Burning through the bloodline (Indigo, Imogene)
The house smelled of blood, rank and disgusting.
The house smelled like victory, control and power.
Every balustrade on the main staircase was broken, she’d snapped them all off, one by one, as she walked slowly down the stairs towards the smashed body of her mother’s new boyfriend. Each balustrade another spine of someone she hated, someone she needed to destroy. She’d thrown each one against the wall or down onto the landing and cracked splinters of wood littered the floor, decorating the body like cake sprinkles.
Indigo’s wings were out as she circled the body, never taking her dark eyes off him. Her twisted, deformed, useless wings reflected in the glass of the photos of her and her mother that lined the wall. She felt hideous and mighty. She felt like a monster, a giant, even though her feet were small and bare on the polished, bloodstained wood.
No mortal man could survive a monster. Even one with small feet, and purple painted toenails.
The best thing was, she didn’t regret it, one bit. She should care about the mess she’d made, the bloodstains down the staircase, the broken furniture (the broken man), but it was great; she didn’t. She’d been perfectly in the right, protecting herself by protecting her mother.
Her stupid mother with her stupid taste in men.
The thought of the string of her mother’s husbands and boyfriends bought another wave of rage over her and she threw herself on the body, bringing both fists down on his chest till his ribs caved in. If he hadn’t been dead before, he was definitely dead now.
He couldn’t steal from them any more. He couldn’t cheat and he couldn’t lie. Indigo knew in the back of her dark violent mind that her mother wouldn’t be happy with her measures, but Indigo didn’t care. Someone had to make the tough decisions in this family, and since Imogene needed to be pushed and pushed and pushed by a man before she decided to end it, then Indigo was the one that needed to decide when to get rid of them, for the good of her mother.
She only wished she could have killed all her mother’s men.
Harley, for one. She wished she’d killed Harley ages ago. He drank too much and he lied. He created an identity for himself as a single dad doing his best but he was so bad at maintaining it. He called his daughter ‘princess’ and then tried to keep her down in her place. Indigo remembered the huge argument she’d overheard between Harley and her mother before Rachel’s last year of school: Imogene wanted to send Rachel to London College, which was arguably the best school in London (despite the shooting) but Harley was so against it, and wouldn’t give a reason, not one. He didn’t even mention the shooting, which was the standard reason for not sending a child to that school… he just kept saying no, no she wasn’t going to that school. It was because, Indigo was sure, he didn’t want the girl getting the best education she could.
He’d lost eventually, of course. Her mother was good at persuasion, and Rachel had ended up at London College and Indigo had to put up with going to school with her for a year.
Indigo knew what it was like not having a father in your corner, and she’d sympathised a bit. Would have sympathised a lot more if Rachel hadn’t been so annoying. At least neither of Indigo’s parents had ever tried to stop her going to school. Jesus. She hated Harley so much, even though he was gone now. She wished she’d caved in his ribcage months ago.
That would have stopped all the times he lied to them. All the times he snuck out and wasn’t at work and Indigo had never proved where he went but he smelled like a liar and she figured the obvious, that he was having an affair, but her mother trusted him beyond sense, and because there was no proof, she never doubted her husband.
God, Indigo hated her mother sometimes. So much.
Imogene deserved the pain of finding her boyfriend waiting for her on the floor of the entrance hall when she came home. Imogene deserved the shock of that body, and her daughter, winged and monstrous, waiting half way up the stairs, watching the body, glowing her dark glow. Imogene needed to be reminded who was the sensible one in this family.
Imogene needed to be reminded that it was her own fault Indigo was like this, so Indigo waited with her wings out. The wings her mother couldn’t stand to look at. The wings her mother tried to shame her for, so she would keep them hidden even around family. The wings that made her a monster, they were her mother’s fault.
Imogene needed to be reminded who was in charge. Not herself, not the men she kept bringing into her life, but her daughter, who was also disgustingly her niece because of another stupid choice about a man.
Her. Indigo. She was in charge.
She would be making the decisions from now on.
Course, it all turned out more complicated than that.
“And what do you plan to do, Indigo-Hope, when the police show up asking where he is?”
“Easy. We say nothing! We haven’t seen him!” Indigo’s face burned where her mother had hit her, but she cared more about making her mother see she was right.
“How are you going to explain the state of this house?” Imogene looked at the shattered staircase. “That’s enough to make anyone suspicious.”
“So we get it fixed. They wouldn’t come looking for him for a couple of days, at least.”
“Who’s going to fix it, then?” Imogene demanded. “Do you plan to get someone in to put in new balustrades? That’s a pretty distinctive mess, Indigo, people will remember that well enough to tell the police if they’re asked.”
That stumped her. Indigo did not like being stumped. “We could fix it outselves,” she suggested.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Imogene snapped. “And what were you going to do with the body, hm? It’s not as if you can fly. You can’t even drive legally. Oh, or am I supposed to take care of that problem too? Am I supposed to dump my lovers body in the sea, Indigo?”
“Your lover, don’t be disgusting,” Indigo screwed up her face. Her mother darted toward her, slamming her up against the wall. Imogene was as strong as her daughter, and though Indigo tried to pull her energy out of her Imogene was holding on too tight. There was nothing she could do except try to throw her mother off, so Indigo screamed in frustration and kicked her mother in the knee.
Imogene stumbled back, glaring at her daughter. “Don’t you speak to me like that,” she said, her voice cold but steady. “I’ll do it, darling. I’ll cover this murder up for you. But you, my dear, you are in big trouble.”
“There’s nothing they can do to me,” Indigo pointed out. “I’m kind of a super powered immortal beast.”
“You’re sixteen!” Imogene shrieked. “You think you’re the first baby demon in our family to do something like this? You think we don’t have ways of controlling you?”
“You can’t control me,” Indigo sneered. “No one can control me. What are you going to do, send me back to Romania?”
“If you kill another of my lovers again, Romania will be the least of your worries.”
“You’re not going to send me to Romania,” Indigo told her mother. “That bluff is as fucking stupid as you are.”
“Oh, I’ll think of something, darling,” Imogene said, unfurling her huge white wings. Indigo stiffened – those wings never failed to send a chill through her. “Now, I have a body to dump in the ocean and if I want to get back before sunrise, I have to leave now. I suggest you go to your room till you calm down, then start bleaching everything. You know where the bleach is.”
Indigo sneered again, but turned to storm up the stairs to her room.