A/N: All I own is my OC
I'm not really sure how I feel about this. On one hand, I'm super excited, but then it's just meh
But thanks for reading!
The cold metallic rings wrapped around my marked wrists were colder than usual today; more noticed by myself, at least. The little chat cast among the abnormally fragile-looking men behind me was heightened in volume today; everything I heard the day before had suddenly went from a slight whisper to a decent sound. It's as if during my time at 's Institute I'd gone partially deaf and I was now finally getting my hearing back. It's funny that if I spoke my thoughts aloud, I'd be pulled back down the hall of infinity. Although they promised I was no longer in need of professional help, they still feel the need to use chains to guide me out of the fiery blaze of hell. This moment is the first time having cuffs closed around my confusingly small wrists actually brought annoyance to my usual ignorant expression; and to be honest, I prefer to be annoyed than unaware.
As my all but wonderful guards near the door of the institute, they stop for a moment, look at each other and sigh, "What else did you expect? When a murderer gets released, people hear," the one on the left of me almost proudly says, as if I was not even alive, "we're just gonna have to let them take care of her from here." He finished with a sigh. As I look through the dirty glass of the door, flashing cameras and news reporters fill the parking lot, all probably waiting for the release of their least favourite mass murderer.
"Key?" The voice of a woman sounds behind me but I don't bother turning round. Eventually, the two men's footsteps echo into the distance and my mother appears in front of me, a warm smile across her face, meant as an effort to make me feel any better. As much as I want to, I just can't smile back. "This is ridiculous," She shakes her head as she unlocks my handcuffs, "All this fuss for the long-awaited return of an innocent girl." Once she finishes, she tosses the cuffs onto the couch in the waiting area. "Are you ready?"
Taking a deep breath, I look outside once more and shrug, "It wouldn't be normal if I was." A look of sympathy replaces my mother's fake cheerful look. She puts her hand on my shoulder and guides me out the door.
As if everyone their knew exactly when that door would fly open, a crowd of both angry and curious people circled around me and my mother, blocking any way of easily slipping through. Questions were dropped like bombs all over the place, making it extremely difficult to hear any of them, not that I'd answer or respond if I did.
The swarm of angry citizens and curious reporters followed me and my mom all the way to her car, eventually looking defeated as we drove off. After four years in a mental facility, I didn't exactly know what to expect upon my arrival. I'm not saying I was exactly looking forward to smiles and tea parties, but since I was never actually found guilty – or innocent – I at least hoped the people of Beacon Hills would just let me have this day to myself.
During my time in the hospital of doom, I of course forgot how long the car ride from there to my house was, but after fifteen minutes passed with roads and turns I had no recollection of, I knew I'd be stuck in this bubble of tension for some time.
I don't really feel awkward. I thought I would; I just don't. Not having to talk when you're not the only person there is actually kind of a relief.
But obviously there are some words to be exchanged.
"Kelly told me you were getting out last month. I had enough time to fill out the papers to get you back into school," My mom's eyes remained on the road of she spoke, her voice telling me the statement meant nothing to her.
"What?" I finally build up the courage to look at her for longer than three seconds.
She shrugs, "Yeah, I figured you'd wanna get things back to normal as quickly as possible."
"Mom you don't get it I – I can't!" I really wish it could be as easy as breaking a pencil led for me to continue my life as if I hadn't spent the last four years in a mental case institute after being blamed for the murders of five of my friends, but it just feels too ominous to do something like that. The whole idea of even stopping the car in front of the house I hadn't seen in this length of time was more stressful than relieving, despite my mother's thoughts that I feel better than ever to be returning.
My mom sighs, her eyes still keeping contact with the view through the windscreen, "Kenna, I know how you feel about going back but I promise you'll be fine."
