Page 193 of Under the Waves
“Shut your trap, you ungrateful little bitch!” My father roared, white knuckles gripping onto the steering wheel.
I visibly flinched.
There was a date on the photograph.
It was taken four years ago…
Milla looked so young, so scared, so innocent…
“W-what’s going on?” I pressed further, staring down the barrel of a gun, the consequences pressing up against my rib cage. “W-where are you taking me?”
“We’re going home,” my mother replied sweetly, smiling at me. My whole body recoiled at the gesture. Bile rose in my mouth, tainting my mood along with my appetite.
“That place hasneverbeen home,” I sneered. “Cut the crap, mom.”
“If you speak to your mother like that again, girl, you will join those other missing girls either dead or bloodied. Take your pick.”
My mind spiraled. He knew about the missing girls, the missing kids. He knew something…and I wanted to find out exactly what it was. Slamming my lips shut, I huffed and angled my body away from them both towards the window instead.
“I always knew you were a good girl,” my father smirked. Fuckingsmirked. “You always were my greatest masterpiece, baby.”
Bruises. Bruises. Bruises.
Like a little watercolor fairy.
My greatest masterpiece.
Baby. Baby. Baby.
I rolled down the window just as my stomach contents kissedthe sidewalk, leaving a trail of blood and bile behind.
“Oh, my poor baby,” my mother cooed, looking at me with a pitiful smile. “Don’t worry, sweet girl. You’ll feel better afterwards.”
She reached forward, tugging down the glove compartment before pulling out a small, black box.
“What are you talking about?”
She turned to face me once again. “You were always such a smart kid, Poppy. We knew we had to be smarter, or you’d piece it all together. You were never supposed to go surfing that night. Oliver was never supposed to have been in your bed instead of you for that fraction of a minute. It always should’ve been you.”
Peeling off the lid, she removed a tiny glass jar filled with some sort of clear liquid, followed by a large syringe. My eyes widened as I pushed myself as far back into the car seat as I could.
“Mom, w-what are y-you doing?”
“It’s okay, baby girl. It all worked out in the end, better than we both could’ve hoped. You’re our ticket out of here, don’t you see?” She beamed as the syringe started to fill up, all the way to the top. “They want you. Can you believe it? Someone actually wants you! I always knew that one mistake with your brother would haunt me for the rest of my life, but this, Poppy—this was always how it was meant to be.”
She leaned closer just as I stuck my neck out of the car and screamed.
Raw. Guttural. Painful.
Her fingers grasped my arm.
The needle pierced my skin.
“What a-are…what h-have…y-you done…” I slurred, vision swirling as my limbs went slack against my body.
“We’re here,” my father called out, the sound distant and ringing. Ringing so incredibly loud. “They’ll meet us here.”
White spots kissed the edges of my vision, the darkness closing in.