Elemental: We are all murderers #2

Chapter Fourteen

Nick

"She'll be fine Nick, the doctor said so. So you can stop pacing up and down already." Mike says, trying his best to calm me down, but it's not working. She fainted. She fainted in my arms. I can't stop pacing up and down because it's the only thing that I can do.

And also hope that she wakes up. God, I hope she wakes up. "I hope she wakes up. If she doesn't wake up, I don't know what I'm going to do. She's, she's everything. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?" "Damn, I never knew you were this bad under pressure."

"You are not the only one worried about her, yet you don't see us pacing around the room like crazy." Natalia says. And I turn to her. "Really. You guys may not be pacing around the room, but you sure do have your own way of coping with this.

That is Sarah's fifteenth milkshake. And that is your twentieth bag of chips. Now who's really the one that's causing issues here? Your constant chewing or her constant slipping? I can't decide."

"Can we all just relax and take a breather?" Sky says, obviously not looking to fight. "If I were to die in this hospital room like this, this would definitely not be the last thing that I want to hear." Azania says. And I turn to her so quickly.

"You're awake." I say relief washing over me. As much as my body is trying to compel me to walk to her. I have a feeling she won't be comfortable with that so I stay where I am least we're in the same room.

Sarah, Sky and Natalia on the other hand run straight to her. "What happened?" Mike is the first one to ask the question that we've all been wondering in our heads.

Azania's eyes look foggy for a second, as if she's remembering exactly what happened last night. "It was X. He made me do a test of some sorts. I guess I really messed up. Fucked up test." "What did he make you do?" I say and I cannot hold the anger within me.

"We basically played a fucked up game of cat and mouse heals the cat and I was the mouse. I had to run through this weird garden maze. I almost didn't make it, but somehow, miraculously, I did. And as a reward of some sort, X gave me a secret."

"Wait, what do you mean by a secret?" Grayson asks. "I mean that he said that he knows all of our secrets, even the ones that we don't know ourselves and so he gave me one of ours."

"Who's? Who's secret is it?" Azania looks down like she doesn't want to say it. Her voice was barely a whisper. "Natalia's secret. It's Natalia's secret." Natalia suddenly straightens like a pole. "What did he tell you?" Natalia asks, looking down.

"It's probably not even true. It's just a ridiculous scheme to get us a separated from each other, I'm sure. It doesn't matter. He's lying. He has to be lying."

Azania says, trying to deflect it but- "What secret?" Natalia says in a firmer voice. Azania hesitates only for a second. "He said that you're a murderer." "Yeah. Well. That's the truth. I am a murderer." The entire room goes silent.

"I murdered someone and I don't regret it." Natalia says, her voice breaking with the last word. It's the first time in my life that I've ever witnessed Natalia cry. Sarah stands up and hugs Natalia from the side. Sky does the same. "Let's not discuss this here." Azania says. "It's better if we do it at my house. I'm sure the doctors would let me go home. Soon." Azania is trying her best to help Natalia.

Eventually Azania as allowed out of the hospital. Later that day, we are now all gathered up in her room. "Alright. You can tell us the full story if you want to. If you don't, that's ok too. I also have something to tell you guys and I don't give a fuck whether X likes it or not. Not anymore." Azania says.

"I don't know if I can do it. You guys will never look at me the same." Natalia says, tears streaming down her face. She seems like such a strong person, to see her like this makes me wonder if that's all just an act. Or maybe this really is that bad.

"Natalia, nothing you say or do will ever make us let go. We're family. That will never happen." Sarah says. "We're not just anyone. We're us. You can trust us." Azania says. Natalia looks up at her friends for second and then smiles.

A very small, barely detectable smile, but I still see it. "My mother. She was an alcoholic. Still is. When I used to live with her, she would be dating a new guy every week. It was horrible. And then it was just one guy named Steve.

He was the worst of them all and he lasted the longest. He only fed into my mother's addiction slowly but surely destroying her. And one day, he, he tried to sleep with me against my will. That's the day that I snap, I couldn't do it anymore.

It was hell. There were alcohol bottles everywhere, broken alcohol bottles on the floor. Day in and day out was hell in that house no matter what I did. My mother barely even knew my existence. She was always drinking, every single day, she barely could keep her job up.

I had to work I had to pay the bills and yet she still didn't seem to notice. She was too drunk over her head and sometimes, occasionally when she did remember my existence, she was completely wasted.

She would go to my room and she would sit on my bed and she would pat my head and stroke my hair and tell me how much she loves me and how much she appreciates me. The first time my mother went to rehab, I had to go live with my aunt and my uncle, the ones I live with now. It was the best time of my life.

I had a break from my actual life when my mom got out of rehab. It didn't take her long to start drinking again. And then to top it all off. Steve came into our life after that it was same night when he tried to sleep with me, I took an alcohol bottle and I smashed it across his head.

I did it over and over and over again and that wasn't enough. I took out all of my pain and all of my anger out on him. I made sure of it. I stabbed him with it over and over and over and over and over again. Until it was sure that he was dead and then I dragged his dead body.

Took it to the woods buried and left it there. My mother didn't notice or see any of it because she blacked out we didn't live far from the woods, our shitty apartment was only just in front of the woods.

So it wasn't really that hard to drag the body and clean the mess. It's not a surprise that my mother didn't even ask about Steve. I bet you if you ask her now, she wouldn't even remember who Steve was.

He tried to destroy us, but we were already too broken and he ended up dead. When people were wondering what happened to Steve. I just said that he booked it and never came back. Of course, they all believed me because I was only a kid.

I could have never done something so horrible, could I? I don't know if they found the body or not because I moved out of Pennsylvania. And came here to live with my aunt and my uncle. While my mother is in rehab. She has been there for six years. And she's still not out.

I'm sure that my uncle and my aunt are lying to me, telling me that she's still in rehab. She's probably been in and out of rehab for a long, long time.

Either way I'm out of that house forever and I'm never going back to that place. I can't ever go back to that place. It's been six years." Natalia says with a distant look in her eyes. She's not here anymore. She's remembering it all.

"It's ok now. We're here now and we're not leaving. Never." Sarah says. Holding Natalia and cradling her like a mother. Azania hugs Natalia, and then Sky follows her lead. There are tears streaming down all of the girl's faces.

I want to wipe Azania away but I can't. I don't have that right anymore. Natalia just told us everything about her past. All of it and X was right. She was keeping this a secret from us. And we all have secrets that we want to keep to ourselves, but it looks like we're not going to be able to do that for a long.

You can find updates and edits of my books on my tiktok: mastermind_edition