Pas De Cheval (Brendon Urie Fan Fiction)

Prologue

               I was 11 when I lost my mother, and although he was still there physically, It felt like I had lost my father too. My mom was the best woman you would ever meet, but she didn't act like a woman. My mom never really grew up. She had me and my brother young, and it wasn't really planned to be honest. My daddy was a wanna-be rockstar. He was in college when my mother and some of her other high school buddies snuck into one of his local gigs at a random bar. She was an 80s beauty. Curly hair, tight pants, ripped shirts. She was a dream said my father. She shone up the stars and made the moon jealous. From the night him and his cover band played "She Talks to Angels" by The Black Crowes my parents had been in love. So my mom didn't have enough time to grow up when she had my older brother Emmett, so she didn't know how to make a pancake, and she never passed her spanish classes. She was amazing. She was fun, and she was always singing or smiling, and it was the best when she made fun of the other Dallas Texas moms. "Do Yal'' want some sweet as honey buttered pig?" She'd say, then we would all crack up. She had one friend outside of the family. My next door neighbor Demi's momther was an old country singer and dallas cowboy cheerleader. They got along just right, and thank god for that. Demi has been like a sister to me since before I could remember. Our lives were perfect, like one of those painting you saw in a magazine or in a gallery. The kind where you couldn't tell if it was a photograph or a work of art. That's the best way I could describe life before the accident.

              I had just turned 11,which meant in two weeks Emmett would turn 14. This year we agreed to go on a family hunting trip as our shared birthday celebration. My mom didn't hunt though. She said killing animals was a crime. Which to my brother would always reply by pointing out the fact she ate chicken wings like it was her job. That's when my mother would turn to me, always using my full name because she felt that her creative genius struck when I was born and I was lucky to have such an original mom.

            "Echo Mona Lita Hudson, don't you EVER listen to a man. They just don't understand that eating an animal and hunting an animal are two TOTALLY different things! In one of them you have to watch the life fade from their eyes. In the other you just have to marinate them correctly." I would always just smile along, it was no use arguing with my mom. She could put her shoes on the worng feet, and then when you'd correct her, she'd convince you that it's all the rave in England. But that was just my mom. She had named me after the Tom Petty song Echo. Se also wanted to name me after Mona Lisa, it was her favorite painting because she believed that Da Vinci had painted it as a female version of himself because he was gay. She said gay people were the root to our society. Pretty odd huh? She was also a fan of The Runaways. Especially their lead guitarest Lita Ford. So she decided on Echo Mona Lita Hudson. Hudson being her last name of course. She would never change her name for a man. But back to our birthday. We had decided to go on a hunting trip. So while Emmett, my dad, and I were hunting rabbits, my mom went around picking berries to use to nurse the bunnies we shot back to health. My dad saw something white, and pointed to it,

           "See that kids? That's what you're goanna want to shoot. So you just close one eye and focus." That's when the shot rang off, followed by a blood curdling scream. "Honey!" My father shouted. "You can't scream everytime a hare gets shot! Honey?" Except we didn't shoot a rabbit. We shot my mom.  

         After that day my dad changed. He quit going to work, he quit...trying. He came home everyday at 3, just like his work schedule, except we all knew he wasn't going to work. He fell asleep everyday on the kitchen floor, and woke up with a bottle in his hand. The bills piled up and eventually they took the house. We were living in front of our old house in the car because my dad didn't want anyone to know he wasn't taking care of us. It went even further downhill though. He started hitting. My brother was forcing me to sleepover Demi's house everytime it was possible, the less time at "home", the less bruises I seemed to sprout. But one day school let out early and since Demi was home schooled, I couldn't make plans, so I went to the car. I found an angry father there, lighting up a cigarette with the receptacle. Broken bottles of beer and gin contaminating the car floor, threatening to cut anyone unlucky enough to call shotgun.

         "How'd your day go?" I asked, trying to sound bubbly. The dumber you appeared, the less you got hit.

          "It's your fucking fault!" My dad stammered, losing his balance and dropping the cigarette lighter once more. Another small curse escaped his mouth and he stuck the lighter back into its charger impatiently. "Put out your wrist."

          "But, dad."

          "Put out your damn wrist!" I did as he said this time. Clenching my jaw, I squeezed my eyes shut and turned my face from his gaze. I saw him stretch out his arm and grab the lighter from the corner of my eye. The burning metal hit the soft skin of my wrist and I screamed through my teeth, quickly jerking my hand back. I assessed the scorched surface, gripping my arm just below the injury and waiting for the welts to appear.

           "Don't you rip your damn hand away from me, other wrist- Now!" I swallowed back tears and watched him re-heat the metal. This time I look right into his eyes as he pulls back the burning tool, never breaking my gaze. I watch him take hold tightly of my arm and yank my hand towards him. Then I feel another set of hands, this time around my waist. I look back and see Emmett standing over me, a fire burning in his eyes that looked more likely to brand me then the cigar lighter in my fathers hands. 

             "You're never going to lay a finger on her again!" He says, wrenching me out of the front seat and sending me stumbling across the sidewalk on to our old lawn. 

              "Hey!" My father screams, staggering out of his spot in the car. My brother moves backward and I watch in horror as the lighter drops into a puddle of spirits, setting the car ablaze. My father, still drunk and yelling at us is now walking around the car, trying to reach us. That's when the fire reaches the gas spout and an explosion of epic proportions stings my eyes and I jump farther back on to the lawn. My knees hit the soft grass and my own scream fills my lungs, blaring out any other noise. My brothers arms wrap around me as our father drops down like a trash bag filled with pudding, as the life fades frokm his eyes like a shot rabbit. Small animal noises escape my throat and I lean into my brothers embrace.

              "We're orphans now." I whisper into his t shirt, which is now wet with tears.