The Mental Patient

Chapter 7 - Manipulation

Jessica rolls over and faces me. I prompt the paper to the ground, all attention on her.

"Can't we just runaway, like we always planned?" Running out of normality, she sobs under her words.

"And go where? The social services, they'd bring us right back into his loving arms, again and again. Perhaps you mean abroad? He'd find us, Jessica." I pin up the toothed points to her planned-out map, don't hand slap away my manipulation. I nip off the bobbles from my holey-heeled socks.

In a flash, her head lifts from her pillow. "Well, what do you suggest, we kill him?" There is an eerie pause between us, a realization for Jessica finally knowing who her brother has become and the deep seeded evil within me taking blossom within my eyes Hello, you.

"Why not? I mean it's only a matter of time before he does the same to one of us, then out of fear he'll kill the other and then probably himself... it's self-defence in a sense, if tonight is not a warning to us, he doesn't care about us, he doesn't care if he beats or breaks us, as long as he gets his child benefit every two weeks and smack in his veins, we are average echoes of a possible goodtime which may have happened if Mam never died. This was never our fault, but goddamn it, he's made it personal and blames us for everything."

"Kyle, don't think like that..." She strains a stern shake of devolvement.

"If he were to kill me, where would you be? What would happen to you? He would go to jail and you will have no one... Okay, maybe I was a little drastic thinking about murdering the motherfucker. We're lost, lost in a lost world." She isn't on-board, I need her approval, keep going. I make it look like I am concocting another proposed plan with squinty eyes, day dreamy shows and licking my lips.

"How about we scare him into leaving us alone? Fight fire with fire, to beat the bully we become the bully; send a wolf to catch a wolf... I am running out of analogies here. If he fears us, he is less likely to fuck with us, isn't he? How about that? Jess, I can't do this without you, you're all I have in this world. We make him believe we will go to the length of murder if he doesn't stop; we're not actually going do it. This must be the greatest performance ever to be witnessed by a crack head. And once it's over, every day will be normal, well not normal, but it'll be less bumpy."

Nibbling on her fingertips, she must be close to blood and bone. Her hesitant haze through our hasty heist of abomination says it all.

"Okay, we just scare him... Kyle, I don't want this to get out of hand. As soon as he has learned his lesson, I want it to end. I don't want him hurt, Kye, I know you're angry at him and want to cut him up into little pieces, just chill out and I promise you everything will be fine as soon as we put the fear of God into him. Then it's over, okay. Promise me, c'mon, promise."

"Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a dagger right in-between my eyes." I am crossing my fingers... in the shadows... in my head.