Cabin Fever | ✓

(84) Demons

I posted my Q&A answers on the next update after this one. But it is long because I wanted to answer every single one I got.

I talk about my writing, things I've never said about the series before, personal details and i reveal my name :) it's there if you want to check it out!

***

Marley woke up to an empty bed.

Voices cut off abruptly as she sat up, holding her head from inertia. The small window of Leo and Aiden's bedroom was glowing with afternoon light. When she blinked her surroundings into focus, Bryan and Max turned away from each other to look over her worriedly.

"You okay?" Bryan sat on the end of her bed.

The sleep was good for her. It put everything into perspective. She had the truth - no matter how imperfect she knew it would be. "I think I am." She glanced around the room. "Where's Aiden? How's...how's Jacobi?"

Max crossed his arms and leaned against the wall with pursed lips, while Bryan rested a hand over hers sympathetically. "He's got a lot of demons, Marley. He needs help we can't give him, especially in the form of rehabilitation. I'm having him transported to a psychiatric facility back home."

Marley felt her eyes sting. She was desperate for Aiden to be here, to hold her together. "You know what happened to him."

Bryan inhaled sharply, "He had a note in his backpack explaining everything. I think in case he wasn't able to tell you himself." Bryan shot a glance at Max, who nodded. "Max made me aware of a voicemail. Where Jacobi called him that he was afraid of something coming to get you. Marley, there's something you need to understand."

Bryan leaned closer, his hand squeezing her own gently. "Jacobi has a form of paranoid schizophrenia. Always has. As a kid, he took you to his closet on nights when nothing was out of place, convincing you something was wrong so you simply believed it was your father and his friends when in reality, they were never around as often as you thought in your early childhood. He had hallucinations and fears of things that don't exist. The night of that voicemail and other nights as well, Jacobi would suffer episodes where he would hurt you unintentionally. He pushed you down the stairs and would have hurt you further if your father hadn't intervened. I suspect this has happened on multiple occasions."

"He was dangerous to have in your house, to be around you, and since your parents couldn't afford proper treatment and your mother wanted a fresh start, she found a facility in Mexico that looked promising, and that was free of charge. Jacobi agreed to go because he didn't want to hurt you anymore. He was afraid of himself. Your mother saw this as a way to escape your father and help her son. She could barely afford the two flights that she booked, which meant taking you with her was not an option. She made what she thought was the best choice given the circumstances. She hoped that your father would love you in ways he never loved her."

"The facility, from what Jacobi informed us was a comfortable place to live. But that was because it was being sponsored by major pharmaceutical companies, who wanted clinical trial information on all kinds of experimental drugs not yet approved by the FDA. He and your mother were made to believe that once they found a proper fit of medication they would provide it for an affordable price. Your mother was fed lies and empty reasons why it was free, to sign off her parental rights and prove him unfit to make his own medical decisions. It was in the facilities' best interest to keep him for long-term effects purposes, and they had every legal right to do so."

"When your mother found out that she locked him in a glorified prison for the rest of his life, she... she took her own life and left him a letter. She couldn't live with the fact that he was constantly suffering from psychiatric medications given to him that - oftentimes - weren't healthy physically or mentally. His hallucinations got worse at times. He was subject to testing and scenarios. The past seven years have been very trying for him."