Warning: there is blood and some graphic scenes of stabbing in this chapter
Lotus Blood - Age 11
"Tag!" Emily - I believe her name was - yelled into my ear and shoved my shoulder. I wasn't even playing with the other kids, I was sitting behind one of the larger trees in the backyard minding my own business and scratching letters into the rough bark.
Emily ran away and Katherine moaned about me being boring and stupid for not playing tag with them. I only rolled my eyes and snapped the twig I was holding to further scrape away the outer layers of the tree.
"C'mon Lotus - just play with us!" Brandon was just as annoying as the rest of them, the other four kids joined in and I continued to ignore them until I heard Brandom mumble; "She's probably still upset about her dead dad."
He didn't just say that.
Somberly, I rose to my feet and brushed off my skirt as I stared the other kids down with the most terrifying look I could muster up. Then, without warning, I sprinted towards Brandon and a small squeak came out of him as he raced to get away from me.
But I was quicker.
Much quicker.
I caught up to Brandon and shoved him harshly to the ground - I slammed my fist into his nose and blood immediately began pouring out of it as I continued to beat him up. Katherine and Emily acted fast and hooked their arms under my armpits, effectively dragging me away from a battered Brandon while Noah ran to get one of our moms.
"Stupid depressed girl," Brandon mumbled under his breath - dabbing his bleeding nose with his sleeve as he groaned, trying to sit up in the coarse grass.
"Say it to my face, fucker!"
Fucker was a word I had learned from my brother. I had picked it up pretty quickly because when his friends came over they used it and so did my mother. It wasn't uncommon to me. But to a bunch of eleven-year-olds who had a regular family, it was a "no-no" word.
"Lotus!" The familiar scolding tone of my mother caused me to recoil.
Oh, now you want to parent me? I see how it is.
Her hand curled around my forearm and she dragged me inside Brandon's house. It was his birthday - hence the party. He was the last of my group of "friends" to turn eleven, well, these kids were just the children of my mom's friends. They hated me almost as much as I hated them.
Now, sitting me down in a chair harshly, my mother made a show of telling me off.
"You cannot say those types of words and just punch kids!" She chided, waving her pointer side by side in front of me. And despite the long list of things I wanted to say to my mother, I remained silent. Her sentences blurred together and I found myself nodding away mindlessly as she explained that my punishment was to stay in the house alone.
No problem.
I got up from the chair and wandered around the old-style dining room. It was a generic room with a long wooden table in the middle of it covered in fake bowls of fruit and candles - it almost looked medieval. Tracing the wood grain to the other end of the eight-seater dining table, I made my way into the kitchen.
I noticed the glasses in the sink first. I made a mental note to remember that Brandon's parents wouldn't notice if one or more of them went missing...
Or shattered.
There were a lot of them but I forced myself away from the nineteen-fifties looking kitchen and walked up the stairs - actively scanning for Brandon's room. A large yellow and black sign hanging on one of the doors with a radioactive symbol printed across it caught my eye, this was definitely his room.
Cracking the door open, I waltzed inside and almost immediately my eyes were drawn to a medium-sized cage atop his white wooden dresser. The thing inside squeaked and ran to hide in its bedding as I moved closer to it.
A guinea pig.
I grinned, unlocking the cage and clutching the small furry creature in my right hand as I closed the cage door and locked it again. Closing Brandon's bedroom door, I snuck into the guest bathroom down the hall and smashed the glass holding the toothbrushes against the countertop. Shards of glass littered the counter and I grabbed the largest fragment and placed it aside - sweeping all the smaller pieces of glass into the garbage can.
At that point, Brandon's guinea pig was getting pretty restless, so I made quick work of it and stabbed it in the chest with the large glass shard I had left on the counter.
It writhed on the blade for a moment before dying and I used the blood on my fingers and the blood of the guinea pig to paint large letters on the mirror.
Hate.
When I was done I knew that I couldn't leave such a masterpiece on the mirror. I would get caught.
I'll clean it before I leave.
Shrugging, I dripped blood onto the carpet, wedging the dead guinea pig in the very back of the cabinets under the sink. I knew it would eventually start to rot and Brandon would be smelling the corpse of his poor guinea pig every time he came to use the bathroom.
When I rose to my feet and looked back into the mirror I recognized the calm hatred in my eyes. Familiarity rode inside. The other kids thought I was docile, quiet, shy... I was. For now.
Right now I was waiting for my time - the time when my anger and hatred would build so high that I would snap.
Then they'd be scared.
Then they'd run.
Nobody expects an angel to set the world on fire.
And unluckily for them, I happened to be one.
"Lotus? We're going home!"
"Coming, mother!"
If you haven't caught on how gory this book is going to be...
YOU ARE READING
Finger Painting
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