Never in a million years would I have ever suspected my sweet aunt Lynn.
Poor Pop, this must be killing him to know that his only surviving sister is an evil, coldblooded killer.
“You okay to do what needs to be done if it comes to it?” Roman asks when we settle into our seats and prepare for takeoff.
I know what he’s asking and I can’t blame the man. I’d hesitated to kill family before because I’d been too weak to do something I know I’d never forgive myself for. All bets are off now, because not only did the woman shoot her own husband and prove that she’s capable of killing, but she’s responsible for Pop’s heart attack.
“I’m ready. Just get us there as soon as possible, man.”
***
Ellie
I wake to a nightmare and feel my blood chill when the familiar smell of dirt and grease hit my nose. I know this stench like I know my own mind, and I’d lay odds on the fact that we’re back in the little shack out in the middle of nowhere.
My first instinct is to panic and try to escape, because just being here is frightening enough to cripple me with fear. I swore a long time ago that I would never return to this hovel, or experience the same bone-chilling fear I’d felt at the hands of that madman.
And yet here I am, in the same situation, only this time the monster is bigger and meaner and—
“Wake up, bitch.”
Lynn?
I crack my lids and feel my heart sink when I’m proved right. There’s the iron tub still sitting off to the right. The cot beneath me is still as filthy and smells worse than I remember it smelling. And yes, I’m wearing the same shackles that once rubbed the skin clear of my wrists so long ago.
The only difference this time is that I’m not staring at a man who’s crazy and intent on hurting me. I’m staring into the manic eyes of a mother who hates me enough to kill me rather than listen to a word of reasoning.
“Why are you doing this?”
That’s it, Ellie, stay calm and don’t show your fear.
“Why? Why! Because you killed my baby, that’s why, you stupid whore!” she yells, shooting spittle over my right cheek as she hisses the words at me, and slapping me so hard that my head starts ringing.
“I didn’t. He hurt me!”
“So what? You were nothing, just a stupid little girl who rejected him and then looked at that worthless cousin of his. He deserved better than to be second best all the time.”
“Listen, I never even met Wyatt before you started all this, Lynn. I have never seen the man before he took me.”
“Liar! My Bolton told me everything. He asked you out and you rebuffed him, and then he saw you staring at Wyatt that day….and it hurt my poor baby so bad…he had to punish you for that. He had to show Wyatt that he was better, that he finally won.”
And to think, I was blaming poor Jerry for this when obviously it’s been this infected pustule who turned Bolton into a raving lunatic. Oh how we deceive ourselves.
“He died coming back here to you, you bitch, and now I’ll kill you to repay the blood debt.”
Her voice has changed I notice, from that harsh grate to an almost singsong quality that gives me the creeps because I’ve heard it before and nothing good ever came from it.
Think, Ellie. Find a way to stop this.
“What if I told you that Bolton isn’t dead?”
Wyatt isn’t gonna like me spilling that can of beans all over the table, but he’ll have to deal and accept it, because right now I’m about a second away from her shooting me in the face with that gun she took off Jerry.
“Liar. He died. My poor baby died all alone and I couldn’t even go to his funeral. That weakling Jerry drugged me and kept me locked up for days because I wanted to kill them all for this. What, you think I don’t know that your precious Wyatt had something to do with my boy’s death? I know. I know that they always hated him and—”
“Oh for God’s sake! Melodramatic much! I just told you that Bolton isn’t dead. Wyatt could never kill his own blood and you know it, so he locked him up where he can’t hurt anyone else.”
That little outburst earns me a gun to the temple and I quake, swallowing reflexively against the need to puke all over her and myself.
I have no doubt that if I push her a little further right now, she’d empty that gun into my head and laugh her ass off all the way. But I have no intention of dying and leaving Wyatt to suffer the guilt of my death.
Plus, I really want those babies I’ve been thinking about all week.
“You’re lying. Jerry told me he saw the body.”
“Oh please, far as I know, that corpse was too deep fried to tell any stories. Jerry told you what he wanted to believe, poor guy. It must have killed him to realize his kid was such a maniac. And speaking of poor Jer, where is he?”