Dear Diary

26. PARALYZED

J E R O M E

It isn't properly registered. Despite Ma having yet to deny killing Tori, despite having two people here tied up by her hand, and despite her being here dressed in an all black getup like some burglar, my mind refuses to register the cold, hard truth.

Because this just can't be real.

"I don't know how you kids ended up here, but I'm glad I was able to trap the other half of you," Ma says.

"Ma, what are you doing? Why do you have them here like this? You have to let them go," I say, blinking back tears and trying to keep the tremble out of my voice.

She shakes her head at me. "I'm sorry, my love. I didn't want you to see me this way. I brought them here because this school is the perfect place for the display. Come morning, their corpses would've been the first thing Benji's students saw. A reminder of what happens when you betray someone who was loyal to you, despite all the bullcrap you put up with."

"That's what this is about?" I say, baffled. "That's insane. Pops has done some shameful shit, but this is too much."

"What's insane is the two decades I wasted being in love with scum. Silly Regina, the faithful wife who was so dedicated to her toxic, borderline abusive husband. All those years lost and for who?" Her eyes land on Diana. "Some internet blogging bitch?"

"And Tori?"

"I did you a favor. She didn't deserve the love you gave her," she says softly, in that motherly way that usually made me feel reassured but now only serves to make my skin crawl. "You promised her the world and she chose a man twice her age. Your father. My husband."

"She was eighteen."

"She was a whore!" Ma shouts, her eyes are filled with an eerie, unfamiliar rage. So unlike the woman I know.

"Let them go," I insist.

"I can't do that."

"There are four of us and one of you," Kelly says. For a minute I almost forgot there were other people standing in the room. Kelly picks the bat up off the floor. "We're untying them."

"That's cute," Ma says, reaching behind her to pull out a revolver she had tucked away, pointing it at Kelly. "Drop it."

Kelly drops the bat and edges her way behind me, Raya following suit. Chace stands there, unable to move, gaping.

My mind races, calculating a means of escape. There's an exit behind us across the room, but we wouldn't make it two feet before Ma guns us down. A door leading to one of the locker rooms is across the way, too. Same scenario. It's probably locked, though.

But would Ma really shoot me?

"This isn't worth it," I say, figuring that stalling for time is the best I can do right now until . . . Well, until I don't know what. "I know you hate them, but what about me? What about how I've been affected by what you've done?"

"When they were after you for Tori's murder, I was going to turn myself in. That's the kind of love I have for you, Jerome," Ma says, gun pointed in my direction. "But you came back and made a case for yourself. Everything was fine. Then you tell me earlier this evening about all of your father's other wrongdoings. About his old affair with Diana and that a child came from it." She glances at Chace with disdain, but it doesn't seem like he's catching onto the implication. "That was the final straw. After years and years of putting up with it, tell me that isn't enough to make a woman snap."

This woman isn't my mother anymore. She's someone who's out of her mind. As hard as it is to come to terms with, she needs to be dealt with by any means necessary.