Coming Home Again (A Coming Home Again Novel Book 1) (22 page)

“Oh… Okay, Miss Nurse,” I snapped.
“Why, Julia?” I continued to lay there and moan with fear and agitation.

“Come on. He’ll be out for a while,”
she said as she pulled me to my feet. “Let’s go talk in the living room.”

I numbly walked behind her to the big
couch. I sat there in shock as she explained quickly how this whole mess
transpired.

“I ran into Evan about eight months ago
at one of my normal hang-outs. I felt like passing out at the sight of him that
night, but I made a quick escape to the exit instead.” The stress on her slightly
swollen face was unmistakable as she paused to gather her emotions. “All these
years of running from the nightmare of that devil and, just like that, he was
back,” she said as she snapped her fingers and shook her head in disbelief.

After we sat in silence for a few
minutes, she gave her head a brisk shake as if trying to shoo away the awful
memories. “Anyway, I kept running into him and discovered that we had too many
mutual friends. He had been in California for a while, but he recently moved back
to New York. Wouldn’t you know, he used to be signed to the same modeling
agency as I am. That is, until he let his nasty little habit of heroin get in
the way.” She started picking at the hem of her shirt, so I had to nudge her to
continue.

“But…how in the heck did he end up
locked to
your
bed, Julia?” I asked in an exaggerated voice, making sure
she understood the sentence. This was beyond bizarre.

“I’m getting to that, okay?” She rolled
her eyes at my impatience. “So the sleazebag actually started approaching me
every time he saw me. I ran from him in the beginning, but that got old fast.
Then, I got downright ticked off one night when he finally caught up with me.
Right in front of all my friends, he gave me a long, passionate kiss and
declared to everyone that he finally found his long lost
Rose
. My first
instinct was to fry his face, but then this brilliant idea came over me,” she
said as she pointed towards her bedroom. “I played along with his little ruse
as I started to do some digging about him. I found that along with his love for
heroin, he still had a love for young girls. And so my plan to seduce him, drug
him, and kill him came together pretty easily,” she said bluntly.

“Why on earth would you ever want that
slime ball in your bed?” I asked with disgust. I felt like him being in this
space caused it to be contaminated with filthy sin alone. My mind just could
not wrap around the reasoning she used to allow him back in her bed, let alone
to allow him to touch her again.

“Revenge, of course.” Her demeanor was
unnervingly cool, and I was downright frightened by it.

Before Julia could continue, we heard
some movement. We made our way back to the bedroom to discover Evan
lethargically trying to free himself. Once he caught sight of us girls, he started
a lazy laugh that was muffled by the tape. Julia strolled over and snatched it
off his mouth in one fell swoop, not trying to be nice about it at all. He must
have been pretty drugged up, because he barely flinched.

“Hmm… You’re adding someone else to the
party?” he asked groggily.

“You don’t recognize my sister,
Savannah?” Julia questioned.

He blinked in my direction before
recognition touched his glassy eyes. “This is too good to be true. Hey, Miss
Feisty,” he said and then chuckled lazily. He pulled at his arm and seemed to
notice for the first time he was in handcuffs. “Why do you have me locked up,
Rose? My arms are going numb.”

“So you won’t get away,” Julia smirked.
“That’ll make it easier to kill you.” Her face turned menacing. I was way past frightened
at this point. My sister meant business, and she wasn’t mincing any words about
it.

“I’m too high for this,” he muttered in
confusion. “I thought I heard you say you were going to kill me.” You could
tell by his facial expression, he knew he heard right.

“You can’t do that, Julia. This is
crazy.” I tried to convince her, but felt it impossible.

“There’s no other choice. He has to
die,” Julia snapped as she pointed at the devil himself. Her hand was steady,
and that’s not a normal characteristic for her.

“No!” Evan and I shouted
simultaneously.

