Mayhem Six: The Escaped Con's Hostage
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Addison Sweet
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40
Chapter 1
My stepdad is going to want to murder me when he finds out what I’ve done.
But I don’t care.
I’M. SO. DONE.
It’s come to the point where I’m more afraid of staying than I am of running away.
“Where’re we going?” Nova asks me in her sweet little groggy voice.
I’ve wrapped her in her favorite Jack Skellington blanket because the current temp in Salt Lake City, Utah, is thirty degrees.
Now, my four-year-old sister looks so tiny and scared while blinking up at me. That’s probably because I yanked her out of bed in the middle of the night and told her to be super quiet while we crept downstairs and out the front door.
I just couldn’t, in good conscience, run away without her.
Ken may be her biological dad, but he’s a monster and won’t extend any mercy to her just because she’s blood. Not when he’s already starting to control her too.
The things she likes.
The kids she plays with at church.
The clothes she wears.
“Shh, it’s okay. We’re, uh…taking a trip.”
“A trip?” Her eyes go from terror to excitement all in one question.
She’s been as trapped as I’ve been in this house the last couple of years.
My sister jumps up and down as I wrestle with the key fob to Ken’s Mercedes. “Can we go to Disneyland?”
I chuckle. “Sure, bug. Now I need you to be quiet while I buckle you in, okay?”
We’re in the driveway of our double-story estate, but definitely not out of earshot. Ken has cameras in places I don’t even know about.
If he hears us, all he has to do is roll over and check his phone’s security app.
There’s a push button to call the police on that thing.
“Can we see Oogie Boogie?” she asks.
As I buckle Nova into her booster seat, she hums This is Halloween cheerily.
I hate lying to her. But I’ll explain the truth to her eventually. One day, when we’re far away from the devil’s lair.
One day, she’ll understand that I did what I had to do to keep her safe.
I kiss her forehead. “Yes, we can see Oogie Boogie. Now watch your fingers because I’m closing the door.”
Shivering from the cold, I close Nova in and haul my frozen ass to the driver’s seat.
But before I get in, I take a moment to ceremoniously raise my two middle fingers and flip the mansion off.
This is the place I’ve come to loathe since my mom passed away two years ago.
I really hope his cameras got that.
Ken was an asshole from day one, but at least I could still attend private school and hang out with my friends on the weekends.
And then, Mom died.
And then, her stupid, overly religious husband kept me from ever leaving the house without his permission.
His control started small. He wanted to know where I was, who I was with, and for how long.
Then, he’d go through all my messages, social media accounts, and sift through my clothes, including my underwear drawer—warning me that I better not have drugs in there.
Eventually, he forced me to break up with my boyfriend, forced me to do online schooling…
The list goes on.
I couldn’t even attend my high school graduation.
Anytime I protested, he’d threaten to send me to a six-week teen correction camp.
A camp unregulated by the government.
It promises parents that they’ll “fix” their defiant teenager, but it’s really just an isolated compound designed to break and terrorize young people with zero power. All while pushing religious bullshit down our throats.
Ken only had to send me there once while Mom was still alive. I have no intention of ever going back.
Which is probably why today was the last straw.
I start the car, glancing back at Nova. She gives me an apple-cheeked smile, no doubt eager to get to Disneyland.
She looks so much like our mom sometimes, it hurts.
We’re both half Black, but Nova has a lighter complexion than me. Not only that, but her curls are loose and silky while mine are tighter with goldish undertones.
Still, her big brown eyes and nose have Mom’s genes written all over them.
“Is Daddy coming?” she asks, and I immediately wince in the dark. Thank God she can’t see me because I really, really hate lying to her.
So, stop lying.
“No, bug. It’ll just be us from here on out.” I swallow. “We won’t see Daddy for a long time.”
If all goes well, we’ll never see Ken Scott again.
“…Is that okay?” I ask.
Oxygen becomes stale in my chest as I hold my breath. I’m not sure what I’ll do if she isn’t okay with this.
I just know I can’t leave her here.
Nova sweeps her head down, not crying, not protesting. I wonder what she’s thinking until she brings her head back up and simply replies, “Uh-huh.”
Relief pushes the air out my lungs.
While she isn’t making a fuss or demanding to know more, a part of me worries that she just doesn’t fully understand yet. Still, her nonreaction is very telling.
I back out of the driveway, nerves on edge to begin our new lives.
I was supposed to leave for college today. Tonight, I would’ve settled into my dorm room, getting a small taste of freedom.
