Page 2 of Grit & Glamour
Chapter Two
A few weeks later
“Scarlett?” a small voice calls from the darkness of my bedroom. My eyes open, and I turn my head towards the noise, looking for the speaker. I smile as my gaze finds him, standing at the side of my bed shrouded by darkness.
“What are you doing in here, Caleb?” I ask my little brother quietly.
“They’re home early, and they’re shouting at each other,” he whispers, his voice is cold, defeated. The last two weeks, while mum and her boyfriend were off skiing, he’d been so happy. They walk in, and now he’s back to this shadow version of himself. It’s as if our reprieve from hell never happened.
When it’s just the two of us, everything is better. Safer. Both of us are happy, well, as happy as possible anyway. Now that I’m older it’s gotten even better, there are more things we can do now that I can drive. Sometimes I consider just driving away and not looking back. But then they’d just hunt me down for kidnapping my brother.
How are they to realise that I’d really be trying to save him?
“Okay, just let me lock the door, and then you can take my bed. I’ll curl up on the sofa,” I tell him as I slide out from under the covers. I shiver from the coldness in the air. There’s no question my mother’s home. Someone turned down the temperature in the house to freezing, and only she would set it that low. She likes the house as cold as her heart.
I push across the bolt lock I’d installed on the door of my bedroom. They’d tried taking it away, they’d even removed my door once—but I’m resourceful. I made sure I had a new door by the end of the day. They hadn’t made too much of a fuss. I’m sure they’re happier with the house appearing normal. A missing door on the bedroom of a teenager could draw too much unwanted attention. And that’s something they can’t allow. I’d put a lock on Caleb’s door, too, not that he ever uses it. Whenever they’re away he doesn’t bother locking it, and whenever they’re home he creeps in here. I can never turn him away when he looks up at me with those big, brown eyes of his and says he’s scared. It’s a good thing my room is so big. Big enough for a king-size bed and a large, white sofa sitting at the foot of it. I’ve got a dressing room and an ensuite, too, but I’d trade it all for a dirty one room bedsit on the other side of the world from here.
“Why do you think they’re home early, Scar?” Caleb asks me quietly, as he slides under my bed’s covers. I shuffle over to the walk in wardrobe to grab a blanket while I consider it. I’d hoped they would have taken care of them by now. It would have gone better for us if they’d done it while they were away, but I understand things like this can take time to plan and execute. After snagging a fluffy white blanket, I stroll back into the room and sit on the sofa, facing Caleb.
“I don’t know. Maybe they just got bored? Or maybe it’s a work thing. Let’s just do our best to stay out of their way for now.” I try my best to give him a reassuring smile, but from his reaction, it’s not as effective as I’d hoped.
“But what about what’s going to happen on your birthday,” he begins, his voice wavering. “You're going to leave me.”
His words strike me right in my chest, sending shockwaves through me. I can't bear to hear him sounding so lost and abandoned. Not that I would ever even think to leave him behind. I may turn eighteen in two days, and my mother may intend to more or less throw me out, but I’d burn this house to the ground before I’d abandon my little brother.
“I will never leave you. I promise. We're in this together.” I get up off from the sofa and head over to the bed. I sit down next to him above the covers. “Why are you talking like this? You know I will come and see you as much as possible. You’ll just need to keep your head down and lock your own door for a little while. Just until I can get something sorted.” Until the killing of our mother is sorted, anyway.
“How are you going to sort anything?” he whines. “You can't just take me away, you've told me so yourself.”
“I'll find a way. I'll get guardianship of you, and then we will get as far away from here as possible,” I answer somewhat honestly. That’s the plan… I've just already found the way to make it work. I'll be eighteen in two days, and with our mother dead, I'll be Caleb's closest relative, and the only one who would have him. I can take legal custody of him, and we will finally be free.
“How are you going to do that? She is never going to sign it over, Scarlett. Maybe we need to just take our chances and run,” he suggests, surprising me at how thoughtful he's being about it. I stare down at him curiously. My brother Caleb is thirteen, and yet he's also somehow both three and thirty in his head. My mother described him as broken, but I preferred the term different. His brain may work differently, but he's perfect as he is. I've risked my life to protect him before, and I won’t hesitate to again. I've raised him more than our mother ever has, and protecting him comes second nature to me now.
“I don't know yet, dude, but I'll figure it out, okay?” I tug up the covers to bring them under his chin.
“You promise?” he asks, pulling his hand out from the covers and offering his pinky finger. I intertwine mine with his.
“I promise.”
