BILLIE JEAN ( eddie munson.. ) ✔

011. She's A Little Runaway..

Funeral homes were cold, no matter the season, but beneath them is where the true chill crept under Anthony's skin.

On the table before him laid his wife after the people there had pushed the bones in their places, reconstructed her face, cleaned her of death and dressed her in the clothes he picked after an hour of standing in front of her side of the wardrobe, crying his eyes out.

Anthony Carter's eyes were bloodshot from the sleepless nights and the tears hiccuped so that his wails were silently concealed between the privacy of his own four walls.

There were no tears left for him to cry. "What about her skin?" he stated without a single blink, voice monotone. Anthony was not even going to bother shifting uncomfortably in the tightness and stiffness of his costume. The reception was going to start in three hours.

His acquaintance, Rory Marshall, owner of the funeral house and the only one who accepted to help Anthony have a proper funeral for his wife, looked uncertain down at the body which still had the gray tint to it. "I tried everything, Tony, but... the gray keeps coming through, no matter what."

In his wide eyes, the darkness hid fear of knowing just how many times the lights flickered down there since he took on this job. No matter how sick it was of him to think like that, Rory couldn't wait to have all Carter's out of his damn building and this dead one six feet under, where she should be hidden.

Uncomfortable, Rory looked up at his taller friend, whose back has never been hunched by the harsh labors of life. In fact, Anthony never even served in the army; a strange perk of being one of the countless names behind the weaponry America benefited from. Rocket science... Everyone in their neighborhood knew that was just another nice front to say that he may be aiming for the stars, but the true targets of his prototypes might sooner hit the start buttons of another war.

With an awfully dry mouth, Rory brought himself to say to this man, a cold statue watching over the conclusion of the tragedy his family went through. "It's not too late to opt for a closed casket-"

"No," the Carter statue moved his head and finally blinked. "I want my boys to remember their mother, not the monster."

"Don't you mean Billie too?"

Rory met Anthony's eyes and did not know if it was hatred or disappointment staring back at him. His daughter was not going to attend the funeral and he knew there was no forcing her. Four hours passed and after exiting the coldness of the funeral house, Anthony found Billie on the same bench he left her that morning, looking at the street blankly. From meters away he could already hear the painfully loud music playing in her headphones, breaking her ears by the beats of that wretched Bon Jovi cassette she's been having on repeat since the day started.

She got dressed up nicely simply to please his request of taking her out of the house she wouldn't have wanted to remain alone in anyhow. A black dress covered her knees, her red hair was braided the way she knew her dad told her countless of times it would be proper of her to keep it, but she didn't bother applying any makeup over the scratches on her face which did not heal yet.

Anthony sat down next to her and without a flinch, Billie kept looking away, ignoring him.

"No one heard a single word you said. They should have seen it in your eyes, what was going around your head."

Billie's eyes kept themselves blank, numb to the feeling. Focusing on the music, because that was much easier than facing the monster she saw her mother as the last time, a demonic image returning to her mind each time she closed her eyes.

"Oh, she's a little runaway!" Bon Jovi sang clearly enough to irk Anthony into grimacing. "Daddy's girl learned fast all those things he couldn't say. Ooh, she's a little-"