Chapter 1 #2
All that pity withered away the moment the politician’s name left our lips, and suddenly, Lewis Karplie’s face turned to stone. He refused to help us any further and ripped the report to shreds.
“You know, Lewis. Why don’t you share with the class?
” I command as my grip gets tighter in Kyle’s hair to keep him still.
Kyle’s calmed down now, still shaking like a leaf, realizing he can’t break his restraints.
He’s getting weaker. They all are, whether they know it or not, as the poison works in their systems.
The steam from the tea has been filtering in their systems quickly, since I placed their cups directly under their noses.
Lewis begins to convulse, his locs shaking as he shakes his head no repeatedly. Wide brown eyes pierce into mine for a split second before Josh gets the man’s attention.
“Lewis, what do you know? Lewis, say it. Now.”
“I-I don’t, I can’t believe—” Lewis chokes.
“Lewis, if you don’t tell your partners why they’re here, I’ll slit Kyle’s throat right now,” I say, letting Kyle’s hair go with one hand and pulling the dagger from my belt holster. It was situated behind my back, like how they turned their backs to me, to Juliet.
“Lewis,” Kyle hisses as the sharp end of my dagger traces the side of his neck.
“Okay, okay. God,” Lewis pants as dread covers his skin. He shivers, and he meets my eyes again and mutters the name I wanted to hear. “Juliet Moss.”
“Ahh, yes, Juliet Moss. You are right Lewis. Ring any bells, boys?” I say, moving away from Kyle and to Lewis. I stand behind him now, wondering if giving him mercy is worth the pain they helped cause that night.
A quick death for answering my question.
Or a slow death for turning my sister and me away?
“Juliet?” The fourth and final member of our party speaks. Orlando Jones. He had been quietly muttering to himself until the reason they are here was revealed.
Orlando Jones is the fourth member of this clique. These four are famous on Litchfort’s force, for being Yara Holdings favorites. A.k.a. her minions, cleaning her dirty doings up.
Orlando doesn’t have a wife or kids. He lives alone in his apartment on Monroe Street. He often sits in the dark; for what, I’m not quite sure. He always lets the TV play in the background, but I can tell he doesn’t watch it.
Not that I cared that these could be completely innocent men who made a mistake. A mistake of brushing off the crying girls trying to report the most powerful politician in Michigan.
Even then, they’d be sitting in this greenhouse filled to the brim with poison and my need for vengeance and repentance.
“My sister, of course, it could be hard to remember one of many victims who have tried to come forward against Yara Holding’s crimes, but…” I inform them, letting my sentence drop off as realization of what they did to end up here sparks to life in their minds.
Yara Holding is working her way up to a powerful seat in government—the senate majority leader. Currently working as a lawyer, she builds connections the quickest way she knows how: giving powerful, hungry, greedy men already in power what they want most: a night without consequences.
She has these men’s jobs on the end of her whip. Instead of protecting people, the whole point of their jobs, they let Ms. Holdings’ crimes be swept under the rug.
It’s fine, though. Cause I’m here.
Deciding that Lewis Karplie will be dismissed from this party first, I release my hold on Kyle.
Lewis shakes in his chair as I approach him.
Bringing a tea cup up to his lips, I force a drink down his throat, jerking his chin upward, so the only way the drink can go is down, and he swallows the foxglove like a champ.
Despite the shaking and the burning and his body’s instinct to vomit the drink back up, I seal his lips closed with my hand. Regardless of how much seeps through, I’ve got enough in his system for the effects to finish him.
The men shout, and Orlando Jones even cries at the sight.
Even then, nothing has changed my desired outcome.
Lewis Karplie’s body begins to shut down.
With my hand so close to his neck, I can feel his pulse slow tremendously, and his pupils become smaller as the foxglove takes down his body with each second that passes.
He stares right into my eyes as he dies. He doesn’t say anything. Maybe he’d accepted his fate long before I walked over. Maybe he realizes you can’t argue with evil when you’re evil yourself. Maybe he knows, deep down somewhere, that he deserves this.
Life drains from his face, and he goes slack in my hands. Letting his head drop, I walk back to my seat, taking a deep breath before sipping my tea, letting the burn in as I stare at Lewis Karplie’s dead body. I wonder if everyone’s first kill is like this.
“There’s a light in children’s eyes that you just don’t have, dear.” My mom’s words ring in my ears as if I am hearing them for the first time. I am only six, but it didn’t seem to matter to my mom. Six years was more than enough to develop the light, according to her.
