Twisted Life Of Lies
"Wanna play a game?" Yes, that was how it was. The eight year old Klarissa had grown up playing game after game. There was no room for reality in her mind, since her world consisted only of the four room home she shared with her father and the games they played together.
Klarissa knew he went out and stayed out for long periods of time. She knew that he would come home either really happy with his pockets full of money- which he would usually spend some of on a new toy for her- or disturbed. He would go out back to beat on any durable bit of trash that was sitting in the local garbage dump, which was just behind their home. She could hear cursing, even screaming sometimes from her father out there, but she simply thought it was normal, so she hardly flinched. He had told her not to worry about it. If she asked if he was alright, he would simply smile at her and assure her it was fine. Klarissa's concern slipped away after the first few times of questioning him over his emotional state.
She didn't realize that she should have a mother around, since she never remembered having one. She couldn't remember having anything done for her, her first memories being of sitting on the floor playing with cards to entertain herself. Klarissa's father was her only other contact to the outside world, since he locked the house up before leaving, and part of their rules was to never go outside.
Klarissa always dressed in simple clothes: cute little sundresses or a pair of jeans with some solid colored t-shirt. Her father didn't spoil her in that department, but she didn't care. Since her mother hadn't been around, she never learned that girls typically enjoyed shopping for clothes. She was an adorable little girl, with deep jade eyes and hay-colored hair that had dimmed a bit from the years inside, and her skin was a nearly flawless pale. Thankfully for her father, she didn't seem to mind staying home all day and that her life revolved around him and the house. She kept it clean for him, which gleaned her his praise. He played games with her for hours whenever he came home happy. Though, when he came home angry, he just spared an affectionate pat her on the head before going over to the junkyard.
One day- her father was gone like he usually was and she was at home by herself- she met one of her father's "coworkers". She had always been told to hide away somewhere so that they couldn't see her, but had always been curious. After all, hiding meant that she couldn't see them, as well as them not being able to see her. Klarissa had never ever understood it, but she had done it because her daddy had told her to. That was one of the rules: never go against what daddy says to do. There was no room to complain, because if the rules were broken, the game would stop and boredom would ensue.
She opened the door, since her father wasn't there to do so. The man that stood behind it was much taller than herself- probably about the size of her father as she could tell- but she didn't mind since feeling small was something she was used to. His face gave her the impression that he smiled a lot. Slight creases from the action already at the edges of his mouth and carving out his slightly plump cheeks. His hair looked like it had been dyed several different colors over the years, the layers of color acting like a timeline. There was no hairstyle present, essentially left to look like a mouse made a nest in it. His eyes appeared all black to her, though she supposed they must have been dark brown or something of that sort. He wore a nice leather jacket and black slacks, with a white collared shirt beneath it.
"Hello," she said, a sweet smile on her lips. "Are you looking for Daddy?"
"Is your daddy's name Keith?" the man asked, looking a little surprised. Kieth had a daughter? That was news to him. The man kept to himself, sure, but to not mention having a little one was being a little too secretive. Maybe he didn't like the girl.
"I think so. I always just call him daddy, though. All the people that come to talk to him call him 'Keith'." she responded. For her, it was nice just to have someone to talk to.
"Well then, yes, I'm lookin' for your father... where is he now?" he looked past her into the house, seeing if anyone was in there. Was this a trick to keep them at bay? Keith must be getting desperate to put his daughter to the wolves...
"I don't know. He just said he was going out. He leaves for a long time almost every day now... but at least he buys me toys sometimes on his way back home. It's nice." She clasped her hands behind her back, her smile turning into a bit of a grin. The thought of toys always brought her back to being more of the child she was. Doing all the housework that she did, sometimes she felt like she was a grown up already.
"How come we never see you when we come to talk to him?" It was something he honestly wanted to know. If Keith didn't like her, it'd be obvious in the way that she answered the question. The kid was strange, and he couldn't quite pin down what it was about her that struck him that way.
"He tells me to hide," Klarissa replied simply, shrugging slightly. "I do what Daddy tells me. But he never said I shouldn't answer the door if I'm home by myself..."
That was it: this kid was so well-mannered. It was almost unnerving to him. The kids he'd been used to were foul-mouthed and tried to break his car windows as he drove by because they knew what he was and what he might do to their families one day. "Well aren't you just tsuch a good girl," the man mused, crouching down in front of her."Can you tell me your name?"
