Death In The Family

Chapter 8

Simone shot out and jerked the receiver of the phone in the middle of the first ring, the reflex waking her more than the noise. Her hand gripped it limply, her body halfway twisted out of the blankets and only halfway out of sleep as she blinked blearily at the phone. Her mind ascended to consciousness with the slowness of a diver avoiding the bends, making her squint at the strange device as she struggled to remember what she was supposed to do with it.

"... Hello?... Miss Valstad?" a voice came through the small speaker, reminding her how to hold it to her ear.

She hesitantly brought it to the side of her head, her voice cracking past her sore throat as she rasped, "Yes?"

A warm body turned toward her, the softness of skin sliding against her bare side as a white man's arm snaked around her middle. She glanced over at the man, seeing only his blond head of hair and a well-muscled shoulder, then looked around the unfamiliar room nervously. She was in a hotel, a nice one this time. She never stayed the night with these men. Her brow furrowed in confusion, trying to recall how this happened, but memories smeared together with nightmares in a blurred frenzy of fear and pain and ecstasy.

"... Are you still there?" the man's voice came through flat in the limited range of the speaker.

"Yeah... I, uh... Who is this?" she mumbled. The man pressed slow and sleepy kisses to her lower back, his hand languidly stroking her belly with a tenderness she was unaccustomed to in these scenarios. She usually avoided the lovey-dovey types. Too messy, too awkward.

"Special Agent Maier," the voice answered. "I'm sorry to wake you, but I have your mother on the other line. Would you like me to patch her through?"

She looked at the clock and winced. 7:48. Her parents must have freaked out and called every police station in the boroughs. "Yes, please, go ahead."

She rubbed her tender throat, resisting the urge to sigh in anticipation of her mother's wrath as the line clicked into a brief silence before the low static of air came back through the line. Her sluggish mind ached to recall anything at all, but the many aches in her body gave her enough hints. Whatever this guy did to her last night, he did it rough and in places she typically didn't let men go. She had either been very drunk or in the midst of another breakdown for any of this to make sense. A slinking strangeness crawled around in her mind, interrupted by the sound of Lisa's voice cracked and strained with tears.

"Simmy? Simmy-baby, please... I... oh..."

Her mother never cried. Simone sat up, alarm bestowing a renewed energy to her. "I'm so sorry, Mom! I know I messed up, I should have called, but I-I don't know what happened. Don't cry, Mama, please."

The mattress dipped behind her with the man's shifting, his hands now rubbing her shoulders in a touch that was meant to impart comfort, but she could barely pay any mind to him now. Her mother was going to kill her.

"Ohh, my baby, my babyyy..." Lisa's tearful groan pulled painfully at her heart. She could feel tears stinging her own eyes in the deep agony of her mother's grief. "It's not your fault, none of it's your fault, Simmy, don't you ever, ever believe that! That- that monster, he hurt you, didn't he? They won't tell me anything, they won't tell me where you are, but I know, I know he hurt my baby, didn't he? That fucking white haole son of a bitch!"

"No, Mom, I'm fine! I promise, I'm okay!"

"I-I don't know why I didn't see it, I just... I wanted to leave him years ago and take you to Puna's, none of this woulda happened, but I listened to him like a damn fool and I believed him!" Lisa's ragged voice was interrupted by her wet sniffing. Simone clutched the phone tight in her fist, her sore throat thick with the want to cry too. There was something deeply disturbing blooming in her mind, those long nightmares coalescing into something vivid and overwhelming. "I believed him for so long. I failed you, my only baby child. I'm never gonna forgive myself. Oh, sweet Jesus, the things they're telling me he did... You gotta stay with them, Simmy, they tell me... you can't come home. They won't let me see you, won't let me see my own child and maybe I... Maybe I don't deserve to, but I love you, Simmy-baby. I'm just... sorry."