AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How so?” Sophie asked.
“He is the quiet to your manic. He is equally kind, equally patient. Equally observant. But look, he doesn’t expect anything back, he is just giving his time… Look what a good job he is doing out there with Max! He is the human touch to the side of you that has become… cutthroat.”
Sophie guffawed out loud at that. Tohercutthroat side? How ironic, when he was the one who cuts throats, literally. He was the one raging and burning in his own fiery hell, he was the one who had taught her how hot revenge could burn. It was so strange that her mother should see it that way. Maybe she had been neglecting her family lately… snappy, impatient. She was trying to start a successful business though, for God’s sake. They seemed to think it was all sunshine and rainbows. That success would come if she just smiled and handed out free ice cream. They should have been keeping a closer eye on Max, to stop him falling in with the wrong crowd. With a gang. With the biggest Mexican drug cartel… she hated their inaction, their acceptance of the situation. And yet… maybe there was something to be learned from acceptance, after all. Isn’t that what she had tried to persuade Phantom to do? Forgive, forget, move on? Hadn’t she told him, ‘no more’?
The stress had gotten under her skin, and she had forgotten herself. The mounting bills, the quiet shop… it had all gotten to her. Her mother was right. God damn it. Why were parents always right? She had forgotten her natural style, she had been trying so hard she’d let what made her the person she was slip through her fingers. And the person who had brought it all back to her? He stood right there in front of her, outside with her brother. Teaching him to use a deadly weapon. Right after he’d tried to kill him…
He didn’t know Max was her brother. And she had even condoned it. Begrudgingly, but she had said, one more, then no more. She had said it was okay. So really he was just doing what he thought she’d agreed to.
Max and his friends clambered through the door.
“Soph, that was so awesome, thanks so much!” Max gushed as his friends whooped and hollered and clattered through the kitchen into the living room. He seemed totally unaffected that he’d survived a murder attempt just an hour before. He’d forgiven and forgotten already it seemed. Sophie should do the same.
“You can watch a film but not rated R, remember?” Her mother hurried to catch up with his friends. “I’ll get some popcorn for you…” She fussed over settling them into the other room.
Sophie sighed, she knew what she had to do now. Talk to Phantom. Tell him she forgave him. Tell him that, yes she was angry, yes she felt hurt and betrayed, but she knew that he wouldn’t have wanted to kill her brother. And that she understood, now, she finally understood how much it hurt. How much it burned. She had had a tiny glimpse of that fire of hell, a tiny bite on the apple of revenge, and she was sorry for thinking it could just be ignored. She was sorry for being so naive.
Her father came clattering through the door then, closing it behind him.
Sophie bit her lip and sighed. “Where is Phantom?” she asked, loudly.
“He’s… gone…”
“Wait, what? He’s left already?” Sophie asked. “I mean, do you know where he went?” Sophie garbled now, yanking her phone out of her pocket. No calls. No messages.
He’d be feeling guilty. He would have seen the hurt and rage and betrayal on her face. He would have felt like a monster, he would have thought that what he had been about to do was unforgivable. He would disappear into the darkness of the night.
“Fuck!” Sophie shouted.
“Language!” her mother gasped.
Sophie wrung her hands, wondering what to do. Should she try to catch him up?
The Demonios had come again. Phantom had saved them all. And now he had gone, and he would be thinking that Sophie hated him for attempting to kill her brother.
“Where’s Max?” One of his friends trotted out of the lounge and into the kitchen, looking around.
Sophie’s mom frowned. “What do you mean, Owen, he’s in with you?”
“No, he said he was just going to bring his skateboard in-”
Sophie turned to look out the kitchen window. The skateboard was there, on the deck. The bucket of water was upturned, spattered messily all over the deck. The rag a few feet away.
Fuck. Where was Max? Now her pulse sped up. Now sheer panic engulfed her.
“Max!” She yelled out.
“Sophie… where is he? What’s going on?” Sophie’s mom let out a little sob.
“He’s been taken,” Sophie blurted out.
“It cannot be… Sophie this is…” her mom fell backwards, her dad caught her.
“This is the last straw Sophie, it really is, your mother can’t take any more of you and Max… the trouble you cause… that man was obviously trouble…”
“Alright, enough!” Sophie shouted. Sophie couldn’t deal with this at the moment. Alienating her parents would have to be the course of action for now. She had to get outside, she had to find Max. Find Phantom. “Phantom didn’t take Max, Phantom was trying to save Max-”
Sophie’s mother was clutching her chest, looking worryingly like she was having a heart attack.
