“Fuck!” I shout as I whip into the driveway of an abandoned farmhouse, throwing the beast into park on a sob.
I hit the steering wheel over and over, screaming and yelling, crying harder than I ever have. I curse the sky and whatever God there is, the universe and whatever force is driving me down such a fucked up path. I scream at my mother, shouting out my resentment and anger over the way she was treated, the way she allowed herself to be treated, and how dare she bring children into that sort of hell on earth.
Dropping my head to my hands, I beg for forgiveness. To whoever is listening, to whoever might be out there. Forgiveness for the way I’ve lived my life, the way I’ve let anger rule it for so long, and I beg that I can fix this, that I canfix mebecause the only way I’m going to continue surviving in this city of ghosts is with the love from the people I can’t seem to stop hurting.
A fucking curse indeed.
I take a few shaky breaths and try to get myself under control.
Driving while hysterically sobbing and screaming isn’t exactly safe and even though I would have welcomed the accident it could have caused years ago, I can’t bring myself to think like that now.
Which is exactly why I should probably go back to Justine and Pierre’s house, and start groveling at the feet of four gods who won’t ever ask me to do that.
But just as I’m about to throw the beast in reverse, the familiar chime ofmycell phone goes off, and I frown while I start looking around.
That’s weird.
It’s been a few days since I’ve been in the van, Mark got us out of the loft in his truck and I know I had my phone up until that point.
So, how is my phone in the beast?
The two minute reminder goes off followed by the sound of another text coming through and just when I’m about to unbuckle and start looking, Pierre’s ringtone sounds from the glovebox for a few seconds before it abruptly stops.
With a frown, I reach toward the dash, removing my phone from exactly where I thought it was and when I see it’s at 100%, I let out a watery laugh.
Lucky.
He probably brought it back from the loft when they left to go to Justine’s, and since it was dead, he plugged it in and it’s been charging this entire time because it drives him crazy when I forget to do that.
PIERRE: Bonjour, belle!
PIERRE: Could you be so kind as to bring my dinner up to the mansion? Justine is out with the benefactor and I forgot it at home.
Okay…
That’s a little odd.
Not Justine doing some other god-awful thing with that Collinsworth dickhead, even at this time of the afternoon since he seems to think he can’t function without her, but it is strange that Pierre is asking me to bring him food when I know he has an entire kitchen out there at his disposal.
Then again, if he’s working, too, that means he’s fixing any number of things around the property, or going over the restoration budget and books, and that can be so timeconsuming it’s hard to even get up to take a piss. However, bringing him dinner might not be an option because I’m barefoot, in borrowed clothinganda borrowed vehicle so unless Lucky or Norm thought to grab my…
My wallet, that is also sitting in the glovebox.
Looks like Pierre gets McDonald’s for dinner, and I get to eat crow while I beg my boyfriends to love me in spite of how insane I am.
I’ll be there in twenty.
Decidingto park directly in front of the porch in the horseshoe drive, since I can because I no longer work here and have had a shit day, I frown,again, as I look around and don’t see any sign of literally anyone else here.
Justine might have their car, I didn’t pass it coming up because there weren’t any at the carriage house, but the last time Collinsworth had her doing shit he sent a car for her. Maybe he creeps her out too so she drove separately and planned on picking up her man later.
The thing is, I don’t seeanyother vehicles.
Dirt Sack and his crew might be on a break or something, I know a lot of the time they’ll do stuff inside during the day when there are a lot of people working on the house then they break and come back later to do outdoor shit. So it’s not weird that they aren’t here but I didn’t pass any vehicles that belong to the security goons either. Which means Chase and the other guys are probably gone for the day, or on some sort of break themselves and that has me feeling some kind of way.
Then again, I also wouldn’t put it past Pierre to kick everyone out so he could work on the books without interruption. Not necessarily silence, that’s rare for him, but without people in and out of his office repeatedly while he doesmathématiques stupides.
Smiling my way up the stairs, I push open the front door with ease and before I have a chance to call out to Pierre, I hear Dean Martin crooning that beautiful songMemories Are Made of Thisfrom somewhere in this empty house.
