~~
«Antidote?»
Mother's voice rips through the tension in the room. My body is unsettled, a result of witnessing the death in front of me. I stare at the last few swirling, green drops of liquid trickling off the shards of glass and onto the concrete floor. From the corner of my eye, I see Nikolas shake his head.
He swallows. «The man said that once the liquid enters your body, nothing can save your heart rate from increasing to a deadly pace. The drug reacts with the blood pumping from the erratic heart and will eventually cause the black markings you saw on...» Nikolas carefully nods to the box, now containing my deceased brother.
Mother nods and turns, her eyes feasting on the five other vials of liquid on the table. «Good.»
She brings another vial up to her own face and studies the content.
«For now, this will suffice.»
I don't hear what Nikolas responds. Nor do I register that he eventually leaves.
«This will suffice,» she quietly repeats to herself.
She carefully places the vial down on the table, next to the other doses. She opens what looks like a small fridge beneath her desk and put the green liquid inside. She punches a combination onto the code box on the fridge and successfully locks the vials in.
I wait a full minute after Mother has closed the door before letting out an audibly shaken breath. I crawl out from behind the rugs and push myself up on unsteady legs.
My eyes do not leave the door as my legs bring me closer to the fridge where the vials rest in.
My emotions are fumbling, for I do not know how to feel. I am bitter that one of my siblings was killed, murdered in the basement of my house. However, the sorrow doesn't quite reach my heart. I didn't know the boy, at all. I had no emotional connection to him. There have been deaths over my ten years under Mother's roof that have hurt me more deeply than this one. One being Sofia, thrown out of the van by Nikolas on our way to the City.
Mother would not kill one of her children without a reason. He must have done something so remarkably terrible that made Mother think could also have threatened us in the long run. Maybe he had turned on her.
I nod to myself as I continue eyeing the door.
Mother is the reason for my survival. She gives me work and I see it through. Not once have I gotten punished for doing my job properly. I will just have to continue my good work.
Don't mess up. I can't mess up.
I wonder what the other children will say tomorrow when they see a sibling missing.
I convince myself that Mother will not return and I turn to face the code box. Hesitantly, I recall the code Mother punched in. The box beeps once and unlocks.
I can't resist taking one of the vials out from the cold safe. The liquid swirled in the vial as I carefully moved it up to the dim lightbulb hanging from the roof.
Poison.
It boggles me that such a small dose can bring down a person within a couple of minutes.
It makes more sense that a sharp object or a weapon can stop a heart from beating. But a drink? This is new to me. How can someone come up with such an idea? And why would Mother want to use this instead of her usual killing methods?
A thud sounds from upstairs, almost directly above me, causing me to spill some of the liquid over the desk.
I curse and hurriedly put the vial back into the safe. The safe locks.
Quick footsteps can be heard coming down the stairs, heading for the door behind me. I panic and head for the pile of carpets. I halt and look back at the spill I had made on the desk and I almost trip over my own feet as I rush to scoop the small pool into my hands.
My former hiding place is too far away. I don't think before sprinting to the opposite wall, where the door will open. If I am lucky, the door will open wide enough to cover me against the wall and hide me from view.
My heart is racing. My hands are shaking. Will I get the markings from touching the liquid as well?
The door opens.
If Mother sees me here, if she catches me...
I try my hardest to repress the mental picture of my body thrown lifeless into one of those cardboard boxes, like Howard's.
The door swings open next to me, but not wide enough to completely cover me behind it.
I'm suddenly convinced that Mother will not hesitate to use the poison on me if she sees it necessary. My trust in Adara diminishes as she strides back into the room, her back to me as she heads for the desk with the vials.
I'm scared of her again, of what she can do to me. Now, or in the future when she sees me unfit to carry out her missions properly.
I don't dare breathe as I stand flat against the wall.
If she turns now, I am in deep shit.
No, I tell myself. As long as she doesn't have a reason to get rid of me, she won't. I chant this thought in my head repeatedly as my body angles around the door, my eyes plastered on the back of Mother's head looking for any indication of suspicion in her body language.
