Awakening You (Unraveling You 3)

Chapter 1

Ayden

“I want you to close your eyes and relax,” my therapist instructs in an even, soothing voice I’ve heard at least a dozen times.

I’m lying in a lounge chair in front of him with my arms overlapped on my stomach, and my heart is slamming against my chest as I prepare to be put under for my amnesia therapy. The soft flow of the ocean drifts from the stereo, and birds chirp just outside the window beside me.

“Relax,” he repeats. “Clear your body and mind.”

Clear my body and mind.

Clear my . . .

Body . . .

And . . .

Mind.

I fall deep into my thoughts, a blanket of darkness wrapping around me.

Around.

Around.

Around.

“Ayden!” my sister cries from the recliner. “Stop spinning me so fast.”

I continue to lap circles, pushing the chair she’s in. “You asked me to spin you, so I’m spinning you.”

“Not this fast, though!” she cries through her laughter, gripping onto the torn armrests. “I’m going to throw up!”

“Oh, fine.” I stop moving and hop back, watching the chair continue to twirl, gradually slowing to a stop.

“That was fun.” She bounces from the chair, her arms spanning to the side as she staggers toward me. “Whoa, I’m so dizzy.” She braces her hand against the sheetrock wall to the side of her. “Everything looks all blurry.”

I laugh, sitting down on the edge of the scuffed up coffee table. “Give it a minute, and it’ll stop.”

She nods, sinking back into the chair. “So, I heard a rumor about you.”

“Oh, yeah?” I ask, vaguely interested as I pick up the remote and turn on the television. The service has been turned off, though, probably because my mom forgot to pay the bill again, so I turn it off.

“Yeah, I heard you kissed Laura Flemming on the lips.” She giggles.

I set the remote down. “So what? It’s not that big of a deal.”

“That’s not what I heard.” Her eyes sparkle mischievously. Sadie has always been the kind of sister who likes to tease me about everything. “I heard that she wants to be your girlfriend.”

I roll my eyes. “Well, she can tell me that herself, then.”

“That’s such a boy answer.”

“If you haven’t noticed, he is a boy.” My older brother enters the living room from the hallway. He’s wearing plaid pajama bottoms, and his hair is messy, as if he just woke up, even though it’s six o’clock at night. “Where’s Mom?”

I shrug. “Out.”

He shakes his head, aggravated and exhausted from the late hours he’s been putting in at his job and school. “Probably doing drugs.”

“She doesn’t do drugs,” Sadie spits. “Stop saying that she does.”

“You’re just in denial,” my brother replies, winding around the chair and heading for the kitchen attached to the living room.

“I am not.”

“Am, too.”

“Would you two knock it off,” I intervene, being the peacemaker as always. “Just let her be, okay? It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Yeah, it is.” He motions around us at the shithole we’ve called home for about a year now. “Look around you. If you can’t see how bad things are, then you’re dumb as fuck.”

“I’m not dumb.” Tears overflow from Sadie’s eyes. “Why do you always have to be such a jerk?”

He sighs. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I just want you to see how things really are so maybe you can have a chance at a better future.”

“I know things are bad,” she mutters, “but it doesn’t mean I have to be all mopey about it all the time.”

I hate when they fight. Life is bad enough already.

“How about we go outside,” I suggest to Sadie, “and see what kind of trouble we can get into?”

Sadie beams as she springs from the chair. “Can we go see Miss Tammy’s puppies?”

“Sure. Why not?”

She bounces off toward the door while I shoot my brother a look as I head for the front door.

“Don’t ruin her happiness yet,” I mutter under my breath as I pass by him. “Let her be a kid for a little while longer.”

“She’s thirteen-years-old.” He grabs a bowl from the cupboard then lowers his voice when he realizes Sadie is still lingering near the front door. “She needs to start growing up and realizing just how shitty our lives are. And how shitty our mother—”

“My babies!” The door swings open violently, and my mother bursts into the narrow living room with her arms wide open. Her attention falls on Sadie, and she lazily grins. “Come give Mama a hug.”

“Speak of the devil,” my brother mumbles under his breath.

Sadie gives her a nervous, one-armed hug. “I missed you.”

She trips in her heels as she staggers into the small living room. “Where have the three of you been?”

“Right here.” My tone is clipped. “Waiting for you to show up and pay the damn bills.”

She frowns as she slumps against the wall with her head tipped back, her droopy eyes on the stained ceiling above. “I’ve been busy . . .” Her eyelids lower as if she’s about to pass out. “How long was I gone?”

I bite down on my tongue until the rusty taste of blood fills by mouth, hating myself for detesting her so much. “Four days.”

“Four days,” she murmurs sleepily. Her head starts to angle to the side, and I think she’s about to pass out, but she suddenly gets a second wind. Her eyes pop open as she jumps away from the wall. “I need you guys to come with me.”

“I have to go to work,” my brother snaps while pouring cereal into a bowl.

“Work, shmirk.” She waves him off, staggering over her own feet as she jerks open the front door. “Come on. This is important.”

I exchange a quizzical look with my brother, and he shakes his head and slams the box of cereal down onto the counter.

“Fine, what do you want?” he asks, striding to the front door.

“It’s outside,” she whispers, her gaze darting from left to right.

My brother rolls his eyes, but steps outside, anyway. “I’m getting so tired of this shit.”

My mom stumbles down the rickety porch to the gravel driveway, and we all follow her. The sky is clear, the sun gleaming brightly, but there’s a chill to the air.

“What do you thin

k she’s on this time?” he asks me as we hike down the windy road, past trailer homes, and toward the field surrounding the area we live in.

I shrug. “I really don’t care anymore.”

Which is the truth. I may hold it together on the outside, but I was done with my mother and her drug and alcohol addiction a long time ago. I have four more years of this shit, and then I’m getting out. The moment I graduate, I’m packing my shit and leaving. And I’m going to take Sadie, too.

My mother leads us on a wild goose chase up through the field and around the fence line before heading back toward the house.

“I have a bad feeling about this, Ayden,” Sadie whispers to me. “In fact, I had one of my bad feelings this morning that something bad was going to happen today.”

“It’s going to be okay.” I squeeze her hand, trying to comfort her, but I’m pretty fucking worried myself.

By the time we’ve reached the road again, I figure my mother probably forgotten the purpose of why she brought us out here—if there was even a purpose to begin with—and is going to take us back to the house.

But she makes a right at a smaller home just to the side of ours, and the three of us begrudgingly trail after her, exhausted and cranky and ready to go home. Even Sadie has grown quiet.

“Just wait right here,” my mom instructs as we reach the bottom of the rotted, wooden steps that lead to a crooked front door. She climbs up the stairs and fixes her dress into place before knocking.

The door swings open, but I can’t see who’s inside the house. For the most part, the three of us have tried to stay away from our neighbors, considering most of them deal and do drugs.

I hear hushed whispering and sigh, knowing more than likely my mom’s buying drugs. My gaze travels around the area, across the road, along the front of the house. I notice a strange, jagged, circular pattern painted on the metal along with a sign that reads: Enter at your own risk. Those who dare step in never get out.

Part of me thinks the warning is a joke, but a small part of me starts to get a little anxious about who lives in this house.

“Okay, are you guys ready for this?” my mother asks, drawing my attention back to her.

The door to the house is wide open, but the person who answered has stepped back so I can only make out their silhouette and what looks like a head of red hair. It seems so dark and smoky inside, as if there are no open windows or ventilation.

“Go on.” She has something in her hand and a nervous look on her face as she flicks her wrist and motions at the door. “Get in there.”