Chapter 7

Bile rises in my throat as I watch Hillary and Beth hauling the girl into a body bag, which is apparently something quite normal to keep in a kitchen drawer. Fresh tears outline the tear tracks that are already trekking down my face. I want home. I want to get out of here and never see any of these people again. I ran into the bathroom, vomiting into the toilet. Any food that I had managed to stomach goes splattering into the toilet; when I am done I flush the revolting concoction down the system, and collapse onto the floor. Then I begin to cry again, violently. The bitter taste of stomach acid lingers in my mouth as I bawl. I sense Beth gingerly walking into the bathroom, face creased in concern. She kneels by my side as my sobs slowly turn into sniffles, and helps me up into the knitting room, sitting me on the horribly white sofa. “I am so sorry that you had to witness that so soon. Just as you were starting to settle in here.” Beth shakes her head sadly, staring into her lap. “He did it as a punishment,” I began slowly, ignoring her remark about my supposed ‘settling in’,”for me. I annoyed him the other day. I pulled him up off his son. He was beating him. Badly.” My voice wavers, and fresh tears form, fast and big. I don't get how Beth and Hillary are so calm all the time. Is that what I'd turn into eventually? An empty shell like them? Hillary walks in all smiley and normal. Her eyes seeming to fall over my distraught state, she sighs and rubs her hands together in glee. “Anyone want to watch a film?”

An hour later, we were all sitting watching Ghostbusters, a large bowl of popcorn in the middle of us. I can't eat any of it, my stomach still squirms at the mere thought of the body bag in the corner of the kitchen, slumped in a way so that anyone who didn't pay much attention would think that it was a broom of some fashion. Horrible images fill my mind, of my bloody hands as I tried to revive her, of the pleading glint in her eyes as she died, of her gorgeous afro hair scarlet with blood. I stare into the grainy display of the outdated television, my eyes taking in the images but my brain not being attentive. The film must have ended, because Hillary and Beth are staring at me, Hillary licking a sheen of butter from her fingertips absentmindedly and placing the popcorn bowl down. “Father will be down for dinner soon!” Hillary says brightly. I can't take it any longer, I rise to my feet, my voice raising with me. “What the hell is wrong with you all! Wake up! There is a girl lying dead in the next room and we're all sitting here watching Ghostbusters for god's sake! And yet, even after all that that psycho does to make our lives as messed up as possible, you all seem to worship him as a father figure,  trailing the creep like puppies!” There is a horribly loud silence that follows, and I can feel the tension and anger vibrating in the small stretch of air in between us. “You idiot!” Hillary shrieks, crossing the room in two short strides and slapping me, hard, across the face. Pain erupts in my left cheek, sparks of agony exploding in the place of impact, causing me to stumble backwards. Beth suddenly speaks, and she speaks words that make my heart stutter. “Julia, he has cameras everywhere. He knows what you just said.”