Title: Family Portrait
Summary: The Batchelder's are the town's model family. They are generous benefactors of the town's schools, the church, and police department, with one son and six foster children. But no one knows the secrets kept inside their large estate. Max and her foster siblings are trapped living with the abusive Batchelder's who have taken their childhoods and innocence. If that isn't hard enough let's not forget their son who believes he has a 'claim' to Max and the desperate attempts to keep her family together. Will the secrets the Batchelder's hide ever come out? Idea is based off of the movie Family Sins and Family Portrait by PINK.
*Warning: The nature of this story is a Mature subject matter. Please be aware of this!*
Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride. That is a right that belongs to James Patterson.
Prologue
Max's Point Of View
My name is Maxine Ride but do not, I mean do not tell Mama that. To Mama I'm Marcella Batchelder her eldest 'daughter'. I am fifteen years old and I live a lie. Marcella, Alex, Ian, Monique, Grant, and Angelina Batchelder, the perfect foster children the Batchelder's have taken in, that's us. But that isn't who we really are because nothing is ever as it seems. The Batchelders are the town's model family. Rich, caring, and humble, the perfect family in anyone's eyes are the Batchelders. Life here though is not perfect, maybe at one time but not anymore and never again.
If there is one thing Mama has taught me it is that appearances need to be kept. So we are perfect, outside these walls at least. I am the unbreakable Marcella, on the outside, but truly I'm just a broken little girl wanting to keep the family I once knew around. I stay strong for the children, always to keep them safe. No one sees through the impenetrable façade though except Alexander, my rock. He is always right there when my ice cold composure beings to thaw. Though I'll talk more about him later right now I should get back to the nightmare that is the Batchelder family and their Estate.
Monique, Angelina, and I are 'home schooled' as Val says. If you wondering who Val is, she is Mama and Jeb, her husband, is Dad. What the 'home schooling' Mama has us do is chores. Keeping the house in order while she and Dad are at 'work', and if our chores are not completed we don't get dinner that night and sometimes if Mama is in a bad mood over something or another, punishments.
Punishments vary depending on Mama's exact mood. I always make sure Monique's and Ange's chores are completed and to Mama's standards. I can handle not eating and a few slaps or the crack of an electrical wire once and a while as long as they are safe. I don't think I would be able to live with myself if either of them were harmed. Alex and Ian do the same for Grant, but they also have a better education. Mama told us it is more valuable for them to be taught then us girls. Alex teaches me everything he learns though. He's always caring for me.
Well I'm getting off track again. Let's get back to the Batchelder Family. As I said I'm fifteen years old, according to Mama, Alex is sixteen as well as Ian. We are the oldest foster children and tend to be very, very protective of the younger three in our family. Monique just turned fourteen. Grant is eight and adorable just like his biological sister Angelina. She is at the tender age of six and everyone's favorite even Mama's.
Mama treats Angelina better then the other five of us foster children. She gives Ange the least amount of work. Ange is probably the only one Mama thinks of when delegating chores or meals. I always had keen senses, I noticed the slightly larger portions of food she would slip Angelina. The care, the love Mama has for Ange is different then anything I've seen her deal out to the rest of us. She loves us all in a way, a dementedly sick way albeit, but it's all we've ever really known.
Aaron though has all of Mama's real love, well sort of. Speaking of Aaron he's seventeen years old and Mama and Dad's son, biologically. They love, love, love him. Sometimes that hurts. It is really Mama's preference, she loves Aaron more then any one in the world- maybe it has to do with the fact that he really is hers. Mama does have a certain special place for Ange though. And I have this weird feeling that it is not just because she's the youngest.
You've probably guessed it now that Mama is the Ringleader of this whole . . . well, for lack of better words, circus. Mama does real-estate. She even owns a few houses she rents out. That's how we have a lot of our money. Not from the rent like you're thinking though. When someone isn't paying she sends Aaron out or even Alex and Ian to set the house on fire so they can collect on the insurance money. It always ends up looking like an accident though. I don't exactly know all the details of the process though. Alex says he doesn't want me to know about it.
The money also comes from Dad's job. He is a scientist. I don't know for sure what he does in his lab. I remember him telling me it has something to do with testing DNA, combining it, and experimenting with it. It sounds sort of cool, in a way, but I wonder who, or what for that matter, they experiment on exactly.
Creepy isn't it? To think about a human being used as a test subject and kept like a lab rat in cages. I shudder at the thought of it actually. I have always felt a little claustrophobic and being in a cage would probably freak me out. The world is just a scary place I guess. I won't ever really know though being trapped here. One of my dreams is to run away from this place one day. Get us all out. It would be amazing to be free from rules and being able to sit up in a tree and breathe in nature. My heart would fill with joy.
