The Skeletøn Bøy

TEN

"I think the healthy way to live is to make friends with the beast inside oneself, and that means not the beast but the shadow. The dark side of one's nature. Have fun with it and you know, is to accept everything about ourselves." -- Anthony Hopkins

++ C H A P T E R | T E N ++

Adrian was worried sick. He had no idea where Elliott had run off to, and he feared that this time he wasn't coming back. He hadn't been at work, and he had never returned home. Anna was downstairs, crying into her mug of tea, trying to come up with reasons to why he would leave. He felt horrible for his new mother - she blamed this all on herself, but Adrian knew better. This wasn't his fault, nor was it Anna's. It was mother's and Elliott's alone.

Like Elliott, Adrian had always wanted mother to praise him. He only wanted love from the woman, but she often gave him nothing. If anything, he hated the fact that Elliott got all of the attention. While it was never good attention, at least mother payed him attention. She loved Elliott, that was obvious. She loved him more than Adrian and Mat, but Adrian also realized that with love came hatred and pain. The way mother loved was through harm.

Still. Adrian was jealous.

When they had finally escaped, Adrian mentioned telling the police about mother, but Elliott had been so against the idea that he'd almost hurt Adrian. He had grabbed hold of Adrian's arm and bent it so far it almost cracked.

Elliott was a ticking time bomb. He didn't have control of his emotions and he often suffered from the intense anger that took over him completely.

Adrian and Mat had suffered much less, and so they had a hard time understanding Elliott. Mat especially - he'd never been physically hurt by mother, but he understood the fear that came with her. He was just as afraid, and just as in love with mother as all of them were. It was a messed up circle of love, but all of them were trapped in mother's web.

Adrian sat at the window in his bedroom, hoping Elliott would appear. He was beginning to fear the worst - maybe mother found him. That thought alone made his stomach curl in pain. Elliott had always been his hero, and the thought of losing him was too much for Adrian.

A knock at the door made Adrian's heart rate spike. "Elliott?"

The door opened and Mat poked his head in. "No, it's me."

Adrian motioned for Mat to enter, and the youngest brother scurried in. He was just as worried for Elliott, but he understood less of what was going on. He was only twelve, meaning he hadn't been alive for most of the abuse Elliott suffered. Elliott had already been long messed up the time Mat was old enough to talk and interact with his brothers. Adrian had brief memories of a young Elliott who smiled, but that Elliott was killed.

"Elliott will come home, right?" Mat was twelve, but he still acted very young. He never had the chance to mature, not really. Not the way mother had treated him. Mat had always been the baby, and was treated as such for years. Mat wasn't allowed to do anything for himself, and Adrian had realized this was to make Mat the perfect child like mother often whined about wanting. She never wanted Mat to break her rules or stand against her, so her solution was to baby him for years.

This had messed him up, but Mat didn't realize this. He saw himself as more childish than the others, but that was it. He never questioned why he still sucked his thumb or why he still carried around his favorite stuffed bear. On more than one occasion, Elliott and Adrian had to rip it out of his arms before he entered the school with the favorite toy.

All three boys were messed up, but Elliott was the worst.

"I hope so." Adrian didn't sugarcoat anything for his brother. He hated that Mat was such a baby, but it wasn't his fault. Just like it wasn't Elliott's fault that he was so mentally messed up. He was bordering insanity.

"Elliott wouldn't leave us. He promised." Mat snugged up close to his brother and popped his thumb in his mouth. "He isn't like mother. He won't leave us."

Adrian thought that Mat was wrong. Elliott was so much like mother that it frightened Adrian. When he looked into Elliott's eyes, the saw the same dead eyes as mother. When Elliott looked at them, Adrian saw the same cold glare from mother. When Elliott spoke to them, Adrian could practically hear mother's voice saying the same words.

Mat was wrong. Elliott was just like mother in every aspect. The only difference was that Elliott hadn't hurt anyone. Yet.

It had come as such a surprise to Adrian when he found out Elliott's secret. It was bound to happen, and Adrian didn't understand what he was seeing. Why mother had hid this from him. But, Elliott begged Adrian to keep quiet.

Mother immediately knew he knew. She grabbed him by the ear and dragged him downstairs to the punishment chair. When they passed Elliott in the kitchen, he knew exactly what was happening and tried to take away Adrian's punishment, but even Adrian knew there was no saving him. Mother slammed the door in Elliott's face and locked the door, proceeding to the basement.

"I know you know. If you tell a single soul, you'll wish you were dead, understand?" She told her second son as she tied him up. She moved towards her closet of toys, trying to think of how she was going to punish him. Elliott was banging on the door upstairs, begging mother to leave Adrian alone, but Adrian didn't dare hope.

He was only four, but he'd tasted mother's pain before. And he knew Elliott couldn't save him all of the time.

"Mother, why did you do it? Does daddy know?" Adrian struggled against his restraints. If father knew, he would certainly put a stop to this. Then again, maybe he wouldn't - he'd never done much to save Adrian and Elliott in the past.

"Your father is on a business trip. And he does know, and there is nothing you or he can do to stop this. Let it happen - he didn't stop it happening from you and Elliott. There is no reason to stop it from happening to Elliott. I want the perfect son, and Elliott can be that except -" She stopped herself from saying exactly what she was trying to hide.

She then forced spoonful after spoonful of peanut butter down his throat, ignoring his cries for her to stop. Once Adrian had swallowed a good half of the jar, Mother sat back satisfied and watched as Adrian began to have an allergic reaction. His tongue would swell so much he wouldn't be able to talk. He wouldn't be able to tell anyone with that big mouth of his about his older brother.

After watching him for a few moments, she finally reached for the phone and called an ambulance, telling them about a tragic accident where her four year old son got into a jar of peanut butter and ate half of it before she could stop him...

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