A/N: Oh god, I'm so sorry! University got a bit on top of me, but it is over now, I took my last exam, and I have given my boyfriend permission to slap me across the back of the head if I don't update my stories at least once a week :D
He was tired now, he was ill and he wanted to go home. No t to the apartment, but home. He knew anywhere could be a house, somewhere to feel safe and warm, but home was where your heart was and that was with Trucy and her father, in the Wright Anything Agency. He whimpered a little as he continued to change the bandages, looking out the window across the city.
The sky was as dark and gloomy as he felt. It was night, and it had done nothing but rain all day. He used to love hearing the rain against the windows, it was relaxing when he worked more than fifteen hours a day, doing cases. Now, it made him recoil in horror, cry and dance with the idea of death once again.
"You did this." The voice reminded him. "I told you there was a way out of it, did I not?"
"Leave me alone." He grumbled, his voice had lost all passion.
"But I am correct, I told you to kill yourself, did you do it?"
"Leave me the fuck alone!" He banged his fist against the window, a tiny crack appearing on the fragile and weak glass window.
"You chose to hide the truth! You chose to send those messages! You chose to make everyone around you as sad as you are angry at yourself!"
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" He howled, distressed.
Ema had seen him, at the cemetery. Now he barely left home, he ordered food via the internet, then hides his face when the delivery driver turns up. He had found a card for an additional bank account he had used as a student, to get his grant paid in. He was using that card just to pay for food and soda, a thing he desperately craved.
How long had he been in there? How long had it been since his box began making its rounds?
I don't know! Days mean nothing to me now, time means nothing. I simply exist being crushed by depression. I miss home, I miss Phoenix and Trucy! I miss everyone!
-x-x-
Her breasts hurt, bad. She hated the pain of being beautiful. Still, she had the money, and the status which required her to be beautiful. Her mother was a world famous lawyer, well she was.
Lately, she's just a drunk and she's addicted to painkillers.
She sent her mother to rehab, her mother did not protest, which confused her. Her mother was a strong and powerful woman, stubborn and headstrong as they get. Yet when she went to fetch her mother from her room, the woman's arm hung limp between them as she held her wrist, leading her away. She had packed, but not enough for a month's stay in rehabilitation, so yet again, she found herself bringing a suitcase of extra clothes to the rehab clinic.
When her mother had left, she had provided the money for her boob-job, after all, the doctor had decided on the most beautiful implants, which would make her breasts finally stand out. They were in now, and they hurt, she'd have loved her mother being with her when she went to that appointment, or now, to cheer her up. She wanted her mother's cakes, the cooks couldn't cook them, and they would cheer her up no end.
The only things in her mother's bag when she had loaded her into the car was a picture frame containing a picture of her, her son and daughter, a CD and a single change of clothes. It was hardly a surprise the clinic had woke her that morning, asking to deliver more clothes. She was severely hung over, there was no point denying that she enjoyed partaking in the parties of her friends, where the older siblings of her friends, or even the parents, would bring alcohol. Her mother wouldn't, but whilst she wasn't there, anything went.
She twisted in her bed to stretch, almost slapping the boy next to her in the face, she laughed to herself, Cal, that was his name, was the one person she relied on for supplying alcohol to a party. He wasn't her boyfriend, she didn't need one of those, what she needed was sex, and a boy willing to supply it in copious amounts, that was him. This had been the first time she had let him sleep next to her after doing the deed, and she had to admit, it was comfy.
"Hey, Cal, wake up!" She shook him, he grumbled and twisted to face her.
"Well, good morning." He smirked.
"How much did we drink last night?"
"Heck if I know." He laughed. "Sex was great though."
"I'm surprised you can still get it up." She smirked. "With all the alcohol you drink."
"Well, trust me, I can. Let me show you." He wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her onto his lap.
"I need to go somewhere, I don't have time." She complained.
"You can't drive."
"I know, I'm gonna call mum's driver."
"Sure I can't tempt you?" He purred, voice like liquid silk.
"No."
"Well you're no fun." He feigned being hurt.
"Look, can I trust you to help get rid of any people that didn't quite make it home?"
"Of course, but what's in it for me?" He smiled, a Cheshire cat smile.
"Well..." She leaned down, her rather ugly and aching breasts balancing against his face, her pelvis sliding down to rest on his. "Then I may be interested."
"Deal." He said without hesitation. "You call the driver, we'll get dressed and see the damage, ok?"
There were people everywhere, in every room, in varying states of dress. She had found one of her friends in the bathroom with two lads, passed out in the bath tub. She carefully negotiated her sleeping friend from the two boys before tapping her awake.
"Nngh?" Her eyes shot open.
"Good night was it?" She giggled.
Cal and her friend promised to help chase the people out of the house before the cleaners arrived, then her friend was to return home, and Cal to wait in her room.
"You can't make too much noise, in case my brother comes back or the cleaners hear you." She urged him.
"Yeah, yeah, I hear you." He smiled.