"Daddy said I'm not supposed to tell strangers my name," she said, frowning a little as she thought about it, before perking back up. "But he didn't say anything about fake names! My daddy sometimes calls me 'my little infinity'. So, I guess you can call me that. Infinity." She nodded slightly, beaming at the fact she found a way to give this man a name to call her by. It was a little loophole to the rules she'd found, just like when she would go play in the backyard while her father was busy in the junkyard. If he couldn't see her or hear her, she'd get away with it.
"Well if we're giving out fake names, then I suppose I'll just have to do the same. I've been called 'Dangerfield'."
The little girl giggled. "Dangerfield? You mean like that famous guy?"
The man nodded, his smile now practically plastered onto his lips. Okay, this kid had him hooked. He'd have to have a talk with Keith when he could find him about hiding this girl from the guys. She was the most interesting kid he'd met in a very long time. In fact, probably the best one he'd ever met. "Yep. Just like that."
"Well then I don't like my name anymore, yours is better..." she murmured, thinking again of a different pet name her father called her. "Divadens. Yes. That's cooler. Divadens."
He echoed her, recieving a small nod of approval from the girl. That was one odd nickname. He knew a little about Keith, but to call his daughter something like that was just strange. "Like dividends, money you get back from stocks?"
The girl blinked, tilting her head after a moment. "I guess. Daddy never told me what it meant."
"Well, my most boring name's Jack Napier," he told her, his smile broadening a bit. Perhaps a good-hearted trick would work on the girl.
"Jack Napier," she mused, speaking slowly and deliberately to say it right. Something told her that this was a long way around to getting her actual name. She liked her nicknames better, since real names bored her, but she knew her actual name."My boring name... oh! That's Klarissa Jameson." She only had to think for a moment or two because it had been a while since a lady visited wanting to talk to her. She'd called her by that name, her 'real' name. It felt weird, talking to her, especially when she asked questions about she got along with her father.
"Klarissa. What a pretty name," Jack mused, patting the her on the head before going into his jacket pocket for something with the same hand.
Klarissa watched, tilting her head a little to try and see what he was pulling out.
"You give this," Jack told her, pulling out a Joker card from his jacket and holding it out to her, "to your daddy and I'll have the biggest lollipop you've ever seen waiting for you when you do, Ok?"
Klarissa nodded, smiling as she took the card and held it between her fingers in one hand. "Sure. I'll give it to him. I like candy, but I'm not supposed to have too much 'cause daddy says it'll rot my teeth."
"Which it will," Jack said, nodding affirmatively as he stood back up slowly and took a step back down the front walk. "But I won't be giving you too much; just a treat."
The Klarissa nodded, watching as Jack, left. He didn't seem mean and it made her wonder why her father had had her hide away from these kinds of people before.
Later that night, her father returned quite happy with himself. He had brought her back a big plush toy of what looked like a collie. She'd always wanted a dog but he'd always told her that they couldn't have one because of where they lived.
As always, little Klarissa met him at the door and smiled as she took the big toy from her father. She blinked, remembering the card. She struggled for a moment ot find it in her pocket, but soon pulled it out of her jeans. "A man came by to see you today, Daddy. He told me to give you this. And he said his name's Jack Napier."
Her father's smile faded slowly as he took the joker card from her hand and stared at it for a few long moments.
"Daddy, is something wr-"
"We're going to play a new game today, sweetie," her father told her quickly, pulling her free hand along with him into her room. "Get your suitcase packed. We need to leave soon. It's... a game like cops and robbers, except we're... like cops on the run. The robbers want to catch us instead of the other way around– but we can't let them catch us, sweetie, we just can't."
Klarissa nodded slightly and began packing up, hardly noticing as her father scrambled out of the room to do the same. He was back within twenty minutes, an expression on his face that she had never seen before. Klarissa was sitting on her bed with her bag packed and hugging her new stuffed doll to her chest. "I've thought of a name for her, daddy. I'll name her after you, I'll call her 'Keith'."
Her father smiled, though to Klarissa, something was different about it. The emotion the smile conveyed was clearly sadness. This was one of many times that she felt like she was missing something. Her father kept quite a few things from her, but she never asked. Her curiosity wanted to know, but asking questions never got a good response from him, so she let things continue as they were.
Her father nodded and motioned for her to follow him, which she did, without hesitation. He stopped at the door, turning back to his precious little girl and kneeling before her. She set down her things so he could clasp her hands in his. His face was serious, so she knew not to smile. "Now listen to me, my little Infinity," told her, "There's only one rule to this game besides the golden one. Only one more. Unless they call you your real name, you should run. If you can't run, you hurt them as much as you can. Use anything around you, don't think of them like people, but like those scary monsters you used to think were in the hallway closet."
