The Queen Of Spades

Chapter 7, Continued

By February it was so bad I wouldn't even get out of bed. It took Hannah calling Oliver who then called Nada to get me up and take me to the cemetery one Saturday. Caleb—now constantly by my side, ever since Oliver chewed him out for letting me out of his sight when I went to the club—was by the tree where I'd first met him when I broke. I went completely nuts. Jade was pulling on my sleeve asking me why I let them hurt her and Aiden was yelling at me for failing. I covered my ears and told him to be quiet, glad that Oliver and Nada weren't around anymore.
"You okay Em?" Caleb called.
"I'm fine, piss off." I yelled back angrily, hoping he would believe it. But he had known me long enough to know that when I said I was fine, I wasn't.
"Liar. I'm coming over okay?" He told me.
"Shut up Aiden. I didn't mean to and I already apologized." I said to the ghost of my brother. He continued to yell over the voices of Nova and Jade telling me they missed me. I wanted to hide, I wanted to run away from it all. Instead, I whispered Bex' name over and over until she woke up and took over. When Caleb came over and asked what was wrong, he was greeted with the angry blue eyes of one Rebecca Everhart (also known as Bex). Bex punched him in the stomach, twisted him around so that he was in a choke hold, and then held her arm against his throat until he passed out. With that done, Bex turned and kneeled at Aiden's gravestone, brushing her fingers along the dried blood. "A shame," She said quietly, "that it took so long to break the wall. I could have saved him, I could have saved almost everyone." Footsteps sounded, coming closer behind Bex. She spun around and found a policeman standing in front of her.
"Did you need something or-?" She asked, leaving the end of the question open.
"I just witnessed you strangle a man. You're under arrest." He took out a pair of handcuffs and motioned for Bex to turn around.
"Well he's not dead, for one. And for two, he's my brother, we do stupid stuff like this all the time. Go ahead and check, all I did was knock him out."
The policeman tentatively walked over to Caleb's unconscious body and felt for a pulse. "You two are siblings? What are you doing at the cemetery? Where are your parents?"
"Yes, he's obviously adopted. My parents are just off a bit visiting the grave of an old friend. We came to get tombstone rubbings." Bex opened her bag slowly, taking out the rubbing kit. He didn't look convinced and Bex looked to where Oliver and Nada had gone and saw them coming back. "Here they come now." She told him. When Oliver and Nada had gotten within ear shot, Bex called them over. "Hey mum and dad." She told them, "Caleb was being annoying so I knocked him out. Can you tell this kind officer that I didn't kill my brother?"
Nada gave her a barely noticeable look of confusion before saying, "Yes officer, I'm so sorry for your troubles. They are so aggressive with each other sometimes and they don't realize that it can look like something illegal."
"Okay, I'm sorry to bother you young lady, have a nice weekend." He tipped his hat courteously before turning and leaving. Bex smiled, accomplished and turned to face Oliver and Nada. "Say what you're going to say, but know that I am planning on staying awake for a bit and nothing you say will change that." She crossed her arms defiantly and stood, waiting for their response. Oliver looked like he wanted to strangle someone and Nada pulled him away, talking quietly. It took five minutes of Oliver and Nada talking in hushed voices before they came back over to Bex and started talking.
"Bex," Oliver spoke like he was talking to a small child, "Madelyn needs to be the only one awake. Where is she?"
"Asleep, and that's where she'll stay until she can function again."
"Can you at least tell us why she's suddenly so depressed?" Nada practically begged.
"Are you really that stupid? She watched her entire family be tortured and then murdered! Then she stayed in a hospital surrounded by strangers while you two were off doing whatever the Hell you were doing and was almost killed again. The day she got out of the hospital she had a nightmare and stabbed Lizzy. Then the next day she buried her entire family and went to live with strangers. The one day a week where she gets to see her family, you send someone to stalk her! Not to mention, Caleb sicked his dogs on her after she stabbed him. It's a game to him and his friends to see who can kiss her and not get beat up. You made her go to the after party for homecoming on the beach! Caleb made her play truth or dare around a campfire. A campfire! Honestly you're all idiots. She had nothing but anger holding her up and now it's gone, I don’t know why it’s gone but it is."
"We didn't know." Oliver said.
"Yeah, you did. It's pathetic that you try to lie to me. I'm staying until Maddie is better. It was my job to save them, and I failed. I failed her, and I won't do it again."
"What's everyone going to say when you're suddenly British and have blue eyes?" Nada asked.
"Contacts. Duh. And they can't tell the British from the Irish. They're stupid."
"Fine, two months. Then you leave." Oliver said, confident that was the end of the conversation.
"I'll stay as long as she wants me to stay. You have no control over me." Behind Bex, Caleb cleared his throat. "Oliver, your niece is so very violent. You should talk to her about that."
"You tell your friends at school to call off the truth or dare, or I will cut off your hand." Bex said with false cheerfulness.
"Maddie be quiet." Oliver told Bex. "She's right though, call off the dare. Today." He told Caleb.
"Yes sir. I apologize for any discomfort they may have caused." He said. Bex put her hands in front of her and mimed strangling Caleb. Then she did an about face and dramatically flipped her hair before walking off in the direction of the skate park. It was a quick fifteen minute run from the cemetery to the skatepark and when she got there she was energetic.