Vampire Trouble Chapter Four

Chapter Four
I woke disoriented. I couldn’t remember where I was. When I realized Mercy was missing, I jumped out of bed and rushed out the room. Something was missing, I realized as I ran down the hall. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew something was wrong.
I raced down the stairs and collided with Joe, who was coming up. We both tumbled down the stairs and landed with a thud at the bottom. I pushed up from Joe, who I fell on top of.
“Where’s Mercy?” I nearly screamed at him. “Where’s my little girl?”
Joe pushed me off gently and pulled me up without a problem. “She’s with Richard. He needed pictures and she was the only one awake. I was coming to wake you. How are you feeling?” He looked down at me, watching my face.
“I’m fine.” I snapped. “Take me to Mercy and Mr. Hale.”
“As you wish, Your Highness.” His sarcasm fell on deaf ears. I only wanted to make sure Mercy was all right.
I followed him through the house into the dining room. Mercy was perched on the table; her shirt was off and Mr. Hale was snapping pictures of her bruises, which were turning yellow now, with an expensive-looking digital camera.
“Roxy, Roxy. I helping put daddy into a bad place where he belong. He won't hurt you no more.” Her concern was so sweet.
“Mercy, he won't hurt you any longer either. Remember that, my dear one.” I stopped a few steps from her and waited for Mr. Hale to finish his pictures.
“He didn’t hurt me as much as you, Roxy.”
“But he still hurt you and that’s what hurt me more than what he could ever do to me. I would endure it a hundred times if it saved you from him.”
“Don’t say that, Dear Roxanne. It’s wrong.” Joe interjected. Then he stopped, looked around and left abruptly.
I stared after him. He was so strange. I couldn’t figure him out.
“He’s right, Roxanne. You have to think of yourself, too, sometimes. You’re too selfless. It’s not wrong to think of yourself once in awhile.”
“At the moment I can only think of my Mercy.” I watched Mercy as she put her shirt back on. She was so small and fragile. It was a wonder he didn’t break any of her bones.
“It’s your turn, Roxanne. I am going to have to ask you to remove your shirt. If you start to feel too uncomfortable, we’ll stop.”
I complied and handed my shirt to Mercy. I heard twin hisses from the doorway of the room. Sam and Joe were standing there staring at my exposed skin. I looked down at what they saw. I was covered with dark purple blotches overlapping onto yellow ones. My entire torso appeared that way.
Mr. Hale looked at them like they were poisonous snakes about to strike.
I cleared my throat to bring everyone back to reality, it started getting uncomfortable. Sam came in and sat at the table and Joe left, self-conscious with what I had exposed. I wore a bra, of course, but otherwise, my top half was naked.
Mr. Hale took pictures and mumbled to himself. Even with my unnatural hearing, I couldn’t understand.
“I’m sorry, Roxanne… about before. I had no idea of what you were going through. I shouldn’t have judged you that way.” She lost her words and sat staring at her hands, which sat motionless in her lap.
“I didn’t want anyone to know, because I didn’t want pity or sympathy. It degrades me. I just want to forget it and take care of my little Mercy.” I crooned her name and Mercy giggled.
“My Roxy.” She stated matter-of-factly.
“Can we start over and get to know each other? I can't say if we’ll be friends, but I won't judge you again like that.”
“I’ll like the man who did this to you to be behind bars.” Mr. Hale said through clenched teeth.
“You’re doing that, Richard, with all this and with your determination. It’s the best justice you can do.”
That reminded me. “I thought you said they were your children.”
Mr. Hale paused. “They are, somewhat…. Their real parents died and I adopted them.”
“It was really nice of you to do that.” I replied.
“It’s history; let’s speak no more of it. Did you talk to Mercy yet, Roxanne?”
I fumbled around in my brain for what I was supposed to talk to Mercy about.
It suddenly hit me and I gasped. “Oh… not yet. I haven’t found the right way to ask her.”
“How about straight out. She’s smart and she’ll understand.”
“Roxy, what you need to ask me?” Her innocent demeanor struck me for a moment.
“Hun, it’s difficult, but if we are to put that bad man in jail, you need to do a statement to the judge. Can you do that, Mercy?” Mr. Hale was done with pictures for now, so I put my shirt back on and scooped up my princess.
“It help you, Roxy?”
“And you.”
“Then I help. Will judge be nice?”
“Mercy… I don’t know, I’ve never met him, or her.”
Mr. Hale took his camera and left swiftly. As soon as he left, Joe came back in.
“Were those from…?” He didn’t finish his question. I don’t think he could. His world was so innocent, he couldn’t imagine a father doing to Mercy and me what was done. In my opinion, this boy was too sheltered.