Klarissa nodded, smiling a little just as an attempt to cheer her father up a little. "Yes Daddy. I understand," she said, nodding. "Unless somebody says my name then I run. I'll hurt them if I can't run."
"That's my good girl," Keith murmured, ruffling her hair affectionately, earning a giggle from the little girl. With that done, he stood up and opened the door, ushering her quickly to the car.
She watched the house as they pulled away, sighing softly. "Do you think we'll come back soon, daddy?"
"No, honey. I don't think we'll come back soon. But one day... One day we'll come back and live without having to play so many silly games."
Klarissa looked up at her father and cocked her head, a bit confused now. "But I like games…"
Keith sighed, shaking his head. "I know honey, I know." After that, he refused to say anymore, despite some attempts on Klarissa's part to get him to explain.
Klarissa wanted to look out the window- since she only ever went out in the car with her father when she needed to go see a doctor- but Keith told her to keep her head down. She didn't know why he told her to do such a thing, but she abided by the golden rule nevertheless. Soon they were passing beneath a bridge, and she only knew this by the muffled sound of the cars going above them and by a sudden lack of light. The darkness wasn't replaced by the light of the other side, instead she felt them stopping. Her father seemed upset, and Klarissa looked up. Her father wasn't about to have that, and snapped at her to get back down, to hide. Of course she did, but no sooner had he told her that did she hear her father struggling. She pushed herself farther down into her hiding spot in front of the back seats. Unfortunately her hiding didn't keep her from getting pulled out of the car by her ankles. She found herself being thrown down to the ground beside her father, who she already saw was being tied up. She moved to stop the men, only to get smacked down to the dirt.
"Don't hurt the girl," a man's voice rang out, making the man who had struck her jerk slightly as if he himself were struck.
Klarissa looked up, finally having enough of a clear head to pull herself up and grab at a nearby broken glass shard. She'd seen her father use a knife that he had at home to carve up foods before they ate, and this looked like just the sharp part of it. He'd told her it would hurt someone if it hit them, and she hadn't yet thought of running. A hand grasped the curve between her neck and shoulder tightly, which was one too many strange sensations. She whipped around, nailing the man just behind her in the leg with it. He stumbled backwards, crying out in pain. Some of the others just snickered, seeming not to care in the least that one of their own was injured. "Look, the kitten's flexing her claws," someone teased.
"Well I see you gave him the card," Jack said, stepping forward and smiling at her.
Klarissa put the glass shard back on the ground slowly, nodding as a smile crossed her lips. "Yes, just like you said I should," she told him.
"Klarissa!" Keith gasped, looking to his daughter with wide doe-brown eyes. "What are you doing? He didn't call you the right name! You're supposed to run!"
She turned to her father, a bit confused now. "But that is my name too, Daddy. You said so..."
The men that had been behind her father pulled him away and Klarissa was about to follow, that was before Jack had a gentle hold on her arm and pulled her up to her feet. "We've got to talk to your dad about a few things. Here, you go wait in my car right over there, okay? No one here's going to hurt you. I promise you can trust them. I'll be there in just a minute to take you to my house so I can give you that lollipop I promised you." Ah, the literal ploy of using candy to lure a child put into use. And working, as much of a shock as that was.
"Okay!" Klarissa told him, before she went with another of Jack's partners to his black sedan and hopped in, sitting back in the comfortable leather seats and humming slightly to herself while she waited.
They drove her a few blocks away while Jack took care of his 'business' with Keith. Jack hopped in the car with them when they came back, a reassuring smile on his face for Klarissa.
"Where's Daddy?" Of course that was the first question out of the child's mouth, giving him her characteristic head tilt as she asked it.
Jack closed the door behind him and the car began to move again as he put a hand to her head. "Your daddy told me that it was time for you to play a new game. He wanted me to play with you from now on, is that alright?" He didn't even know why he was doing this. The mob was going to have a few things to say about him taking in the kid of a guy deep in the read with bookies and sharks. For some reason, though, he felt like she needed to have another chance. And this was the only other chance that he could think up for her. At least now Claire wouldn't be on his case about having kids; she'd get Klarissa.
Klarissa took a while to reply, looking away and appearing sad for once. After a few long minutes she looked back to Jack, nodding. "Alright." The idea that her dad wouldn't be playing with her anymore was strange, but she liked Jack. He hadn't done a single thing bad to her and he'd talked a lot like her dad did. Trust and love grew on trees in her world.
"So we'll play a new game now," he told her, ruffling her hair. "There are only two rules for now. You can't ever answer the door at my house, no matter what. The other, and more important one, is that you do as I say, no matter what it is."