I'm lost, I'm a ghost… dispossessed, taken host...
My hunger burns… a bullet hole.
Spectre of my mortal soul.
There's rumours and suspicion…
Anger and the poison.
The only truth that I can see…
Is when you put… your lips to me.
The future's changed… by the past…
The spectre… how he laughs…
"You, girl, stay where you are!" The tall, growling man ordered while pointing his Desert Eagle towards her. Indie stayed right where she was, the 6 year old shaking in fear. She didn't know this man, her mom said that it was her father but she'd never known him… and right now, she was glad she hadn't.
"Now you… my dear… why don't we have a little chat in the other room?" Her father said, turning back to the woman who'd raised Indie. 'Mom' silently nodded and headed for the dining room the man had pointed out. Before she entered it, she pointed behind herself with her hand, towards the living room window.
Indie looked… it was unlocked. The windows of the house had metal ropes on them that didn't let them open more than a few inches at most, but rust had made this one thinner and weak. With a hard enough push, Indie knew she could break it. Her parents closed the dining room door behind them… and Indie quickly ran at the window. She jumped at the last second before she would have hit the wall, and instead hit into the window. While the glass and wooden frame did crack, the metal broke entirely and Indie landed with a grunt, in a heap on the wet grass outside.
The snow hadn't long melted and the cold of it was still around. More snow however, was lightly falling and again settling on the ground. Indie stepped ahead slowly, unsure of where to go now and shivering slightly as the freezing water and small patches of snow were pressed against her bare feet. The young girl had been preparing to get into bed, pyjamas on and teddy in hand when her father had aggressively knocked on the door.
As she reached the metal shelter over the end of the driveway, she heard it… a bang that made her jump out of her skin, and put ringing in her ears. Turning around was a mistake… as she saw the splattered red across the window of the dining room, and the outline of her father inside, shining silver gun in hand.
"No… Mama!" Indie shouted out, trying to run back towards the house only to scream out and back up as a collection of bullets flew towards her. She turned and ran towards the nearby farmhouse, across the field, followed by that evil man's taunting calls…
Her running began to slow halfway across the ½ kilometer field as her chest began to ache, and her left arm began to go numb… she knew she had to rest before it got worse, but she wasn't going to stop running. By the time she reached the house beside the barn, she was doing little more than a jog at her best ability, and ducked as more bullets flew, hitting into and splintering apart the wooden wall of the house.
And the one of them that hit into her shoulder made her scream the most…
"Hey… Finn, what…" Amanda whispered, having woken up to the sounds of screaming a few rooms down the hallway of the hotel. She'd had a tough few days and Finn had been there to help her relax herself through the events… but waking up now, he too heard the yelling and his eyes widened a little, as it sounded young, and distressed.
"Damn it… come on, follow me." Finn said, the two getting up and Amanda putting the hotel key in her pajama pants pocket before they left and reached the room. Amanda knocked on the door before it opened, Indie shaking violently… and Amanda reacting on instinct and picking her up.
"It's okay, kiddo… it's alright." Amanda whispered as the undersized 12 year old cried into her shoulder, her arms wrapping tightly around Amanda.
"N… no it's not, she's… she's dead, she's gone! He shot her and shot me!" Indie responded through her tears, Amanda seeing half of the scar in her shoulder uncovered by the neckline being disheveled to one side, and knowing it was from a bullet.
Amanda held onto Indie and Indie flinched when she heard Alexa yelling, Finn reluctantly going to deal with her.
"Would you go and pass back out already? That poor kid just had a damn night terror!" Finn responded through gritted teeth at the drunken blonde and red ombre haired woman, Alexa hearing Amanda singing to Indie to soothe her.
"She… she knows what she's doing…" Alexa said, quieter than Finn had expected her to respond.
"Yes she does, now go back to sleep!" Finn replied, Alexa quietly closing the door and Finn heading back to Indie and Amanda.
"She wore herself out… the question on my mind is where's any of her family members?" Amanda whispered, lightly stroking Indie's light brown hair as Indie was using Amanda's left shoulder as a pillow.
"By the looks of it… she's not even a teenager yet…" Finn responded quietly, before his eye was caught by the opel blue book on the bedside stand. He wouldn't normally have touched anyone's diary, that was a person's innermost, personal thoughts on those pages. But he and Amanda both needed to know who Indie was, and why she was alone in a hotel at no older than 12.
"First pages sometimes have things like… an 'about me' thing, when they're child-oriented." Amanda whispered, remembering one she'd had herself when she was little. Finn opened it, the first page being a blank separator to the thin cardboard cover, but the second was what Amanda had suspected.
"Yeah… name, age, family…" Finn responded, before he quietly read it out. "Indiana Evon Lucas. 12, with 11 and 10 crossed out. Family names… 'Mommy said she liked to be called Isi, I wish she wasn't dead, I miss her a lot'..." He paused after that, sitting down as his legs seemed to lose their strength as he read that. "Dad… in big capitals, 'PSYCHOTIC MEANIE'... Aunts or uncles… her mom told her that her sister lived in France last that she knew, but that was years ago as…" He then flipped to the second part of the 'about me' section. "Because… she's been parentless since she was 6 years old…"
Amanda carefully sat down and Indie clung on tighter to her, having calmed down and was dreaming a happier dream.
"Mama…" Indie whispered, Amanda kissing her on her forehead… on the side of the table was a picture of a newborn Indie, her mother and a much younger Seth.
"I'll go wake him up… stay with her, she's already gotten attached to you." Finn whispered, lightly hugging Amanda and Indie.
"Second floor, room 216." Amanda said quietly, Finn heading out of the room.