Bombshells ~ Complete

Chapter Fifty: The Dining Room

I instantly jerked, trying to stand from the dining room chair I was still sitting in. I looked down at my wrists with shock, my eyes widening comically at the sight of ropes binding me in place. My father was pacing back and forth. 

Was I still in the dining room? Yes I was. Where was the table?

My head swiveled in as many directions as I could turn. Tears welled up in my eyes when I saw them. Lila and the boys were all sitting in their own chair, their hands and feet bound, their heads and shoulders slumped in an induced sleep. 

My father had drugged us. Why wasn't I surprised?

We were sitting in a sort of randomly fashioned circle. There wasn't a reason for where he put us, he just put us all facing him. I was at the head of the circle, Lila just to my right, Jaydon just to my left. 

His placing of Lila and Jaydon was somewhat well thought out for a man who had lost every bit of sanity he still had left. 

Lila and the boys started to stir, their heads coming up and their hands wiggling. With frantic movements did they start to realize what had happened. Lila checked over all the boys, everyone shouting out reassurances that they were fine.

"Elliot, what's happening?" Lila asked, her usually kind voice shaking with fear. She knew something was very wrong with everything that was happening. My father frowned then laid the gun on the counter. He then pointed his crowbar at me. 

"This is your fault." He growled, making me freeze with the fear of all the damage he could do with something like a crowbar. He had always used his hands, his knives, his belt, the boiling water... He hadn't ever used anything like a crowbar before. 

I didn't even know my father owned a gun.

"Ariel, what's going on?" Lila asked, sounding a bit more panicked. I couldn't respond. My tongue felt like it weighed a ton. I couldn't move my eyes away from my father, who was slowly stalking towards me. 

"You are the cause of all this. You!"He snapped, pointing towards me. That crowbar looked insignificant in regards to the unbridled, untapped fury in his eyes. 

"Elliot, for God's sake, what is going on? Let us out of these!" Lila screeched. I looked around me once more. Everyone was trying to get out of the expertly tied knots. My father had used said ropes on me when I was six or seven years old and kept running away from him when he tried to beat me. 

Tying me up was also a way to torture my mother. 

"I was trying to start anew. A new chapter to my life. Turn over a new leaf. And then you had to ruin everything!" Father wailed, like a petulant child. I was shocked at how his sanity had seemed to snap overnight. 

I knew something was off at the hospital, yet I refused to act on my suspicions in fear of what might happen if I did. God, I was such an idiot! I should have known better, known something was definitely off within my father's eyes. 

"I'm sorry." I whimpered. The words almost reinforced my father's anger. His eyes glowed with such an animosity, I felt like cowering away. I used to simply take my punishments. I hated cowering. I didn't cower. But that look in his eyes, that look was different from anything I'd ever seen before. 

"Sorry doesn't cut it! Do you know what I've had to do to get this far? Allison went insane, mumbling and tripping and forgetting everything. She was insane for months before I killed her. She was lucky I gave the time of day to a useless, ugly, little witch like her in the first place. Then she had to go and lose her mind. Pushing her down those stairs was one of the best things I've ever done. But you, Ariel, have been a thorn in my side for far too long." Father yelled, calming down to a terrifying sort of indifference at the end of his words. 

Silence rang from every corner of the dining room.

I would've taken pleasure in the fact that I was being proven right, directly to their disbelieving faces, had it not been for the dire circumstances I was currently in. I pushed aside all feelings, no matter how slight, of victory and focused on how to make it out alive. 

"Of course. I'm so sorry. I'll stop being a pain." I whimpered, bowing my head and keeping my gaze on his chin. He smirked, knowing that he had caused the most powerful thing in the world to go off in my soul. He had caused fear to echo in every cell of my body.

"There's no chance for you to be sorry anymore. I must go speak with some work colleagues about a case I'm working on from Las Vegas, where I'm taking a small, personal, vacation. And then we'll play. Just me and you, Ariel. Just like old times." Father grinned with excitement, his smile malicious and ice cold.

I didn't want to know what he was thinking when he said the word 'Play'. Only bad memories were associated with that.

I couldn't help but turn my head and watch Lila's reaction to everything as her husband skipped out the door, his crowbar occasionally hitting and scuffing her perfect walls. She was gaping like a fish, staring at the spot he'd been standing in. I didn't let my lips twist up into the smug grin that they wanted to. 

I looked at Jaydon.

He was horrified. I always figured that maybe a part of him didn't believe me when I told him that my father would try and kill everyone if anyone ever found out about my secrets. I suppose that he had just started to believe everything I had told him.

No one spoke. No one had words to say. None could think of any words to say that could fit anything that was happening. Whether that anything be going on in their head or what was happening in their very own dining room. I briefly wondered what was flying through their minds.

All the times something about my father didn't seem quite right? All the times I told them my mother and father had fought like mad dogs? All the times that things didn't add up exactly? All the times that I screamed and pleaded for them to believe that my father had really killed my mother. 

Lila turned towards me, her eyes wide open and brimming with tears. I guessed she was taken aback by the lifelessness in my eyes, because she stopped in the middle of trying to say something. 

I spoke first. 

"Believe me now?"