Hi Everyone!
Just a short note that so that there are no misunderstandings in this and future chapters. The Church of Humanity (CoH) and Friends of Humanity (FoH) are two related but different groups with similar anti-mutant agendas, but different ways of running those agendas. Neither is my own creation.
Nothing more to say really....just....enjoy and let me know what you think. :)
psyche b.
14. Not Easily Broken
Creed stood in front of a wall of framed photos in Joe's den and worked on his third beer. The frail and her grandmother were on some kind of tour of the house. The old lady had looked at him like he was shit stuck to the bottom of her shoe. He was used to that, he could see the hurt and anger flicker across the frail's face. He couldn't say he understood that, but it had pissed him off to see her so upset. In that moment he had been tempted to take her back out to the car and head out to Washington State without another word to either one of them.
"They were always like that." Joe was standing behind him.
"What're you talking about?" He was studying the pictures of the frail. Her hair was redder, but he couldn't mistake those eyes.
"Anna and Kelly. It's never been easy between them. She's too much like her father." Creed heard him sit down.
"What the fuck does the mean?" Creed scanned the images on the wall. The frail and a man who looked like a younger version of Joe were in most of them. The grandmother was in some. There were a few pictures of a baby dressed in blue. The mother was conspicuously absent.
"Means Carl and Kelly prefer the ugly truth to a pretty fairy tale. Anna only knows how to function in the fairy tale."
Creed turned and studied the old man for a minute. A slow smile spread across his lips. "You never told her what you did."
Joe wouldn't meet his eyes. "Have you told Kelly?"
"Didn't tell her anything specific. She guessed at the big picture."
The old man gave a short laugh. "Shouldn't be surprised by that."
Creed watched the old man pick at the label on the beer bottle. "What?"
"What really happened when you found her?"
Creed sat down and studied the wrinkled face. "What'd she say?"
"Which time? First she said you found her wandering, then she said you found her unconscious. Both times she said she ran away, but I know there was more to it than that."
Creed smiled a little. "She's a shitty liar. I don't know much about what happened before I found her. She figures Stan gave her to Dawes-"
"Gave her to him?"
"That ain't part of what I know, just what she told me. Stan gave her to Dawes because he figured Dawes would kill her or break her. Didn't come close to breaking her, but he goddamn near succeeded in killing her. I guess neither of them planned on her being the tough little thing that she is. I happened to be in the right place at the right time to see her running and him chasing after her with a gun. She fell, hit her head on a rock and knocked herself out. He took a shot at me; I killed him, and brought her back to my place." He swallowed the last of his beer.
"But she was alright?" He was grasping at straws.
"Fuck no. She was filthy, bruised everywhere, cut up, bloody. So emaciated I could count her bones. 'F I'd left her there, Stan would've got his wish." It made him sick to remember it. Joe turned away and looked at the wall. He could smell the anger rolling off the old man.
"He rape her?" He asked finally.
"No."
"Not that she told you, or-"
"Just trust me on that one." He got up and walked back to the wall of birthday parties, holidays and ordinary pleasures on beaches and in parks. He had to look at something while he waited for the question to come. Finally, he couldn't stand the waiting. "You gonna ask if I did?"
"I've seen what you do to women. If you had used her that way she wouldn't have lived long enough to get back here, let alone look as good as she does."
He gave the old man a sidelong glance and then turned back to the photos. "She's still too damn skinny. Guess she always has been though."
What the fuck was taking Conlon so long?
*~*~*~*~*~*
The furniture was mostly different. The wallpaper patterns and paint colors were different. The layout of the rooms was different. The longer Kelly spent in the house though, the more she started remembering the little things that surrounded her. China birds, a robin and a blue jay, sat on handmade doilies on the coffee table. The last time she'd seen them, they'd been on top of a console television. The photo of her father in his Army uniform hung on the living room wall, his serious expression frozen in time. A statue of the Virgin Mary that had occupied a small table in the upstairs hall now looked out over the dining room. Two votive candles stood in red glass holders in front of the blue and white figure.
"I lit them every night. One for you, one for Cody." The older woman brushed at imaginary dust. "He probably doesn't even remember us anymore."
Kelly smiled slightly. "When we were alone I would tell him about you and Grandpa, and Daddy."
"Your mother didn't do that?"
Kelly shook her head and looked at the china in the cabinet. The ivory colored china with intricate gold designs brought back memories of holiday feasts and Sunday dinners. "You know how mom is. She gave up all rights to think for herself when she married Stan."
"Kelly, she's still your mother-"
"She's the woman who gave birth to Cody and me. Being a mother takes more than that." Kelly walked into the living room, her arms crossed across her stomach, cradling the pain of the statement. She stopped in front of her father's picture. Her grandmother followed.
"You know she's never been a strong woman. She was crushed after-"
"And we weren't?"
"A shocking accident like that-"
"It wasn't an accident. It was a drunk who was driving on a suspended license. The whole thing was unfair and stupid and Cody and I needed the one parent we had left." Kelly's voice cracked. She dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand. Her grandmother stroked her back.
"Your hair is the same color as his." Her voice trembled. Even with the intervening years, the wound was still too fresh and the topic still too painful. Kelly didn't push it.
"Is it?" She looked more closely at the photograph, studying the little bit of hair visible at the margins of the hat her father wore. "It's been so long since I've seen a picture of him."
Her grandmother ignored the last part of that statement. "It is. When you were born you had the reddest hair I'd ever seen on anyone." She laughed softly. Kelly managed a little smile. "As you got older it got darker and darker and I always wondered if you'd keep any of that red."
Kelly smiled a little. "I just got it back."
"Got it back? Is that a dye?" Her grandmother started moving locks Kelly's hair, studying it in the light.
"No, but stress can do awful things to a person." Kelly forced a little smile. "The house is bigger than I expected."
"I wasn't too happy about moving, I certainly wasn't about to give up the things I love. Come upstairs, I'll show you your room." She took Kelly's hand, but Kelly didn't move.
"Granna-"
"You have to stay somewhere while you're here."
