Claws in the Dark | ✔

IV (Part III)

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Back at home, Gina was still lying on the bed, sleeping. She needed a little more rest since she got up early to make breakfast. She turned over and over again.

She startled out of her sleep, rising to a sitting position, hands folded into a fist to punch something as if it threatened her. Looking around the room, she realized she nothing or no one else was in there with her.

Getting out of the bed, she stretched and yawned, then went downstairs. George was looking at the TV, switching from one scrambling channel to the next.

"We haven't gotten the Cable installed yet, honey," she told him. She walked over to where he sat on the floor and joined him. She switched off the TV after taking the remote from him. "How about you and I play a game?"

"Cool," he said. "What game?" He was excited to finally do something; sitting around, watching at nothing on the TV was really boring.

"Hide-and-Seek?" she asked.

He was excited before, but now he was absolutely stoked. He loved hide-and-seek. It was his favourite game to play with his friends back in Peskin. How he longed to play the game again someday when he made new friends.

He jumped up from his sitting position and said, "Let's play! Let's play! I'll hide, and you'll seek." Gina nodded, and as he ran away, she started counting.

As George took the turn from the living room to head upstairs, he ran into Rebecca, who was now forwarding to the kitchen.

"Watch it, twerp," she snarled. "You could've thrown me down."

"Sorry," he said as he continued to run upstairs.

"What are you doing anyway?" She asked before he ran too far.

"Hide-and-seek, with Mommy," he told her and vanished out of her sight as he reached the top.

Rebecca scoffed and went into the kitchen. She sat on one of the stools and took her phone out from her back pants pocket. She had nothing to do, because there was no Cable, and therefore, no internet. The two came as a package, and not having one meant not having the other.

She scrolled through and read the messages from the last conversation she had with the boy she liked in Peskin, giggling and blushing at the sweet words he used to compliment her pictures he saw on social media. She wanted to become a model, and posting extravagant pictures on Facebook got her some amount of popularity at her last school.

Standing up and heading to the front door, she pushed her feet into her lavender boots. "Mom, I'm going for a walk," she called.

Gina, now finished with counting, emerged from the living room. "Dressed like that?" She scanned Rebecca's attire. Both her top and pants were short. Not exactly Sunday wear. But Gina didn't want to be the restricting mother, and said, "At least put on long pants. And take your jacket."

"Okay." Rebecca ran back upstairs.

"Ready or not, here I come!" Gina shouted for George to hear from wherever he was hiding. She went into the kitchen. There were cupboards under the sink and island counter, and he was small enough to fit inside them; she opened the one under the sink. "Gotcha!" She giggled when she didn't see him and checked the next cupboard.

The front door opened. "Bye, Mom," Rebecca's voice called.

The door closed as she waved without looking. "Bye." She continued checking the cupboards, and George appeared not to be in any. She decided that maybe he was hiding upstairs.

Climbing the stairs, the boards slightly creaked beneath her feet. When she reached the top, she scanned the doors. The first one on the left was to George's room, the second was to the public bathroom. On the right, the first door was to Rebecca's room, while the second was to hers and Miles'.

Approaching George's door, she turned the knob and entered. She observed the room, keenly; there was a dresser on her left against the wall; a closet on the right; and the bed was in the middle, facing the closet. A nightstand was on the right of the bed with a paper aeroplane on it, while a window was to the opposite end of the room, facing her.

On the bed, there was a small bump underneath the sheets. Gina grinned a mischievous smile as she forwarded to the bed. Just as she was about to rip the sheets off to expose George, a thudding sound came from the closet.

If he stuffed the pillows under the sheets to make a decoy then hid in the closet, he was a clever boy.

"I know you're in here," she said in a sing-song voice. Giggle came from inside and then she jerked the door open to reveal a smiling George.

"You found me!" He exclaimed in laughter as Gina knelt down and tickled his tummy.

"You're a smart boy, misleading me with the bump on the bed," she said.

A frown grew on his face. "What?" He had no idea what she was talking about.

"The pillows," she pointed over her shoulders to the bed.

"What pillows?" he asked as he peered over her shoulders and at his bed.

"The ones you stuffed under-" As she turned around, she stopped talking. The lump was gone from the bed, the tips of the sheet hanging off the bed and touching the floor. "I could've sworn there was something there," she mumbled to herself.

"You're it!" George tapped her on the shoulder and ran out the room, and she smiled, running after him.

"Oh no, I'm not!"

Under the bed, something growled lowly and watched as her feet disappeared beyond the bedroom door.

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◀ MARDAIS ▶