I thank the lords that the floor is concrete and doesn't creak as I back out of the room.
Earlier, I hadn't heard a second pair of footsteps come down the stairs, meaning the chances of Nikolas still being nearby is highly unlikely. Gambling on these chances, I take my shot and scurry up the stairs, concentrating hard so not to stumble over the steep steps on my wobbly legs.
The door at the top of the stairs is open, and I carefully wiggle through the small opening. The living room is dark. Nikolas is nowhere to be seen.
I glance down at my hands, still embracing the small pool of poison. Luckily, my palms are not feeling anything other than clammy from tension and stress. Careful not to step on any of the creaking floorboards, I make my way to the kitchen. I reach the doorway and my heart catches in my throat.
Nikolas is standing by the counter, leaning against the sink as he watches something on his cellphone. His head snaps up when he hears my footsteps halt in the door opening.
Behind me, the door to the basement creaks open.
I have never quite understood the phrase 'like a deer caught in the headlights', until now. My body is frozen, like a statue, as my palms start to tremble, threatening to spill the green liquid on the floor under me.
I turn around, slowly and face Mother. She observes my cupped hands, before fixing her stare at my face. I'm being watched by a couple of hawks.
«What is that?» Mother nods to my hands. I want to glance back at where Nikolas is standing, perhaps just to plead him with my eyes to help me. But I don't dare break eye contact with her. Breaking eye contact will be the first and only response she will need to know I'm lying. That much, I have learned.
I don't let myself think for too long, she will know that I'm weighing my chances if I do.
«Water.»
She doesn't blink. I have seen this stare down of hers before. It is the expression she uses on her clients when they give her pathetic excuses for not having paid back they downpayment. She waits, then she attacks.
I do not doubt for one second that she will pounce at any moment. Grab my hands and open them to see what I'm holding. And she will see poison leak to the floor in front of her, painting the brown floorboards with green splatters.
Then, she will order Nikolas to hit me. And she will spit on me, and maybe quite possibly drag me down to the basement to throw the rest of the poison down my throat and get rid of me right away.
But she wouldn't do that...
I find myself being doubtful of my own thoughts. The truth is, I don't know what Mother is capable of doing. Still, I do not trust that my ten years of working with her has given me a free pass on this one.
My eyes catch the slightest movement in her legs, and immediately my hands react. Without having thought it through, and in wild panic of Mother implementing my earlier predictions, I bring my hands up to my face and drink.
I close my eyes as the action reaches my logic, and try to play the action off midway through as I frantically try to smear it over my lips instead of it going into my mouth. But by that time, some of the liquid had already spilled down my throat. It takes everything in me not to turn around and stick two fingers down my throat in an attempt to throw it up.
Oh, God.
Why did I do that?
I'm going to die.
I'm going to die right here, in front of Mother and Nikolas. For something so incredibly stupid.
Mother sighs, a bit more disinterested now that I supposedly got caught holding only water in my hands.
«Do I need to know why you're walking around with water in your hands?»
I do not know how to answer the question. What was the right answer?
I hesitantly shake my head, making as little movement as possible in case that answer is wrong.
Mother closes the distance between us. Her hand goes up and lands on the back of my head. She strokes my short hair. Her other hand holds my chin up. With her thumb, she wipes my wet lips.
«Then don't do it again.»
My eyes are distant as I look at her. She doesn't know I'm dying.
I almost forget to nod in agreement to her answer.
She lets me go, and I take my cue. I don't waste another second before hurriedly returning to my bedroom.
I can't throw up in here, I need a toilet to flush it down in.
I feel a strange nausea starting to build in the pit of my stomach. Thinking back to the way Howard reacted to the drug, I panic.
This is where I die. In the silence of the night, accompanied only by my sleeping sister. All this because I was curious, and too much of a coward to tell Mother.
