8.

My body jolted, opening my eyes with an air-deprived gasp as I sat up as if I were resuscitated back to life.

I desperately looked around me, my heart slowing its beats as soon as I saw my sister sitting next to me over the pristine white bed.

"Dre!" I pushed my butt back and sat up straighter, lastly noticing I was still wearing that flimsy towel before taking a better look at my surroundings.

"Wait, how did I end up in here?" I questioned, watching nurse Peach approach us with a kind smile.

"Nathan carried you. Turns out you had a panic attack in the locker room and he found you there, laying unconscious," Dre flatly said with a pointed look, obviously not believing it one bit as she silently communicated with me, asking what the hell did really happen.

I threw her a we'll talk in the car look before trying to climb down from the small bed, only to be briefly stopped by our school's nurse.

"Are you sure you're okay, honey?"

"Yeah, thank you, miss Peach," I assured her with a convincing smile, holding my towel as I climbed down from the bed and took the bag of clothes from my sister before rushing to the small bathroom to dress up.

He'd carried me here.

He carried me here? Why? Why would he even bother, after everything he did?

I briefly paused to stare at myself in the mirror, still wildly shook as I remembered the way his eyes turned pitch black this time as he touched me.

This is just too weird. What is he? Am I going crazy? Am I the only one who can actually see that?

Just what the hell is going on?

I mentally worked myself up as I continued to dress, all those questions still plaguing my mind as I finally exited the bathroom, hurrying to just get the hell out of there already.

"I know highschool is generally very stressful, but you need to take care of yourself, Carrie," Nurse Peach told me whilst handing me another one of her stupid homeopathic drug prescriptions.

Like I fucking need that.

"You're still so young...By the way, you are one very lucky girl to have such a handsome and caring boyfriend," She said with a smile, making me open my mouth as I briefly tried to correct her but she only continued,

"He carried you all the way here and he seemed so worried about your health. He kept asking questions, he wanted to know if you were okay,"

"He didn't want to stick around though. He seemed so embarrassed by the state of your dressing," She let out an amused giggle, my eyes widening though at the sound of her words.

What?

"What a nice gentleman," She dreamily sighed, placing a hand over her ample cleavage.

Yeah right. He's anything but. I wouldn't even be surprised if he went as far as peeking underneath my towel.

I mildly shivered at the thought.

"Okay, thank you very much miss Peach, goodbye," My sister quickly said before grabbing my hand and practically dragging me out of there, faintly hearing nurse Peach's reply as she slammed the door closed.

"You had another panic attack? What the hell happened?" Dre incredulously yelled as we ran down the corridor.

"I don't know," I truthfully said with a tired sigh as we slowed down to a walk.

I really didn't.

It'd been a while since my last panic attack, such occurrences happening only under extreme situations.

He did manage to scare the living shit out of me though.

"I guess he just...really managed to scare me,"

"What?" Her eyes immediately widened as we stopped next to our car, giving me an entirely shocked look.

I blew out another sigh and reluctantly decided to tell her everything, mentally praying to God that I wasn't putting her in any sort of danger by doing so.

"He's...weird," I hesitantly started,

"I don't know exactly what he is and what he wants from me...

All I know is that he is so fucking determined to torment me...And I don't even know why,"

"Wait, back up, back up, what he is??" She almost shouted in disbelief, weirdly staring at me as we'd both climbed inside the car.

"Yeah, it seems that his eyes kinda change colors sometimes like they turn golden and start glowing and other times they just turn completely black. Does that make any sense?" I made a weirded-out grimace as I looked at her.

"They what?!?"

"Yeah, totally fucked-up, I know," I lightly shook my head.

"No, that's not fucked-up. That's fucking insane like, batshit crazy dude! What do you mean his eyes are fucking glowing, what is he, a damn firefly or something?" She continued to vent as she stared back at me in utter disbelief.

"Are you sure you didn't fucking imagine it or something?" She said after a moment, making me throw her a narrowed look.

"Yes, I am sure. I wasn't drunk and I wasn't fucking high either. We're on school grounds and it's the fucking middle of the day, remember?"

"Chill out girl, I was just making sure," She told me with an eye-roll before turning the key in ignition and shifting in reverse.

"So what do we do now?" She asked me whilst focusing on taking the car out of the parking lot.

"I'll have to find a way to contact dad," I pensively said whilst absently staring through the window as I kept remembering Nathan's nonsense about me being given to him.

"What? How? Why?" She immediately blurted out at the mention of our dad, throwing me a surprised look.

"I didn't tell you everything yet,"

*

"That's just...fucking crazy..." She said, lightly shaking her head before pulling out the key from the ignition.

