A/N: Just a little note to say how grateful I am for all the support you guys have been giving me, you're all such lovely people!
I could lie and say that the camping trip went well, but...I'm not really in the mood for lying if I'm honest, heh, for once.
We managed to get ourselves thrown out after a few days, if you can get thrown out of a field that is. It's all relative I guess, all you really need to know is that Mike's gonna be regretting renting those camping stoves for some time now...
I'm still not quite sure what was wrong with White this time, it's just important that she's a bit better now I guess...not quite sure how I'm feeling at the moment, I've never really thought, or spoken about all those things that happened before...
The coach journey is as excruciating as ever. My skull is already full of a heady, ash-filled fug, all I really need in that situation is a stomach filled full of bubbling acid to match.
Fan-bloody-tastic...
The company is rather subdued for once when we arrive back at The Dumping Ground, surprisingly really. Every time a trip goes tits up there's normally more agro than this...
Everything just feels, feels sombre, as if the world had been painted with daubs of slimy grey oil paint. Kinda like mud, just cold, liquid misery, you taste clay at the back of your throat.
The house stands taller, would looming be the word? I don't know, everything just feels wrong, that wrong which you can't really classify, it just is.
Like a husk, what remains, what remains can't even be described as a what. It's just bitter silence.
I'm mixing my metaphors here, I've really lost my grip now, can't even form a coherent sentence...
Hang-on.
The sluggish minds of the company seem to be realising it slowly, expelling the travelling fug from their minds, slowly draining away and carpeting the gravel driveway in a layer of claggy vapour.
There's a car parked up on the driveway, and more importantly, a car I don't really recognise.
I would say there was nothing particularity remarkable about it. It kinda looked like one of those cars that should be painted a lurid neon and blasting some bone-shaking tiny hip-hop, but, but it was just black and sombre. But shiny, really rather shiny. Looks kinda like a bloke drives it...
Kinda sinister in its un-remarkableness.
I glance quickly at Mike and Gina.
"...well whose is it?"
"...don't care I just want rid of it..."
"...I don't recognise it at all..."
"...number plates mean anything to you?"
"...why are you asking me..."
"...I don't know I panicked..."
Out of the general scrabble, I suddenly discern a tiny, weak voice.
"No, how can it..."
"Right! Everyone inside! Now!"
"I think his name's Buttercream or something like that..."
Mike and Gina confined the driver in the office. Well, they haven't called the police, so that's gotta be a good sign...but naturally, everyone has been trying to weasel out as much information about the driver as they can.
Bitched over and dissected, it's how it works
"No, it's Butterworth, Stephen Butterworth I think..."
Ah fuck, you have gotta be kidding...that would explain White's sudden disappearance then.
I think this is the best point to make a quick exit, Christ knows the questions they'll start asking if they manage to put two and two together, if they can even do that...well you know, monkeys and typewriters.
As I sneak off, the remnants of their conversation start to leech off the cold walls.
"...has anyone seen White?"
"...she kinda vanished when Mike and Gina started talking to the driver guy..."
"...she's probably sleeping upstairs..."
"...she still not better is she?"
There's a pause.
"...do you recon..."
"...yeah he must be..."
Of course he's White's brother you bunch of brain-deads.
"...Butterworth? Emily Butterworth?"
Yet another thing we have in common, bloody stupid white middle-class names.
Canned sniggers dog me down the corridor.
I'm almost at the stairs before I hear a door creak; I freeze instinctively, locating the source of the noise.
A distinctive, tall, languid figure emerges from the office; I don't think he's spotted me yet.
He's exactly as my memory recalls, well, my broken mirror shards of memory recall. The phrase slimy git could never be as more appropriate. He's a little less greasy than he was when we last met, lank black hair a little less suspect in its shininess, but he's still every inch the little sewer rat I remember him being. There's something about those little black eyes of his that make your spinal cord squirm.
I could say like a cockroach, but rat is still the most appropriate.
Heh, weird, the sewer rat and the lab mouse...
Stop looking at him Elektra, keep moving before he clocks you...
"Why am I not surprised..."
Fuck. I gotta stop jinxing these things.
"...look at little Mandy after all this time."
I swivel round to face the grease ball, "To what do we owe this honour Stephen?"
"I just here to visit my darling little sister..."
I can't help but snort.
"What? Is something funny little Mandy?"
I bite my lip.
"Oh yeah, I forgot, what was it..."
"Elektra."
"And how is that working out for you?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well wasn't it the whole oh how society persecutes me that got you dumped in the orphanage in the first instance?"
"It's not an orphanage..."