I open the door slightly, my ears straining to hear if Mother is still in the kitchen, blocking my way to the bathroom. Their calm and low voices tell me they haven't left. Afraid that I will break down in front of them on my way to the bathroom, I quickly crunch down in the far corner of the room and hunch over my knees.
With two fingers, I press down in the back of my throat until I trigger the gag reflex.
My shoulders and knees start to tremble as I throw up.
My body is getting alarmingly cold, so cold that I start to wonder if the window is open.
But that can't be the case. We don't have a window in here.
My breathing is harsh as I continue to force myself to empty every ounce of content from my body. I cannot hold back the occasional gagging noises escaping my open mouth, and at this point, I stop caring. Let Celeste hear me, have her watch me crumble into my own pile of puke.
I touch my face, only to find my skin dangerously hot. I'm sweating.
It wasn't helping. Heaving and spewing up the poison wasn't helping. How does this poison still affect me?
I heave for my breath when I stop vomiting. I don't even register the stench from the discharge on my hand and on the floor in front of me.
I can't breathe. My throat is closing in.
I claw at my throat.
Just like Howard.
«What the hell is happening?» A drowsy Celeste hiss from behind me.
It is like I've been sucker-punched, my breath escaping me, leaving my lungs continuously empty.
«Alene. Alene!»
She doesn't shout, but she whispers loud enough for me to predict that Mother will show up within the minute.
I manage a quick shake of my head before falling back on the floor, my hands attempting to keep me upright. I will have no chance in regaining my breath if I lie down on my back.
My tongue will swell up and block my airway, I can already feel it growing in my mouth. I'm beginning to feel light-headed. My vision blurs.
Celeste takes one look at my wide, watery eyes and falls to the floor beside me. «Alene, listen to me. You're having a panic attack. Listen to me,»
She grabs both sides of my head, forcing me to look at her. «Breathe with me.»
I can't breathe. I want to scream at her. I can only heave, cough and spit, with no way of breathing in.
She inhales, then exhales. Inhale, then exhales.
I focus on her mouth, then on her chest; rising and falling.
Inhale, exhale.
One of my hands falls over my chest, demanding it to fall in Celeste's rhythm.
A sharp, uneven breath breaks out from between my lips. I gasp for another breath, before attempting to calmly let it out between pursed lips. I close my eyes.
We sit like that for what feels like hours. Just breathing.
My breathing eventually fits her rhythm. My senses open, and the stench from last night's dinner reach my nostrils, making me wince.
Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.
My eyelids feel heavy and swollen when I open them.
Sunlight streams through the large cracks in the bedroom door.
A faint, distasteful odor sting my nostrils. In the back of my head, a dull pounding keeps me from falling asleep again.
I attempt to sit up in my bed. My stomach rumbles and I find myself having difficulties keeping my head up. I feel weak. Weaker than when I caught the flu at the age of seven.
I remember how the unforgiving winter wind had made my teeth chatter and my body tremble. My throat was constantly dry and ached every time I swallowed. I was constantly dizzy and making next to nothing for a straight week.
That week the flu traveled through Adara's house, and none of the children functioned properly. That was when Adara swore off street working on the coldest winter days of the year, typically being by the end and beginnings of each year.
The days off would serve as a break for the children in the house. At the beginning of this reform, the long break felt somewhat off. I certainly felt as its purpose was to prepare us for a more stressful start of the new year.
As time went on and the more winter breaks we experienced, I finally started enjoying the vacations. I found that everyone in the house had their spirits lifted at that time of the year. Mostly because we could watch television all day instead of standing at the corner of a thrift store in the city at the crack of dawn.
I blink. I blink again.
I breathe in. I breathe out.
I'm alive.
My eyes sweep over the floor of the room and land on the corner I last remember crunching in. I don't remember how I ended up in bed. Nor do I remember cleaning up the vomit I had unloaded.
I angle my body to look up at the bed above me. Celeste isn't there.
I don't know for how long I've slept, and can only guess it was Celeste who had cleaned up after me and put me in bed. Unless she told Mother.
Mother seeing me sick would not be the first time. Would she be suspicious of me? Have I given her any reason to be?
