Chapter 32 Book 2

Chapter 32

Repetition

Part 1

It wasn't long before me and my mother had come back from our walk when all hell broke loose releasing the monsters from their cages. The second Danny and Shawn walked into the house. I wanted to run; I wanted to hide. Mom (Rothwell) too was quite angry with them after realizing that both I and Aaron could have been seriously injured or, worse killed today. If I hadn't been a skilled rider or had chosen not to ride in the field. There were endless possibilities for what could have happened.

Dad quietly and calmly asked Shane to take me and my brother Aaron down to my room. He invited my mother as well, but she stood her ground almost ordering me and Aaron to go. Not harshly, but the tone she used meant we had a better mind and stayed out of the way.

I was there long enough seeing the saddles lined up in the living room and had seen from the corner of my eye that my mother physically slapped Shawn across the face. When he tried to lie about it, it earned another one from my foster Mom. Shane hurriedly pushed me and Aaron inside and slammed the door shut, listening to the door lock shut. I knew Aaron and I were safe, but the quietness of the soundproof room was unnerving, even more so for my brother not being used to it.

Shane quickly had us climb on the bed with him and wrapped his arms around both of us, while we both shook with fear. Aaron began to cry terrified out of his mind. I knew what an episode looked like, and Aaron was on the border of having one. Shane quickly got off the bed and opened the case on the wall. He cursed, finding one missing. We both knew that each case had three tranquilizers, and the fact I hadn't been home said someone had opened it and stole one. He double-checked each signature and the time and date when one was used and how many, the numbers didn't add up.

Our eyes locked as I watched Aaron shake, and then he screamed. "Daddy, you're killing him! Daddy stops! Please stop! Please don't take my brother away from me!" Aaron was fighting me and was experiencing a full-blown panic attack. It took everything I had to keep him pinned to the bed, only to have him escape. For the first time, I realized what it felt like to be me experiencing an episode for the other person. Shane too tried to bring him down, holding him Indian style earning a fat lip and a bloody nose. I had lost count of how many times my room had seen my blood on its almost white, pristine carpet. Or how many times I have covered Shane with my blood? I was really glad that none of us was wearing shirts and hadn't realized that I too had a bloody nose and was covered in blood from me and both my brothers.

It didn't look like Aaron was coming down anytime soon. My room was as quiet as it was or could have been the boiler-room when you're having an episode. Dad opened the door and Aaron screamed and escaped huddling in the corner of the room, my mother was right behind him which escalated the terror even more. Dad quickly grabbed my mother by the arm and slowly backed out of the room, closing the door behind him and ordering Shane to do it. Shane nodded, looked at me and counted to three, one finger at a time. I had dived towards Aaron on the third count and tackled him to the ground. When I had him, he screamed even louder at my parent's phantoms, doing his best to get free.

I quickly had him pinned, wrapping my legs and feet around him and twisted him in my arms enough so he could buck me off. It took all my strength, and I was straining to keep him from hurting himself and me, ordering Shane to do it. I watched him click the solution from a full dose to a half dose. We both didn't know if giving too much would hurt him. Aaron stopped struggling and became like a limp dishrag. Only to spring back up the second I had let go, Shane and I both cursed and quickly gave him the rest. This time he was down for the count.

We both sighed, waiting for him to spring back up, but he was out cold. Shane picked him up in his arms and laid him on our bed. It was like me instead of my brother. He quickly strapped him down while I buzzed Dad and my mother into the room. Mom was in tears and ran towards my bed. When she saw Aaron lying there as peaceful as a kitten and perfectly safe, she sighed with relief. Shane was busy conferring with Dad regarding the missing tranquilizer. He too emptied the box of everything, hoping to find the missing tranquilizer, only confirming our fears.

I stayed in my room with Aaron and Mom, taking his other hand waited for him to wake up. Dad and my foster mom had gone through each of the boxes and had found one missing in each box. I knew we were in trouble when Aaron woke up twenty minutes later. He should have been out cold for a least an hour or longer considering the dosage, but he only struggled against the restraints and panicked seeing Mom's face.

I quickly took his chin as my foster parents do to me, letting the terror fade from his eyes. I asked him. "Do you know where you are?" When he told me he was in my room on my bed. I quickly released him, flinging my arms around him and squeezing him tight against me. Mom was busy kissing every inch of him, sobbing how scared she was witnessing an episode that she and my father had caused.

I think for the first time she truly understood what Aaron and I go through when the terror consumes us. I heard her cuss my father's name, re-promising herself to double her efforts when came to her boy's safety. Shane had cleaned himself up by the time he came into the room. I could see he was hiding something and wasn't good. He did his best to hide behind a smile. Taking my brother's hand as if it was mine. I should have felt jealous, but I didn't. In fact, it made me love him more.