If I ever had the light, it died this day. It died the moment my mom gave up on me. It died the day they separated my sister, Juliet, and me.
Now that I was six and Juliet was eleven, Mom and Dad said things had to change. Juliet is excited about getting her own room. It’s a sign that she is now a big girl. Older. More mature. She didn’t know the real reason we were being separated.
I did, though. They didn’t want Juliet to be tainted.
“Juliet is the last good thing to come from my womb.” Juliet had the light Mom was talking about.
I didn’t. I could wear all the light pastel colors I wanted.
Brighten any room with lamps and lights and I would never have the same light that Juliet does.
My princess pink blanket crumbles under our weight. All the work I did to make the perfect bed is wasted as my mom comes into my room saying she wants to talk. Who has talks with a six-year-old?
I sit beside her, and even then, I see the recoil she tries to hide.
My smile falls as she stares at me. Eying me like a prey watches a predator.
When the bedroom door shuts, Mom can be her true authentic self.
The disgust, the fear, can shine through her facial muscles, and the honesty I wish she’d kept hidden for longer soaks the air.
“Mommy?” I ask as she carefully lays a hand on my head. She sighs as tears fall down her face, one by one. I wish I could make the fat tears go away, but I know I am the cause of them.
“You love your sister, don’t you?” she asks. Patting my hair. Getting harsher with each pat. She slowly rocks herself back and forth, as she normally does when it’s just me and her. She cries when it’s only me and her. She says mean things when it’s only her and me.
If Mom hates me so much, why is she only her truest self around me?
“How could you? Do you even know what love is, honey?” she mutters.
“I do,” I say. “I love Juliet.”
“Then why don’t you be normal for her? If not for me, then for her?”
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” I ask, reaching for her hand. Her skin is always soft, smooth, a luxury she doesn’t let me touch, and yet I try, anyway. She snaps her hand away from me.
“Don’t touch me, Diora,” she quietly barks. “Don’t spread your evil.”
I shake my head, confused, yet not confused at all. It’s as if I need to hear her say it again and again. The constant reminder that I’m not good. I’m not light. I’m not Juliet.
“I’m not evil,” I say, and my voice breaks. I know it’s not true. That I’m not normal, but I thought, maybe, if Juliet loves me… If Juliet loves me, why can’t Mommy?
“What do you call playing in a dead child’s blood, Diora? Evil, bad spirited.”
I swallow my words, not wanting to argue with Mommy. I stare at my mommy. Meet her scared eyes.
It wasn’t. I wasn’t. I shake my head as Mom’s tears roll faster down her face. I wasn’t playing with blood. I wasn’t playing.
My mind jumps back to yesterday. The smooth consistency of the red liquid spread around my classmate, Darcy, when she jumped off the school play set and hit the cement.
Blood is bad? I blink as my mind races with words I can’t speak. Mom won’t believe me. She never does.
Blood is messy. I was trying to clean her up. Once I got there, once I got to her, I tried to put it back. I wasn’t playing with her blood. It was soft, smooth, in my hands, but I was trying to help. I swear I was.
Mommy wouldn’t believe me. Neither would Daddy. Or the play guard. Or Darcy’s parents, who screamed in my face at the school’s front office.
I knew this.
And yet, I still tried to help Darcy. That’s what Juliet would have done.
But that doesn’t matter.
They’ve written me off.
They’ve given up.
I watch silently as my mom’s tears stream down her face, and her silent sobs wrack her body as she pats my head. She wraps her frail arms around my body and pulls me in for the last hug I’ll ever get from her.
Her shirt is soft and wet from her crying. But I… I like the warmth her body gives me. I want to wrap my arms around her like I would when Juliet hugs me, but I don’t think Mom will like that.
“Oh, baby, my little baby Diora. You’re a monster.”
A monster?
“You have to stay away from Juliet. You mustn’t taint her, Diora.” Her words come out sharp as she grips my head. She rocks me back and forth with her. I don’t know what to do. Mommy is sad. I didn’t… I knew… I wanted to… I don’t know.
“Monsters are bad?” I ask. Her grip starts to hurt. My skin pulls in her tight grasp and my eyes hurt. I close them. The strain behind them intensifies. It hurts. It actually hurts this time.
“Monsters are bad, Diora,” she says.
“I can’t be a monster. I love Juliet, and I love you, too, Mommy.” I wanna fix this. Fix my mommy, fix me. I try to look at her, but she won’t let me move my head. She sobs out loud this time, and her tears wet my hair.