"Thank you so much!" Jack got up and waved farewell quickly in what he hoped would be seen as politely. He felt so much better now that he got out and got to actually see people that weren't either sitting next to him in class, droning on to him about school lessons or screaming at him for nothing. With no little haste he ran home as fast as he could, this time deciding to enter through the front door rather then try to struggle back up into his room's window. In the back of his mind, he realized he didn't get the stranger's name...but then he remembered that not everyone on the Earth had silver poisoning running through their bodies and turning their skin dark gray – he'd be easy to spot if Jack really wanted to see him again.
Satisfied with that conclusion he braced him for the worse, pushed the door open and returned back to his 'normal' life, leaving his indecent social graces, coffee fueled hatred for other teens his age and strangely charismatic gray skinned men behind.
Jack wasn't expecting complete peace and tranquility when he came home, he knew his parents and their problems better then to expect that and he wasn't stupid enough to believe in sudden miracles, but he didn't expect it to look like such an absolute war zone, as if a violent and powerful tornado with claws had had a temper tantrum in his living room Tasmanian-Devil style.
The furniture was tossed, lobbed and scattered across the room, a great majority of the couch pieces had what appeared to be knife holes with cotton pulling and dripping out of them like blood and flesh on an open wound. The T.V. had been knocked onto it's side – luckily not broken but probably not without trying—with the cable box thrown to the floor and broken up into different, shattered black pieces from the protective casing that dotted the floor along with jagged, sharp pieces of a different, non-plastic nature. Squinting he could make out the green glass of a broken beer bottle that reflected the sunlight coming through the open door with a soaking wet orange label that said 'Hellfire' on it.
'No surprises there really...'
The living room table had been flipped over and clearly thrown about with a part of the wood that made the base of the table stable missing, making it an unwise decision to place anything on it. The said part of wood was lying on the floor, unused and randomly breaking the destructive composition of the room. Jack walked up to it, closing the door behind him as he walked in lest his neighbors see and open Pandora's box, and made sure it wasn't used as a blunt object to harm anyone in the house.
More particularly, to make sure there was no blood marks that signaled that father had gone beyond what Jack thought capable of. Thankfully, he found none...so things were still relatively 'normal'.
After surveying the damage he cautiously peered around the house. It was past seven o'clock and he couldn't find his mother, father or his little sister. It was worrying. If anything the damned silence was making it a million times worse.
He traveled down a hallway he almost forgot existed, careful to make sure not to step on anything that would make an excessive level of noise and peered into the three rooms that made up his parents' room, his little sister's room and the 'Safety Room'...
First he checked his Mother and Father's room, a place he really never entered into before. He expected to find things lazily placed about and thrown around the room, making an entire mess with trash and garbage gathering on the floor and compacting, solidifying under its own weight until the trash literally became a new floor...the scent being capable of choking the breath out of a person to the point where one could possibly need a gas mask if they weren't used to be the scent, otherwise it'd be unhealthy just to stand in that room, much less inhabit it...
However, he was at a loss for words at the sight of the inside. It was impeccable with each and every last thing because neatly placed and put away in its respectful section of the room, the floor was remarkably unmarked and almost shined in the near-night/late dawn light that radiated through the nearby window giving just enough light to see.
With his mind once again blown he pulled out of the room as stealthily as he humanly could and made his way towards Mary's room, sincerely hoping nothing had happened to her and that he was going insane over nothing.
He peeked around the corner to his little sister's room and felt a little sick to his stomach. It had been so long since he had been in here last, kissing her on the forehead as a goodnight sign before withdrawing away, closing the door behind him...only to hear her whimpers of sadness from her and turning around, opening the door 'just a crack' to let the light come in before wishing her goodnight again. His heart ached but fortuitously he couldn't find any signs of a struggle or a fight here nor any sign of Mary being in there...time to move on.
With a calming exhale he tip-toed down to the last door of the three, the 'Safety Room'. The room that he actually spent the more time with his sister and mother in then all the other rooms combined. Faint memories of having to huddle up and lock the doors to try and pretend like their father wasn't just a short walk away, hurling slurred obscenities to his wife and kids as he took out his anger on the surrounding environment...
The surface of the door still had imprints of his father's hands on them, banging on the door while daring them to come out, screaming for them to, demanding that they leave the room before he would slowly sink down onto his knees like a defeated man and beg for benignity from his horror-struck family once again. In this moment of thoughtfulness, Jack pressed his finger into one of the marks where his father's hands once were, as if he could somehow help his father like touching the mark would somehow just make it disappear or evaporate into air...but that certainly didn't happen.
With the tips of his fingers he pushed the door open carefully and it gave a complaining shriek as it opened up, revealing the 'Safety Room' which, to the unknowing eye seemed to be a completely normal guest room to the house. Perfectly clean, crisp, unused sheets with a variety of comfortable pillows in various different shapes and sizes with the rest of the room having a comfortable feel to it, a natural blend of blues and whites along with two full walk in closets and an unused desktop in the corner on a desk – 'Obviously.'.