"Have you ever met a teenager? Stuff like being blamed for the shredding of five people and telling everyone you saw a wolf shift into a man doesn't just go away when the metal chains do." I sit back and release a breath I'd held in to say that sentence, "I'll never be treated the same again…"
The car pulls to a halt and my mom looks at me for the first time during the ride. I look out to see a tall pillar with two pumps stuck into in, one with diesel written in block letters and the other with petrol.
"We'll take more once we get home, okay?" She gives me a warm smile and gets out of the car, leaving me to fight with air.
I sigh and look around me. The station was pretty much vacant, excluding me and my mom and this other black hummer with tinted windows. Definitely suspicious to see a car like that just stuck there. Since there wasn't much else to look at, my eyes stay focused on the car, just hoping that someone would step in or out, but no one did. I suppose you could say that over the years I became much more aware and alert of the things around me. As my mom puts the diesel pump back into its socket and walks into the small store to pay, I look straight ahead at the trees in the Beacon Hills preserve, imagining what may be lurking between them. I knew it was truly insane to say that a werewolf tore up my friends so gruesomely and sociopathically that when the parents came in, they could only tell who their children were by the shade of a few hairs and eye colour. The families of the people I'm still believed to have killed will be the hardest to face. They blame me for the death of their children, siblings. People I've known for years gave in to the belief that I had the mind of a cold blooded murderer.
The sound of the car door opening makes me jump and my mom sits back in her driver's seat, starting up the car, "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." I lie. Of course I had to lie. It was way too hard to tell the truth sometimes, especially when you're not exactly sure just how you feel. I know I don't feel okay. There isn't really a word I can think of to describe how I feel, but the closest would be cheated.
The rest of the car ride goes by faster than I hope for, and in just over seven minutes, the house I'd come to forget comes into view. I look out the window, taking in a deep breath.
"It's okay if you don't wanna go inside yet," My mom speaks over my memories of that night fighting to break through the barrier I was forced to keep up by my psychologist, . The benevolence of my mom was starting to irritate me now. I didn't need someone to share some of their compassion with me; I needed to be treated the way I would be before any of this happened.
I shake my head at her offer, "No. I'm good." I give her a quick reassuring smile before opening the door and stepping out. The air here was nice. The blooming flowers in the garden made it just a little more bearable. When I was little, my mom and I used to plant them and water them every day. Seeing them today locks in some optimistic memories.
Once my mom joins me at my side, I nod for my own sake rather than hers before walking up the concrete path between the grass and up the porch steps, waiting at the door for my mom to unlock the door. When she did so, I slowly walk inside and take in both the familiar things and the things I have no recollection of.
"Did you re-decorate?" I ask, examining the entrance.
"Just out here. I got some different colour on the walls, put a canvas up, all the stuff we talked about doing with it."
I smile to myself as my eye catches the flowers in a vase painting I told her to put up in here if she ever got around to doing the place up.
"You didn't change my room?" I turn around to look at her. Out of all the things I imagined coming home to, a new room was definitely at the top of the list.
My mom shrugs, "I contemplated it but I couldn't touch anything in there. Knowing you, you would have just come home and re-do it all anyway." She laughs slightly and in return, I give her a genuine smile. "I gotta go to the hospital real quick. Do you think you'll be okay alone for a bit or do you wanna come with?"
"I'll be okay here," I smile.
She nods and says goodbye before leaving the house.
I look in every direction, pondering where to go. My eyes land on the staircase and my old room pops into my head. I'd always imagined seeing my room again, even if my mom did decorate it, it would still be there.
I smile lightly before walking up the stairs and making my way down the landing. There were only three doors on the second floor of the house so it wasn't hard to find my room's door between the bathroom and my mom's.
The whole situation seems so foreign to me. For whatever reason, I feel the need to knock on my own door, which I have to admit is pretty pathetic, even after all this time. I push those strange thoughts out of my mind and open the door. Before I step inside, I look around for a bit, trying to figure out how many things I could remember were. There were the easy things like my bed, my wardrobe, my desk, and then there were the more small things like my CD collection, my bobby pin jar and my FRIENDS DVD box set. A gentle yet genuine smile creeps up my face. This is home. I'm home. I'm not stuck between four walls any more; I have the space to have a proper bed. I'm not insane. My sanity is definitely still existent.
