The Hunted

The Hunted: Chapter X

“Hey Taylor?” he asked softly, and when her eyes met his he said, “Can I ask you something else?”

She nodded.

“Why...” he stopped to gather his thoughts. “Why do you have trouble sleeping? Like, you sleep okay when I’m there but if were in separate beds you have nightmares... why?”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, I actually left a part of the story out...” She trailed off, staring at her hands that were wringing themselves together with nerves.

He waited as quietly, and as patiently, as he could.

“When Randy Finlee came after me... he didn’t actually come after ONLY me.” She took another deep breath and forcibly made her hands be still in her lap. “About six or seven months after the operation, we started receiving threats through the mail and through the phone. I didn’t know about it at first but my parents told me after about three weeks just so I would know to be extra careful.” She stopped to lick her lips.

“I remember it was in late August and I had just started my fourth grade year. I had gone over to my friends house after school that day... Charleen. Her name was Charleen but I called her Char for short.” A ghost of a smile played on her lips. “We were working on a project for science; building a volcano. We had just finished that afternoon and I was so, so excited to go home and tell my mom and dad because they hadn’t seen it yet. Char’s mom dropped me off and I walked into the house. It was so quiet, and I think I knew then that something was wrong. I was only nine though so I just assumed that my parents were upstairs and maybe Shailee hadn’t come home from daycare yet. How could I know? How would I know? It never even crossed my mind that something bad had happened.”

She wiped at her cheeks, disgusted with the tears since she’d already shed so many. 

“I called out for my mom and when I got no answer I just thought she was on the phone... or in the shower or something. I figured my dad was finishing up his work for the day so I decided against bothering him. So, I took of my little pink high-tops and went upstairs to look for my mom.”

Blade felt his heart drop to the pit of his stomach. He didn’t know what she was about to tell him exactly, but he knew it would be tragic... and he knew she was reliving it because he’d asked her to. Without even realizing it, he took her hand into his and stroked a thumb over her soft knuckles. She noticed it though, and she felt her heart squeeze. She gripped his hand firmly, and focused again on the day her world fell apart.

“I went to my room first because I wanted to change my shirt, I had gotten food coloring on it. It was my favorite shirt. Ruined.” She paused. “I then went over to my parents room. The door was closed, and I thought it was kind of odd because they never, ever, closed their door unless they were talking about something serious. I knocked on the door and waited. I didn’t hear my mom say to “Come in, sweetie” or my dad say “What do you want, pipsqueak?”. They always said that. So, I knocked again, still not realizing anything was wrong. After awhile I got impatient so I slowly opened the door, hoping that if they were in there I wouldn’t get in trouble because they wouldn’t notice the door opening.”

Her hands started shaking.

“I opened the door, and I remember thinking that they must have had a food fight in there because there was ketchup everywhere. I thought it was funny because sometimes we would have mini food fights, but only in the kitchen. Then something just clicked, and I knew. It wasn’t ketchup, and it wasn’t funny anymore.” She wasn’t crying anymore; her eyes were dry and blank. “They were laying on the bed, all in a row. Daddy, Mommy and Shailee. For a minute I just stared. What was I seeing? I wanted to run away so bad, so so bad, but I had to know. Part of me already knew, I don’t know how, but I knew. I went up to the side of the bed and grabbed my daddy’s hand. He didn’t move, didn’t look down at me and smile or mess up my hair because he knew I would pout about it. His fingers didn’t tighten over mine, and I knew. I didn’t need to check my mom or my sister, I knew. When I looked at their bodies...”

Her eyes were glazed over, she wasn’t with him sitting there in a dumpy motel. She was back there, seeing it all again, feeling it all again. He could only hold her hand and mourn for a family he never knew.

“He had cut their hearts out.” She whispered, her lips barely moving, her eyes glazed over. He watched as she squeezed her eyes shut and absorbed all the pain again, just as she’d done so many times before. He was shaking his head slowly, refusing to believe that anyone could do such a thing, and already knowing that someone could and did. She was still shaking and she had hot, violent tears running down her cheeks.

She couldn’t get it out of her mind, it was like she was still there in her parents room staring at them while they lay still on the bed, their blood still warm. She ran her fingers through her hair roughly, trying to dislodge the ghastly image from her brain but it remained, haunting her. She could almost feel her daddy’s hand in her own, could almost smell the coppery scent of blood in the air. She felt her heart... no, not her heart, she felt the heart she’d sacrificed her family for beating in her chest and she wanted to rip it out. She wanted to feel her skin being cut open and her heart being ripped from her chest cavity but she knew, she knew that that horrific memory would still be more painful.

When she finally stopped fighting it and the tears came quickly and mercilessly, the only thing Blade could do was hold her and murmur soothing nothing’s in her ear. 

~

Not edited.