The Tales Of Crowboy The Incredible: Of Ink and Power

Chapter Twenty Seven

      "Thank you for letting me stay, Mrs. King!" I yelled, and walked out of the house, waving. I had texted Mama early in the morning that I wanted to get picked up, and she had basically speed over to Caitlins house, happy to have a reason that she could see her "little girl" sooner. 

      "Of course, Penguin!" She said, and waved goodbye at me. Caitlin had just gone to sleep, because her sleep schedule was horrible, but I had eaten some pancakes and hung out with her sister. "You're welcome over at anytime!" I smiled, my heart swelling up like a balloon. 

      "Fefe!" Mama said, and I hugged her across the car. "How was your weekend?" I was glad that I would have time to relax after all of.... this. 

       "It was really good!" I said, trying to pour as much enthusiasum I could muster into my voice. "Thank you so much for letting me stay at Caitlins!" 

      "Oh couse, baby. As long as you are well-behaved, you're allowed to go to anyones house." She said, and smiled. I tried to study her. I was wary. Mama was never this happy, especically in the morning, and especially after anything that has to do with Caitlin. She looked pretty good. I couldn't tell if the bags under her eyes were normal, or if they had gotten deeper and darker. God dammit. I needed to be paying more attention to Mama while Papa's gone. Lennon can't do it- he's to little. 

     "I was defenitly well behaved. Mrs. King loves me." Mama bit her lip as I let that little bit of information slip. She didn't like hearing how other families liked me. She thought I was going to drift away from my family. I heard her and Papa talking about it a lot. Papa doesn't seem to care. He knows that I'm growing up. I'm going to turn 15 in a few months. I needed my space. "But you know I love you more, no matter what."

      "I love you too, Fefe. Now, we should probably get home soon. I didn't tell Lennon we would be leaving him home alone, and he might have woken up when we were gone." Mama giggled, and started the car. 

      I looked at her curiously. Lennon never woke up this late. "Why wasn't Lennon already awake? That kids got the sleep schedule of an insomniac on crack. Is he okay?" Mama hesitated. 

      "Yeah. He had a sleepover last night." That's a red flag. Lennon would have texted me about it, or at least sent a few pictures.

      "With who?"

       "Grayson, Duncan, Alex, and Jon." She was lying. Jon hadn't been in a sleepover in months, and even if he had been over, it wouldn't be with those people. It would have been with Nico or someone like that. Eli. 

      "Cool, cool." I said, trying to stay calm. Why was Mama acting like this, and why was she lying about the sleepover? "What did you order for food?" 

      "Fefe! Calm down! I didn't kill your brother!" Her eyes darted around nervously, and she let out a twisted chuckle. She wasn't calm. 

      "Okay Mama. Sorry." I glanced at her again. "I'm just nervous. I don't like being away from y'all for a long time." Pulling out guilt cards. Fuck yeah. If I could change the subject and then go back to the Lennon thing, Mama might tell the truth this time. Mama would open up more if I said something like this. I could see her defense unraveling. 

     "Oh, baby, it wasn't a long time. I just missed you. You know that you can go wherever you want. You're growing up. And that's a little scary for me. I'm sorry if you've felt like I'm... how do you say, clipping your wings."  Absolutely not. Mama NEVER talks like this. 

     "That's a weird way to put it." I said, but quickly followed it up with. "But don't worry. I'll never grow up that much. I'll always be your..... little girl." Ugh I wanted to scream. Mama beamed, pleased I refered to myself as a girl. I hated that. A lot. "Anyway, have you been feeling well?" This was a loaded question, and she knew it. I could be talking about her anxiety, or her MS, or literally anything else. 

     "I'm fine, baby. There is no need to worry. Lennon was taking great care of me." Back to Lennon again. Why was he acting like her escape? And she was defenitly lying. Lennon is normally to freaked out to help Mama to do anything.

       "Did he yell at you to sit down?" This was the make or break question. I knew Lennon. I knew my brother. I knew that was all he did to help Mama. 

       "Oh, of course not! He's very kind to me, Fia." That's when my palms started to sweat. This wasn't Mama. But if this was Mama, something was wrong. Something was really wrong.

      "Mama. I'm serious. Are you okay? Why are you lying to me?" She kept her eyes on the road, but her pinky finger started to twitch, but she said nothing, her mouth a cold line of resentment and resignation. And that's when my ADHD took over, and I did one of the most impulsive dumbass activites I had even thought about doing in my entire life, let alone actually doing it.

      Note- never ever do what I'm about to do. Ever. But I know how to drive, I know something is wrong with my mom, and there was no one else on road. I knew that in this state, Mama wouldn't give up a fight, and it wouldn't be a big deal. So... I grabbed the steering wheel. Mama at first was shocked, which was reasonable, but still. She very quickly took her hands off the wheel, as if it was burning her palms to even look at, and I carefully drove to the side of the road and pulled over. Mama was looking at her lap. 

     "Hey..... Mama. It's okay. You can talk to me about anything. Why are you lying about your MS? You can talk to me about it no matter what. I won't be scared. I love you." I said carefully, and put my hand on her shoulder. She was shaking, and I half expected her to crumble at my touch. Tears started to stream down her face, and she silently sobbed, tuning the whole world out. I turned the car off, and let Mama just sob and cry. She hadn't cried in a while. I didn't know what to do.

        "Fefe, they're here. I don't know why. But they say that they're friends of you. Lennon was having a sleepover and then they showed up asking for you.... and I offered for them to stay and said you would come home, and then you said you wouldn't come home..... and then they said they had no where to go..." She hiccuped and tried to regain herself. It was unsuccessful. She just kept sobbing and crying. I tried to control my breathing, fighting the urge to not yell at Mama, asking who came over and what they looked like. "I said, I said that they couldn't stay here, because my son was having a sleepover, and that they could come back later tommorow. And they started to yell. Say that this was rude where they were from.... and then they stormed into your room and started yelling and looking for things. I told them they had to leave or I would call the police, and they just laughed.... they called me a human. They said I had no idea what they were capable of and that I should fear them. And that I should fear you. That I needed to make sure that you were stopped." She reached out to take my hand, and then stopped. Her hand hovered over my arm. "Sofia... are you not human? What were they talking about?" 

       My heart stopped. I know I couldn't keep this a secret forever. I knew that eventually I would have to tell someone, especially Mama or Papa. But I thought it would be on my terms. 

     "I promise.... I promise I'll tell you as soon as I can. But right now, we need to get home and make sure Lennon is okay." I said, my voice cracking.

      "I made the kids lock themselves in the basment. But I don't know if-" She was cut off by a scream. We locked eyes. "That was Lennon." I knew my brothers screams anywhere. With super human speed, I slammed the door and sprinted that the house. It looked..... normal. Lived in. But normal. 

       "LENNON!" I screamed, and I heard more yelling from downstaires. The kids were still in the basment, and looked fine. I ran over to Lennon and hugged him. "Are you hurt? Are you okay? What's wrong?"

      "FELIX!" He yelled, and just hugged me back. "Yeah! Mama let us play downstaires because we had people over and now we're just chilling down here!" Oh thank God. He's okay. 

     "Alright. Okay. You're okay." I had one more thing I had to check. I ran upstaires. I had to check my room. I took a breath before I touched the doorknob, and pushed through the door. 

     Holy shit. My room had fucking been searched.