The Broken Ones

Chapter Twenty-Seven

"Alesia, get up!" a harsh voice said pulling the five-year-old out of her dreams.

Alesia slowly opened her eyes. "Mum?" she asks as she looked up at the figure looming over her bed.

"Get up!" her mother repeated as she gripped a hold of Alesia's tiny wrist and pulled her from her warm bed.

Alesia fell to the ground with a loud thud, but Leah didn't drop her hand. Alesia looked around to see Mackenzie standing by the door of their room.

Leah pulled Alesia's tiny body across the room.

"What are you doing mummy?" Alesia asked. She tried to stand up but only fell to the ground again as her mother was walking too fast.

Leah refused to answer. As she passed the door, she grabbed a hold of Mackenzie with her other hand and pulling Alesia behind. The rough carpet hurt Alesia's soft skin.

"Where are we going?" Mackenzie asked Alesia.

"I don't know," Alesia answered quietly.

Leah led the two girls to the bathroom. She slammed the door behind her and locked it.

"Mummy, what's happening," Mackenzie panicky asked.

Leah didn't answer. She walked towards the bathtub. She turned on the tap and let the water fill the tub.

As the water began to gush through the tub, Leah turned around and grabbed a hold of Mackenzie. She pulled on Mackenzie's tiny body towards her and lift the girl in the air.

"Mummy, I'm not ready to take a bath," Mackenzie yelped. "I'm still wearing my clothes."

"Shut up!" Leah commanded as she pushed Mackenzie's tiny body under the water.

Mackenzie screamed as the icy cold water touched her skin. "It's too cold, Mummy," Mackenzie told her.

"Shut up!" Leah repeated even louder. Leah turned away from Mackenzie's shivering figure and towards Alesia.

Alesia couldn't move. She was terrified and knew that she should be trying to leave the room, but her feet were frozen to the ground. Leah grabbed a hold of Alesia's arm and pulled her to the bathtub as well. She threw Alesia into the bath. The water didn't cushion the blow of falling, but the fall didn't hurt as much as the cold. Alesia and Mackenzie both looked at each other from where they were seated. They were scared and had no clue on what would happen next.

Leah rolled up her sleeves and place a hand behind each of the girl's heads. "After tonight I will be free from you brats," she told them before forcing them under.

Alesia fought against her mother's grip, but it was no use. She kicked and waved her arms around wildly, but nothing she did was able to move Leah's hand off the back of her head. Alesia was too young to probably understand the concept of life and death, but somehow she knew that unless she were able to get a breath of air soon, she would never leave that bathtub. During her struggle to get her hand back above water, the small breath of air that she had been able to hold was running out.

The last few bubbles left her mouth, and Alesia could feel her eyes starting to close. This was the end.

Out of nowhere the hand on her head vanished. With the last bit of energy, she had left Alesia was able to get her head above water. She splashed her way to the surface and back to a sitting position. She closed her eyes as she coughed up the water the filled her lungs.

"What are you doing!" she heard her father's voice over the confusion. More things were said back Alesia was unable to hear anything else.

She took a deep breath of air. It was a good feeling being able to breathe again. Alesia turned to look at her sister. That was when she saw it.

"Why isn't she moving?" Alesia screamed.

Mackenzie was lying face down in the water. Her body was limp as a rag doll. Nelson turned towards his daughters. He screamed when he saw Mackenzie's lifeless body.

Nelson rushed to the edge of the bathtub, he pulled his daughter from the bath and began to perform CPR on the floor. Despite his best efforts, Mackenzie didn't start breathing again.

Alesia stayed seated in the bath. Her wet pyjamas cling to her body. Her hair was dripping down her face and back. The cold water still surrounded her, but she could no longer feel it. Every millimetre of her skin was covered in goosebumps but her skin had turned numb, and she could no longer feel them.

As Alesia stared at her sister's body, she kept repeating the same sentence over and over.

"Why isn't she moving?"

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Alesia screamed as she woke up. The nightmare had returned. Alesia had been haunted by her sister's death since childhood.

"It's over," Alesia reassured herself as she breathed a sigh of relief. "It's all over."

Alesia sat up on her bed and pulled her legs up to her chest. Her forehead, arms and legs were covered with a thick layer of sweat. Alesia climbed out of her bed so she could get a glass of water.

By the time the ambulance had arrived, Mackenzie was long gone. She was pronounced dead at the scene. In the confusion, Leah had been able to leave the house unseen, but the police were able to track her down two hours later at Emily's house.

Alesia couldn't remember much of what had happened in the days after Mackenzie death. She had been told by Nelson that she wouldn't stop asking 'why isn't she moving'.

One of the things that she did remember was her father looking over her bare chest, stomach and back as he cried. A river of tears ran down his face as he ran his fingers over the scars and bruises that cover those parts of Alesia's body. The ones that had been so easy for Leah to hide. Alesia could remember her father resting his head in his hands as he cried. Through sobs he would scream, "I didn't know. How could I not have known? Please forgive me, Mackenzie. I failed my own daughters!" He yelled other things as well.

Alesia was originally only going to stay at the hospital for a week as she recovered from hypothermia. Yet that week turning into months. Months of psychiatrist session just to get Alesia to stay something other than 'why isn't she moving.' Alesia was in such a state of shock that when awake she couldn't even walk without support. The doctor had to feed her through a tube. Even once she started talking again see still had to continue to visit the physicist so she could learn how to behave 'normally' again.

Alesia turned on the light as she walked into the kitchen. She slowly moved to the skin and turned on the tap on. Even just watching the water flow from the tap made Alesia anxious.

After that experience in the bathtub that day Alesia had been afraid of water. Every time she saw a large body of water, whether it was a lake, a swimming pool or even just a small bathtub, she would see her sister lifeless body lying there.

Alesia filled up a glass with water from the tap and gulped it down. Alesia placed the glass in the sink. She looked up at the window behind the sink, her reflection stared back at her. She looked so much like Leah. Her brown hair had completely outgrown the pixie haircut. It was now in a bob ending just below her chin. The bottom of her hair was a ragged line as if it had survived an attack from scissors. Alesia turned away from her reflection and left the room.

Leah stole more than just Alesia's sister that day. She also took Alesia's innocence and any remaining hope of a happy childhood.

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A/N: It is because of this chapter that I gave this story a mature rating.