"I know, that's why I have to have a look through mom's stuff, maybe she still has an emergency number or whatever," I said as we took our stuff and got out of the car.

We walked to our house and unlocked the door, carelessly throwing away my bag and shoes.

"Mooom, we're home!" Dre shouted out as she got rid of hers as well, oddly enough receiving no response.

She frowned, throwing me a curious look.

"Mom!"

I went to the kitchen to grab myself a soda, my gaze falling onto the small piece of paper lying over the island counter.

My lips set into a straight line as I already had an idea of what it could be saying before I even read it, quickly confirming my suspicions as soon as I picked it up.

Honeys, I'm off with Sheila to Lotus Spa for the weekend. Call if you need anything.

x, Mom

Of course you are.

I showed Andrea the note as she came into the kitchen too.

"Great. One less problem though," She said with a mild shake of her head.

I blew out an audible sigh and went straight for the fridge, taking out a bottle of wine instead.

I popped the cork and poured myself a cup, enjoying the fruity taste as I took a hearthy gulp.

"What'cha doin', kid? Where's your mommy?"

I leaned against the counter and boredly watched my sister as she obviously called Kayla -since Sheila was her mom, hence she was home alone too- and started to aimlessly pace around as she listened to whatever shit that lunatic kept spouting from the other end.

"Yeah, move your ass here, pronto!" She yelled with a laugh, signalling for me to pour her a glass too.

"Okay, smash you too!" She happily said and ended the call, snatching the glass I had just poured her to have a sip.

"Alright, I'm gonna order some pizza in the meantime," She sat down over a stool and started tapping over her phone as I took another swig.

"I'm going upstairs to change and raid mom's room," I said and left the kitchen, hearing her yell after me,

"Let me know if you find anything!"

"Yeah!"

*

After successfully finding a few possible numbers and an email address too, I took several photos of the documents before putting them back into their original folder, neatly arranging everything in mom's closet exactly the same way it was before.

Not that I was actually afraid of getting caught, more like I was just trying to avoid another pointless fight.

God knows how much she enjoyed picking fights with me, regardless of our blood relation.

Sometimes it felt like I wasn't even her freaking child, carried and born from her very womb.

Maybe I look too much like him.

I fleetingly thought as I caught my reflection in her vanity mirror, just looking into my own baby blue eyes for a moment.

I must've inherited them from him,

I thought as mom's were a rich brown, just like Dre's. We did have the same light brown hair color and similar dollish features though, Dre and I. Which did not resemble mom's at all.

Maybe that's why she never cared for us much. Because we may be our father's daughters more than we know.

Guess I'll just find out, soon enough.

I took one last glance around mom's room before getting out and closing the door behind me with a soft click.

I then walked down the hallway and made may towards the stairs, hearing Kayla's big mouth as I descended them.

"He what?!?"

"What the fuck!"

"Oh my god Care, are you okay?" She worriedly asked as soon I came into view.

"Yeah, kinda,"

Wow, nice job Dre. Now we're all three in possible danger. Guess we'll get to die together like real sisters.

Note the sarcasm.

I threw my sister a flat look as I sat over a stool next to Kayla and grabbed my cup of wine, taking a hearthy swig.

"Whoah, did that fucker do this to you?" I suddenly heard Kayla ask, noticing she was already examining that small and fading bruise left on the inside of my wrist as I held my cup.

My sister's eyes widened too as she hadn't noticed it until now.

"Yeah,"

"Damn, I should've known that bastard was gonna do some nasty shit again," She muttered with a mild shake of her head.

"Again?" Andrea and I spouted out at the same time, throwing her bewildered looks.

She glanced between us and blew out a breath,

"Look, even back when he was still a boy, he was already so fucked-up,"

"He almost burned down the entire fucking school,"

"What?" We both shouted again.

"Yeah, he was a crazy motherfucker. I thought that now that he'd grown up maybe he'd gained some freaking consciousness,"

"Apparently not," I mumbled with an eye-roll.

"Yeah..." She nodded in approval after a gulp of wine.

"I heard that his brother died, he had an older brother that died when he was only ten. Maybe that's why he's so fucked in the head right now," She said with a somber tone, making me feel a little bit sad myself at the sound of that.

Losing a family member is the hardest thing one could ever endure.

"Still, that doesn't explain what he wants from her," Dre commented with a frown.

"He doesn't even know her. What does he want from her?"

"I don't know, maybe he does have a crush on her but that's his twisted way of showing it. Maybe he's one of those psycho creeps that like it rough," She quietly said as she looked between us, barely containing that smirk before she erupted into a fit of giggles.

"Eww, Kayla!"

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