Normal people would've thought it probably looked nice.
Jack hated it. He knew this room too well for his liking.
Disregarding his feelings of discomfort he focused on seeing if any violence had occurred in the room – but unlike the other rooms which had a wide variety of color, even in the dark, this room practically shined with blue and white. Any blood, dirt or signs of violence would stick out and there was nothing but peace and quiet.
Then, out of nowhere there was a loud slamming like wood on wall, the loud screeching of metal parts from being moved too fast and too suddenly with atrociously, loud shrieking cries and Jack hit the floor in a confused flurry of limbs with fists hitting him on the chest and a high pitched voice screaming deafeningly at him, enraged. The dim light that the room has previous glowered with wasn't helping him at all here, he couldn't see the face of whoever was hitting him!
But after a little while, right before he could respond in kind, he could feel their size and physical strength through their punches and their youth through their voice...and instead of trying to fight back he just laid there silently while Mary sat on top of him, hitting him, crying with heavy sniffles and screaming near unintelligible words that he could only understand parts of. He gladly let her hit him as he felt guilty in a way for whatever had occurred, despite not knowing what happened while he was away.
Eventually, the youngest frost calmed down and climbed off of Jack's body and helped him get up. The elder felt terrible despite doing nothing but laying there and not feeling any real physical pain from his sister's punches.
"I'm sorry Mary..." He knelt down and hugged her, holding her close to him and trying his best not to cry and get upset by extension. He needed to be strong for her right now, just like he usually was...he inwardly cursed himself. 'This is what happens when you run from the problem,' he distressingly reminded himself 'Today was a moment of weakness on your own part, you don't have anyone to blame but yourself. Don't let it happen again or things might just succeed in getting worse.' "I ran away. It was my fault."
Mary didn't seem to have a response for that and instead clung to him tighter, her sniffles starting up again as she opened her mouth to speak. "Dad left. He was upset...he came back...drunk...then he and mommy started fighting again and-" she started crying again, louder then last time and Jack's eyed widened as he looked at her, disturbed from her outburst of emotions. "Daddy said that he was glad you were gone and called you a buncha bad names and said you shouldn't ever come back..."
"It's alright...come here little snowflake..." He pulled her up safely into his arms and rocked her gently, trying to stop her tears. "I'm so sorry you had to deal with that all alone...it was my fault. Big brother is gonna try harder in the future alright?"
"Why doesn't daddy love us?" She sobbed into Jack's ear and the older of the two bit his lip, trying to suppress his own oncoming emotions. He hated it when she cried like this, as if with every tear that fell down her cheeks another part of his heart was breaking for her, for them. A selfish part of him wanted to go back to that time to before he really began to care for her. Back when he was able to turn a blind eye to all of the abuse he and his mother were going through by merely shrugging it off. Now he had his little sister, sensitizing him to the real nature of it again...and it was hell to deal with. "What did we do wrong that was so bad?"
"We didn't do anything wrong Mary. Dad just..." Jack's voice unintentionally trailed off there, unable to find an answer that would be befitting. 'Needs help', 'Is really angry?', 'Needs to stop going out and getting wasted?' seemed to all be correct and applicable answers, but not the answers Mary needed to hear right now in her life and so he tried his best to cover it up with another question. "Where's mom?"
"She went to go get garbage bags and stuff to clean up." She pushed past her emotions and Jack couldn't help but grin at her proudly, her English was getting better and better with each passing day. "She didn't make any food or anything...she just left. She's been gone for a while now."
"Hmmm...hey Snowflake-" Jack bit the inside of his cheek for a moment, only now realizing he was calling her by an old nickname Will used to use and instead just danced with her in his arms for a bit, smiling at her. "You've been doing great as of late. Big brother is going to find a way to reward you or something..." Then he remembered he had an unused ten dollar bill sitting in his front pocket with more hidden away in his room. 'Thank you gray guy!' "How about we order some pizza?"
She immediately became her chipper, happy self again. "With pepperoni?!"
"And extra cheese." He tickled her and rubbed his nose up against her own before placing her back onto solid ground.
She cheered as her older brother put her down and then greedily grabbed his hand up as they went back into the ruined living room to pick up and reassemble the dismantled house phone – battery and all – and call the local pizza place.
–
Jack wasn't dumb enough to let the pizza guy see the inside of the house and instead met him outside and gathered the pizza from there. He may have not liked how his parents treated them but he doubted foster care would be much better nor would it keep him in touch with his little sister. Things always got messy when you involved outside powers and laws...He hoped that he would be able to continue playing father figure for her while still being able to have a bit of breathing space for himself until either his father either got sober or until she didn't need him anymore.
