Perfection (Red Wrists 1 REWRITTEN EDITION)

Part Eighteen

(Emma)
The dining room had all but cleared out, save for a few smaller children I hadn't noticed before. They waved to me as I trailed behind Pax and Harper, and I waved back with a smile. To avoid getting lost, I kept close to the two boys as they made their way towards the front door. They grabbed some backpacks on the floor near the door, pulling it open as they smiled and laughed with each other. I stopped. "Shoot," I growled, "I forgot my backpack."

As if on queue, Tim came up behind me with a backpack on his back and another in his hand. "You forgot your backpack," he mumbled, sitting it on the ground next to me and shoving himself out the door. 

I grimaced in his direction, glaring at his back as he left. Harper shrugged as Tim passes, wrapping an arm over Pax's shoulders. "Don't mind him, Miss Emma," Harper said, his voice almost a purr as he spoke. "Tim's been an asshole for years. It's got nothing to do with you." I shot him a thankful smile, picking up my backpack off the ground.

"Hey," I mumbled, "Can I walk to school with you two? I don't know where I am."

Pax and Harper both laughed as Pax explained, "Oh, Harper and I don't walk. We take the golf cart." I blinked at him in confusion, following the still-laughing pair out of the house and to the left, where the garage was a whole damn building in and of itself. It was still dark outside, but I could tell this garage was as well-kept as the living building itself. I took a look around the yard, seeing the grass neatly cut and the other plant life in their own designated enclosures with mulch and brick borders.

My god, I thought, What kind of halfway house is this? They opened the door on the side of the building. The inside was dark, the morning sun doing little to light the inside. Harper reached a hand in around the doorframe, flipping what sounded like a light switch. It took a few seconds for the lights to react, lighting up a good few vehicles inside. There was a whole discombobulated pile of bicycles off in one of the corners, next to trikes, electric vehicles, and a couple golf carts. The rest of the building was nicely filled with vehicles of all shapes and sizes. Not stuffed, but neatly filled.

Next to the light switch was a board filled with hooks, each hook holding its own keyring of keys and keychains. Harper picked up a key with some silly puffy keychains. One royal blue, the other a bright yellow. As if a professional at knowing which golf cart was which, he sat in one of them and started it up with ease. Pax hopped into the passenger seat, leaning over the backrest and patting at the back seat. "Let's go, slowpoke!" he joked, grinning at me. I nodded, rushing over and hopping into the back seat. 

Harper smiled at me in the rear-view mirror, starting some loud cheesy flight attendant speech as he clicked the garage door opened, slowly pulling the go cart out of the garage.

The yard, as I saw, was giant. As was the house. "We're not anywhere near where I used to live," I laughed, ignoring the pang I felt over the memory of last night. The thought of my foster parents abandoning me like that was almost too much to bear. They were paid to watch after me, and even that wasn't enough for them. I shook my hear clear of the thought, instead watching the road beneath the cart roll past as we drove.

After about ten minutes, Harper pulled the cart over on the side of the road. We were in a forested area, similar to the one I lived near at my old house. They got out, pulling back some folliage to reveal a hidden path in the trees. Pax entered, and Harper waved for me to follow him. I did, looking around at the trees. "Um, horror movie much?" I laughed. Harper looked back at me, a sad smile crossing his face.

"Emma," he sighed, his eyes shiny and wet. "Do you remember your parents at all?"

I flinched, my mind immediately remembering the horrible gored image of their dead bodies from last night's dream. "No," I lied.

Harper shrugged, continuing on his path. Pax was silent, focusing on his feet. "Well," Harper grumbled, taking a deep uncomfortable breath, "we do, Em." I looked past him, seeing multiple short well-polished stones lined up through the trees.

Pax spoke up, "We remember the cops, the blood, the trials-" He stopped, his voice breaking too much to continue speaking. One of his hands reached up to his face, his back still turned to me.

"We're more surprised that you don't remember," Harper commented, slowing his pace as we began walking through row after row of gravestones. "Though I do understand," he continued. "It was a lot to take in." Pax stopped, his shoulders shaking and heaving with each breath. 

I looked around where we were headed. We were at the edge of a row of shining polished stones. And past that, more and more rows of shining polished stones. "Pax, Harper," I whispered, edging myself away from the rows of headstones. "Where are we?"

Harper shifted around uncomfortably, avoiding my gaze as he desperately looked at Pax for help. With a deep breath, Pax said, "Your parents, Emma. We-....." He shook his head, beginning again. "Emma, I need you to understand that there's gonna be a lot of bullshit going on within these next few weeks."

When I gave him a concerned look, he continued, "I-.... no, we just want to make sure you understand that nobody's upset with you. Tim isn't upset with you."

"What do you mean?" I ask, feeling a chill run down my spine as the realization of being in a graveyard hit me like a brick. Being surrounded by the buried bodies of the dead filled me with a horrid dread I didn't ever want to experience again.

 Pax looked at Harper this time, who had stopped a few paces ahead of Pax and I. He was staring ahead a good few yards. Following his gaze, I saw a man sitting on the ground about ten rows ahead of us. His back was turned to us, clad in a dark black hoodie, and we could clearly read the gravestones he was sitting in front of.

The gravestones read four words that drove daggers into my heart and chilled the blood in my veins.

Liam Linn and Ava Linn.

"Who the fuck is sitting in front of their graves," I growled, my hands balling into fists.

Pax rested a hand on my shoulder, softly whispering in my ear, "We needed to show you this, Emma. That's Tim."

I blinked, feeling myself relax. "What?"

"Tim comes here every day," Harper explained. "Pax and I figured this out a couple months ago, we followed him on his daily routine. He just walked his happy depresso self here and just... sits here for a solid hour."

Pax nodded in agreement. "Every morning," he confirmed.

I took a deep breath, watching on as Tim sat there in front of my parent's graves. The bittersweet feeling it gave me would never be matched. "So," I asked, "Why does his backpack look fuller than it normally does when he gets to school?" And honest to god, it did. The size of his drawstring bag was almost doubled from it's usual size when he shows up to school.

Harper and Pax shrugged, turning back towards the golf cart we came from. I stood and watched him, watched with unbreakable intent as he opened his backpack and pulled out a small bouquet of fresh flowers. He laid them on the graves before standing up, tossing the drawstring bag over his shoulder as he walked towards what I assumed to be the graveyard's entrance.

Oh, Tim, I thought, covering my mouth as my damaged mind tried piecing together the information it was gathering.