DoubleDown V by John R. Little and Mark Allan Gunnells Read Free Book Online Page B

about would be getting to the emergency ward and making sure they stitched him up.
     
    *   *   *
     
    That night, after time started again and Karen had listened to the last of Mrs. Frey lecturing on metaphors, she waited for Tina to come home.
    Tina was quiet and declined dinner.  She went to her room, claiming she was tired from not sleeping well the night before.
    Karen followed Tina.
    “Are you okay?” she asked.
    Tina frowned.  “Why would you care?”
    Karen kneeled in front of her sister and looked into her eyes.  “It’s okay.  He won’t hurt you again.”
    Tina opened her mouth but nothing came out.  She looked to the side, not able to meet Karen’s gaze.
    “It’s okay,” Karen said.  “I know what he does to you.  But it’s over now, right?”
    For a moment the room was silent and neither girl moved.  It was almost like time stopping, but Karen could hear background noise, including her own breathing, so she knew she was in normal time.
    “How do you know?”
    “I saw.”
    Tina didn’t ask how or when or why or any of the questions Karen expected. She just hugged Karen and started to cry.
     

 
     
     
     
Chapter 7
     
     
    Three months went by without time stopping for Karen.  There were days when she felt normal, as if there was nothing different between her and Tina or any of Karen’s friends.
    She worried about Bobby and whether he would find her and hurt her, if she’d be in the middle of laughing with her mom over some funny scene on Modern Family and suddenly double over in pain from whatever Bobby might inflict upon her.
    More often, though, he didn’t cross her mind. 
    What did cross her mind was a blur of wants and desires and regrets, most of which skirted the edges of her consciousness.  She thought of her dad and the secrets he had hidden in the closet, of the knowing smile on Mrs. Montgomery’s face as she faked to the world how happy she was, of her sister’s gaze that she sometimes felt trained on but when she looked was aimed somewhere else, of the guilt conjoined with pleasure when she remembered slicing Tina’s boyfriend’s cock.  Most of all, she pushed the image away that refused to leave: the time she visited Bonnie MacDonald in her bedroom.  None of her other silent visits struck her as strongly or as frequently.
    Mid-April.  L.A. didn’t really have four seasons, but in Karen’s mind, spring was in the air.   She sat on a picnic table in Munson Park, about two blocks from school.  It was a Saturday, and she was reading an old science-fiction novel, Rendezvous with Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke.
    Dad’s favorite book.
    Halfway through, she put the book away and lay down on the picnic table with her eyes closed.  It was just over eighty degrees, and a slight breeze made it the perfect spring day for Karen.
    She had almost drifted off when she heard, “Hi, Karen.  Sleeping?”
    For a second, she thought she was just daydreaming, but the voice was too real.  She blinked and sat up.
    “Hi,” she said.
    Bonnie MacDonald smiled but did not seem to know what to say next.
    “Wanna sit with me?” asked Karen.
    “Sure.”
    Bonnie sat beside her, and they stared toward a distant baseball diamond, where a bunch of little leaguers excitedly ran through their paces.
    “You know … ,” started Bonnie.  Her voice trailed off into silence.
    Karen felt fear rush through her.  She wanted to be anywhere but here .  She knows.  She’s going to tell me to stop looking at her out of the corner of my eye.  She’s going to tell me to piss off and that if I want to have freakish fantasies, to leave her out of them.
    Bonnie tried again.  “I sometimes feel like I’m different than other people.”
    Karen swallowed, trying to slow down her mind so she could understand what she was hearing.
    “Really?  What do you mean?”
    Bonnie turned to her and stared into Karen’s eyes.
    “I think you know.  I think we’re a lot alike.”
    Karen didn’t know