Chapter 11 Reverie
REVERIE
“All you had to do was say my name.”
Those nine words have haunted me since he uttered them yesterday. He disappeared afterward, and I haven’t seen him since.
It’s now nine o’clock at night, and I’ve only just finished my shift at the funeral home. I spent my morning attempting to work on homework, but I ended up typing out those stupid words more often than anything related to forensic science. Eventually, I gave up, took a nap, and went to work.
But even Sable couldn’t distract me.
She made a great effort to pry out what had me so distracted, even going so far as to threaten me with her scalpel, but I refused to release them into the world.
I don’t know what the fuck he meant, but even worse, I don’t know why the hell every time I replay it in my head, my stomach flutters.
With a tired groan, I lean heavily against the inside of my door and sloppily kick off my black kitten heels. My job requires me to dress nicely, and those shoes are the worst thing to happen to my feet since I learned to walk.
Today has been mentally draining. When Dread’s voice wasn’t plaguing me, his impending retaliation was. And when that wasn’t on my mind, Lionel being out on the streets somewhere was.
Not to mention the recurring nightmare plaguing me every night, where I'm convinced I'm back in that fucking grave again, a long root forming a noose around my throat, anchoring me down into the dirt.
Standing all around the grave were the walking dead girls, throwing dirt on me while chanting the names of the known Locksmith victims.
I've never been able to sleep well, but these past few weeks have been particularly bad.
The only time I managed to shift my focus to work was when a man came in to see his wife, the mother of the twin boys clinging to his legs.
He wanted to create a special moment where they put their most prized possessions in her casket to be buried with her.
She passed from breast cancer, and Sable had made her look nearly identical to her old self, before the disease ravaged her body.
We set up her casket in a viewing room with a stool beside it so the twins could climb up and put their toys beside her themselves. Neither was old enough to fully comprehend their mommy wouldn’t be returning.
One boy kept shaking her, attempting to wake her up, and despite the father repeatedly explaining she wasn’t going to, the boy insisted on trying, anyway.
Though the man stayed gentle and patient, with each passing second, the life drained from his eyes, and the fine wrinkles around his eyes and mouth caved in a little deeper.
Especially when the boy grew frustrated and slammed his tiny fist into her arm, yelling at her to wake up.
At that point, the father hurriedly tucked their toys into her side out of sight and ushered them out of the building, face flushed red with both distress and embarrassment.
An attempt at a special moment became an awful memory, and all he could do was mutter how stupid of an idea it was under his breath.
I’ve witnessed thousands of families break in different ways, but for whatever reason, today’s incident clung to my skin like wet fabric.
It broke my heart.
And it left me feeling more raw and vulnerable than usual. I’ve built walls around myself to prevent those occurrences from burrowing beneath my skin. But between Dread and Lionel, they’ve become fragile and pathetic.
I’m just so tired.
It’s as if Earth’s gravity has strengthened, weighing my bones down. I want nothing more than to give in to it, collapse to the floor, and curl up like a crumpled piece of paper.
Instead, I force myself to strip and redress into shorts and an oversized T-shirt. Then, I quickly brush my teeth and trudge to my bed, prepared to crash the second my head hits the pillow.
An exciting prospect that shrivels and dies the second my eyes land on a small piece of paper folded in half, lying atop my comforter. Beside it is what looks like a bright pink barrette, but that makes no fucking sense.
I freeze, my blood running cold while my heart flies up my throat. For several moments, I stare at them hard to ensure it’s not a hallucination. Because they definitely were not there when I left for work earlier.
Panic immediately floods my bloodstream, nearly drowning me in it.
Fuck.
Someone was in my room.
It has to be Dread. The fucker’s broken into my room more times than I care to know.
It’s probably a prelude to whatever bullshit he’s planned.
Except, my instincts are screeching a different tune—one I don’t know how to make sense of yet.
My muscles are solid stone as I slowly peer over my shoulder, studying every inch of my room to ensure he's no longer here. Logically, I know there’s nowhere to hide, yet it still feels like eyes are watching my every move.
My pulse thunders in my ears as I face my bed again and cautiously approach the note and hair clip as if they're squirming bugs.