Just as I take it all in and am about to sit on my bed for the first time in so long, a long and irritating ding sounds around the house, letting me know someone was at the door.
I slowly walk down the stairs and toward the door, hesitant at first to touch the handle. For all I know, the sheriff could be back at my door, ready to take me down with questions with answers either too complicated or non-existent. I contemplate going into the living room and looking through the window, but once I realise my strength has dropped so far that I'm unable to open a door without fear on my back and in my eyes, I straighten my body and reach for the handle. This time, a seemingly impatient knock makes me jump and pull the door with such a force I believe for a moment I'd managed to tear it off its hinges.
"Thank God!" The blonde girl in front of me has her eyes resting on a batch of cookies on an oven tray, her hands covered with floral designed over gloves. She smiles down at the freshly baked raisin and chocolate chip delicacies before her head finally lifts and the smile I would describe as angelic if I were anyone else drooped to cause an unexplainable expression on her face.
"K-Kenna..?" She stumbles both on her words and on her feet, stepping back almost far enough to walk off the porch, her eyes never leaving me. She lowers the tray to the floor, probably in case in her frenzy she managed to ruin them by dropping them into.
A tight knot clogs up my throat. Carrie Bradley. Blonde desire, future baker, sister of one of the victims of the night my life took the worst turn ever.
The shaken surprise on Carrie's face evaporates in seconds and is replaced by anger. Through gritted teeth she begins to yell, pulling off her oven gloves and casting them aside, "Kenna Strider! What on earth do you think gives you the right to come back here after what you did?!" Water forms in her blue eyes as she appears to be resisting the urge to pull my face off.
I open my mouth, not exactly sure what would come out, "Carrie, please. I didn't-"
"Are you really gonna stand there and tell me you didn't murder my brother?" Her right hand rose to her face, covering her mouth and muffling the last of her sentence, several tears falling down her cheeks.
Seeing me probably re-opened healing wounds. Well, of course it did. I am considered the girl who brutally murdered all my friends, one of which was her half-brother, Cole.
Carrie kept stepping back until another woman's voice resonates and causes her to stop and turn around.
"Carrie, what in the name of Christ is taking you so long?" An aged Loretta Bradley walks into the garden, her eyebrows scrunching when she saw the tears streaking down her daughter's face.
Without question she sighs and her eyes flicker to me. She glares and storms her way up the garden until she's just outside the door "Haven't you done enough? Wasn't killing my only son enough for you?"
She shakes her head shamefully before walking back to Carrie's side and wrapping her arm around her shoulder, slowly guiding her out of the property.
I know I'm pale. When in a state of shock, my body loses colour and my words force their way back down. I should have given the both of them a long lecture on why they had no right to walk into my property and say those things to me.
Before the institute, Carrie was a loner. She wore glasses in school and she kept her face hidden behind a book and her blonde curls. I guess you could argue that I was her only real friend, and that was only because she lived with Cole and I'd always go there. Carrie was the one person in the world I expected to at least hear my side of the story before judging. She was like that, never judged someone she didn't know. My best friend was evil to her, but Carrie never bothered speaking with her so she never said a rude word about her.
I close the door after glancing at the discarded cookie batch and rest my back against it, shutting my eyes and thinking about what had just happened. I should expect nothing less from Carrie's awful mother. She doesn't care enough about Cole, just his dad. I think she just despises me and uses Cole's death as a reason to smile. She sees it as finally the whole town hates me, and she just loves seeing that. I bet she was counting down the days until my return, purposely not telling her daughter so she gained some fun from it.
It seems that being back here four years later is going to be worse than being in court two weeks later.