TORN FLESH

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: GHOSTS

MARGO awoke to a throbbing pain in her head and bile creeping up her throat. God, how she wished she hadn't opened her eyes.

Lifting her head, all she saw was darkness, night must have fallen in the time she'd been out.

But the sound of footsteps from somewhere behind her was what made her eyes widen as she began to twist her arms against their restraints.

Pressing into the chair she was tied to, she waited for her attacker to show themself, instead, when they stepped in front of her, the light created a silhouette. No actual face, nothing she could see.

She had no clue who it was.

"Why're you here?" Margo paused, she recognized the voice, but whose was it? Her memories were laced with so many lies that she wasn't even sure she could trust her mind.

"I'm looking for something." it wasn't a whole lie, maybe just a half-lie, she was technically looking for something. Something that would hopefully help guide her back to what was real and fake in her memory.

"You need to leave. You're not going to find what you're looking for."

She watched as he turned away and began to make his way into what she could only register as the kitchen, "I'm looking for someone."

The man's head raised just the slightest to look at her- although there wasn't much to see in the dark- "and who is it you're looking for?"

Margo shook her head, "I'm looking for someone named Eddie Lee, he's my brother."

The blonde took a step back towards the tiny bit of light that was flickering through the window a few feet away, she could see a few glimpses of the blonde curls covering his head, and then he spoke again.

"Why are you looking for him?"

Margo frowned, why did she need to answer that? Why was she being asked that?

"I have some questions for him, some things I was hoping he could help me figure out." The blonde shook his head, he took another step back, pushing himself into the light behind him with a small upturn of his lips.

"You found him."

Margo couldn't have been more surprised, she'd known he was familiar, but she couldn't remember this person as her brother. Sure, the photo in the files said he was, even listed his relation to her, but, it just didn't seem right.

There was something odd about it, something that didn't fall into place with everything else she knew.

"You've been gone for a while... you know that, right?" Eddie asked as he moved towards the chair she'd been tied to, "just about seven years."

Margo let a sigh fall from her lips, that much she was aware of, and she hated every bit of it, a part of her almost felt guilty for killing her father, but every time she thought about it the only thing that resurfaced was anger towards him. No sort of guilt.

She tried her hardest to not think about it too much.

The second her restrains came free she stared up at Eddie before wrapping her arms around him, after a few seconds he found himself wrapping his arms around the girl.

He hadn't hugged her in years, and frankly, he was still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that she was alive. Her grave was just outside, and so was Ronnies, but he'd known he was dead for a while, it'd been on the news and everything. And if he was being honest, it hadn't made him particularly sad, Ronnie had always been on the wrong path, at least the wrong path for him.

He just wasn't meant for the life he'd set up for himself.

"I didn't want to leave." Eddie pulled back from Margo for a moment and pursed his lips, "they took me, the people that Ronnies boss was working with, and they... they did awful things to me, made me do awful things."

The blonde nodded his head, "I know, I know you didn't want to go." he mumbled, pulling her flush against his chest he rested his hand on her head and carefully ran it through her hair. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been able to play with her hair like this, maybe when she was twelve?

But he didn't stop, not until the sun had gone down and they were left in complete darkness. "Your room is still down the hall, when you went away, Ron and I spent the first week just sitting in there, thinking about you."

He moved his hand from her head and wiped the tears from his cheek, "it was awful at first, they came in here, their stupid biohazard team, and they cleaned up the whole place, it reeked of bleach and it just didn't feel right."

Letting out a shaky breath he placed his hand back onto Margo's head, "and then Ronnie left, and a month later they sent an officer with both your death certificates."

Eddie chuckled, he hadn't meant to, but it seemed as good a time as any, "the funny thing is, they claimed you had died of natural causes, but wouldn't let me see yours or Ronnies bodies."

Margo's grip on her brother tightened, she felt guilt gripping her tight this time, and the odd thing was, it wasn't even her fault. "The only good thing that came out of it was that dad was gone, and you had managed to get away from him."

She couldn't find it in her to respond, there were no amount of words that could make all of his suffering better, and there was no amount of time that could heal the pain he'd experienced over the years. She could only hope that now that she was here that some of it eased away.

Pulling away from his sister, he reached his hand up to his face and swiped away his tears before she could get a good look at him, "if you don't want to sleep in your room Ronnies is still in pretty good condition, nobody went in there after he left."

