Deadly Silence (complete) Chapter 117

Paul had thrown them both in the car and driven to the middle of nowhere. His mood was the worst it had ever been, as he ranted to himself the entire drive.

Annie held her daughter close, whispering so quietly Vivian had to work to catch every word.

*“I love you, sweetheart, and nothing will change that. I need you to survive for me. The second you think you can, I need you to run, and not look back. You need to run like you’ve never run before, and find help. When you’re safe, you need to find your family. They don’t know about you, but they’ll love you just like I do, okay? I promise they will. You need to live, sweetie. I need you to live. I love you so much.”*

These words were repeated several times, until Vivian could recite them in her sleep. But she was confused; wasn’t her family in the car? Why would she need to find them?

Then she remembered the shouting that’d happened just before she’d been torn from her room and thrown in the car.

Paul wasn’t her real father. Something about Vivian’s eyes had suddenly made him lose his mind, and started blaming her mom of cheating on him. Much of it the girl didn’t understand — adult problems were a lot for an eight-year-old to comprehend — but she was suddenly happy, and devastated, all at once. Happy that this man she feared so much wasn’t her dad, but devastated that she’d lost the only one she’d ever known.

Over the years, Annie had let slip, when Paul wasn’t around, about having other children — three little boys — but would rarely expand on it when asked. The more time went on, the more Vivian managed to piece together, as children tend to do, and came to the conclusion her mom had left her old family to be with this new one. It made her sad, to think of those boys not having a great mom like she did, but Vivian never wanted to lose her mom for anything or anyone.

Now Vivian learned the family her mom had left was also her own. The father of those three boys was also Vivian’s, too. It didn’t explain anything, only added more confusion to the entire thing; so much so that she simply accepted it all as fact, not bothering with the hows or whys.

When the car finally screeched to a stop, they were in the middle of nowhere, on a dirt road that ran through a woods about to wake from its winter’s slumber. Small piles of snow remained near the base of most trees, where the sun couldn’t quite reach, and, where the ground was bare it was wet and spongy from the spring thaw.

Both Annie and Vivian were pulled from the backseat of the vehicle, their bare feet covered in mud and debris after only a few steps.

“Move!” Paul ordered, voice loud and angry as he gave them a shove.

“It’ll be okay,” Annie was still whispering, only earning her a strike from the man.

“Shut up and walk, whore.”

The arm her mom had wrapped around Vivian’s shoulder tightened as they moved further into the woods. How long they walked was hard to tell. By the time they were told to stop Vivian’s feet were numb from the cold, and her body wouldn’t stop shivering.

“You don’t have to do this, Paul,” Annie was saying, as she turned to face the man who’d held her captive for so many years. “Please. I didn’t know. She doesn’t know any dad except you.”

“She’s *his* child!” The man roared, making the very air feel like it would turn on them at his command. Vivian shivered even harder. “*His*! How could you do this to me? I raised that bastard’s *spawn*! I nurtured and loved it, because it was supposed to be *my* *child*!”

Vivian didn’t understand who he was talking about now. Who was ‘it’? Was there another child she didn’t know about? Asking was out of the question, as he was a horrible shade of red and purple from rage. If she made so much as a peep he would turn his anger on her, and the thought of that made her heart nearly stop in fear.

“What does it matter whose she is,” Annie tried to reason. “All she knows is you and I. That’s it. That’s all! Why isn’t that enough? You’ve had me all to yourself for nine years, and her for eight. You are all we have, Paul. No one can come between us.”

Paul reached out a hand, tenderly cupping Annie’s cheek, before drawing it back and slapping her so hard she fell to the ground. Arm still around Vivian, she fell with her mother. “Mom!” She found herself saying as she scrambled to her knees.

Annie sat up, half her face covered in debris from the ground, the other bright red from the slap. “You don’t have to do this, Paul. She loves you; you’re her dad.”

“She’s not my daughter,” he spat, as he pulled a gun from where he’d tucked it into the back of his pants.

Her mother’s sharp intake of breath scared Vivian, almost as much as seeing a gun pointed in her direction. Unable to look away, she stared at the weapon as her heart pounded in her chest.

