Dead Beat (❌)

Chapter Three

Anneliese

The sudden light combined with the sound of my own scream throws me for a loop, but what gets me going even more are the hands that find their way to my face.

"Shhhhhhhh, honey! You're okay! It's just me!" my mom's voice forces itself into the middle of my internal breakdown.

My mouth opens to say something, but my brain lags, only letting me blink rapidly and focus in on her scarlet eyes that are blinking back at me with concern.

Mom is strict, but she's still a mom, which makes the expression on her face a bit troubling. Her brows are furrowed together and her usually sharp and intelligent gaze is much sharper, to the point that I wouldn't be surprised if it cut glass.

"Mom, what the hell-"

"Language!"

Despite giving me the scare of my life, she still has the nerve to chastise me?!

Puffing out my cheeks in annoyance, my brain suddenly decides to remember exactly what made me scream in the first place and my eyes widen once more.

I try to shift pass my mom while still very much on my butt, but when I move sideways to peer around her, all I'm able to accomplish is a quick glance of darkly stained carpet and a tall man looming there before Mom yanks my face back.

"Honey, you need to listen to me."

My breath catches in my throat as I'm forced to look into my mother's eyes and not what is behind her, which I'm starting to sense isn't anything good.

"M-Mom--"

"Honey, no questions right now, okay? I just need you to listen and obey."

"The boys," another deep voice adds suddenly, the tone both strangely familiar and also not at the same time.

I can feel the warmth leave my face as it pales but before I can attempt to look again, whoever stands behind my mom rushes out of the room and I can hear Alfie's voice out on the stairs.

"D-Dad?! Johnie! Dad, they're hurting him!"

I witness my mother's eyes go as wide as mine in reaction to what he says, my own expression from realizing who my brother is talking to.

After almost two damn years, he decides to show up now? How damn convenient.

I can feel the hurt, confusion, and hatred all bubble up at once, blinding me from the fact that Mom is no longer sitting in front of me after rushing to Alfie who scrambles into the room.

It's only when my brother lets out a loud gasp twisted with a yelp that I come to my senses. I take in the sight of a freshly mutilated corpse of what I can clearly see to be a man, his blood soaking deep into the carpet both in front and under me.

My hand immediately shoots upwards to stop the scream that forms there but nothing stops my eyes from seeing the man's sliced throat and torn open chest, his fleshy torso resembling the same red meat we'd normally take out for dinner.

Feeling the bile rise in my throat from that comparison in my mind mixed with the horrid expression of pained surprise on the corpse's face, I more than gladly shut my eyes and twist around to let Alfie envelope me in his arms.

I shamelessly take shelter away from the sight, the image being so much worse than some fictional scene in a movie.

As my brother carefully pulls me away from the puddle of blood I had fallen in, I hear my mom begin to speak.