I don't know. I am still in the bed, uninterrupted and not on the floor, woken up by an aggravated sister. That needed to count as something good.
I put my hand against my forehead and groan, the room spinning. I want little more than to close my eyes and attempt to fall asleep again, but my empty stomach could not endure another minute without food. Hoping that some nutrition will dim the ache in my head as well, I pull myself up from the bed, careful not to move too quickly.
As I pass the mirror in the hallway, I glimpse at my pale features. I look ghastly, with dark circles under my eyes, pale lips, and hollow eyes. My short hair was a mess as well.
Mother is not home. Neither is Alijah or Victor, leading me to believe that they are in the process of carrying out the mission Mother had planned for them.
Not me. She didn't want me to join her like she usually did.
I tell myself to get over it, to accept that I cannot always get the mission I want. Still, I wanted to prove myself to Mother, to show her that I am the best she has.
I take one last look at my reflection.
No, I probably will never get the chance of proving myself to Mother. I'm too busy drugging myself, it seems.
I exhale in relief when I see that the kitchen is empty when I enter. Carefully listening, I can barely make out a couple of voices coming from the garage. My guess is that the voices belong to Ana and Celeste. But there was a male one as well. Nikolas?
I shake my head, quickly losing the energy to care enough about who sees me. It's only a fever, I will tell them.
I eat my breakfast in blissful silence. My eyes travel over my fingers, holding around the buttered bagel in front of me, not quite believing that I was still living. Granted, the dosage I ended up swallowing yesterday had been significantly smaller than the dose Mother gave Howard. Still, my body had reacted badly, and in similar ways of how Howard's did.
So, I had reacted alike, but because of the smaller portion, the poison didn't become lethal for me.
I can't help but wonder if Mother knows this, that the portion has a say in the victim's downfall. I huff at myself. Of course, she would know, she is no fool. If this is her new weapon, she would be sure to make herself familiar with every single aspect of it.
My brows furrow at my fingers, absently gathering the crumbs into a small pile in the middle of my plate. Are they shaking? An uneasy sensation starts on the top of my spine. A slight tingle then follows, running down my spine, giving me chills. I shake my upper body in an attempt to jolt the agitated feeling away.
But it stays. And eventually, for some odd reason, the chills makes my body relax a bit. I close my eyes for a minute and relish in the momentary feeling of remedy.
Everything is well for that minute. There is no worry. Why did I worry in the first place?
A thought from the very back of my mind pull my attention away from my moment. I open my eyes and realise I'm still in the kitchen. I shake my head, not letting myself get sucked into another zone-out. I try to force my thoughts away from the poison.
But once the thought has settled, it is hard to get rid of.
The thought of of the sweet swoon I felt in the kitchen keeps coming back to me as I return to my bed, and it keeps me awake for another fifteen minutes until I give in to the temptation of drifting away.
The chills come back immediately as I let my eyes close in surrender. I almost smile at the blissful feeling of nothingness, as if my body turns numb. It is strange, so unpredicted, and leaves me feeling...weirdly comfortable. I can't hep but wonder if this is a side effect caused by the drug.
I can't have been gone for more than a couple of minutes before the numbness lifts, and I'm again able to feel the small breeze from the cracks of the bedroom door and the rough sheets underneath me.
I am not able to fall asleep after the episode. Instead, I think.
How much of the poison would I need to drink in order for it to become deadly? And if I'm to take another small dose of the poison again, will my body react the same, worse or less than yesterday.
I shudder at the thought of repeating the sickness I felt the night before, but it still doesn't prevent my mind from wandering deeper into the made-up conspiracies of my mind. Had Celeste been right last night? Had my reaction partially been a panic attack from the mere thought of drinking the poison?
My legs tangle around the bed sheet.
As the questions in my head quiet down, I don't register the error in my final conclusion. My hidden desire that doesn't want the strange chills running up and down my spine or the numbness to end, now echoing in my head as my consciousness surrender to a state of slumber.
I want to try the drug again.