows he has to love me, to protect me.
Maybe part of the reason is how we grew up.
The only feeling Silas truly feels is terror.
It’s the one emotion that consumed his life even before Mother adopted him.
He wasn’t as lucky as I was. He didn’t get to be at an orphanage.
Instead, he lived with an addict father who starved him and beat him until he left him at Mother’s doorstep one day.
He used to work at her work. He knew she wanted a child.
He knew about the ones she had lost. And maybe leaving Silas with her was both a blessing and a curse at the same time.
Maybe, in a way, he saved him by leaving him to the woman who would later become his abuser.
Because as bad as the abuse was, it never truly threatened his life.
Silas was smart even back then. He learned how to adapt.
It wasn’t long before he knew how to keep himself out of harm.
I wish it was the same for me, but Mother’s tortures never stopped coming for me.
It wasn’t until Silas put a bullet in her head that I was finally free.
I owe him for that. But owing him for my life doesn’t make it right to help him end two lives at the same time.
Especially if one of them hasn’t done anything bad.
Because a child is an innocent soul. They are pure.
They are new to the world. They don’t know about cruelty, or terror, or sadness.
They still have a chance to become something good.
And who are we to deny this chance to anyone?
Even if this child belongs to the people who hurt us.
“You are going to be safe,” I decide. I will make sure she is.
“Whatever happens, you both are going to walk out of here alive,” I say as I walk up to her and fall to my knees.
I take her hands in mine. “Listen to me,” I say, forcing her eyes to meet mine.
“I will do everything I can for you to walk out alive.” Tears fall from my eyes, and this time they are real. “I promise.”
And it’s a promise I intend to keep. Even if it costs my life.
I will protect her at any cost. I will draw blood for her safety.
Fight for her safety. I will do everything that someone should have done long before it took a bullet to help me.
I will do what someone should have done when I was a child myself.
When a burning cross was my nightmare. I will do everything so this baby in her belly doesn’t get to learn what horror means, but at the same time, they will get to learn what life feels like.
Because life can be wonderful. Everyone should have a chance to experience it. Monsters walk among us; they take away chances like this, but angels protect those who deserve it. And for just one moment, one night, one dreadful instant, I will be an angel for Chloe and her baby. I will save her.