The Blackout Girl ✔️

chapter forty-two

Chapter Forty-Two

Lexi's mom returned with bloody hands.

She slammed the back door shut and left prints all over it, marking it with a crimson finger painting. Desperately, she twisted the lock and threw herself against the wood. A knife clattered to the floor, splattering a gory stain on the tile.

It was as if she had no idea her daughter was standing in the kitchen.

She didn't notice until Lexi's ceramic mug shattered. The tea lapped at her bare feet, scalding. She didn't feel it, even as it burned her.

"Mom?" Lexi whispered, horrified. "What happened?"

"Nothing," Mom hissed, scrambling to her feet. "It's nothing, sweetie."

"Whose blood is that?" Lexi asked frantically. "W-Who—"

"Lexi, there are things in life you just won't understand until you're a parent," her mother said. She took Lex's face in her hands, smearing the blood on the girl's cheeks. "Listen, I did all of this for you. To protect you. I never wanted you to find out this way."

There was a mania in Mom's wild eyes. She was nearly hysterical, trying desperately to convince Lex to see things from her perspective. She was clearly out of it, on the verge of laughter. It was like she thought it was funny. Maybe to her, it was.

"Mom, what did you do?" Lex whimpered.

"I tied up a loose end," Mom answered. "I had to. Lexi, I couldn't help myself."

Lexi began to cry, and Mom smoothed the tears away, staining them red.

Delaney walked in, interrupting the privacy of the moment. It was the first time she'd emerged from her room all day, and it was at the worst possible second. Her lips shaped out a silent gasp. The noise had brought her out of hiding.

"Michelle," Delaney began. "What—"

And then the gun went off.

Lexi didn't know her mother had it. She didn't know they even had a firearm until that second. Her mom's paranoia must have gotten to her because it seemed as though she was determined to protect herself as efficiently as possible.

Her weapon of choice shifted. It had to.

It took Lexi a second to realize what happened after it did. She couldn't respond right away. It all happened so fast, but she was still slow to act.

Her mom had yanked a gun out of her the waistband of her jeans and shot Delaney in the face.

And Lexi watched it firsthand.

Delaney dropped to the floor. Her weight was heavy, and her head made a terrible squishing sound as the broken skin made contact. The bullet had torn through her flesh, leaving blood and skull and bits of brain matter on the wall beside the corpse. She was dead. With a final twitch of her fingers, Delaney Robinson was dead.

Lexi screamed bloody murder. "What did you do? What did you do?"

Her mother turned on her next. "Lex, get down on the ground."

"Mom!" she cried.

"Get. Down."

She knelt, knees to the tile. She didn't have any other choice but to obey the orders. Lexi could feel herself trembling. She was staring down the barrel of a pistol, terrified for her life. Her mother had shot Delaney without any hesitation, and Lexi was sure she'd be next.

The only thing Lexi could think was that she was glad her father and Cal had left. A half an hour before everything went to hell, they went to a baseball game. She was terrified of knowing what might have happened if they got caught in the crossfire.

Another look at the headshot gave her a good idea.

"You killed those men," Lexi realized, tears streaming down the apples of her cheeks. "You killed them all."

"They were bad men," Mom answered as if it was an adequate justification.

"Even Quinton?" Lexi asked.

"He was a necessary sacrifice."

"He was my brother!" Lexi wailed. "How could you?"

"I was doing us all a favor. Men like that are evil. They poison the world. Men like that are the reason people like Dennis molest defenseless young girls!" Her mother's voice began to grow shrill, the pitch rising higher and higher. "I was in your hospital room every night for weeks. I watched my baby suffer, and I wasn't sure if you would ever wake up. Do you realize what that does to a mother?"

"They weren't Dennis!" Lexi fired back. "Quinton never did anything—"

"They were just like him! Your brother was too!" Mom yelled. She fired a round into the doorway, knocking splinters of plaster airborne. They landed beside Delaney's limp body, where blood was pooling and fanning out.

Lexi winced, shrinking away. She said nothing out of fear that the next bullet would be put in her body.

"They let him out," her mom continued. "They let him out after he tried to kill you. He touched you. He violated you and they let him out anyway! He went after this innocent child who never did a damn thing to deserve it. He's a menace! He helped me see what I needed to do!"

Lexi hated Dennis. She hated him for taking away her childhood and her health. She hated him for a lot of things, but her mother's wrath was a different kind of hate. Lexi was trying to make peace, but her mom was trying to wreak havoc.

"I had to practice. I had to make sure I could get it right. I guess I ruined your dress when I killed that dog though, didn't I? I suppose it doesn't matter now."

That was how the sundress got stained. Another question had been answered, but Lexi still couldn't believe what was in front of her, no matter the evidence.

"You know, the stray was nothing like the real thing, but I knew I had to do it. It got me ready. I was helping people, don't you get that? I can still help!"

Lex was working toward forgiveness, and her mother was doing everything in her power to take revenge.

Lexi didn't recognize her.

Her own mother. It seemed so improbable for the woman she admired, adored, doted on, could be capable of taking out several people without remorse. She thought she knew her mother. Lexi believed she had an understanding of how she thought, what she wanted.

Her mother cried for Q, but it had all been fake. How many emotions had she feigned over the years? How long had she been hiding this?

Lexi was overwhelmed, dazed. Her brain was about to pull the plug on itself to prevent crashing from an overdrive of information.

"I don't believe in justice. How could I? Clearly, the only way to save the world from scumbags is to kill them before they get the chance to hurt anyone else."

Lexi couldn't take it anymore.

First, the world went white.

Then, it all faded into black.