He walked back inside and placed the pizza on top of the now un-turned over television – it was almost too big for him to turn back onto it's bottom but he struggled through it and got to cleaning up as best as he could within a nominal amount of time so that he could get his sister fed in an at least moderately clean environment.
First off was the less than difficult task of sweeping the floor clear of all the glass and hard plastic so that Mary wouldn't hurt her feet. Then placing as much of the furniture back in place as he possibly could and testing the cable box to make sure it worked and was fully functional – miraculously it was. Jack was thankful for the little things and set Mary up in the living room, watching Spongebob reruns while eating her pizza and waiting for her brother to come join her.
Unfortunately, Jack refused to rest so easy and tried his best to tidy absolutely everything up while Mary watched from the couch as he ran himself up and down the stairs and throughout the house, cleaning up to the best of his ability before sitting next to his little sister once more and trying to relax again, enjoying the rebroadcasts of his second favorite show in the world, eating his third favorite food in the world and enjoyed the fleeting moment of peace, away from the drunken brawls of his parents and the long and convoluted schoolwork that was more time consuming then difficult. Jack knew he had to eventually return to these things but for now he enjoyed this moment, when he could feel like he was actually a son rather then a full blown father figure...
–
Three full Spongebob episodes and six of out of a total ten slices of pizza later, Mary was dozing off with her head lying against his arm and struggling weakly to stay awake and conscious for as long as possible. Jack couldn't help but pet her head delicately and smile at her as she finally gave in and drowsed off into a world of sleep. After that Jack cautiously picked her up and put her into her own room, under the covers of her own bed before retreating back into the living room, putting away the rest of the pizza away in the kitchen and deciding it was time for him to go do schoolwork before heading off to bed himself.
And then he remembered the testing paper that he needed to have signed. A brief look confirmed that it certainly wasn't in the immediate area but he didn't have the energy or drive to get up and actually do an intense search for it – he didn't even complete the rest of his school work for today. He really couldn't do much besides just pick himself up and head to bed and just as he was about to do that, the front door swung open to reveal a thoroughly pissed off Katherine.
Jack opened his mouth to speak but was too slow, she was already on him with eyes like a hawks, staring him down viciously and mercilessly. "Why would you just leave like that? Do you have any idea how worried I was? How upset and scared me and your father were when we couldn't find you upstairs?"
"Mom I-"
"Don't even! Do you have any idea what you put me and your father through?!"
Jack sucked his teeth and took in a sharp intake of breath, too exhausted and emotionally drained already to deal with her screaming and yelling at him over his leaving. He agreed, it was stupid of him to leave so soon and without a word to her but her screaming wasn't helping him at all. "I'm sorry." It was all he could really struggle out before he pushed himself off the couch and tried to head to his own room...only for his mother to walk right in front of him and get in his face.
"Jackson don't you dare try to walk away from me. You scared the living hell straight out of us!"
Jack really couldn't take anymore for today. Maybe tomorrow but not right now...and he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind as a result. "I saw the beer bottle on the floor. So I can already tell you that's a lie for at least one of you. By the way, did you notice that I cleaned up the living room? Turned the television back straight up? Swept the floors? Fed Mary with food I brought with my own savings? Put her to bed? Did you see any of that or even try to see things from MY perspective before you started screaming at me?" It was all said in a shocking amount of deadpan that would've even surprised Jack, if it wasn't for the fact that he was far too fatigued to try and be astonished by his own words.
Katherine opened her mouth to speak but instead retreated and took a breath before talking. "None of that justifies you leaving Mary in this house all alone."
"Funny you should say that, because when I left here Mary was with you and dad but when I got back she was all alone, hiding in the closet in the safe room, paralyzed with fear until she knew it was me." Jack stepped past her, as if he was paying her no mind – and he wasn't. He didn't have any more left to give for today. "You can be hypocritical, spiteful and mix up your priorities all you want tomorrow. Right now I need sleep." With that he headed upstairs into his own room and locked the door behind him, leaving a stunned and ashamed Katherine to deal with her own emotions while he collapsed into bed and dreamed of a world where he didn't have so much weight on his shoulders.
Fun fact: Hellfire is the name of one of my favorite Disney songs of all time. My absolute favorite is 'Pink Elephants on Parade' then, 'Be a Man', then 'I'm Odd', 'Be Our Guest', after is 'Be Prepared', 'Hellfire' and lastly is 'Painting the Roses Red'.
Chapter originally to be released on May 1st but my little sister said I should give you another chapter this Sunday. Plus I have school testing to do...I also have just completed chapter 10...
Gonna be a fun, heartbreaking, soul shattering time :).
Also: The next two chapters are going to be smaller then this one - consecutively smaller. Nothing I could really do about that. Don't worry though, I'll release em faster (2-3 day spread)
