My mother becomes deathly still and looks up into Ember's face and nods slightly.
"Good." E says and sits on the end of the bed in front of her.
"First question, was Robert Greene the Whitsborough Rapist from the early 2000's up to a few years ago?"
My mother nods and her gaze quickly comes to land on me and narrows. She thinks I told E this. She must remember when I asked her about it. I stay quiet and wait for Ember to continue.
"How many of those girls did you bring back for him?"
My mother looks back into Ember's face and turns her lips down into a frown. Her eyes take on an angry gleam and she purses her lips. If she is calling E out on her bluff then she's fucking dumber than I ever thought.
"Tsk, tsk! Mrs. Greene! We're only on the second question and you already broke the rules?" E begins to giggle. I have never heard her like this and it's starting to creep me out. "To be honest, I was hoping you would and just my luck, it happened quicker than I could even anticipate." She chuckles and pats my mother's cheek.
"Fuck you." My mother says menacingly.
"Wrong answer." Ember growls through her teeth as her hand clasps my mother's jaw. She then takes her knife and carves it down my mother's cheek, making her scream as the blood drips off her chin.
I stand completely transfixed and I suddenly feel numb. Like I'm floating outside of my body and watching this from another dimension. My mother is about to die at the hands of my best friend and I can't be bothered to care about it.
Ember releases my mother's chin and shoves her back into the chair, making her back bounce off the cushion.
"Answer the question, or I get back to carving." E says while she twirls her knife in her hand.
My mother has her hand up to her cheek and she begins to shake, "most of them." She mewls out as the blood runs from her wound between her fingers.
"Bad girl, Christina." Ember shakes her head and looks back at me. I nod once to let her know I'm fine and she turns back to my mother, "did he rape Sharla?"
"I don't know." She shakes her head and Ember brings up her knife, "I swear! I really don't know."
"So, what you're telling me right now is that you are a useless sack of shit and I should just kill you?"
My mother's eyes narrows and a small smirk ghosts her lips, "he raped your mother though. He told me all about it, him and Halbert took turns while the other held her down."
Oh fuck, this is bad. I can see E immediately stiffen and my mouth goes dry. My father and Coach actually did shit like that? And Ember's mother really was their victim? My hand comes up and I cover the gasp that escapes my mouth.
Ember quickly pulls herself together and shakes her head, "I wish I knew all this the night I came to kill him because I would've tortured him instead of offering him an easy way out."
"What?!" Mother shrieks.
"That's right, Christina." Ember nods, "I came into your house in the middle of the night and forced dear Robert to slice open his wrists with this very knife. Isn't it like fate or something that both of your bloods have kissed it's blade?"
"You bitch!"
E throws her head back and laughs, "I wish I would've taken you that night, too."
"Do you hear this?" My mother looks at me, "why are you just standing there? She killed your father."
"Yeah," I shrug, "I know."
"You know?” Her eyes widen, "you really were a waste of our time. We should've killed you the second we knew you existed."
"Wow." I chuckle and shake my head, "you would've aborted me?"
"No," she begins to giggle manically, "we should've killed your mother."
"What?" I screw my face up in confusion, "are you that drunk?"
"Your mother!" She screams at the top of her lungs, "as soon as we found out she was pregnant, we should've pushed her down the stairs."
"My mother?" I question as my head begins to spin.
"I can't have children." She sneers at me, "and I never wanted them. But your father found a favourite and continuously raped her. Of course, she was bound to get knocked up. Then, instead of killing her, he decided he wanted to keep you, as an heir. The other son he fathered would never be able to run the business because he was black." The venom spewing out of her is beginning to make me sick.
"You're not my mother." Everything makes sense. Her hateful, dismissive and cold behaviour towards me my whole life, it all fucking makes sense.
"You're so fucking stupid." She snarls, "just like her."
Ember gets up and walks into my parents' closet and I keep an eye on the woman I always thought was my mother.
"Who is she?"
"Who cares!" She screams as spit flies out of her mouth, "she's a nobody!"
"Christina," E says with warning in her voice. She steps out of the closet with one of my father's belts in her hands and she's looping it through the buckle, "tell him who his mother is."
"Or what?" She chuckles, "you'll spank me with that belt?"
"No," Ember leisurely walks up to her and slaps the belt over my mother's head and around her neck. "Tell him." She grounds out as she tightens the belt around her neck.
Mother's eyes widen and she grips her fingers into the belt, trying to pull it off her neck but E is too strong.
"So..." she starts coughing and clawing harder, "Son..."
"Who!" I scream.
"Sonja!!!"
14
I get home and the house is empty. I searched everywhere but it looks like both Ember and Travis have gone out. First, I call Ember's cell and it goes straight to voicemail, this isn't strange because she hates her phone. Next, I try Travis' and his rings
