Page 4 of Rot

As if hearing that we were talking about him, the sound of a door shutting upstairs filled the air, and shortly after that, heavy footsteps on the stairs. Elias came down, a hard expression on his face. He didn’t look at me or my mother as he took the empty seat beside his mother.

Seeing him walk, though, and now seeing him sitting across the table, I realized how tall he was. Had to be over six feet. He wasn’t lanky like most tall guys, either. He had muscle on him. Objectively, I supposed he was handsome… although, maybe I shouldn’t think that about my cousin.

Elias started to reach for the meatloaf plate without saying a word, but his mother stopped him by saying, “Elias, hold on. You already met your cousin Sloane. This is your aunt, Penelope.” Her hazel eyes lingered on Elias, as if she was nervous about what he’d say. I supposed he was the one who was in this house more often than she was; she didn’t want her son to feel displaced by us.

Those dark eyes of his stared at my mother, and then they flicked to me, where they stayed. “Hey,” he spoke quietly, and I had to blink, surprised at how deep his voice was. Much deeper than I’d thought it would be.

That was enough to satisfy my aunt, because we all dug in after that. I let everyone pick and choose their pieces of meat before going in for meatloaf myself. I only got a little mashed potatoes and a few green beans to go with it; I was never one to have a big appetite. It’s why I was so small. At five feet tall and one hundred and five pounds, I was a lot smaller than most, even other people my age.

Being small, I’d found, helped in many situations. It made me look more innocent, caused people to overlook me more often. Or, when they did look at me, what they saw was the opposite of a threat.

My mother was skinny too, but she was a few inches taller than me. Her thinness was due to her being locked away for so long, on a steady diet of shit food for years and years. When she’d gotten out and came home, my grandmother had tried to feed her and help her regain some weight, but my mother preferred to take her calories in through drinking and not eating.

“Elias, after dinner, I want you to help your cousin with her bags. She’s going to take the room upstairs,” Aunt Maggie spoke after a while. “I’ll help your aunt get situated downstairs.” With a quick look at my mother, she added, “The basement’s finished. The washer and dryer are in their own little room, so you shouldn’t hear them.”

I let out a sigh of relief. Thank God I wouldn’t have to share a room with my mother. That would be torture of the worst degree.

Elias didn’t say anything. He ate in silence—though he did toss me a glare that told me he didn’t want to help me move in. I’d bet anything he was an especially unhelpful and grumpy guy most of the time.

That was fine. We didn’t need to be friends. I didn’t need any friends, really.

It was a good thing I didn’t, because all my life, I’d never really had any. Being conceived in such a violent way, my father being who he was, my mother getting locked up because she wasn’t fit to be a mother or safe to leave alone, well… let’s just say everyone back home had disliked me on principle.

I’d been an outcast all my life. I might’ve been from a rich family with a good last name, Karnagy, but that didn’t matter. I wasn’t really one of them. My blood was tainted with my father’s. I was the child of a serial killer, a rapist, and therefore no better than dirt to those whose pedigree mattered above all else.

“I don’t ask for much, but on the day after my shifts, I do need a quiet house so I can catch up on sleep,” Aunt Maggie was busy saying. “The hospital has me working crazy hours lately with the nurse shortage. It’s miserable, but it pays the bills.”

I was mostly toying around with my food when I heard myself ask, “What happened to Uncle Dave?”

Elias glared at me harder at that, while my mother dropped her fork on her plate in shock at my bluntness. “Sloane,” she hissed out.

Aunt Maggie shook her head once. “It’s okay, Pen.” To me, she said, “He died on a hunting trip. It was a terrible accident. It’s been… what? Three years now? Doesn’t really feel like it.” She still sounded broken up over it, as if she genuinely did care for her husband.

A hunting trip. That wasn’t something you heard about back home. No one hunted back there. Hunting was a trash sport to the people who could wipe their asses with money. Dirty and violent; people like my grandparents preferred to never get their hands bloody.

Me? I might not mind hunting. Getting something in your sights, feeling the trigger with your finger… pulling it, and everything that came after.

I had to force myself to say, “I’m sorry.”

Aunt Maggie sent me a smile, and I could tell it was a pained one. She accepted my apology, and we continued dinner.

I wasn’t really sorry, though. I didn’t care about what happened to my uncle; I just wanted to know. That’s the thing: I doubted many people actually cared when they saidI’m sorry. It was just something people said, empty words that were meant to make the recipient feel better. I didn’t think I’d ever been sorry for anything I’d done in my entire life.

I didn’t say anything else during dinner. I ate a little of what I’d put on my plate, but not much. It felt weird to be here, even weirder to be surrounded by not only my mother, but her sister and my cousin. They didn’t feel like family.

Then again, my grandparents hadn’t felt like family, either. I wasn’t their granddaughter. I mean, technically I was, but not by choice. They’d treated me as an obligation while my mother was locked away, something that had unfortunately fallen upon them to deal with. I wasn’t loved. I wasn’t cooed over. I wasn’t adored simply for existing. At every opportunity I’d been reminded that I only existed because of the rot in my father.

When we were finished, my aunt said, “Your mother and I can clean up. Why don’t you two get your stuff out of the car? I’m sure you want to get unpacked.” She gave me a smile—she seemed to smile an awful lot. It was kind of annoying.

“Okay,” I said, getting to my feet. I didn’t wait for Elias to do the same; I turned and started to leave the kitchen, heading to the front door. Any chance at getting away from my mother and her watchful eyes was a blessing in disguise. Away from her, I could breathe deep and feel, even if just for the shortest of moments, free.

Because, as long as she was with me, I wasn’t free. I couldn’t be. If I was honest, I’d say I liked it better when she was locked up, unable to have visitors, because any visitor set her off. I’d gotten used to my grandparents and their cold shoulders. This was a different sort of life I wasn’t used to.

I walked out of the house, stopping after I’d walked down the few front steps. My eyes surveyed the area. It wasn’t a brand-new suburb. The neighbors were a ways away, and a lot of them had planted pine trees between lots to double for privacy, so you could see even less. A place like this, I definitely wasn’t used to, but as I stood there, feeling the gentle breeze caress my cheek, I realized just how clean the air was.

Clean air. Privacy. No one watching you at all hours of the day and night. People who lived out here probably didn’t even have home security systems or cameras. Such an odd way of life.

Hmm. Maybe it’d be fun here after all.

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