“You better unlock me, you stupid b—”

I slammed the duct tape back over his
mouth before he could start screaming. Just then, some kind of rage came over me
and possessed me like the demons that haunt me. I revved back and slammed my
fist as hard as I could across his chin.

“No, Savannah!” Julia choked. “We can’t
leave any marks on him. It has to look like an accidental overdose.”

Realization punched me in the pit of my
stomach. I wanted to dismiss this whole thing as a joke. However, every time
Julia spoke, the reality of her seriousness slapped me in the face. My sister
was dead serious. This was not a game to her, and I had to figure out quickly
how to change her mind. I felt like we were up against a bomb set to explode in
mere seconds. This was bad…very bad.

“You can’t kill him, Julia. He’s not
worth going to jail for.”

“No one’s going to jail,” she said to
reassure me. “Look.” She directed my attention to her nightstand drawer. She
pulled it open, and there sat several syringes of what I guessed were heroin.
“Easy overdose.”

“I said
NO
!” I began pacing
around. “You have to have a backup plan. You have one, right?” I stopped pacing
to stare my sister down. I watched her peel her tunic off to reveal ugly
bruises up and down her arms.

I sucked in a large gasp of air as I
studied the nasty designs that matched her cheek. “Why did you let him do this
to you?” I was nearly in a rage at this point and was about to lose it totally.
Too many images of that last summer night flooded my mind, causing me to double
in pain. He abused her beyond what he abused me, and I did nothing to help her.

“Oh, Mr. Man likes it rough. Don’t
you?” she turned her attention back to Evan and so did I.

My anger completely boiled over when I
realized he was staring at the marks on Julia and was actually getting aroused
by it. I exploded at this point. I grabbed a chunky boot that was beside the
nightstand and turned my attention to his sick manhood. I reared back and
whacked it as hard as I could as though I was trying to smash a nasty bug with
the thick heel. I tried to rein my anger in but I couldn’t help it. That one
whack unleashed all those years of pent-up hurt in an uncontrollable rage. At
that moment, I totally lost it, calling him every awful name that I could think
of as I rapidly delivered blow after unrelenting blow. I felt like a mad woman
had taken over my body and I do believe I saw red.

Evan was screaming under the duct tape
and wailing around in his limited range of motion. He began to violently gag.
Julia, realizing he was choking, pushed me out of the way and ripped the tape
off in the nick of time as vomit spewed out all over the place. She then
grabbed the boot out of my hand and threw it clear across the room, out of my
twitchy reach.

(I
warned you)

“Savannah! You have to get a hold of
yourself. You could rupture something, and how am I going to be able to explain
that?” she asked as she continued to hold me back. I was trying to get free so
I could release more of those beastly frustrations on Evan.

“Please…don’t…kill…me,” he stuttered
repeatedly between sobs. I laughed bitterly at him actually begging us to show
him mercy.

We both looked back towards the mess he
just made. “Look at that gross mess,” Julia said.

“I’m not cleaning it up. Let the sick
fool lay in it, for all I care,” I said. I crossed my arms and tried to calm my
breathing.

The stench was overwhelmingly sour. As
Evan continued to moan in sobs, he began to dry heave. “That’s a good sign.” I
said. “Means we don’t have to worry about anything else coming out.” I grinned
and started pacing around the bedroom to try to focus on the bigger problem.
“We have to figure out how to get out of this mess.”

“We can call the police and make Evan
turn himself in for raping me,” Julia resolved as she chewed off fingernail
after fingernail.

“But I would have to go to jail,” Evan
moaned, as if we would really care. I made a quick lunge at him, causing him to
flinch. Julia quickly pulled me back from attacking him again. I was having a
hard time controlling myself. I think I may have been capable of murder that
day, even though I was pleading with Julia to change her mind. This pathetic
excuse of a man actually wanted us to take pity on him. Can you believe that?

