Lucid

Chapter Sixteen

I'm somewhere between a dream state and being awake, but I'm not actually dreaming. I'm imagining random scenarios in my head and yet I'm still conscious of the fact that I'm awake.
    My foot twitches with an itch but I try to make it stop without having to move and get out of the half-in-half-out world I'm in.
    Something feels off.
    My heart leaps to my throat. There's a high-pitched whistling sound. Who the fuck is making tea at three in the morning? I shoot up in bed and take a deep breath before I stand. I hop out of bed and open my door right as the tea stops.
    I walk down towards the staircase but find the whole downstairs' lights off. No one makes tea in the dark. A chill snakes around my back, slithering up to my neck. I shudder. What the hell was that?
    I hear a loud thud coming from Matt's room. The sound is replaced by the throbbing in my head. I attempt to make my footsteps light as I approach his room.
    "Matt?" I say. "Is everything okay?"
    There's no response.
    For a moment I hear an agonized grunt but it's immediately silenced. What the fuck? I knock on the door loudly.
    "Hello?" I manage to say, sounding louder and more assertive than I thought I would.
    "Get away, I'm not feeling well," Matt growls. His voice is rough and jagged.
    I place my hand on the knob and consider turning it. "Are you feeling like you might... you know... do the thing?"
    He replies, "No, I'm just nauseas. Go away; I want to be alone."
    "I'll go get Mom, she might have some anti-nausea pills you can take."
    "No!" he says, a little too loudly. "Don't bother her. Let her sleep. Please, just go back to bed, it'll pass."
    Something is very wrong. I need to get Mom.
    "Okay, I'll go to sleep. Feel better," I tell him. I slowly creep down the stairs and walk passed the kitchen and living room to the master bedroom.
    I knock on the door, quietly. She's a heavy sleeper, she's not gonna hear that. I decide I can't let Matthew know that I'm getting Mom, so instead of knocking loudly, I turn the knob and enter.
    My stomach drops. Mom's gone. Her bedsheets are ruffled. Where the fuck would she go? I check the bathroom and she's not there either.
    I'm not sure what it is in me that makes me decide to do this, but I go into Mom's closet. I turn the key of the keybox and scan all of the keys and fobs. I find the one I'm looking for and take it off the hook.
      I look around for the safe. I see two. The first one doesn't fit. The second one takes me about five minutes to work. My hands are sweaty and my grip on the brass key is faulty. I take the key back out, take a deep breath, gently slide it back in, and jiggle it slightly. The key turns.
     I open the safe and pull it out.

   "This is how you hold it, Miles. You'll never have to do this, but in case you do, this is how. You check here to see if it's loaded. This is how you close it. This is called the safety. Now, it'll normally be loaded already, it just isn't right now. But it will be. Do you know which part is the hammer? This right here. You cock it back, and then it prepares the trigger."
    The metal is cold in my hands.
   "Don't worry, baby. You'll never need this. Neither will I. We just have it. But now you know how to use it. This is a very dangerous thing. You could kill somebody. If you did, many lives would be torn apart, if not ended. So that is why you will never, ever, be allowed in my closet. Do you understand me?"