“Yes, now drop the subject. Please?” I sat at the table and fixed Mercy on my lap.
Joe came and sat with his sister and me. I watched him from the corner of my eye as I combed through Mercy’s hair with my fingers. He appeared to watch me too, like I was a fragile porcelain doll that could break at the slightest touch.
Sam watched too, but incautiously. “What is your mother like?” she asked suddenly.
I flinched. “I don’t know, she’s been away most of my life.”
“Oh, I had no idea… forget I brought it up.”
I studied then both for a period of time. There was something about them I couldn’t put my finger on. I was racking my brain, looking for something wrong with them. The thing was, there was nothing wrong with them. Maybe that was it, I thought, there is nothing wrong with them. Physically, they were perfect.
Mr. Hale returned to the room and I gave him the same diagnosis.
“Are you hungry, Roxanne?” Mr. Hale went to the cupboard and started pulling down items I didn’t see.
“Mercy hungry.” Then my stomach growled fiercely, giving me away. “Roxy hungry too.” Mercy giggled and hugged me.
“Yes, Mr. Hale. I am famished. I haven’t eaten anything all day.” I glanced out the window into twilight.
“Sorry my children didn’t feed you.” He shot a glare at Joe and Sam. “They don’t think about it sometimes and they aren’t used to guests.”
I used the excuse of them being talked about to look at them fully. They were pale, which I didn’t notice at first, especially with how blonde Mr. Hale and Sam were. This morning, I was too distracted with anger to notice Joe.
Dinner was a quiet affair. Even little Mercy kept silent and the only noise was the scrape of forks against glass plates. After I was done, I excused myself from the table and put my plate into the dishwasher. I retired to the dark living room and sat quietly on the couch. Pulling my legs in front of me, I rested my forehead on my knees. With my mind free to wander, I continuously went back to those scary years I lived with my father. I thought about how he treated Mercy and me and flinched when those scenes from the nights he chose to release himself on me. I couldn’t help but smile at the times after when Mercy would crawl into my bed, shaking, saying she had a nightmare. She didn’t know of my living nightmare that wouldn’t vanish when I woke up.
I was brought out of my reverie when a little hand touched mine.
“Roxy, what you doing?”
I pulled her up onto the couch next to me. “I was thinking, Mercy.”
“’Bout what sister?” She leaned into my body, snuggling into my side.
“Everything. You don’t need to worry yourself with what Roxy is thinking.”
Mercy peered up at me with her green eyes filling with tears. “You thinking ‘bout the bad time with Daddy, I know you are.” She reached her tiny hand up to my face and wiped a tear from my cheek. “It all better now that we with Mr. Hale, Sam and Joe.” She smiled at saying Joe’s name, like a girl with a secret. Standing up on the couch to whisper in my ear, she looked back at the dining room once before telling me her secret. “Joe like you. I heard him say it to Sam.”
My little Mercy was a smart girl and she didn’t miss anything, especially when it came to relationships and feelings. No one figured a six year old to catch all that she did. I watched her as she watched me. “Mercy, Hun, he’s my age. He can lie better than someone like you. He’s had more practice. We won't be here long enough for me to even consider liking him as a person. I don’t know where we are going after this. It’s a mystery.” I took a moment to catch my breath. What I said was all in one breath because I wasn’t even sure it was true myself and I didn’t want to start hoping. “Even if what you heard was true, he’s different from you and me. He didn’t go through what we did. He wouldn’t understand—”
“Then help me understand.” Joe interrupted with his velvet voice, coming around the corner of the dining room.
I lurched up, grabbing Mercy to protect her. “What did you hear?” I was ashamed that he could sneak up on me like that. I was proud of my hearing, because no one got past me.
“Most of it. Thank you Mercy for your help.” He smiled at my little trickster so sweetly, but I still didn’t trust him.
“You don’t know me.”
“Then help me get to know you. I want to.”
Mercy shook my arm that held her to me. “Roxy, put me down; it’s alright. Talk to him.” She gave Joe one of her angelic smiles I so loved, they had always been aimed at me and I was jealous that he could share in on that special moment. She knew something more and I planned to get it out of her tonight. “I want to go play with Sam.”
I put her down slowly, but my eyes were glued on Joe. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” He said greedily.
And he did. I answered all his questions, sometime unintentionally. He asked everything from my favorite things to my most private moments and dreams. I didn’t plan on him knowing everything about me, but somehow I answered the questions without thought. It was a long night and I didn’t get the chance to talk to Mercy because I fell asleep on the couch sometime after midnight.