Striptease

Wrath

[Everleigh]

Slow motion.

That's how my body felt right now.

It was as if everything was in slow motion.

My hand paused on the handle of the front door leading into my apartment, pale fingers resting on the metal that felt eerily warm against my chilled skin.

Warmth which meant that somebody had touched it recently.

That thought drew a shudder down my spine and it wasn't the pleasant kind either.

Somebody meaning Elodie.

She had been here or rather, she was still here, if the warm metal of the door handle that was barely holding onto the chipped wooden door was any indication.

But my heart sunk into the pit of my stomach when I tried to turn the handle and there was nothing to turn, because the door was cracked open as it hadn't been completely shut and locked like how I left it earlier.

I gulped as time froze altogether, I had left Teresa alone with the babysitter and I even locked the door myself on the way out, repeatedly telling the babysitter that if there was an emergency, they needed to get in contact with me as I was not going to allow them a spare key to my apartment.

It was a matter of safety issues either way, I was well aware of that, but I also knew that I could prevent something from happening if given the right chance or opportunity.

And this happened to be one of those chances.

But it was quickly coming back to bite me in the ass, since there wasn't an emergency of a fire or gas leak that could've happened, it was my own goddamn mother who was hellbent on burning down this place until she got what she wanted.

Drugs and money.

Not her own children.

She didn't give a fuck about us and the favor was gladly returned, that woman could burn in hell for all I care.

Pushing open the door with a shove, my breath caught in my throat at the startling images before my very eyes.

The living room was trashed, the furniture was torn to pieces, ripped to shreds as stuffing from the couch was thrown across the floor, the wooden legs that held up the dining room table and chairs broken and shards lay scattered around the apartment floor.

The wallpaper was ripped down almost to the ground, my heart cracking just like the various cracks beneath the wallpaper that were rapidly becoming visible to the naked eye.

Glass shards were scattered across the pathway leading into the living room, the few picture frames that held older photographs of my sister and I at our happiest moments broken as the glass pieces were so embedded into the floor, it appeared to be that they've been there for hours.

My heart dropped further into my stomach, the acid churning inside the pit of my abdomen as it threatened to push up through my esophagus and out of my mouth but I wouldn't let it.

Not now, not yet.

The apartment was trashed and not a single soul was in sight.

Which meant that I didn't see Teresa or the babysitter.

And I could feel my world begin to tilt on its axles.

Where is she?

Where the fuck is she?!

I wanted to scream for her, to shout for my sister and beg her to be there but I couldn't get my lips to move beyond their quivering state, couldn't get my voice, trapped inside the small vocal box inside my body, to work anymore as my other senses took over and the tips of my ears perked up at the faintest of sounds.