     "I understand," I find myself saying now. I can't remember how to check if it's loaded or not. I'll have to trust her word that it is. I creep back up the stairs and towards Matthew's room where I hear another quiet groan.
      With adrenaline pumping through my veins like ice, I knock loudly on the door. I somehow find the audacity to turn the knob. I gently kick the door. It swings open.
      I almost drop the gun. Instead, I grip in tighter. What. The. Fuck.
     There's a woman in his bed, her hair disheveled and matted to the sides of her forehead with sweat. Her eyes are wide and pleading, her mouth gagged. My eyes trail down to the floor where her clothes lie.
    I think I'm gonna be sick.
     I meet her eyes again. It's not until she raises her eyebrows to beg for help that I recognize that it's my mom.
     I look back at her clothes on the floor and see her bracelet lying a few feet from it. Anger boils inside of me.
     I keep the gun pointed at Matt.
     "What the fuck?" Is all I can seem to say.
    "Put the fucking gun down, kid," Matt says. He's standing in his grey briefs, holding a knife. The way he stands is odd. He's hunched over, standing with his feet plants far apart from each other, his knees bent. He looks like a G.I. Joe figurine. His breathing is labored and his nose is wrinkled as he snarls.
      The doctor was right. That's not Matt. God, he was sicker than they realized. They told us Mark wasn't dangerous and that he was safe to go home. How could they have been so wrong?
    "Un-gag my mother, Mark."
    He laughs before spitting on her. I flinch but then clench my jaw to show my anger. I can't look weak.
My hands are shaking as I squeeze the gun harder. I cock the hammer.
    "I'm not kidding, Mark. Fucking untie her or I will shoot you."
    "Pussy. I know you wouldn't. Now put down the gun, leave your mommy and I alone and go back to bed."
You could kill somebody. If you did, many lives would be torn apart.
      Mom's words ring through my ears and I've made my decision. I check that the silencer is off; I need to be heard. I quickly point the gun at his foot and shoot. He yelps out in pain.
      "Little fucker, you shot my leg!" he shouts. "I don't like boys, but I will hurt you for that."
       I shoot again, aiming for his other leg. I shoot his foot. He yells out again. Blood is running down his left leg already, spilling onto the white carpet.
     "Untie her or I will kill you. I may not have the best aim, but there are four bullets left in this gun and I guarantee you one of them will be through your chest.'
     He crouches down to his knees and cries out. "Fuck. Fuck!" He crawls over to the bed and unties the cloth around Mom's head. He also unties her wrists, which I didn't know were tied. She immediately kicks him in the face. He stumbles backwards onto his ass.
Mom leaps off the bed and takes the gun from me.
     "I said to never go in my closet," she tells me sternly. My eyes are wide. I take a step back. "Baby, Miles, go downstairs and call the police. Wait in the safe place for them to arrive, okay?" Her eyes remain on Matthew who angrily curses on the floor.
     "The safe place?" I say.
    "You know," she tells me, and suddenly I do. I had forgotten we had that. I open my mouth to beg to stay with her but she demands I go, and once I do, I'm hit with relief. I fly down the stairs, grabbing the home phone that I can't believe we still have. I punch in the three-digit number and immediately make my way towards the garage.
    "Uh, hi, someone's trying to hurt us," is the first thing that I can seem to say. "This guy we know stayed the night, he was just diagnosed with DID. He's having some sort of episode and," my voice cracks, "he was hurting my mom. My mom has a gun and is watching him to make sure he doesn't leave."
    "We've got someone on their way. Can you get somewhere safe?" the operator asks.
      I nod before realizing that he can't hear me. "Yes, we have a small closed-off room inside our garage."
     "Okay. Is the man armed or just your mom?"
    "I don't know, I think I saw a knife."
   "Were shots fired? We just got a call from a nearby location that two gunshot-like sounds went off about ten minutes ago."
     "Yes. I did that. I shot him twice. In the feet. I don't want to hurt him but he had my mom tied and I..."
     "It's okay. Just stay on the phone with me."
     I hear two more loud gunshots and I shudder. Please, Mom, be okay. Please be okay.
      Time moves painfully slowly but I soon hear the front door open and footsteps race up the stairs. There's silence for a solid ten minutes before an officer comes for me.
     "Hello? Miles? Are you in here?"
     "Yes," I squeak. A strong-featured woman officer with a hard-set jawline waves at me.
     "You okay? Are you injured?"
     I shake my head. She leads me outside where I meet with another officer to tell 'my side of the story', as he'd put it. As if there was any other version of what happened than what I saw.
     The rest of the night is a blur. I sit in the back of an ambulance with a blanket and water, like you see in the movies. I didn't know they actually did that in real life.
     Matthew was earlier brought out on a stretcher, cuffed to it. He'll be in the hospital with Alyssa, now. Close to her, like he'd wanted.