Page 39 of Like An Animal

THE SHADOW

I watch Charlotte and Bronwyn from the doorway of Charlotte’s new room. It was finished being set up a few hours ago and the way she screamed when she saw it was something I have committed to memory.

It was a scream of pure joy.

My wife hasn’t spoken to me or anyone else besides our daughter since her blow-up earlier.

I’ve tried to talk to her, but she either ignores me or tells me to go away.

I want to grab her and drag her upstairs to teach her a lesson for defying me, but I’ve never seen her this emotionally raw and resigned.

She thinks I abandoned her, but I didn’t, did I? I had Hector looking after her, but he lost her after three days. She ran away in the dead of night.

What the hell am I missing here?

The only reason I have to be mad at her is that she married that piece of crap that tried to kill her, but I will hold onto that anger as long as I need to or I’ll push it down, whichever will make things better.

“I like it here, Mommy,” Charlotte says as Bronwyn tucks her in with a small chuckle.

“Do you?”

Charlotte nods with so much enthusiasm. “Can we stay with Daddy?”

I listen closely for Bronwyn’s answer, wanting some kind of glimpse into where her head is at, but she just smirks at Charlotte.

“Let’s get Dottie settled in, too,” Bronwyn teases as she tucks the ratty doll in next to our daughter, who snickers. “Dottie and Lottie, all snug as a bug.”

“In a rug!” She tucks her arms under her blanket, a big smile plastered across her face, completely distracted from her previous question.

“That’s right. And what do bugs in rugs do?”

“They sleep,” Charlotte responds as if this has been a well-rehearsed part of their nightly routine for a while, one I have never been present for before.

“Atta girl.”

Charlotte turns over in bed, facing me, before Bronwyn stands up. “Night, Daddy!”

Anytime she calls me that, it does something strange to me, something akin to making me feel emotional. It makes my chest feel tight.

“Goodnight, Charlotte.”

She smiles at me before pressing her face into her pillow.

“Sweet dreams, baby,” Bronwyn says before walking out of the room, squeezing past me. She closes the door, but before she can walk away, I wrap my arm around her waist, holding on tightly.

She glares up at me as she digs her nails into my forearm. “Stop ignoring me. I can be an asshole, but if you want me to be nice, I expect the same from you. Don’t test me.”

She digs in her nails until I feel the skin break. “Oh, do you think I’m being mean just because I haven’t been talking to you? You’ve had five years to get used to me not talking. Now it's an issue? Why? Is it because I’m right in front of you instead of in another state? Did I bruise your ego?”

“Stop it with the theatrics. Act like a fucking adult and talk to me. If you’re pissed off, tell me. If you don’t speak up, nothing can be addressed.”

She tilts her face to the side. “You would like that, wouldn’t you?

You always wanted me to do all the work anyway.

You would sit there in silence and I would fill it.

I would ask the questions while you gave one word responses.

Now you get to see what it's like to want answers and have no one there willing to explain.”

Is that really how she felt all those years ago? She didn’t make anything easy for me, but I wasn’t trying to make things hard on her either. I just haven’t liked talking since the explosion. I can talk, but I don’t like having to explain my actions or thoughts.

“Jer!”

“Give me a damn minute,” I growl with irritation, trying to figure out how to address this with my wife, but the world has other plans.

“It’s an emergency, man! A blacked-out van just threw a crate at the gate and drove off. Max is bringing it inside. You need to see this shit.”

I watch the expression on Bron’s face shift from anger to undiluted fear. Instead of trying to push my arm off of her, she clings to me. Something about the news Xavi just brought us has her terrified.

And that alone pisses me off.

“Come on.”

Bron nods as I guide her down the hallway toward the lounge we were in earlier with my grandfather.

We walk into the room just as Massimo sets down a small pine box on the desk.

One of the guards, Alex, hands Massimo a crow bar that he uses to crack it open.

The wood of the lid creeks before it flies off the table and lands on the floor in front of my wife.

Her gaze zeros in on a design etched into the wood before she gasps and takes a step back.

My little ghost has always been a headstrong, independent spirit and yet that symbol is enough to turn her into a scared child.

“Have you seen that before?” I ask as I tuck her loose hair behind her ear.

She slowly nods. “More times than I’d like to admit.” Her voice shakes more with each word.

“Where have you seen it?”

She doesn’t respond but also doesn’t let go of her hold on me.

“Well, this is just melodramatic.” Massimo slowly shakes his head as he pulls out a DVD box with writing on it made with a thick black permanent marker.

Mary Elizabeth of The Daughters of Jephthah

What the fuck?

“What do you think it is?” I ask as Bronwyn’s fingers dig deeper into my arm. It might hurt but I’ll let her keep doing it if it makes her feel safer.

“Well, we should watch it. Whoever sent this made quite the ruckus sending it here. We should at least see what it's about,” Xavi suggests, but only then does Bronwyn release my arm.

“No! Don’t watch it!”

My head snaps around to look at her and the horror written on her face.

“Do you know what this is, Bron?” Massimo presses as he holds it up.

“Yes, and trust me when I say you do not want to see what is on that.” She pleads with me using only her eyes.

For some reason, she’s desperate for us not to see what’s on it and that makes me ten times as determined to see it.

“Play it,” I say and the fear in her eyes doubles.

“No, please, don’t do this,” she begs over and over as Massimo walks over to the TV across the room from the sofas.

Massimo pushes it into the disc slot on the side of the TV as Bronwyn turns to me.

“Jer, I’m begging you. Don’t watch it.” Tears fill her eyes, desperation clear in their depths.

“Are you going to tell me why you don’t want me to watch it?”

If she can give me a good reason, I’ll go with what she’s asking.

“Can you please just trust me on this? You don’t want to see what’s on that disc.”

So she’s not going to give me a real answer.

Fine.

I’ll find out for myself.

The disc turns on to a view of what looks like a meeting room with a long wood table in the middle that leads to a small stage area.

Around the table stands cloaked figures with plain white masks on their faces, but a man and a small child walks to the stage and once on the stage, I can see their faces.

It’s David and Bronwyn, but she couldn’t be older than five. Even that’s pushing it.

“Turn it off!” my wife demands as her knees buckle and she falls to the ground. Her face twists with agony, an emotional pain I’ve never seen her experience before. Not even the first night she came to my room and cried in my arms.

“I am Father David and I offer my sacrifice to The Order of The Fathers of Jephthah in the form of the newest Daughter of The Order, previously known as Bronwyn Durst, hereafter referred to as Mary Elizabeth, and every child of my bloodline from here until the end of days.”

What.

The.

Actual.

Fuck.

“Please, turn it off! I’ll tell you everything! Just, please, make it stop!” My gaze snaps to Bronwyn, covering her ears, tears streaming down her face. I drop down to her, pulling her into my chest.

She’s fucking broken from that short clip of whatever else is on there. I never wanted to make her cry like that. I just wanted the truth of what was going on.

“Do what she said. Turn it off.” The screen goes black as someone in a cloak walks over to the stage and extends his hand out to Bron.

She looked so much like Charlotte except she wasn’t smiling. She looked just as petrified as she did when she saw that design on the lid of the box.

The same design that was in the middle of the table, carved into the wood.

“Bron, are you okay?” Xavi asks, looking as horrified as I feel.

She doesn’t answer as she clings to me, sobbing into my shoulder in a way I’ve never seen anyone do.

No.

She’s not okay.

My wife is the furthest thing from it.