Page 43 of Needing to Fall
I didn’t remember this place. Had I lived here with them? And what if I had been a better little girl? Would my father not have hurt me? Would my mother have treated me better?
I was getting slammed from all directions by them, my head beginning to spin. The dark pit below me began to open, sucking me in. My only thought was,If I let it take me, then I wouldn’t have to deal with this.
“Reign!”
The voice was loud, and I turned to the source: Lynx.
“Babe, you’ve got this. Answers, remember?” That voice… I was coming to find that I could listen to it all day and never get bored with it. It was deep and powerful.
Slowly, things came into focus as the vast darkness threatened to take me away.No, Reign, pull your shit together,a small voice in my head rang out, and I listened to it. I forced the thoughts inside of me to calm. I was in control of this, not them. They did not have power over me. I had the power, and I was going to take it.
I looked Lynx dead in the eye with every bit of strength I had. “Let’s do this.”
He gave me one of those rare smiles, and I felt my knees weaken, but I desperately tried to brush it off.
Walking to the door, the doorbell stared back at me like a wicked snake. If I were to touch it, it would be dead set on biting me. Lynx didn’t touch it, either; he waited. He was there, beside me, but he wasn’t going to do the job. I had to.
Snake be damned, I pushed the bell. We heard it blare and then movement behind the door.
My pulse spiked as a cold sweat beaded all over me. This was it. I was going to see my mother again. Then it hit me that she probably didn’t even live here. She had probably moved a long time ago, and I was getting myself all on edge for nothing. Of course, I wasn’t sure if that was wishful thinking or avoidance talking.
Locks on the other side turned and then the knob of the door. When it opened, I fully stopped breathing.
The woman was about five-feet-five, my height, with long, dark brown hair, like mine and emerald green eyes, again, like mine. What was different were the lines marring her face. They weren’t laugh lines around the eyes; no, these were like I had seen time and time again. These lines were from stress, hard work, and if I wasn’t mistaken, lots and lots of drugs.
“What?” she barked, her brow raised at us.
It took me a moment before I asked the question I already knew the answer to. “Are you Rebecca Jameson?”
She held a cigarette and waved it around as she talked. “Who wants to know?”
“I’m Reign.”
She stared at me blankly, nothing registering in that head of hers.
That was the moment the fire began to burn in my belly, but not from nerves. No, it was from anger. She didn’t remember me? I had the same first name that was on my birth certificate, which she had to have given me.
I gave her a little help. “Your daughter.”
She burst out laughing, the air getting trapped in her throat as she began to crouch.
There I was, serious as a heart attack, and she was laughing … at me.
I didn’t move.
“My daughter is dead,” she said between coughing and laughing.
What was wrong with this woman? I wasn’t dead. I looked just like her, only younger.
“I can assure you that I’m not dead.” I placed my hands in the front pockets of my jeans, the urge to reach out and strangle the woman burning brightly. I fed off that anger, allowing it to help keep me together.
Rebecca took some heaving breaths, a smile still plastered on her face as she said, “She died when she was six.” Which was the time I had been taken away from them.
I had questions, and I was going to ask them.
“If she died, why are you laughing about it?”
I felt Lynx’s heat at my back. It was all the encouragement I needed as the flames scorched higher inside me.
