Dark Secrets

Cracks

     The driver shivered violently as Mercury exited his cab. He had glanced at her through the rear view mirror and saw nothing but empty darkness behind her eyes, and at one point he thought she might murder him for no other reason than boredom. The cold seat she left behind was a great comfort to him.

     Outside, Mercury was walking toward her apartment, unaware of the cab driver's dislike and fear of her, and idly wondering if her home was occupied. Two days earlier she had been surprisingly bested by her mother in a small scuffle, but when she realized she was temporarily out of commission, she had purposely dropped her keys to allow Dahlia a means of escape. It was the only way she could imagine would save Dahlia a few tears. After all, she had promised.

     Mercury entered her apartment and found a few lights on along with a strange noise coming from the bedroom. She passed the bathroom, where the shower was running and Dahlia was humming softly, and slipped off her shoes as she reached the noise. It was an old, clunky television, sitting on the floor and showing a blurry channel. The thing was, Mercury didn't own a television. She stepped around it and laid her shoes by the bed. Then she sat, back straight, and waited. She noticed that the bed was rumpled but did nothing about it.

     The shower shut off and Dahlia's humming shifted to sighs and groans of satisfaction. Mercury turned her face to the bedroom entrance and caught Dahlia, buck naked, strolling inside, her body tilted to one side as she dried her hair. Dahlia, eyes focused on the TV on the floor, didn't notice Mercury at first. But when she did, she shrieked and dropped the towel, scrambling to pick it up to cover herself as cheap protection.

     "You've been staying here," said Mercury when Dahlia calmed and was about to obviously go into a string of curses. "I didn't say you could do that."

     Dahlia hung her towel on the door then placed her hands on her bare hips. "Well you never said I couldn't. Besides, what was I supposed to do? You've been gone for two days, Mercury. What happened?"

     Mercury moved to turn off the TV. The buzzing of the old thing was beginning to mess with her head. "I stayed with my parents." She paused and returned to her seat. "Kuiper says hello." He had given her the message secretly, just in case, and she had promised that she would deliver it as soon as she was able.

     But Dahlia ignored that last part. Surely, Kuiper would have been devastated. "Why didn't you come home?"

     "They didn't want me to."

     Sighing, Dahlia finally started to get dressed. Her clothes were now in Mercury's closet, and it didn't go unnoticed. "What did they do to you?"

     "Nothing."

     "Nothing?"

     "Nothing," Mercury confirmed, and the answer was true. Her parents wanted to do something, to fix her, but they couldn't. The issue was too weak. It would either resolve itself or need to get worse.

     Dahlia wiggled on a pair of panties, snapping them against her skin. The over-sized shirt she already wore swayed in the slight draft the action caused. "Why did they let you go?"

     "I wanted to leave."

     There was a minute of quiet, then two. Dahlia brushed her damp hair behind an ear and sat on the bed, now wanting to get down to real business. "I was worried about you, you know."

     Mercury grunted in acknowledgment. Unbeknownst to anyone, her right eyebrow twitched the barest.

     "It looked like your mom really hurt you," Dahlia went on. "When you all went inside, I found your keys, obviously. Did you drop them... or leave them for me?"