“You can take Option One, where I empty
the rest of the heroin into your arm, and you can head on to hell where you
belong. Or you can choose Option Two and confess to the cops,” Julia said
coolly. She waved her dainty hand in front of her wrinkled nose. “The smell in
here is starting to get to me. Come on, Savannah. Let’s give Evan a little
while to weigh out his options.” She pulled me out the room, shutting the door
behind us.

More gagging and dry heaving could be
heard through the door. “Please wipe this mess off me first,” he cried as we
walked away, ignoring his request.

I escaped to the bathroom to wash my
face and try to pull myself back together. I felt like I was living out some
sick nightmare that wouldn’t end. Never in my wildest would I have guessed this
was what Julia had in store for me during this trip.

I snuck to my room and started
gathering up my stuff. I needed to make a quick disappearing act. It was what I
was good at. “This is Julia’s mess. Not mine,” I said to myself. I grabbed the
bag and as I put my hand on the doorknob, pure shame overwhelmed me. I dropped
the bag and sat with my back against the door, finding myself at a crossroads.
This whole nightmare wasn’t just about me. I was ashamed for all those times I
ran away from the grasp of Evan’s arms and left Julia to fend for herself. I
was disappointed in myself for even thinking about doing it to her again. After
reliving those painful memories, I resolved that it was time to stand up and help
my sister out of this once and for all. To not leave her alone with him ever
again. I slowly pulled myself off the floor, discarded the regrets there, and
opened the door.

I was surprised to find Julia standing
outside the door. “What?” I asked.

“Just waiting to talk you out of
leaving,” she said. She looked nearly defeated, as though she knew I would be
abandoning her as I did so many times that dark year.

The guilt of it all was too much. I
shook my head. “I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “Let’s figure this mess out,
okay?” I wrapped my arm around her bony waist and headed back towards her
bedroom. Opening the door, the sour stench slapped with me in the face. I
immediately began my own gagging.

Julia rushed over to her sliding glass door
and cracked it open. She retrieved some air freshener and gave the room a good
dousing. I don’t know if it was the drugs or fear that turned his vomit so
rotten. Maybe it was just the pure evil escaping him in the putrid form. I can
tell you this—it’s one of the sickest smells I ever smelled, and I will never
forget it.

“It’s decision time,” Julia walked up
to the bed. “What’s it going to be?” She pulled the syringes out of the
nightstand drawer. She seemed as ready for this to come to an end as I was.

“I’ll confess.” Evan appeared to have a
green tinge to his face, causing him to look more like the devil he really was.

“You pull any funny business on the
phone, and I promise to empty each one of these into your arm. I promise it
won’t ruin my day to do this,” Julia said as she waved the needles in front of
him. “You tell them your full name, where you are, and that you raped me,” she
said bluntly. “You add any more than that and I promise the cops won’t make it
here in time to save you. Now, before we make that call, you need to thank
Savannah for saving your life.”

“That crazy witch broke my—”

Julia struck him in the referenced part
with her sharp fist before he could finish his sentence. More screams and dry
heaving followed. He was sweating profusely and shivering at the same time. I
have to admit, he wasn’t looking so good. I was beginning to wonder if he would
survive the night or not.

“I would much rather kill you than
anything else, so I think you owe my little sister a big heartfelt thank you,”
Julia said once more.

Once Evan was able to focus, he looked
in my direction and cried out a simple
thank
you
. Once he did, Julia grabbed the phone.

“Let’s get this over with, I’m getting
tired.” Julia sighed loudly as she dialed 911 and held it to Evan’s ear.

“Hello…My name is Evan Grey and I need
to confess to a crime,” he said into the phone. He wavered and Julia slammed a
needle into his arm. He started confessing, so she didn’t empty it. She left it
sticking in his arm for the duration of the confession. I didn’t doubt that she
meant business. He said exactly what Julia had instructed him to say and dared
not to add one single word to it. Once she hung up the phone, he began to cry
like a baby. We gathered his clothes and placed them by the door, which seemed
to confuse him.