Spearheart: Children of The Night

Chapter 6: Daylight

(Wow! Archer cares about Geneva after all? And Della can't care less. Anyway, next scene might be bad, but I hope not. After all, I'm not used to writing these scenes, and Metanoia is a train wreck.)

I couldn't help but notice her freckles popping out of her face like sprouting holes, shining under the sunlight—as disrespectful as it seemed, because she was my mother. Eh, normal teenage behavior.

I watched her mouth finally fall open after my long speech about what happened. What could she say? Get her to a therapist. You've gotta be kidding me. You're making it up. Or worse: I'm gonna disown you.

"When." she hissed. "When exactly did that happen."

...what?

My mind went blank. I didn't actually know. Why didn't I bring a watch, I lamented to myself. Now I'm in trouble.

"Well..." I rummaged my mind for something to say and decided to point out the obvious. "About afternoon."

"So, 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM, I'm going to assume." She muttered, her voice steely calm. "The 'vampires', of which I'm going to call delinquents, attacked you with...a gemstone?"

Looks like she wasn't going to begin one of her endless tirades after all.

"Actually, it was a sword and a railgun. As I remember." At the word 'sword', her face contorted with suspicion.

"The alleyway was dark, though. I could just be seeing things." I added.

"How? What type of railgun?"

How is that related to the issue?

I watched her wrinkles appear one by one, her lush red hair now disheveled . I had once envied her beautiful stature, and the fact that I'd never look like her. But in high school, I couldn't care less what I looked like.

"It looked long and black—"

"All railguns are black—"

"I know," I said slowly, even though that was completely not true. ",and the sword, of which you completely missed out, was a golden one. There was a ruby on its hilt."

"Are you sure it's not another gun?"

I sighed. I suddenly wanted to spin on my heels, and hide in a hole. This woman was hopeless, even more hopeless than I was. You're just avoiding confrontation, I kindly reminded myself.

"I'm sure...just, if you'd hear me out, you'd understand everything."

She drew a long, shaky breath. My stomach turned.

"No. And that's official."

And those words pierced through my heart. Ugh, she is hopeless.

I turned towards the door. But of course I wasn't going to run away, right? I wasn't stupid.

"But please, I know it's a golden sword."

She sighed. "Fine, I'll assume again you saw two people wielding two railguns." Because that's the obvious reas—"

"Where did it happen?"

"Just please let me finish." I muttered to myself. That was too many questions. She's just worried about you. I thought. You're just being whiny. And ungrateful for that.

"An alleyway, let's get that out of the way, and um..." I thought long and hard for an answer. "Amandine's Street. Near our home."

I gritted my teeth. One more question, and fuck this shit I am out of here.

"At precisely what area?" she narrowed her eyes, and snap went my sanity. I'm out.

"Look, I don't know what the hell the coordinates the alleyway is in." I proclaimed out loud, and her eyes widened. "But just—what do you want?"

If you'd heard me out, you'd know the full story. What are you even doing with this information? Why are you so cynical because of this?

I could say more.

"I'm telling all this to the police, you should know." She muttered slowly, then searched my face for a reaction.

I froze. The what? So I was lying to the police?

"Mom—" It felt new and fresh to call her that. "You can't do that!"

"I'm your mother. Of course I can." She reached for the phone. "I'll dial the number. You stay put."

I snatched the phone, and in the same manner she had said it to me, I muttered, "No."

"But..." she stammered. "But they could be hurting you severely and you don't even realize it, and that's really something we both don't want, so please—Stay put."

She said it all in one go, and I blinked. My heart continued to pound and pound.

There were a million things in my head, and none could escape my lips.

"I—"

"So, I'm calling the police now." Mother rasped, her voice pressed.

It's hopeless. Everything's hopeless.

I heaved a great sigh. The words filling my brain suddenly vanished, replaced with a weird hollowness.

"Fine, do it." I found myself walking away from her. "DO WHATEVER YOU WANT. I—I don't—I don't fucking care."

Mildred Fairfax caught up with me, still holding her phone with clammy hands. Her eyes were everything at once. Despair. Anger. Fear.

My eyes stung, but I lowered my head. Hopefully she didn't notice.

She grabbed my shoulders and I turned towards her. "What the..." I felt my cheeks burning, the lights splattering, my head spinning— "What...what do you want?"

"Delilah Fairfax!" she howled, her voice breaking. "Don't stoop as low as your dad. You can't handle this on your own."

My dad. That was it.

"Oh, you think you can handle this?!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, blurting out the things I wanted so much to say. "You spend every day cooped up in this house, smelling like shit, you've got no friends, and you spend every waking moment texting me, trying to spy into my life, like some stalker — "

I stopped. I ran out of things to say, and the anger was drained out of me.

I felt nothing. Complete numbness.

"I—" She shrank back, tears welling up in her eyes. Maybe I went too far. "Enough of that, now!" She slapped my cheek, still bleeding, and it burned like my entire face was on fire. "OFF TO YOUR ROOM!"

I sighed, seeing the tears in her eyes, and decided to comply. I wiped the blood off my cheek.

I slammed the door to the attic. I didn't want to hear a single word from her, from Archer, from Geneva, from Waylon, from anyone.

I shut my eyes, blood still pouring on the floor.

I let my head rest on the floor.

And then the world went black.