broken // branded sequel // heathers au

nine

Elody's POV

I don't understand the relationship of my parents. Why did my mother not know the answer of why Giselle was killed? She's well versed in his whole life story, so how did she not have the last piece of crucial information about her husband?

It didn't make any sort of sense. Then again, nothing about them did.

On my father's good days, he dotes on my mother. She is the sun, and he is a small flower basking in her light.

But on the bad days, she's nothing more than the dirt on his shoe. And those are the days where I see just how sad my mother is. Those days, she is a slave for him. She does whatever she can to make his sour mood sweeten.

Sometimes, it works.

Others, it doesn't.

In just a month of him being home, I've gotten used to the monotonous yelling. I've had to get used to seeing my mother's porcelain skin be taken over by the blue of bruises.

One night, it got particularly bad. Auden rushed into my room, waking me up from the daydream I was having. Only to bring me into a nightmare.

"What's going on?" I mumbled. Auden didn't say anything, she just let the sound of fighting reach its way to my ears before turning to leave the room.

I followed her down the stairs of our house to see the scene in the living room. My mother had her back pressed against a wall, my father in front of her angrily.

"Why were you in my safe?" He asked her. From the tone in his voice, I could tell he had asked many times already. My mother kept her mouth shut. Her eyes seemed unfocused. My gaze fell to my father's hand, where he held a pistol.

It was black, as opposed to the silver revolver he shot Giselle with. It was bulkier and seemed more fitting for him to own. And just like that, I remembered something that my father said about the revolver used to kill Giselle.

Giselle found the revolver two days before she died, unbeknownst to our mother. When she asked our father about it, he said It's solely for protection.

But then, she was told to not touch the box again. Giselle didn't listen, she pulled the box out one more time. The morning of her death. She just wanted to see what the gun looked like. She wanted to see how it felt in her small hands.

My mother called for her and Giselle hastily shoved the box under the bed again. But she didn't put it where it was. That's how my mother found it. The box was sticking out from under the bed.

The gun under the bed? It was for protection.

The gun in the safe? It was for more than that.

"That one isn't for protection." I said to myself.

"What?" My father asked, his voice cracking slightly.

"You shot Giselle with a small gun. A silver revolver." I told him, speaking up. "She found it while snooping. You told her not to touch it again." I added.

My father turned to face me, putting the gun on the mantle. At this moment, Auden went to our mother and comforted her. "I did." He replied. His face was confused.

"She didn't listen." I shared a vital piece of information, one neither of my parents had.

"What?" My father asked.

"The morning of April 10th, 1999, Giselle looked at the gun again." I told him. "She put the box back sloppily."

"And that's how Veronica noticed it." He sighed. "Jesus Christ," He commented, plopping in his chair. "Veronica!" He called for my mother, who had been led into the kitchen.

Auden and my mother appeared at a moment's notice.

"Yes?" My mother asked.

"You weren't snooping the day Giselle died." He told her. She tucked a small strand of hair behind her ear and winced as she grazed her bruised cheekbone.

"I wasn't." My mother admitted.

"The box where I kept a gun for protection, it wasn't put back properly." He said.

"What?" My mother asked. She didn't understand the connection.

"Giselle wanted to look at the gun. She found it a few days before and the day she died, she looked it at before school." I shook my head and continued on. "You called her down, so she wouldn't be late. But she didn't put the box back. She pushed it just under the edge of the bed."

"And that's where I found it." My mother remarked, sitting down on the couch with the weight of this information. Auden stood next to me, holding my arm for support.

"Why did you shoot Giselle?" I asked my father. Finally asking him the thing I needed to for so long.

"Punishment." He muttered, casting his glance away from my mother. "I needed to hurt your mother. I needed to save Giselle from what we were becoming." He continued, interrupted by a sob from my mother.

"And the only way to do that was to kill her?" Auden asked, reminding us she was here again.

"I was aiming at her stomach. I was going to shoot her there. Just so she could get away from us." He commented. "But you wanted me to put the gun down," He told my mother.

"You were scaring her." My mother replied, tears squeezing out of her eyes. "I said your name,"

"I closed my eyes, squeezed my hand and raised my hands up to hold my head. But I pulled the trigger. I shot Giselle in the heart." He explained, breaking down into tears. He had finally admitted what happened. "It was an accident. I didn't mean to kill her." He sobbed.

I didn't say anything. Neither did Auden. We both stood silently as our parents cried. They didn't go to one another, just cried two feet apart as their world was torn apart again.

I broke from Auden's hold and when our parents were both clumsily going to one another to cry more, I reached up into the mantle and grabbed the cold metal.

For a brief moment, I saw Giselle the way I saw her in photographs. But her chest had a hole through it, a small amount of blood gathered there.

I could see her tell me one thing before she vanished.

"Kill him."

Author's Note
June 6th (Yesterday) was my birthday! I'm 19 now.