With trembling fingers, I pick up the barrette first, twisting the pink metal in my fingers with a frown.
It's unfamiliar, and I have no fucking idea what it's supposed to mean.
Swallowing thickly, I set it down and pick up the note next before unfolding it.
The blocky handwriting is unfamiliar, and there’s no signature, but there doesn’t need to be. Only one person has ever called me Angel.
The last time I heard it was when I was thirteen, standing across the table from him in the prison’s visitation room.
My mom and I saw him every week, but the older I got, the more I understood Lionel for who he was, and the less I wanted to be there. I wasn’t very good at hiding it, though.
Mom spent half the time crying, as she always did, while I silently stared at my fidgeting hands in my lap, only speaking when spoken to.
Our time was up, and I was anxious to go home. But when I turned to leave, he called out for me. I met eyes with the monster in our shed.
“Do you remember your promise?”
I nod.
“You know what happens if you break it?”
I nod again.
“Prison changes nothing. You know Daddy has friends.”
This time, I can only swallow.
He grins, but it doesn’t make me feel comforted. “Bring a smile next time, Angel. I miss you, but I won’t have to miss you forever.”
That was the last time I saw him, but I can hear his voice as clearly as if it were yesterday. It terrified me then, just as it does now. Even at thirteen, I knew he kept a monster hidden beneath the thin veil covering his saccharine words.
The next week, I refused to go. It led to a massive fight with my mom, but I was too old to physically force into the car, and no amount of threats convinced me. So, she went without me from thereon, visiting every single week like clockwork until she took her own life.
“I miss you, but I won’t have to miss you forever.”
And he was right, because it would appear today is the day he no longer has to.
My vision blurs, and my pumping chest caves in, burying my lungs beneath the rubble and rendering it impossible to breathe.
I could vomit. I could cry. I could die right here on the spot, and my soul would rejoice.
Oddly, there’s a part of me still in disbelief, unable to conceptualize a reality where my father is out of prison. Free.
Yet, I’m holding definitive proof he is. Yesterday was his release, and no one else knows about that goddamn nickname except my mother.
But… how is he here already? Did he seriously get approval from his parole officer to leave the state the same day and then drove straight here?
It’s about a twelve-hour drive from Silent Mist to HCU, so it’s feasible, but…
Fucking hell.
He’s actually fucking here.
The note slips from my fingers, and both palms dive into my hair, my fingers tangling with the strands and squeezing them tight until my scalp pricks with pain.
Lionel didn’t just find me. He was in my room.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Panic completely takes over, and the world blinks out for a moment.
Then, I’m on my knees, my arms crossed over my stomach, hands gripping my shirt in tight fists as I bend forward, pressing my forehead into the thin carpet. My head swims, and black spots fill my vision. I’ve no recollection of collapsing, nor of several stints of time after.
The only thing I’m aware of is my inability to breathe.
My chest refuses to expand, no matter how loud my lungs scream for it to.
I’m no longer in the driver’s seat of my body.
Now, I’m in the back, forced to watch as it loses function, helpless to stop it, to stop myself from careening over a proverbial bridge and slamming into the black waters below.
Helpless to stop the water from filling my lungs and preventing me from taking a breath. I’m helpless to it all.
To my father.
To Dread.
They sit on either side of me, staring at me with evil smirks on their faces as they watch me drown. Instead of helping me, they strap me down with a seat belt, ensuring I never escape.
Because that’s my reality.
I will never escape them.
My body pitches sideways, and I land heavily on my side. It’s enough to jostle my body out of its self-imposed paralysis, allowing me to take a single breath.
I inhale deeply, the sound loud and strained. Oxygen floods my lungs, expanding them painfully and causing me to curl deeper into myself. Of its own accord, it greedily takes in another sip of air, and another, until my chest is pumping too quickly.
I see nothing, hear nothing, as I tremble violently. I’m no longer sure if I’m shaking or having a seizure, but my consciousness is incapable of stopping it from happening. All I can do is ride it out.
Eventually, my extremities slowly relax while my vision creeps back in. My face, fingers, and feet tingle with numbness, but my breathing is evening out.