*I can’t cry*, she reminded herself, forcing back the tears her body wanted to shed in that moment. *If I cry he’ll get even madder*.

“No,” Annie shouted, suddenly on her feet, and lunging at Paul. They struggled for a minute, before she was shoved to the side and he raised the gun again. An ugly sneer was on his face as he said, “I hope you rot in Hell,” before the roar of the gunshot reached Vivian’s ears.

Vivian had shut her eyes tight as he’d said those horrible words, so she didn’t see what happened until she dared open them again, confused why she was still alive and unharmed.

Instead, Annie lay on the ground in front of her. “Mom…?” Vivian choked, finding it difficult to breathe, as she reached a hand out towards the woman who lay unmoving.

“Annie?” Paul whispered, his voice suddenly hoarse. “Annie?! ANNIE!” He was by her side in a split second, shoving Vivian away so hard she slid a foot across the ground.

Shaking, Vivian pushed herself up and watched as her dad — no, he wasn’t her dad — cradled her mom in his arms, as he continued to call her name. The anguish in his voice was heart breaking, or would have been had he not been the cause of Annie’s current state.

Vivian’s eyes burned as she stared at her mother’s lifeless body, not fully understanding what had happened, while simultaneously knowing her mom was gone forever. Looking away, her eyes found the gun Paul had dropped in his haste to reach the woman he’d both loved and killed. It lay on the ground, looking harmless, innocent, even after what had just happened.

Before she knew it, Vivian was crouching down next to it, her fingers closing around the weapon. It was heavier than she expected, like an oddly shaped rock, as she picked it up, unable to look away.

After what must have been a full minute, she finally managed to pry her eyes off the gun to look over at Paul, who was still cradling her mom. The swirl of emotions that had been suffocating her suddenly turned into an unbearable burning sensation just under her skin, as she watched the man grieve. How could he do this? Why would he do this? He’d taken away the one person Vivian loved with all of her heart, and yet he acted as though only he suffered.

Hot tears slid down her cheeks as she continued to stare at him, her anger and grief fuelling the raging inferno in her chest that threatened to burn her from the inside out.

As if sensing her eyes on him, or maybe how much she hated him in that moment, Paul turned his head to glare at the girl he’d called his daughter. “This is all your fault,” he shouted, dropping Annie’s body to the ground, as he got to his feet and lunged at Vivian.

Fear sliced through the fire in her chest, quenching it all at once. Her hands shook and fingers violently twitched; that twitch pulled the trigger and the gun roared a second time, the kick back from it causing Vivian to lose her grip. It dropped back onto the ground, but her eyes were glued to the dark, red spot that quickly soaked through Paul’s shirt.

She’d hit him on the left side of his chest, and Vivian knew that’s where a person’s heart was found. You couldn’t live without a working heart, and she’d shot him in the heart.

Terror gripped her in that moment, as she watched him fall to his knees, his eyes wide with surprise, as he pressed a hand against the wound. “…you…”

“*The second you think you can, I need you to run, and not look back. You need to run like you’ve never run before, and find help.*”

Annie’s words echoed in Vivian’s thoughts, reminding her what she was supposed to do. Turning, she fled, never once daring to look back at what she was leaving behind.

How long she ran she couldn’t say, but she found herself at a church looking for help. An older woman was there, trying to calm the girl who babbled about … Vivian’s wasn’t even sure what was coming out of her mouth at this point. Words, sounds… her brain was unable to keep up.

Then, the police arrived, and the world around her suddenly froze in place. She’d seen that uniform countless times over the years; Paul wore that same one.

“*Silence is the strongest weapon of all*,” her mother had once said.

These people who wore the same uniform as Paul… if they knew she’d killed him, they would lock her up forever. It didn’t matter that it’d been done to stop him from hurting her, or that he’d taken her mother away forever; Vivian knew these people weren’t going to help her find the family her mom had told her about.

If she told them about her real family, they would never allow them to meet because of what she’d done to Paul. No one could ever know about any of it. Vivian understood within seconds, that she wouldn’t be able to tell anyone anything of what had taken place; they would hate her, lock her up, and throw away the key.

No one could ever learn the truth.