Admiring the Light

Ep 16

"Heyyy mom!" Natalie called as she stepped through the door, holding it out behind her so Alexandra could duck her head inside and follow. "Guinevere is at a friend's house."

"Got it, someone else is there, though. I can hear it." Katherine observed, the footsteps painted quite the picture. "Mrs. Perry, it's me, Alex."

"Oh greaaat, and what is it you want?" Her tone immediately shifted back into snark, distrustful and suspicious. "Sneak some drugs to my daughters?"

"Fuck you-" Alex mouthed, letting Natalie see that she wasn't a fan of the comments. But she opened her backpack anyway in the dining room, a smaller plastic bag falling out into her hands.

"This is some loose candy my mom said you could take-" Alexandra dumped the assorted goodies for Natalie to pick and choose. "Whatever you don't want, it's going to Lola."

"I mean- Twix are gross, any of those caramel ones-" Her fingers carefully picked around any candy that mentioned gooey caramel. "Definitely prefer Hershey bars, peanut butter cups?"

"Those fuckin sell out the first day we have them in stock. We can only buy so much peanut butter candy with our budget." Alex grunted, the one candy her friend had asked for, the most popular.

"I'll take these almond ones I guess-" Natalie grabbed a handful of almond joy and skittles. "Caramel just feels so stringy in my teeth- ugh I hate it."

"You'd hate the pulled beef my mamá cooks- it gets really stringy like that." She nodded. "I'll let you know if anything else comes in and doesn't sell?"

"Why not- free candy for me. Everyone loves free candy." Natalie chuckled, as long as the selection was good. "Aaaa, the root beer barrels from, like, Cracker Barrel. Those are good to suck on in class."

"What're you going out as, Nat? Final year."

"Uh- probably a clown or something." She shrugged the question off, putting on a nerdy voice. "*But I sussspect* my sister is being a magician, according to my calculations-"

"That old drive in's gonna be showing Nightmare on Elm Street, if you end up swinging by." Alex held up her phone to show Natalie.

"Edgewater, Tennessee. Only place with a silver diner and a working drive in, wouldn't get that elsewhere, Alex." She rolled her eyes playfully. "I have Nightmare one on VHS, rare find now. So I don't need to pay."

She'd been a horror viewer since she was a child, nothing ever seemed to break her. And her parents had taken note, though they'd been split.

...

Flashback

"What was going through your brain, Owen?! Truly??" Katherine snapped, her eyes flicking between her husband and Natalie. "What's she gonna have nightmares about for days now? Oh, just the scene that we were traumatized by as kids."

"Hey, she can watch rated R horror movies perfectly fine-"

"THAT DOESN'T MEAN SHIT!" She hissed. "Let me comfort my daughter in peace, idiot." Her gaze even with him as he hurried down another hallway.

"I can't believe this, I can't fucking believe this." Katherine cursed under her breath. In her mind at least, there was a difference between watching teenagers get picked off by a serial killer, and the idea of brother betraying brother and throwing him into a stampede in front of his own son. One, she knew that Natalie could deal with. The other, well, now she had a sobbing child on her hands.

"Hey..." She couldn't think of anything she could possibly say, other than putting her arms around her young daughter. "Momma... daddy lion did not bad- then he..." Natalie's words delved into mush.