Page 38 of Fighting My Demons

“I wonder if Cyrus and Eli would like to know you lied to them, that you aren't who you say you are?” Latham says.

I am not about to be baited; he is only talking shit because I refuse to give him answers.

“I don’t know, Latham. Why don’t you ask them?” I tell him, ripping the door open.

“Maybe I will, Arabella,” he says, and I freeze.

“That is your name, isn’t it?” he asks, and I shake my head.

He can’t know, but then why would he mention my name? A name I haven’t used since I was fourteen. A name that died with Isobella.

Chapter Twenty-One

My hands tremble as I walk out and to my apartment. He can’t know. Why would he say that name? My head is spinning; not even my brother knows that secret. That is my secret. One I thought would never come to light.

I turn, shutting my door only for a hand to shove it inward. I take a step back as Latham forces his way inside my apartment. I can see his lips moving. I know he is speaking, yet I have gone numb and deaf to my surroundings as I stare horrified at him.

My entire world crumbles around me as I fight against the memories that are being dug up, the memories of that night: The sound of sirens filling my ears, the sound of shattered glass, and the helplessness as I realized what I did to her, the panic that consumed me, their anger that left my finger trembling over the trigger.

It wasn’t meant to go down like that. I just wanted to leave. I wanted to be free. I wanted the medications to stop. I wanted them to believe me. I wanted them to see him, but they never did. It wasn’t my imagination; it couldn’t be.

Latham moves closer as panic wraps around me, enveloping everything as I try to remember how to breathe.

That damn place, that damn night. He did this to me, and I stopped it, but she was never meant to get hurt.

I can feel myself falling, my lungs screaming at me to breathe, but I am hollow, a cold dread sweeping over me, and I see the coffee table moving toward me at an alarming speed, the corner of it hitting my face, yet I feel nothing as I plunge into darkness. Drowning in it, drowning in the pain of that day, the day I ruined all our lives running through my head as I relive every moment of it.

* * *

Flashback

I am standing in the hallway listening while my parents argue.

If anyone had dug into their past, they would have realized instantly who they truly were. My father used to be one of the biggest crime bosses in the city. He dabbled in everything until the law caught up with him. We moved and changed our identities; Isobella and I got to keep our first names, but that was it. Not even Brian kept his. Our parents' names were changed, as were our last names. We were placed into witness protection to protect us from the men my father had given up to save his own skin.

Yet my father was not a man who could work a law-abiding job; he knew how to make money fast, and that was dealing in drugs and weapons. My brother was eighteen at the time and worked with my father in our new city, our new home. My father was allowed to keep all his illegal and dirty money in exchange for information, and they provided us with new names. My father bought our house by the sea. He had been slowly renovating the backyard, but money was running out, and he was used to his life of luxury. I could hear the trucks leaving as they poured the last of the concrete. The air was hot and dry beside the cool sea breeze that came in through the open windows. He was in charge of imports and exports and worked a lot, flying in and out, and so did Brian, who was away for negotiations to step back into the business.

My father’s stupidity had his past found out quickly by those searching for him. I would never meet his expectations. I was a burden for him. He loved me, but I wasn’t worth the trouble. I wasn’t his perfect daughter like Isobella. I wasn’t Brian, who blindly did whatever my father suggested. No, I was the crazy one. The unhinged and unstable. Only I wasn't. I knew it wasn’t some trick of my mind, I begged them to listen, but they just kept pumping me full of drugs, sedating me, and caging me further in my mind.

“She is fourteen. She is our daughter. Why would you make a deal like that?” my mothers spits at my father, completely unaware I can hear everything from my spot in the hallway.

My mother is banging dishes loudly as she washes up, and she is angry.

“I had no choice. He said he would look after her. He is not a bad man. Brian had already made the deal, and he agreed. He needs our contacts over here for this to work, but he can’t look weak. We had to give him something,” my father argues.

“She isn’t something; she is someone. You say that like you didn’t just betray him, and you think he will look after her? He will destroy her more,” she snaps at him.

“He was able to get out of it. He paid the Russians to take the fall for it, no harm done. We need this. I can’t keep living like this, scraping change together to make ends meet. This is the only way for things to go back to the way they were, to who we were.” “She is our fucking daughter! I don’t give a crap how crazy she is. I gave birth to her. I love her. How could you sell your own flesh and blood so easily?” my mother spits at him, and I cover my mouth, shocked at what I am hearing.

“His son isn’t much older than her. They will look after her and get her the help she needs. These fucking meds you have her on are fucking expensive. We can’t afford the help she needs, love. This is a good thing, and I can get my foot back in the door. The shipment arrives next week, and everything will go back to how it was. I can’t say no. He has already paid me a large sum for my cooperation.”

“Yes, let's just go back to normal, but with one less child, right? Just forget she existed. What will Isobella say about this? She will fucking hate you. Arabella will never forgive you.”

“Arabella barely knows what day it is. She’s off her head on these; she probably doesn’t even remember her name half the time.”

They are so wrong. After a few months on those meds, I’ve come to learn what they did and how to act as I hid them under my tongue and disposed of them when they weren’t looking. I am not crazy. I know what I see every day. I know his touch. I can feel him. He isn’t a figment of my imagination.

“I don’t care what you say. He will be here tomorrow to pick her up, and that's it,” my father says, and I hear him go out the sliding doors to the backyard.