Rebel Wrong

Chapter Four: New Year's Eve From Hell

Chapter Four: New Year's Eve From Hell

Cade could tell that her dad wasn't too impressed with her outfit or her attitude. She hadn't known her 'new family' was going to be home so early and she hadn't bothered to change out of her pajamas; plaid boxer shorts and an oversized t-shirt. Though it was clear he was bothered, he didn't let it show.

"Cadey, I'd like you to meet your step-mother, Mandy," Henry Quinn introduced, putting his arm around an impossibly thin woman.

Mandy Carmichael Quinn looked like, for the lack of a better term, a corpse that had been all dolled up with makeup and hair products. To say this woman was skinny would be an insult to skinny people everywhere. Her skin was a dark, leathery golden brown and was pulled taut over her bones. If the woman weighed more than a hundred pounds, Cade would have been surprised. 

"Hello, Cadey." Mandy came forward and hugged her, giving her an air kiss over each cheek. "Your father couldn't talk about anything other than you all week," she gushed.

"Yeah, we're all talking about how you made us come home early from our vacation," the bleach blonde girl, whom Cade assumed was Holly, said as she rolled her eyes.

"Please, you're just pissed that your ski instructor wouldn't sleep with you," the boy grinned over at his sister.

"Wes!" Mandy hissed at her son.

Holly and Wesley didn't look much like siblings. Holly resembled her mother in that both of them were impossibly skinny and had the same piercing blue eyes. If it weren't for Holly being a couple inches shorter than her mother and having a natural youthful look, they could have passed for clones.

Wesley, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. He was tall and muscular, with dark hair and dark eyes. Although, in all honesty, both Mandy and Holly probably had the same hair color as Wesley. It was just hidden underneath gallons of bleach.

Cade couldn't help but to smile. This family was almost a bigger train wreck than her own. She had been expecting something along the lines of the Brady Bunch, but this version of the Carmichaels was so much better.

Wesley and Holly got into a little fight after that and Cade excused herself back to her room. She could hear Mandy yelling at them. It reminded her of all the times that her parents used to fight. 

"Cadence?" Her father knocked once before coming into her bedroom. 

"If you haven't noticed already, I don't really want to talk to you," she said, not bothering to look up from the magazine she was flipping through.

"I know you blame me for what happened to your mother-" her father began to apologize.

"Whoa, hold on now." Cade threw her magazine down and turned over to face her father. "What mom did was her own fault. She can take responsibility for her own actions," she huffed, reaching over to pick up her magazine.

"If you don't blame me, then why are you so mad at me?" he asked, in exasperation.

"I said I don't blame you for mom, but I sure as hell blame you for leaving your children with someone who couldn't even take care of herself," Cade snapped at him.

"Cadey, come on," her father tried to apologize.

"No, I don't want to hear it," she shook her head. "If Ax hadn't have called you, you would have left us all to rot in Michigan. I don't know if you took me in out of some sense of guilt or because you wanted to impress your new wife, but either way, I don't care." She gave him her best glare. "You and mom were never cut out to be parents, and I'm letting you off the hook by saying I don't want anything to do with you. So you can just leave now."