Margo nodded her head, she wasn't sure how much she wanted to sleep in her brother's bed, with all being considered, but she wouldn't have much of a choice if her bed was as small as she had once been.

And as she followed Eddie into the room, she realized it was. Her only option was to sleep in Ronnies room.

But before going to bed, the blonde of the two managed to whip up a small batch of stew for them and they went over a few basic things, some of the bigger bits that Margo needed help remembering.

Like her mother's name, for instance, her birthday, what had gone wrong in her mother's pregnancy. What their father had been like before her death, tomorrow, Eddie would start telling her about the smaller things, like the expressions she used to make and the places Ronnie would take her.

And if she wanted, he had even offered to help her go through the attic to find some of their old family photos, the ones from before she was born and the ones from after she was born.

Margo remained in the clothes she'd arrived in and as she bedded down for the night, she found the scent of Ronnie clinging to her like a warm blanket, which was odd, considering that she'd assumed it would overwhelm her to the point of a breakdown.

But instead, it was comforting her.

Maybe there was a bright side to the dark day.

When she woke, the sunlight was pouring in past the curtains and Eddie was standing in the doorway frowning. Confused, she sat up and met his gaze, "what?"

He shook his head, "nothing, you just... you're pretty loud at night." he paused, "nightmares, right?"

She waited a moment before nodding her head, she couldn't even remember having any that night, which didn't sit right with her.

"You get used to them if you haven't already."

Nodding her head again, Margo frowned this time, gesturing to the sheets pulled over her she stared at the man, "I'd like to be able to change without being watched."

Eddies face turned a light shade of red and he quickly closed the door. What was it with girls? He could remember wishing he'd been gifted a brother as a child, now, he couldn't even imagine it.

Within five minutes Margo had found something suitable in her brother's closet to wear, something that didn't hang so loosely that she felt naked. And when she came out, she was greeted by the sweet smell of what could only be fish.

She was right.

Eddie was in the kitchen with a small hand towel draped over his shoulder while he prodded at the meat slipping around in the pan, it wasn't until she was beside him that he cast her a look, "this is about as fresh as the food around here gets, limitless too." she smiled at his words and watched for a few more moments as he flipped over the fish.

Once she grew bored of watching him cook she made her way into the living room and glanced out of the closest window, it overlooked the grass quickly changing to sand and she imagined the smell of the saltwater for a few seconds. She'd have to go out and see it again before she left.

If she did.

A few minutes later Eddie stood in front of her holding a plate out in from of him, offering her brother a small smile, she took it from him and watched as he plopped down beside her.

"Dad used to hate fishing for this." he gestured to his plate and took a mouthful of fish, Margo pursed her lips and took a small bite of the meat, she couldn't remember that.

"He used to make me and Ron do it, but half the time Ron would find some way to bring you along so you wouldn't be stuck with Dad." Margo's brows creased and she cast her brother a look, "he could've killed me. Why didn't he?"

Eddie frowned, "same reason he didn't kill me or Ron, we were his kids." He set down the bit of fish in his hand and turned his body to face his sister, "look, while Dad may not have been the best at showing it, he did hold some love for us in that sick deranged little heart of his."

She nodded, she could believe that much. "Especially for you."

Margo scoffed, that was not true in the slightest, "he blamed me, how does that equate to love?" the man shrugged his shoulders in response. "I'm not sure, but I do know that he did love you, probably the most out of all of us, you were all he ever talked about."

Chewing through the fish, Margo wondered what kind of love that was supposed to be. How did you go from loving someone and the idea of them to wanting them to be your worst nightmare?

To her, it sounded like her father had wanted a reason to hate her.

But as she listened, she realized she had it the easiest out of the three kids.

Ronnie had been treated decently, and when he turned eighteen he'd gone down to the recruiter's office with her and signed up, Eddie, a drug dealer who ran a side hustle of illegal car mods, was around enough for her to begin to remember a few things about him.

It was when Eddie dove into the topic of the custody battle that she realized just how nasty things had gotten between her brothers and her father, each taking as many jabs at the other as they could afford, and yet no one was doing themselves any good.

The brothers hadn't won.

With Ronnie deployed and their father hiring a private investigator to find the evidence of Eddie dealing both illegal mods and drugs, it was enough to keep the girl in his custody and send his oldest to jail for two years.

She was twelve at the time.

TORN FLESH

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: GHOSTS