That’s all I had asked for.
Ken made me wait a whole year after I graduated high school. He said he had to “think about it” and claimed secular universities would corrupt me even more. That was always an argument I could never win.
Since Mom didn’t meet him until I was a preteen, he claimed the world had already sunk its teeth in me. That I was the product of sin in every way. All because I had the audacity to question his “authority” from time to time.
Eventually, we came to an understanding, though.
The understanding?
I could only attend the Christian university forty minutes away from his house.
I’d have to come home every weekend (which I wanted to do so I could check on Nova).
All money transactions had to be done electronically so he could monitor my spending.
No boys.
Church twice a week.
Maintain all A’s.
These nonnegotiables weren’t exactly new. This is how it always was.
Except this time, he emphasized that if I broke any of his rules, he would never let me see Nova again. He’d stop paying for my tuition and my car. He’d stop paying for everything.
It’s not like I couldn’t make it on my own. I’m nineteen. If it were just me, I would’ve run away long ago.
If it were just me.
To never see Nova again would absolutely destroy me. She’s all I have now.
The thought of losing her has always terrified me. Something that Ken seems to know well.
And my stepdad is the sort of man that follows through on his threats.
Plus, he knows people.
Powerfulpeople.
Mom used to say that when someone tells you who they are, believe them.
“Sometimes it’s words that speak louder than actions, Natty. Sometimes actions don’t mean a damn thing.”
I didn’t understand her then, but I fully understand her now. She had been with enough losers to know that any man can act nice. Any man can buy something that sparkles and bend the knee.
“It’s all parlor tricks,”she muttered to me one day after an ugly argument with Ken. “No man can veil his words, Nat. Words matter.
“With Ken, words manipulate. Words threaten. Words cripple and hurt. Bottom line: words come from the heart. And whether that heart is gold or black is irrelevant.”
So why did you have to marry this monster, Mom?
She never did give me an answer.
It’s not until I’m driving down the main road, passing each mansion inside this elite suburb, that I realize what the hell I’m doing.
I’m technically kidnapping my little sister.
Holy. Shit.
And I’m definitely stealing an easily recognizable car.
I take a deep breath.
I’ll be forced to ditch the Mercedes eventually, but that’s Future Nataly’s problem.
We pass Bernard, the security guard that oversees the entrance of the community. He doesn’t bat an eye seeing Ken’s car exit. Just waves us through as I accelerate on by, hoping to God the tinted windows don’t give me away.
Nova continues humming behind me.
Maybe she’s feeling as free as I am right now. Ken might have provided a beautiful home for us, made sure we had dinner every night, and bought us expensive gifts.
But prisoners are prisoners, even in gilded cages.
“Play my song, Natawee!”
I smile. “I had to leave my phone behind, bug. But I’ll put on the radio.”
As soon as I turn it on, a police warning blasts the car about an escaped convict in the area.
“This escaped convict is armed and dangerous,” the radio says. “If you see him, keep far away and notify authorities immediately.”
Shivering, I quickly change the station, catching the middle of “My Girl” from the Temptations.
Nova and I sing our hearts out, thinking of Mom. She had a soft spot for the oldies.
Nova happily kicks her feet, watching the streetlights as we whiz on by.
I look in the rearview mirror as the song comes to a close.
It’s been two years since Mom passed, but eight years of allowing her fake pious husband to strip my entire world away.
Eight years of listening to him call me a wannabe slut and a bastard daughter.
Eight years of him slapping me and touching me inappropriately.
Because of him, I have no more friends. No one to help me get out from under his thumb.
But despite every attempt to keep me down, I’m finally here, reclaiming my freedom.
I’ll be damned if I let him brainwash Nova as he did to our mom. I’m just sorry it took me this long to get out.
Maybe we’ll make a new life in Phoenix or Los Angeles. Somewhere with a huge population.
I’ll rent a small apartment. Obtain false identities. We’ll change our hair and backstory.
We’re on an adventure, I’ll tell Nova.
I can sign up for community college, get a full-time job as a waitress, and enroll Nova in preschool like Ken should’ve done a year ago.
It’ll all work out because we’ll be together.
They say we end up becoming our mothers.
Well, my mother had horrible taste in men and a tendency to pursue all things toxic for not just her, but for me as well since she was a packaged deal.
As I merge onto the freeway, I make a silent vow to never become her in any capacity.
To never chase or fall for toxic men.
To never let any man make me feel like a prisoner again.