Shane helped my brother to the tub, like he has done with me a million times, and gave him a nice warm bath. It didn't bother him like it had meant me being in a tub, where someone could have drowned him. Or the fact that Jody dried him off like he was just another brother. Mom was busy talking to my foster parents regarding the tranquilizers, knowing Shane and my sister Jody had everything well in hand. It didn't matter that Aaron wasn't a part of their family. All it really mattered was that he was part of mine.

Dad was busy tearing the house apart, looking for those missing tranquilizers. We all knew who was responsible, but for now, Shawn and Danny had refused to talk about it. Both of them had told them they had no proof that they had taken them or switched them out for a lesser dosage. It didn't matter how severe the punishment was, they weren't going to confess to the crime and apparently, they weren't afraid of running laps, or being placed in the hot box, they laughed when Dad had made them strip in front of all of us, Danny, and Shawn yelling. "Is that the worst you could do?"

Danny growled at Jared and Arthur, Danny said. "I suggest that you need to watch your back, for ratting us out. I am coming for you." Earned a slap across his bare butt by Dad, and a slap across the face from my foster mother. But they were right there nothing they could do, until Mom and Dad found them. All they could do was lie to the doctor, telling him that they had disposed of the current drug and changed the locks and the keys. Danny was also wrong. There is the worst punishment. I could see the fear in Shawn's and Arthur's eyes, Shawn telling him to shut up.

Danny tells him. "You're the one that said they would never find out."

Again Shawn yelled at him to shut up and lunged for him. No one moved to help either party as they beat on each other until Dad yelled enough. Flinging Shawn into a chair. I knew better than to hide from Dad when the monster came out in full force. I was grateful that Shane and Aaron were safely locked in my room.

The only reason I was here, that my mother was in my room. Because my foster parents wanted my abusers to confess their crimes to me and my mother as well as to see first-hand that what they had done would not be tolerated. Hoping that in some way it would relieve our minds knowing they are not going to get away with it nearly killing me and my brother.

My mother and I cringed, watching the brutality of my foster parents, but neither of us looked away. I wanted to bolt; I wanted to scream, but instead, I clung tight to my mother. Feeling her shaking as her arms wrapped around my shoulders. My foster parents were only doing it to show me and my mother that they would not get away with it. My foster parents made a promise to both of us this would never happen again, and the punishment would not end until my mother and I felt the issue was resolved.

After they were gone from our presence, my foster parents locked the monsters in their cages and quickly hugged me. Telling me how much they loved me over and over again. The mere thought of me and my brother being hurt was one thing neither of them could tolerate. I cried in their arms, telling them how scared I was. I hadn't realized I had peed my pants until felt the warm puddle on the carpet. I cried even harder thinking they were going to be mad at me for peeing on the carpet, but instead, they hugged me tighter.

I had given Dad my homework before we left the house for gymnastics. Normally we would have all gone in one car, but I wasn't coming back when we were done, so my foster Mom followed us with Jason and Jared. Even though Jared had been grounded, Dad and Mom would never let that stand in the way when it came to practices or a meet. It was the only thing we shared when it came to my advent and in some ways; it had made us closer. It was Shawn, Arthur, and Danny I never got along with and the fact they kept getting me in trouble or bullying me during practice and meets. It only made it worse when they separated us, putting us on different teams, causing their own team to lose points and disqualifying them having their team suffer for it. Mom and Dad soon after that had banded them from all sporting events.

It didn't bother my mother when we drove by the field, seeing all three of them running laps like it had earlier. In fact, she was quite pleased seeing them run naked as the day as they were born, noticing the fresh markings on their backsides said. "Hope they enjoy the hothouse," Mom promised me she would keep Dad's prison-style punishments between me and her Bishop. Besides, I had suffered just as much being in their care and they were just as guilty.

But Mom made me promise if they ever went beyond that or they whipped me with that cattail whip ever again. They had better pray to God that she didn't kill them. A spanking was one thing and was permitted. Or a leather strap across my bottom, as long as Dad didn't go too far. Having her warn them if they did, or anything worse than that. She was going to expose them, and they better pray that I lived long enough before she killed them with her bare hands.

I didn't tell her that there were worse punishments besides the one I had told her about, for now at least. I knew if I told her I would be in Family Court, and she would be taking matters into her own hands. From her own lips, this was going to be my last foster home. She had made that promise to me, her Bishop, and my dear friend Bishop Lanwall. It might as well be in front of God, and that terrified me knowing it.