The Queen Of Spades

Chapter 6, Continued, Again

On Thursday I packed up my go bag, got dressed and walked to the Hudson's house. I didn't really want to go back, but I knew I needed to talk to Olivia, and Oliver needed to talk to me. At the door, I hesitated a moment before knocking. Before I could make up my mind, the door opened and Noah stood, dumbfounded, in front of me. He started to turn to call for his parents and I knew that they would call Oliver if he did. Out of pure instinct, I reached out and covered his mouth so he couldn't talk. "I just need ten minutes before you tell Hannah and Robin that I'm here. Olivia needs to talk to me. I'm gonna go upstairs and talk to her and then I'll come back down and you can tell your parents that I'm here and I'll deal with the lecture from Ollie." I told him, taking my hand off his mouth and pushing past to go upstairs.

Olivia was on her bed painting her nails when I got there. I knocked on her bed quietly and cleared my throat. "You were gone forever. I thought you weren't gonna come back. Are we gonna talk now?" She asked.
"Do you want to?"
"Kind of, yeah."
"Okay. What questions do you have?"
"Not a question. Well, kind of, I mean, how do you go through life? You don't have any emotions. I've never seen a real smile from you, you've never cried. You're a friggin robot."
"More of a cyborg actually." I joked, knowing she wouldn't understand what I was talking about. "And I do have emotions."
"Anger doesn't count. You killed twelve people and felt no remorse or guilt from it."
"Okay, one: anger is literally an emotion. Two: I feel more emotions than you've ever felt. And three: why would I feel guilty for getting rid of some of the scum of the earth?"
"You took a life! That's not a normal thing."
"Not for you maybe. My mom was a sniper in the military, my dad was a navy seal. I'm an assassin, killing is in my blood."
"I'm sorry. You're a what? You sound like a psycho."
"I'm an assassin for the United States government, I kill people with my family."
"Your parents are photographers! They don't kill people."
"I'm also a professional liar. But that's another story. My parents don't even know how to take the lens cap off a camera. I need to go now, I told Noah I'd only be ten minutes. Time to go have a fight with uncle Ollie." As I sat in the dining room waiting for Oliver to get there, I thought about what I could say to him and what he would say to me. It had been ten minutes since I came downstairs and Noah got his mom. Hannah started crying when she saw me and Robin called Oliver and told me to sit at the dining room table until he got here. Noah was told to sit at the table with me so I didn't leave again. Which, needless to say, he was not happy about. Not that it would even do any good if I was gonna leave. I could destroy Noah so fast.

Remember when I said I had never seen Oliver so mad? That was nothing compared to when he walked into the living room. I made a show of slouching in my chair and checking my nails, pretending not to see him enter. Oliver cleared his throat and Noah readily took it as his cue to leave the room. I heard footsteps upstairs and I finally acknowledged that Oliver was in the room by saying, "Fancy seeing you here Ollie. Come here often?"
"Cut the crap Madelyn! What the Hell were you thinking running off like that!" He growled in an attempt to keep his voice down.
"I was thinking that I wasn't about to take the self righteous anger of Oliver friggin French. And I was thinking that you were about to have a black eye if I stayed." I said, turning in my chair so I could face him.
"That was selfish and you're lucky that I'm not locking you away until you're older than time itself!"
"You have no authority to do that Oliver! You aren't in charge of me!"
"I thought you were kidnapped again! Nada was worried sick that you had gone and killed yourself!" This time he made no attempt to be quiet.
"We're really gonna do this in English? Yeah say it a little louder I don't think the ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD heard you yet!" I screamed at him, kicking my chair away and standing up.
"I'm not the language guy Maddie. I can't speak four languages fluently, so yes we're doing it in English and we're staying here because when we went somewhere to have a conversation, you jumped out of the car!"
"A conversation? Oliver French, that was you screaming at me, that wasn't a bloody conversation!"
Oliver clenched his jaw before grabbing me by the wrist and pulling me close to him. "I am done with your disrespect. Do you understand me? I'm done! Listen and listen close because I'm not gonna say this twice: if you ever pull something like this again I will beat you into next year."
"Oh I'm so scared,” I ripped my arm out of his grasp, “big bad government agent is gonna pull the dad card. News flash! I'm not scared of you and you're not my dad!"
"No I'm not but I'm the closest thing you've got. I-"
I cut him off, "If you're the closest thing I've got to a dad then I would rather be an orphan!  Face it. You failed Oliver! You failed at protecting us, you failed at everything! And you know what's worse? You have the audacity to treat me like the bad guy!" There were tears stinging my eyes by the time I stopped talking.
"What would your parents say about your recent behavior?" He asked.
"It doesn't matter what they would say! They're dead as a doornail, nothing but char and ash! Screw them and screw you and screw this stupid family with this stupid house! You can all rot! Nada too because she wasn't there either!"
"Madelyn Everhart! How dare you say that about them! You should be ashamed of yourself!"
"No, you should. I have nothing to be ashamed of! I did nothing wrong and I refuse to stand here and listen to you blame me for them dying just like the police did!"
"Enough!" Hannah yelled from the doorway. "Madelyn, this is no way to treat your uncle." I cut her off.
"He is not my uncle. We aren't even related."
She ignored me and continued, "Oliver, you're acting like a child who got his block tower knocked over. Get it together, the neighbors are gonna call the police if you keep being this loud." Hannah spun on her heels and left the room with her arms crossed defiantly. I took a deep breath and looked at Oliver, "I'm not apologizing." I told him. "As far as I'm concerned you can go screw yourself.”
“Really Maddie, why do you always have to be so stubborn?"
"I was raised to be stubborn Oliver. That's why I know what I know and they don't. Now, I'm done talking about this. I need to go to Nada's house." I brushed at the air like I always did when I wanted to be done with a conversation.
"Is this about your friend?" He asked.
"First of all, I don't have friends. But yeah it's about Gideon and Amanda. Did you meet them?"
"No. Nada called me when they showed up at her house. They left after an hour or so though."
"Crap on a cracker, I need to go to his house? I need to check on him."
"Everything okay with him?"
"No but it will be, it's just like Venice." We went to Gideon's house, but he wasn't there and neither was Amanda, so we went back to the Hudson's house so that Oliver could go talk to Caleb across the street.