Chapter 22 #2
“Not at first. I let out some of my anger on her and then I got to the interrogation part. It took a lot of convincing for her to tell me what you all were up to at JJ’s office yesterday.
She told me everything, of course, and when she outlived her usefulness, I shot her with this—” She pulled out a handgun from the pocket of her tan wide-leg slacks and set it on the desk.
It was then that I realized what she had been pushing into my back at the fair. More tears slipped from my eyes.
“It’s not like I could let her go.” She took another sip from the bottle.
“Everything is all fucked. What does it matter if she dies?” she slurred, and clumsily set the bottle down on the desk next to the gun.
“Anyway, I want the money Sullivan gave you. Prudence didn’t know how much you got, but I’m sure it will be enough for me to live comfortably in another country.
” Mother grabbed the top of the laptop and scooted it closer to me.
“You’re going to transfer it all to my account. ”
As soon as I did that, she’d kill me. “Money is really all you care about.”
She let out a frustrated noise. “Of course it is! I spread my legs for Noah for years! And for what? All you had to do was be born and he gave you everything. You weren’t even his!
You didn’t even look like him. Or me. You look like Abraham.
Your real father. The best fuck of my life.
” She said that last part with a faraway voice, like she was looking back on a fond memory.
I had to cringe. I did not want to hear about them being together.
“But he had nothing. Was nothing,” she continued, annoyance seeping back into her voice as she focused on the present. “How did you find out about him? Did Abraham approach you?”
So Prue hadn’t told her everything. I shook my head. “Father wrote me a letter saying he knew I wasn’t his before you killed him. JJ mailed it to me when I turned eighteen.”
“Even from the grave, that man is still fucking me,” she seethed. “No one is on my side. No one is doing what they are supposed to. Except Clay.” She scooped up her gin bottle. “Only him, and you and Abraham took him from me!” She threw the bottle against the wall, shattering it.
“If you didn’t know I knew about Bram, how did you know to send Clay to his house?” I questioned, trying to distract her from her drunken rage.
She huffed a laugh and stared at me like I was still the most pathetic person in the world to her.
“When you ran away, I told your school to inform me if you showed up. They told me about the textbook you bought and had another student pick up for you. I asked how you paid for a textbook when I knew you hadn’t spent any money.
I still had access to your bank accounts then and there was zero activity.
After some persuasion, they gave me the name on the credit card you’d used, and I knew exactly where you were. ”
“And you sent Clay because you were too scared to face Bram yourself?”
Rage molded her expression and she slapped me again. Her hit was sloppy and ended up being more of a scratch across my face with her nails. “Enough talking! Transfer the money.”
I jiggled my hand and the cuffs around them. “How am I supposed to do that?”
She let out another frustrated noise and reached into her bra to pull out a little key.
As she went to unlock my left hand, I said, “I’m right-handed.” I was grasping at anything to delay her. “Unless you’re okay with me taking a while or possibly messing up.”
She looked pissed, but reached across me to unlock my right hand instead. As soon as my right hand was free, I yanked her long flat-ironed hair as hard as I could. She yelped as she fell forward into my lap. Had she not been drinking, I didn’t think I would have been able to do that.
For a second as she tried to push herself up off me, I didn’t know what else to do.
I didn’t have another hand to help. All I could do was use another part of me.
I swung my head forward, slamming my forehead into the side of her face hard.
It hurt, but not as much as it seemed to hurt her.
Mother cried out as she crumpled to the floor.
I quickly stood, pushing the chair back, and reached for the gun. I scooped it up and had it pointed at her fumbling drunk ass as she struggled to get up.
She didn’t notice until she was on her knees. She saw the gun and started laughing. “You going to shoot me? You?” She laughed some more as she tried to get to her feet.
Pulling the chair with me, I backed up. I tried to not look down too much as I stepped over Prue’s body.
Mother finally stood. “You won’t shoot me. I’m your mother, Charlotte.”
“You say that like it means something,” I snapped as I lifted the chair over Prue. “You may have given birth to me, but you hold no room in my heart. Just like I hold no room in yours.”
She stepped toward me, intoxicated and not giving a fuck. “You don’t have it in you. You’re weak. You have been your whole life.”
“I wasn’t weak,” I snapped.
She laughed as she continued to follow me. “Then shoot me.” She held her hands up. “Prove me wrong.”
I really didn’t want to. I didn’t want to live with the aftermath. So I continued to back up as she kept walking toward me.
“Shoot me!” she yelled with a deranged smile.
I have to do it.
I have to.
My hands started to shake. I tried to ignore it as I continued to back up toward the door.
Mother looked past me at the door and smiled. “What are you going to do when you get to the door, daughter? You only have one hand to open it with and that one hand is holding the gun.”
She was right.
I took a deep breath of gasoline-filled air and paused.
Mother laughed. “Smell that, don’t you?”
I glanced away from her for only a second to see that there were puddles on the floor, starting at the front of her desk, and the furniture and walls were wet.
Then I saw Mother lunge for me out of the corner of my eye. For a split second, I didn’t care about what might happen. I pulled the trigger.
The room didn’t explode or catch fire, which was a relief. Instead, Mother hit the drenched floor screaming as she clutched her side just above her hip. “You fucking shot me!”
“You told me to!”
She let out this frustrated, hurt yell as she writhed on the floor.
Watching her, I realized she was the pathetic one. Not me.
I reached the door and got it open. Once I was in the foyer and the front door was in sight, I nearly cried at being so close to freedom. I beelined for it while dragging the chair loudly behind me across the tile floor.
Screaming like a madwoman, Mother came running out of her study. I was so stupidly focused on the front door that I didn’t turn around fast enough. Mother tackled me. Both of us and the chair fell over and hit the floor.
She climbed on top of me and wrapped her hands around my throat. “You don’t get to walk out of here with everything that should have been mine!”
I didn’t need to see the look in her eyes to know that she was going to kill me. I could hear it in her voice, feel it in her reckless abandon.
I reached up to try to stop her and I realized I still had the gun in my hand. Just as the pressure in my ears became too much to hear what she was saying and my vision started to spot, I pointed the gun at her face. I pulled the trigger as I began to slip into unconsciousness.
Her hands fell from my neck as her body flew backward.
For a moment as I fought to stay awake, I couldn’t remember how to breathe.
Then the moment passed and it came back to me.
I gasped, sucking in as much air as my lungs could hold.
I rolled onto my side as I just breathed.
With the next few breaths, I smelled smoke. So much that I ended up coughing.
I forced myself to sit up. Black clouds of smoke were pouring out of Mother’s study. I wondered if she’d lit up the room before coming after me. Thinking of her, I made the mistake of glancing her way. I quickly closed my eyes. There was blood all over her face and pooling around her head.
I coughed again and knew I needed to get out of here. I got to my feet and rushed toward the front door, still dragging a fucking chair behind me.
Once I got outside and a good way down the driveway, I didn’t know what to do. My pockets were empty. That meant I didn’t have a phone. I wasn’t about to drag this chair all the way to the neighbors.
Coming to terms with what I had to do, I flipped the chair upright and took a seat. I watched as my childhood home burned. I was probably in shock, because I just sat there in a daze, even when I heard sirens going off in the distance.
What took me out of my shock was the loud sound of motorcycles getting closer and closer.