Ashes, Ashes (READ THIS ONE)

Chapter Nine

Part Two
And I find myself looking for you. Yeah, I find myself looking for you.
Lea Michele, ‘Cue the Rain'

Chapter Nine
I should’ve spoken up. Should've proudly claimed that, oh, my head’s to blame for all my heart’s mistakes.
Parachute, ‘The Mess I Made’

After Maxx leaves me stranded at the restaurant, I call Renee on my almost dead phone to have her take me home, considering I was believed to be at her house. I call twice but I get voicemail both times. Panicking, I start to pace back and forth in front of the doors, getting in a countless number of people’s way. I decide to walk home since it isn’t exactly that far.
It starts to rain after 10 minutes of walking and I get drenched instantly. Stuck between walking in the rain or waiting until it stops, I decide to keep walking. There isn’t that much left to walk.
I keep walking, approaching Maxx’s house in five minutes. I sneak a look inside the large window at the front of his house. Someone, who I’m assuming is Maxx’s dad, is pacing in the living room, looking very, very angry. Cue entrance of Maxx, who looks just as mad. They start yelling at each other, looking like angry cats trying to claim an area as their own territory.
I decide to hightail it out of there before one of them glances out the window and sees me staring at them. The rain lets up and my clothes dry as I walk.
I get just inside the front door before I’m attacked by Mom. She envelopes me in a tight hug. “There you are!” she says, clearly relieved I’m home again. “I went to Renee’s,” I say, keeping up with my lie. “Didn’t Dad tell you?”
“He told me but the police called while you were gone.”
“The police?” I say, untangling myself from her tight grip. “Why did they call?”
“They told us to keep an even closer eye on you. He said something about how, since you’re twins, whoever kidnapped Addison might come back for you. If they’ve got her, what’s keeping them from getting you? A complete set.”

“Daddy wait!” she says, tugging on his arm. “Check for the monsters again!” She points under her bed, then shifts her blankets. Her sister rolls her eyes. “Abbi, there isn’t any monster.” Her father tells her, trying to break her of her lifelong fear.
“Abbs, they’re coming to get you!” her sister says, running up to her bed, jumping on her and successfully scaring her, which isn’t that hard to do. “Addison don’t scare your sister,” their father says, picking Addison up and carrying her back to her bed on the opposite side of the room.  “Now go to slep both of you,” he says turning the light off behind him, closing the door quietly. Abbi takes a deep breath. “Daddy! You forgot to check for monsters!”
She hears his footsteps falter, giving her a sliver of hope he’ll come back and make her feel safe, but he keeps walking. She pulls her orange cotton blankets up to her neck and squeezes her eyes shut, trying to prepare herself for the monsters.
She can’t sleep, she knows they’re there. She can’t get up, can’t run away, or they’ll grab her and pull her under again. She hears a scratch under her bed and just barely holds in a scream.
She tries to get her sister’s attention.
“Addison!” she whisper-yells, hopefully loud enough to wake up her sister.
It doesn’t work. She can just see her sister in the dark light of their room. She takes a deep breath. She pulls up the bed skirt and looks under her bed. A pair of red eyes stare back at her.

I gasp, jumping up from my bed, my heart pounding.  I don’t remember when that happened, but it had to have. Right?
My childhood fear of monsters slowly creeps back into me until I’m shaking and close to hyperventilating.
I suppressed all memory of any monster sightings to the point that I almost forgot I was scared of them in the first place. But at night when I’m alone with my thoughts, my choices, my idiotic decisions, I start to remember them, all of them, usually ending a monster filled nightmare just to jump into another.
I end up staying awake all night long too scared to even check under my bed.