"Like the little flea ridden cuckoo you always were."
"Cuckoo! Why the fuck am I the cuckoo here?"
"Because you've done such a good job of not getting in anyone's way or pushing anyone out of the nest..."
"If this is about my sister again you little spunk bubble..."
"She wanted me so bad you know that, she was begging for it and you had to go and cock block me..."
"She was fucking terrified of you, she kept thinking you were gonna try and rape her in the park!"
"Details..."
"And of course a loving brother always tries to sell his sister down the river..."
"Pft, she had it coming, and besides...we all know it was your fault."
"It wasn't my fault..."
"Well who else did she spend so much time with? Who else could have possibly turned her?"
"You know what you are! You're a little cu..."
The office door creaked again.
"Mr. Butterworth, you're only here on proviso, and if you keep insulting Elektra I'm calling the police." Mike growled from behind the little puss ball.
He shoots a cudgelling look at me, "Very well..."
"White's in the quiet room, I'll be joining you..."
"Very well."
The pair start walking towards the quiet room, but there's something I suddenly notice, I notice the crack, the steady cracking of gravel. Someone else is coming up the drive way.
I hear Gina cry out, "Mike!"
His face falls, "What the...why is she here today?"
Gina bustles out into the hall, "I don't know just do something!"
"Elektra, get in the office."
"What?"
The doorbell rings.
"Just get in the office..."
Gina moves to answer the door, I hear a voice.
Why does Sod's Law have to keep screwing me over like this?
A figure enters the hallway, "What is he doing here?"
It's like someone's dropped a nuke of concentrated awkwardness, but perhaps awkwardness isn't right, no...there's too much hate for that, the very air threatens to gouge your eyes out.
Gina's the first to react, "Erm, Melisa, Elektra, why don't you two go into the office?"
Silence responds as we all shuffle into our respective rooms, air still blazing with anger like a gut full of raw chillies.
Silence still reigns after me and my sister sit down in the office
The walls loom and close in, grey oil paint, cold steel nails in the skin...I'm not really sure...
"Why was that little..."
Melisa pauses, searching around for an appropriate insult.
"Tosspot?"
"...yeah...just, what is he doing here?"
"Well..."
Her face falls, "Does that mean Emily's here?"
"White..."
"She is isn't she?"
"Yes, but why should it matter?"
"Mands...I mean Elektra, I was wondering if you'd like to come and visit me and Harvey a bit?"
"You didn't answer my question..."
"I just thought it might be nice since I've managed to get Mum off the scene now..."
"Just answer the God damn question! Why is it so bad that I happened to be in the same Care Home as White?"
Melisa falters, stares at her shoes.
I think that's an answer enough for me, I've put up with this bullshit enough to know what that means.
"Lemme guess, this is like when I thought they wanted me back isn't it?"
"Elektra it's.."
"Oh, it is exactly like that isn't it? You, you all thought you could change me, change White by splitting us up on purpose? You thought you could change us...change me into your perfect little, perfect little doll?"
"Elektra please, this isn't my fault..."
Screaming cuts across my Melisa's babble.
Yell thud scream swear, yell thud scream swear. A cacophony of rage tears through the walls.
The quiet room isn't quite as quiet as it normally is.
"Gina! Gina, get the phone, call the police!"
"Get the fuck off me paddy!"
The ice starts to coil itself around my throat.
I'm on feet, I charge out of the office and career with White...
An angry red mark crawls out over her paper white cheek, five long spidering lines emerging from a central stinging point.
She looks up at me, eyes glazed in salt water.
"This...this is all your fault..."
I can't feel my feet, my hands.
"What..."
"I said, this is all your fault."
Someone's lit a fire in my brain.
"How is this all my fault?"
"You, you were always fucking there, I could have looked after myself you know!"
"No, no you couldn't!"
"Of course you would say that..."
The fire spreads down my nerves, devouring my flesh.
I snap.
"If this was anyone's fault it was yours!"
"How the hell did you work that one out?"
"You came onto me!"
"How, if I'm so damn needy could have I come onto you?"
"Well you bloody did! Therefore, this is your fault!"
"No it's your fault!"
"No it's yours..."
"I hate you Mandy..."
"Well at least we have something we can agree on for once!"
She storms off, attempting to pound the floorboards into dust with every step. I never knew you could climb stairs with such bile...
The fire dies, there's nothing but burnt skin left.
The burn scars that line my insides smart, blaze with pain...but, but I can't feel it...
I just feel, I feel nothing, numb, cold...
Remember, remember when I said that we don't forgive easily...
Yet another thing we have in common.