The Younger Escapees

Chapter 22: Anger Games

Please excuse the longer time period than usual between chapters. I'm blaming writer's block.

            Why? Why was I hated? How could he continue to hate a race his own daughter was a part of? Where did all this hate come from? The questions swam to the surface of my mind and retreated leaving a sort of stinging mental wound.

            A child wants their parents’ approval. They breathe it like air. A child takes rejection much more seriously. I was still a child; I’d simply been forced to act like an adult.

            Why couldn’t he see that? He’d have to be blind not to notice how hurt that five year old was when you slapped her for making one of her dolls fly across the room. Or did he not care?

            Was I going crazy like he was? He suffered from Bipolar disorder.  I could have got it.

            I shook my head as if to clear my mind. One life crisis at a time Rae, you can deal with those issues as soon as you get out of here, I promise.

            Okay now, open your eyes. It’s another day, and another chance for you to grow up and be brave enough to save yourself. Good luck.

            My eyes fluttered open. For the last few days that’s where my dreams had been, somewhere between nightmares and psychosis.

            “Ready for your medicine dear?” my father asked as he opened the door to my room. I stayed silent as he inserted a orange liquid into my I.V. It was used to suppress my telekinesis but it could suppress any ability (or ‘disease’ as Flint called them). It had horrible side effects: vomiting, hallucinations, dizziness and night terrors. Sounds familiar, right? The vomiting was so bad that it had gotten to the point where I couldn’t eat anything. I was solely dependent on my I.V. and I’d already lost what weight I had gained back while free.

            Ah, freedom. I’d barley tasted it but I longed for it more than anything.

            I hated being chained up. I needed to get out. I just needed a plan. So all I could do was wait until some random stroke of brilliance passed over me. The chances of that weren’t all that great.

            Flint pulled the chair from my desk and sat beside my bed casually, as if we had those cliché (yet desired) ‘father daughter’ conversations all the time.

            “Sarah,” he started. I interrupted him; this wasn’t going to be easy.

            “My name is Rae,” I interjected boldly. That was when I got an idea, and I had to suppress a smile. My plan would rely on my father’s temperament issues.

            “Your mother named you Sarah. That is your name,” he replied through clenched teeth. He was already pretty mad. Things were going as randomly planned.

            “Not anymore.”

            “Anyways,” he paused to regain his composure, “I’m confused… Rae,” he choked out my name. He wanted me to cooperate; too bad that I felt like being difficult.

            “Why?” I kept my voice cool and measured, allowing no interest or emotion to creep in.

            “It seems that you remember, and yet you continue to rebel. Dear, don’t you remember our agreement? After all of this was over you’d come home and everything would go back to normal. You promised. Don’t you think fair is fair?” he said all of this like he believed it. That made me want to hit him.

             My lip kept twitching. It was the only indicator to the anger boiling under the surface threatening to explode. I got that from my father. The difference was that I was better at controlling my anger. I wasn’t exactly good at it, but I was better than he was.

            “You didn’t keep up your end of the ‘agreement’ why should I keep up mine?” I kept using that cold emotionless voice that was so unfamiliar to me that it almost scared me.

            “Oh, that boy. What does he matter?” I swear I would have hit him if I hadn’t been restrained.

            I was almost shaking with frustration. I’m not a good actress so the rage found its way back into my voice. “That ‘boy’ did a lot better job of protecting me then you ever did!” I screamed as my mind flashed back to those few seconds. His hand at my shoulder pushing me to safety, the sound of gunfire and the barrage of red that still comes up in some of my worst nightmares. I forced myself not to cry. I couldn’t let him see that.

            “You ungrateful little… ugh!” he screamed in effort to hold to his household no cursing ban. “What did I do wrong?” he asked.

            I leaned as close to him as I possibly could, with my face inches from his, “everything,” I spat.

            Then he hit me and my world exploded into fireworks followed by darkness. All I could do was hope he gave me the punishment that I wanted.