She’s older this time, maybe 10 or 11. She’s sitting outside on the wooden bench that she claimed as her own when they first bought it. She’s waiting for her family to come outside and start the fire.
She has a flashback to back when she was little, when she saw those red eyes.
She freaks herself out and she runs back inside. “Addison!” she yells, the panic clear in her voice. She searches for her sister, eventually finding her in their room, at the time white, since they just moved into the house.
“Are you coming outside?” she asks, the fear slowly draining from her voice when she sees her sister. Her heart rate slows from its lightning fast speed from earlier.  “Is it cold outside?” Addison ass her; she shakes her head. “No, it’s warm.”
Addison nods and goes back to picking out her clothes to wear, still in her pajamas even though it was 6 o’clock. She walks back outside.
She sits back where she was before bringing her knees up to her chest, feeling the wood dig into her back. Another branch cracks, but she doesn’t let herself freak out. She swallows her fears and waits for her family to come outside. . .
Until. Until it comes after her. The beast that grabbed her when she was little escaped from her imagination and into her backyard. It reaches for her ankle but she’s too fast. She screams as she kicks it away, causing her mom to come running outside, seeing her daughter screaming and kicking at nothing. 
That was the first sign.

I open my eyes. My shirt is sticking to my back from sweat, but I’m freezing cold. I remember Addison taunting me when I was younger about my fear of something, but I couldn’t remember what fear it was, and why she thought it was so worthy of being teased for. She must have thought it was funny to see her sister kicking and screaming at what she thought was nothing.
I go down the stairs after getting ready for school. "Morning Abbi," I hear. Mom is standing in front of the stove, making something. I sneak a glance in the skillet and see that she's making chocolate chip pancakes. Addison's favorite.
"Pancakes," I say. I might have a slight addiction to pancakes.
"Chocolate chip at that, too," she says.
"So what's the special occasion?" I ask, grabbing a plate and forking a few pancakes onto it. "So I can't make pancakes for my daughter because I love her without a good reason at all?"
"Well, you usually save chocolate chip pancakes for holidays and birthdays, and, last I checked, there aren't any holidays happening soon."
             "Halloween counts. That's soon."
"Mom?" I ask her, grabbing a glass of milk.
"Hmm?" she says.
"Was I ever scared of monsters?" I ask. Those dreams I've been having are getting to me; I need to know.
She tenses and stops watching the pancake in the skillet. "Wasn't everyone? You aren't having any dreams are you?"
I sit my cup next to my plate and stare into the glass.
"Abbigail?"
I shake my head. "No. I haven't,"
I scarf down my pancakes as I watch her make the rest for her and Dad. Luckily, she didn't burn the pancake she was making earlier.
"Bus is here, Abbi," Mom says, watching it come down the driveway. "I hand her my empty plate and grab my backpack. She hugs me before I can jump away or protest. I pry her off me and run out the door before she can say anything else.
Once I get on the bus I try to finish as much unfinished homework I have. Maxx finds somewhere else to sit other than where he usually sits -which is still beside me. Addison's going to have a bone to pick with him when she comes back.
If she comes back, I think before I can stop myself.
Nothing happens in school, except for the few awkward encounters I have with Maxx. I pretend to take notes when I need to, and I pretend to know what I'm doing in my tests. Lately I haven't been studying as much as I need to, and it's clearly showing.
Opening the front door to my house, I call, "I'm home!"
“How was your day?" Dad asks, rounding the corner to find me kicking off my leather boots. "Boring." I say, hoping he won't ask anything else. I haven't heard from Eliza or Nathan in a long time, and it's making me a little nervous.
The doorbell rings behind me and both Dad and I jump. "I'll get it," I tell him.
I unlock the door and, sure enough, standing in front of me is Maxx. I wonder if he's going to try to apologize for his odd behavior from yesterday. "Hi," I say, my voice ice. I turn around to look at my dad. "This is Maxx," I explain.
"He's a friend from school."

"Can I talk to your daughter alone?" Maxx asks. My dad raises his eyebrow, but motions for me to go.
"Maxx I don't even have shoes!" I protest as he pulls me out the door. "And don't you hate me or something?"
"You won't need shoes." He motions for me to get in his car. "My parents are going to hate you. You're making me leave without telling them."
"We won't be gone long." He shifts into drive and zooms out the driveway. "Where are we going?"
"Somewhere safe," he says, looking panicky.
"Somewhere safe? What is that supposed to mean?"
"Has anyone weird tried talking to you lately?"
"Obviously. Haven't you seen the people at our school?"
"Be serious." he says. He casts another panicky look at me. What's got him all rattled?
"Be more specific than 'weird'."
"A girl. She's a few years older than you. Blonde."
"What's her name?"
"It's-"
Then my ears start ringing and everything goes black.