Page 6 of The Slayer Seduction

I’d finally made something of myself. My art wasn’t on gallery walls or changing the world, but I made a decent enough living. Of course, most of my income was subsidized through taking photography gigs, weddings paid tremendously, but it allowed me to do what I loved most, and that was to create.

A creativity that my family tried to beat out of me.

My father wanted me to be a strong man, one that could fulfill our family legacy. He didn’t like that instead of joining the wrestling team I wanted to paint. The most vivid memory of my father is when I wouldn’t kill our chicken, Joe, and he hit me so hard my mother almost took me to the ER. She didn’t, but the fact she even considered it is why the memory stuck out in a slew of bad childhood memories.

It wasn’t even until adulthood that I received all my shots and had an actual physical by a physician. I’d never felt cared for in my life and I wasn’t sure I’d ever experience what love really meant.

My family was deplorable and our greatest legacy was how many times uncle Jim had been to prison. The idea of my father thinking we had a family legacy was a fucking joke.

But here I was, sitting at this coffee shop, waiting for my sister to meet me on neutral ground.

Mom was dying, and she wanted to make amends. I still didn’t know why exactly I agreed to come here. While my father was brutal and physically abusive, my mother was the opposite. She was always withdrawn from me in a way she wasn’t with my siblings.

I remember one night she had too much to drink, not that it was out of the norm, but she grabbed my cheeks and stared me in my eyes and said that she couldn’t love me, that I didn’t actually belong to her.

The decision to run away at sixteen was an easy one. Life on the street was hard, but I enrolled myself in school, graduated, and worked my ass off and I’m doing better than ever.

Yet, I still came when they called.

Last time I saw my sister Jenny, she was only ten. She’s now very clearly an adult, with the same dark hair and brown eyes as mine. She didn’t look unkempt per se, but she wasn’t put together either. Her hair is slightly frizzy and her shirt was nearly threadbare.

“Look at you,” she said, sitting across from me at the table. Her accent was thick, something I’d slowly rid myself of when I moved to New Orleans. “I ain’t here to ask you for money or nothing. Momma’s sick, real sick.” My sister looks around the room anxiously. “She said seein’ you was her last wish.”

I look at my sister suspiciously, wondering how I could feel so disconnected to her. It makes me feel like a fucking asshole, if I was being honest. While she’s been stuck in this hellhole, not knowing any better, I escaped and I got to see what life outside this shitty little town was like.

“I find it hard to believe she wants to see me,” I tell her honestly. If she had called directly, I don’t know that I would have come. But when Jenny called me crying, begging me to see Mom one last time, I’d given in.

“Hospice nurse said this happens with a lot of patients. Don’t want to go to their grave with regrets, I guess,” Jenny says with a nonchalant shrug and I tilt my head at her.

“Where’s dad?”

Jenny snorts. “Probably plastered while sitting in bed next to her.”

I squeeze my thigh under the table, trying to ease some of my anxiety over the idea of seeing them again. I’d stayed away for ten years and they never came looking. But I suppose some closure would be good on my end too. This could be an official farewell, and then I could completely leave the past behind.

“Please, Adam. She ain’t got much time left,” Jenny says, her eyes devoid of tears.

“Alright, I’ll come. We can go now,” I say, ready to stand up and go.

“She’ll be, uh…sleeping right now. She does that a lot. She seems to get her energy late at night. Hospice nurse said it’s usual. Apparently, when you’re dying you sleep a lot and your body doesn’t keep a…can’t remember it was a weird word.”

My brows furrow. “I could come there and wait,” I suggest.

“Didn’t think you’d want to spend any more time around Dad than you needed to.”

I clear my throat and shift in my seat uncomfortably. I knew it would be awkward seeing my family again, but I didn’t realize just how off center I’d truly be.

“I’ll come tonight. What time?”

“Is midnight too late?” she asks and I arch a brow at her, but instead of arguing, I give her a sharp nod.

“I’ll be there,” I tell her, and it will be the last time I ever step in this place ever again.

The home hasn’t changed, though there’s more shit in the yard than there used to be. Dad couldn’t help himself if something was free, so he’d toss it into the truck and then put it on our lawn for it to rust and slowly decompose.

They haven’t mowed the grass in god knows how long; the shutters are falling off the side of the house. Yet it looks less threatening with my adult eyes. I’d feared this place all my childhood, but I’m a man now and I wouldn’t let this place get to me.

A warm glow flickers inside each of the windows, letting me know that everyone is awake. With a deep breath, I make my way up the dirt gravel drive and step on the worn front step and knock.