One big place in my heart is for Alex. He is my hero. True it is cliché as a cliché can be and sound, it is so very true. Alex is everything to me, he is my very best friend and I love him. Sometimes I think I love him so much that it hurts. Maybe in a good way though, if there is such a thing as a good ache or pain. Through all that we done and all we have endured, we can always look back and smile because of each other. That is the one very positive thing about living here and suffering is that I will always have him there with me along the way. Like I said before, Alex is my rock. He has sacrificed so much for me, taken beatings, given me some of his dinner when I couldn't eat.
You see we share a room. Mama's logic is strange sometimes. She seems to have paired us off almost. Alex and I, Ian and Monique, Grant and Angelina (though they are siblings) each of us shares the room with the other. We have a sheet separating our sides of the room, but I never can feel uncomfortable around him. None of us can feel that way around each other. Not when you were eight and accidentally wet the bed and Mama has you stand out naked and clean the sheets while everyone watches.
Enough about Mama and her punishments and this whack job estate, this is about Alex. At night I will usually climb into Alex's bed and he holds me as we sleep. When he is there with me everything is fine, no nightmares, no pain and no one else in the world matters. I can tell him anything my hopes and dreams and he will listen and dream right along with me. No one else knows though, no one else ever will. Only Alex and I, though I have a suspicion that Monique and Ian know something is going on with us, just as I think something is going on with them. Who knows maybe it is just that we can all use one person to depend on specifically. We are all closely knit though. We have to stay strong together against it all. It is one of the only ways to make sure no one ends up hurt or alone. At least for now.
The Batchelder's weren't always like this though. They used to be very good people. Truly nice and caring people, a while back, but I still remember a lot of it. I was a little older then Angel then, no more then a few months older though. I loved Mama and Dad they had given me a loving home. I still do love them in a way, but in a remorseful way you could say. Aaron was my playmate. Back then we had a nice maid too, her name was Lucy. Lucy slept in the basement and would always bake me chocolate chip cookies that made me smile. She was a little slow, but she was still very smart and very pretty, too pretty actually.
Dad couldn't resist the temptation of a pretty woman locked in the basement at night, who could very easily fall for anything he said though. For this I will always hold certain specific hatred towards Dad. He slept with Lucy, many, many, many times before Mama even found out, and when she did, Mama was not happy. Something inside her started to take control. This psychologically crazed need or something. I never will exactly know. I don't know what happened to Lucy when Mama found out, but I remember hiding when I heard her screams from down below.
This was before anyone else lived with us. Mama became bitter and resentful towards Dad. Tighter and tighter strung around me. She loves Dad so much still, and can't hold anything towards him, not for very long at least. Me, though being in no way related to her, she could blame without feeling guilt.
One night she came into my room and asked me why I made Dad do things with Lucy and I told her that I didn't do anything or I didn't mean to at least. God I was only six what did I know about love or sex or anything really? Mama was not happy with my answers. She kept looking for excuses to be angry with me as the weeks went on. Until one night, she found a reason to take her anger out on me. During dinner I accidentally spilled my glass of milk and it poured onto her lap.
That was the first time she hit me. Mama slapped me across the face, hard with a burning fury in her eyes. I immediately started to sob and she hit me again. Mama told me if I didn't stop she'd send me into the basement and Daddy would punish me. I couldn't stop though it hurt, physically, emotionally, in every way. I told her I was sorry and that I loved her and I wouldn't do it again. It was useless in the end.
Mama had fully snapped that night and she wasn't going to turn back. My first punishment was that night too. When she sent me downstairs she didn't even take a second look. I still have a few marks from that night. Small marks but the biggest one was emotionally and that has healed quite a bit over time.
Most marks are from when I really screwed up, like when I was thirteen and stood up for myself, or at least attempted to that was one of the worst, and I haven't done it since and never think I will again. Alex stayed up with me that night taking care of the wounds and making me feel better. I know it may be sad but all I want is to go back to that happy family before Dad cheated, to be that little hopeful and happy girl again.
God it would be so nice to live in that fantasy, that dream. Dreams don't always come true though. I bet Snow White and Cinderella are probably rolling in there graves right about now. It was so simple for Cinderella's dreams to come true though. She had little mouse friends and a fairy godmother. Really aren't so alone there are you princess? Whatever though, rats are disgusting, with there beady little eyes and long overgrown tails.
Though I wonder how exactly they would taste probably better then nothing right? I could see people freaking out in restaurants seeing something like 'Desert Rat served with a side of our original Cactus Juice' on the menu. That would be hilarious. Only in my dreams I guess. I wonder if some dreams really can come true. Though I know in my case, those dreams would most likely be turned into painful nightmares. Congratulations, by the way, you just entered mine.
Author's Note: Thank you for taking the time to read this story I have been working on for a while now. I truely appreciate it and I hope you enjoyed what I have written so far. I will try to update once every week or at least once every other week. I like to put a lot of effort into my writting and editing. Thanks again. -Mel