She gathered up as many outfits as could fit into the suitcase she had selected for her mother. She had an eye for fashion, and had designed most of her mother's clothes. So it was hardly a surprise her mother had a good taste. She pulled the suitcase downstairs and to the door, waiting for the call from her mother's driver.
"Ma'am." She spun round. "I hope you don't mind." He was stood behind her, his thick English accent almost hanging in the air.
"George you scared me!"
"I found this package on the drive." He held the box out.
"It's a cereal box, throw it in the trash."
"Ma'am I don't think this is a normal cereal box, it is addressed to you for a start." She snatched the box from him.
She carried the box to the car as George wheeled the suitcase out after her and loaded it into the car. He had selected the traditional car you'd think of when you say the word 'Chauffer', a limousine style vehicle, where he was separated from her by a pane of thick shaded glass. She tore open the box as they set off, the clinic was over an hour away, and she could get settled during the trip.
"You appear to have had a good night ma'am, if you don't mind me saying." Sometimes, it was hard for her to remember that George was only a few years older than her, he wasn't bad looking, if she didn't have Cal, he'd be an option.
"I'm having another one tomorrow night, if you're not working and would like to carry on." She glanced down at the box between her thighs.
"Perhaps I will."
"Let me know when we're nearly there." She pressed the button on the intercom, it was how she communicated with him whilst they were travelling, his was connected by pressing a button, then press it again to switch it off. She heard the click as he switched his side of the intercom off. The best thing about the vehicle was she couldn't hear his weird smooth jazz on his CD player, she had her own in the back.
As soon as the blank CD dropped into her lap, she placed her drink on the side table next to her seat and picked it up. Then squealed and promptly dropped it. It was another blank CD, the box looked a lot different this time, so she had not suspected a similar package to the one that seemed to have upset her mother.
"George." She pressed the intercom. "Please don't bother me until we're there, buzz me when we're there. I'll sort stuff out. I need to listen to something private."
"Of course." And he would be true to his word, he disconnected the intercom to ensure he wasn't tempted to listen in to what she was listening to.
-x-x-
"Hi Sasha." The voice began.
"Oh...you." She growled. "Best thing you've done for my family is drop dead." She snarled at the voice.
"I'm sure you just said something derogatory – you may not understand that word – something...nasty about me"
"You bastard I'm not that stupid!" She snarled.
"Well when you're quite finished, chill out, take some tablets to cure your hangover and take a comfy seat. I want you to listen, consider it the only thing you need to do for me now I'm gone. I couldn't care less if you didn't attend my funeral." Apollo was honest in this recording, truly and deeply honest, he knew it was the only way he could get her to listen.
"Fine." She scowled.
"When I was young, a couple came to the orphanage, everyone was really excited, and there were hushed tones amongst the older children that these people had money and the lady was already famous." Apollo began. "Your mother wasn't all that young looking, and her husband relatively plain, but we orphans knew no matter what the person, we were expected to make an effort."
"Well, your parents were dead and my mother and father were your only chance of salvation." The girl replied to the voice on the disk snottily.
"They immediately blew off the older kids, the older teenagers that flocked around their ankles and rushed up to them. They didn't even glance at the really tiny infants, the babies and the like, instead, she focused on the younger teens such as myself. We kept ourselves to ourselves, especially those of us who had been there since we were babies, as far as we were concerned, we'd lost our chance the second we'd stopped being babies."
"Yet, your mother was showing more of an interest in our group than any others." Apollo paused. "Even back then she expected perfection 'that child has a mole on its face, that child has the wrong coloured hair, that child can't colour in between the lines' she was pedantic and she was picky, but eventually, she settled on the small brunette boy huddled in the corner, reading."
"She could have picked anyone, you just got lucky."
"She whispered to her husband, then he knelt down beside me. I overheard her, over the lovely gentleman talking with me. She wanted an 'older child' to 'act as a role model' and she mentioned twins."
"Me and my brother."
"When we were very young, there was no clashes between us. You two were always quick to sidle up to Rana for whatever you liked, but I couldn't hold it against you both, you were four years younger than me, blessed with all your hearts desired." Apollo sighed. "My problems with you in particular began when you hit thirteen."
-x-x-
"So all of my friends are coming, right mom?" The thirteen year old was swaying on the heels of her feet in her mother's grand library.
"Yes all of them." Apollo was walking around upstairs, he wasn't happy he had to be there, he wanted to go back to his father's, but he knew that his dad had to be with his daughter.
Even if that daughter is the living poison spewed by her mother.
Things were going well, he had managed to resign himself to a small area of the house, formally his bedroom. He wasn't sure what it was intended to be at that moment, it looked like an empty void, there was no furniture, the walls were completely whitewashed, the carpet white, and the curtains were gone.
Along with my personality...
He simply put his headphones in his ears and flipped open his sketchbook, it had been a shame he had only been in the happy, complete household for less than a year. He never liked Sasha or her brother, but at least they were more well behaved and less derogatory towards him and their father. After all, when they came to see his dad now (he referred to him as dad to maintain an element of hope), they snuck into Apollo's room, defiled any art, books or notepads he had lying around and had even shoved his laptop out the window and let his finches free.
