Butterfly Effect

Chapter 2

The person I've been talking to on the phone decided that she wants a talk with our family. She wants to get to know why Mom married such an abusive asshole after divorcing our real father. Speaking of the latter, I've got no longer any news of him, which means he could have died sooner or later.

Casie stands back at my door's room in awe, but the feeling I'm perceiving is something extremely negative. Suddenly, Lexi, who's been looking for her, comes here, only to ask her, "What are you talking about? I heard you talking about abuse, or stuff like that."

"I think you have something to tell us," I reply instead of Casie, not even paying attention at Lexi's frown in my direction. However, she just shrugs, like she has nothing to hide. The truth is, she actually has.

"Lexi. You have nothing to hide," admonishes Casie, throwing a worried glance at her, "especially in front of Ashlee and knowing that she's talking to social workers."

"The truth? Do you want the real truth?" Lexi suddenly starts raising her voice with no clear reason, to the point that even the others hear her and reach us in my room.

In fact, as soon as they're here, Lyra and Emilee have since given up their crooked smiles, with a sad expression on each face taking their places. At the same time, Vicki can't help staring at her hands, like there's something wrong with them. Well, I can't say there's anything wrong with them, though I can't understand why she keeps looking at them with no aim at all, or this is what they think.

Lexi takes a look at the floor, before turning to us. Her voice lowers again, like she's going to tell us a deadly secret that could change our lives forever.

"Please, promise that you won't tell Dad what I'm about to say," she pleads, but we don't know if we should believe her. After all, she's supposed to talk. No excuses. Also, what if "Dad" found out anyway? He could do anything to make sure our lives would be screwed forever. Also, I know Emilee or Lyra may go and tell Mom everything, so we'd better not trust them.

Before any of us can even say that we're not going to follow through this promise because it's too risky, she goes on, "Well. Dad forced me to work for him and Nylie."

"Who the fuck is Nylie?" exclaims Vicki, clearly enrages as she believes "Dad" is deliberately cheating on Mom. Oh, come on, everyone knows he may do so, but what if Nylie is actually just one of the hundreds of prostitutes he has slept with in his life?

"Well, he forced me to do obscene stuff for him, Nylie and Kaelah." Lexi is basically repeating what she's just said. Vicki is growing irritated with her. I, on the other hand, am curious, to the point that I ask, "Who are Nylie and Kaelah? Are you sure these are their real names?"

"Ashlee, why shouldn't they be their real names?" she scoffs back. "They're his daughters. They're quite bitchy, to be truly honest." It's clear, through her voice, that she dislikes them. By the way, who wouldn't dislike any of our stepfather's relatives, apart from himself?

"But why should you work for his biological daughters?" I ask, struck by curiosity. Vicki glares at me and Casie shakes her head disapprovingly, as I expected, but Lexi surprises me with her answer.

"Oh, I make sure they can sell their bodies to random people, or at least this is what that disgusting man is forcing me to do," she says in fact. "In other words, he's basically running a prostitution business."

Emilee and Lyra are disgusted, but I'm more than disgusted, to the point that not only do I want to throw up, but also I want to send him to jail right now. I can't believe he's exploiting prostitution just for his own good. I wish Mom had never married him. I'll have a talk with her sooner or later.

Casie and Vicki are looking at each other pretty worried, because they both know what happened to Lexi could have happened to any of them instead. However, Vicki immediately takes her reaction back because she knows she has a loving boyfriend who always does whatever he can to protect her from that monster.

On the other hand, Emilee, Lyra and I are worried. I guess no-one can help us properly, since we are so young and have very few life experiences, or at least until we don't become more conscious of our condition and more mature.

At the end, the phone call has just been interrupted. Now that I know the social workers are going to come after us soon, then the only thing we can hope is that they won't back up the help they promised on the phone. However, everyone should know that my sisters and I tend to be pretty diffident, especially if it involves dealing with other people.

So, what else should I know? Casie has been victim of his verbal abuse, I've been physically assaulted, whereas Lexi has been forced to encourage prostitution. From what I learnt, I could guess that either Vicki, Emilee or Lyra have been sexually harassed, or, why not, even threatened with death. Okay, this may sound gross, but, come on, we've gone through much worse...

This is why I'm asking them, "Is there anything you have to tell us, before it's too late?"

Vicki is beyond surprised by the fact a clumsy individual with little to no sense of initiative like me has found the courage to denounce the outrageous acts that have been happening in this house since Mom's beginning of the relationship with that monster, which reached its highest point with their marriage. I really hope she doesn't make the mistake of being impregnated by her, at least for her own sake.

Emilee and Lyra are also impressed with my decision, something that normally would sound strange because they usually mock me all the time for "lacking courage". However, being scared under these conditions is just normal, considering that, as time passes, things could even get worse than this.