Mommy Issues

Chapter 8

A couple of weeks have passed, and Lydia was always following me. Her bubbly personality disturbed me quite a bit, mainly because I've never seen someone so happy.

"How come you're always so gloomy?" the lively girl asked.

"What do you mean? I'm not gloomy." I explained, "I'm just... I take things seriously. There is no room in my life for glitter and unicorns and rainbows."

"Oh of course there is! You just have to see the bright side of things!" she exclaimed. "For example, the man you killed."

I quickly turned my head in her direction.

"You killed a man in the middle of the day," she continued, "but he was an awful human being who worked for the mafia."

"What man? What are you talking about?" I said, realization slowly setting in.

"You have no idea, do you?" she stared at me with a wide grin on her face.

At this point, we have stopped walking, facing each other in the middle of the road.

Slowly, she reached up and revealed the scorpion tattoo on the front of her shoulder.

I watched her reach into her backpack and pull out a knife, similar to the one I was attacked with.

As soon as I noticed the knife, I instantly started sprinting to my house, but Lydia was fast. Just not fast enough.

Although I had only been in the neighborhood for 2 weeks, I remembered everything that I saw, including backyards to could enter to escape from Lydia.

I quickly ran into a backyard, which belonged to a couple who were hard of hearing. I hopped over the fence that connected to my backyard and quickly opened the door, ran inside, and shut and locked the door. I sprinted upstairs, into my room, and locked the door behind me. I pushed my bed against my door, so she wouldn't be able to break the door open. I quickly grabbed the box that now lay unsheltered from my bed, and dug through it until I found the knife I had used.

I ran into my closet, searching for a place I could ambush her from. I looked around and found a crawlspace that was attached to the ceiling. I crawled up my dresser, and carefully clung to the edge of the cubby, squeezing into the tight space.

I listened closely, hearing the sound of glass shattering.

'She broke my window.' I thought to myself.

I could hear her throwing stuff around, looking for me, until silence overtook the space around me. I finally heard the closet door swing open, crashing against the walls outside. She continued to throw stuff around, and when she didn't find me, she turned around to leave, and that's when I attacked.

I dove headfirst out of the crawlspace, sticking the knife into her back, her high-pitched scream cut through the air like a sawblade. We both fell to the floor with a thud, the force of the fall causing me to shove the knife deeper into her back.

I recovered from the fall quickly and stood up, ready to begin another duel, but when she just lay there on the ground, I paused. I could see her body heaving up and down, the sound of her cries echoing through my room. Then finally, they stopped. I turned around to look out my window, seeing if anyone was staring at my house, as there was quite a bit of ruckus coming from the inside.

I turned around to go and clean up the mess and was met with a very angry face.

She wasn't dead.

She started sprinting towards me and before I could react, we crashed through the window and landed on the roof of my mom's car which had just pulled into the driveway.

My mom rushed out of the car, gun aimed at Lydia and ready to fire.

"Mara! What is happening?!" She cried, panic clear as glass on her face.

I tried to speak, but all I could do was groan in pain.

My mom quickly got into her car and called in a couple of dispatch cars and an ambulance.

"It's okay sweetie, it's going to be okay." she stammered.

"Mom...I'm fine...just please stop crying.." I mumbled, trying not to induce more pain into my body by speaking.

My mom stayed at the house, investigating what was going on, while I took the ambulance to the hospital. Turn out, the fall broke 3 of my ribs, gave me a collapsed lung, and a concussion, and for Lydia, the fall killed her on impact, seeing as how she was already so weak.

It took me two weeks to recover, and during that two weeks, there was a lot of questioning involved.

"Detective Jones," the officer said, "I need to talk to you."

"About what Officer Finley?"

"It's about your daughter."

"What about my daughter? What did she do?" my mother questioned.

I carefully and quietly stood up from my newly-refurbished bed, trying not to open the stitches on my side. I slowly opened my door, so that I could better hear the conversation downstairs.

"We have reason to believe that Mara is responsible for another murder." He explained. "We found a second knife up in the room, which belonged to Lydia Smith, but the one that we found in her back, had Mara's fingerprints on them, not Lydias'. Pablo Rodriguez, the gang member who was murdered two weeks ago had the same tattoo that Lydia did, meaning that they were both from the same gang. The knife that we found in Lydia's back had an engraving on it which when pulled out of flesh, leaves that engraving in the flesh. That same engraving was found in both Lydia and Pablo's flesh."

The room was silent, and I could feel the tension from upstairs.

"Thank you, Officer Finley. I'll question her in a bit. I think she's asleep right now."

"Alright, detective. Have a good night."

I heard the front door slam shut, and my mother's footsteps coming up the stairs. I quickly yet quietly closed the door, and speed-walked to my bed, and pretended to be asleep.

I heard my door open and my mother slowly walk to the edge of my bed, carefully sitting down at the end.

"I know you're not actually sleeping. Your eyes are twitching." She whispered.

I continued to ignore her, even though she knew I was truly awake. I knew she would eventually get tired of waiting for me and leave the room.

I heard her sigh, and walk out of the room, the door quietly shutting behind her.

I sat up and looked around the room. As I looked around, I saw a note that was sitting on my vanity. I walked over and picked up the note and read it quietly to myself.

Mara,

I know you're in pain, but we need to talk about a couple of things. I have to leave for a couple of days, but there will be cops stationed up and down the block. Don't forget to do your chores.

Love you, Mom🖤

How did I not assume that she would do this? She is "going out of town" but in reality, she is staying at the station so that she can spy on me.

'She must think I'm so naive,' I thought 'Does she really think that I'm that stupid?'