"Apollo! Get out!" She cried out, there was a boy fumbling around with her, at thirteen, he considered it strange that they even knew what kind of behaviour they were engaging in, let alone doing it. He pulled the boy from her, and without hesitation, he slapped her, hard.
"You know what! Mum never loved you!" She snarled.
"And you are simply her spawn filled with acid." And without hesitation, pushed her into the white room and locked the door behind him.
"You're gonna fucking die Apollo!"
"That's nice." He glanced to the teen boy, who he knew to be one of his little brother's friends. "Beat it. Runt."
When she got out, she viciously tried to savage Apollo, and had managed to claw opening a gaping hole in his neck with her nails. He had slapped his sister, and now he was about to do a lot worse, he knelt down beside her, and whispered in her ear.
"You're going to be nothing more than a cheap Beverly Hills housewife, you know that? You're gonna be a little whore, who marries a footballer or a businessman, and then he's gonna cheat on you every single day of your pathetic life. Me, I'm gonna be a lawyer, I look forward to handling your divorce." And with that, he stood, pressed the first piece of cloth he could find to his neck, and summoned his father's chauffeur.
Later that day, when his father went to visit him at the hospital, Apollo expected to be told to leave, get out of this man's home and move in with his mentor, instead, the man shook his hand. Slowly and firmly, and thanked Apollo, he may have just saved his little sister without realising.
-x-x-
"You and I both know you deserve what I said that day. After you gave me that horrible gaping wound on my throat" Apollo wasn't sincere. "And you, and your pathetic sniveling little brother are both the same, always competing for mummy and daddy's attention, cause they're your only hope at life."
"Shut the hell up!"
"Oh and the key scratches on my first car, the missing front wheel off my moped, the red paint splashed in my apartment, the dead kitten killed by your car, my dead finches, the finches you set free, and the fire you made of my textbooks the day before my exam...you tried to make me pay for speaking the truth to you."
He was right there, she and her brother had agreed they were going to make their 'brother', although he wasn't worthy of such a title, pay for what he did to them. Not telling her what she needed to hear or anything that he said or did to her brother, but for taking daddy away, and leaving them with a drunkard of a mummy. That's just the kind of people we are, Apollo.
"I have nothing more to say to you." Apollo couldn't stand the acid in his voice, the hate that oozed from every pore of his body when he spoke to this waste of life. "You don't deserve to live, you are nothing but the living embodiment of vanity, and for all you did to me, for all you caused me suffering, I hope karma gets back at you."
"Yeah, but I'm rich."
"You may have money, but you're still human. Still mortal. You aren't immune to the psychology of the human race. You'll see."
He reeled off the same instructions to her as he did to all the other people the tape had reached. She was angry as she took a pen and notepad, beginning to scrawl out the note for him. It was short, but a single line, and contained all the feelings she always needed to tell him. Then, as she put the pen back down, the anger drained from her, and she was left feeling hollow.
If only I'd told you this sooner, Apollo.
The buzz disrupted her silent brooding, and she shook herself to reality, quickly ejecting the CD from the disc player she had been listening to and readying for George to open the door, she had reached the clinic.
She wasn't allowed to see her mother, that much was obvious, after all, any contact could undo any work her liquored up mother had managed so far. So she sighed heavily as the lady behind the reception wheeled the case up the long white hall, with Sasha watching from the double doors she entered through.
As she left, she turned and threw the disc into the dustbin. She never wanted to hear his voice again, to remind her.
When she returned home, there were only a few people left, littering the floors, curled up in embraces with another person they barely knew.
"This is the life of us rich teens huh? Well Apollo...I guess I am a whore after all." And instead of going to fetch Cal from her room, to finish his task and then finish what they started that morning, she swung a left a little early.
She searched intently for what she sought, finally, she found it, in the bottom left hand corner, on the far side of the room. She pulled the book from the case, admiring the beautiful leather bound books her mother had collected over her years of being a lawyer. She glanced down at her book, a book in genetics, she knew, deep down, there was still time.
She opened the book, and slowly began to read it aloud.
"Introduction. Genetics is the study of..." She would continue this for hours, which would merge to days, only stopping for food or water.
There's still time to improve my grades. Low cut shirts and cute faces will only get me so far in life...
-x-x-
Ema held the bottle in her hand. She took a calm, steady breathe as she poured another drink into the glass between her legs. Vodka was a good choice, to calm her nerves which were racing manically in her head, after all, vodka didn't smell.
People in the precinct had begun to think her weird, they couldn't remember the last time she went home, or even sat in her chair, she was more interested in sitting on the floor, cross legged, rubbing her temples in deep thought.
There must be something here...
A/N: Apologies again, let it be known here that I am an idiot for stopping writing, and I vow to never do it again. Lest I be lasered by giant grizzly bears that can fly.
Anyways, fave and review (Even if it's just to second me being lasered by giant flying grizzly bears!) ~ EvilWaffleS
