He Came For Her Again

My sister's husband took her kidney and put her on regular blood extraction for three years. By the time she finally escaped from that hellhole, she was already at death's door. As she lay in the clinic's sick bay, she held my hand in a feeble grip. "Don't go after them. The Lawsons aren't an entity you can take on." My sister died in my arms three days later. I buried her underneath her favorite tree in the hill behind our town. Seven days went by when a black Maybach darkened the entrance of our town, and out came Charles Lawson, my sister's husband. There was a frail-looking woman standing behind him. She looked as though a soft gust of wind could probably blow her away. That man was standing outside my house, looking at me like I was a peasant. "Where's your sister, Helen? Summon her. Rachel needs her bone marrow." I wiped the soil off my hand and smiled meanly at him. "You want my sister? Sure, but you'll have to dig her out." Chapter 1 Unwelcome Visitors I was feeding the chickens when the town's entrance was disturbed by the roar of a car engine. I recognized that sound, but I didn't stop feeding the clucking beasts. Instead, I kept throwing corn at them. The footsteps were a whisper away before they eventually thundered before me. A woman's voice cut through the silence first, soft and almost cloying. "Are you sure this is the place, Charles? It's so remote." I raised my head. Sure enough, a man was standing outside my house. He was slender, dressed in a dark gray coat with the sleeves' metal buttons gleaming under the sun. He had a pair of gold-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, and his face betrayed no emotion. That man was none other than Charles Lawson, my late sister's husband. However, there was a woman decidedly not his wife standing near him. Her skin was flawless and almost see-through. Her lips were crimson and plump, while a cream colored cashmere coat draped itself over her body. She topped the outfit off with nude pumps on her dainty feet. Her pumps' heels sank into the squelching soil. The woman frowned in distaste, as if she'd stepped on something foul instead of mud. That was Rachel Greene, Charles' true love. Charles asked, "Are you Helen Shayman?" His voice was deeper than I'd imagined, and he had a matter-of-fact attitude backing him up. He possessed the air of someone who thought he had the right to my attention. "Yes." "Where's your sister?" I dusted the corn crumbs off my hand and rose to my feet. Charles was a head taller than I was, so I had to arch my head just to look at him. "Dead," I answered. A momentary pause halted the air, only to be broken by Rachel's chuckle. She nudged Charles softly with her elbow and spoke loud enough for me to hear. "I told you she wouldn't come home without a fight." Charles frowned, not out of sorrow, but impatience. "I don't have time for a bit, Helen. Rachel needs that marrow transplant ASAP, and your sister's the best match. Get her here. Now. I'm taking her back." "And I'm telling you, she's dead." Rachel stepped forth and tilted her head at me. There was sympathy in her eyes, much like how nobles would sympathize with serfs. "This must be a misunderstanding, sister." She was now talking to me as if I were a child who needed the truth coaxed out of her. "She's throwing a tantrum. We understand why she came home, but someone's life is at stake here. This is no time for her antics. Please, tell her." "What did you just call me?" "My sister." She blinked. "Your sister's my best friend, and that also makes you my sister." This woman had the gall to call herself my sister's best friend? I nearly laughed at her audacity. This woman slept with her best friend's husband. This woman turned her best friend's husband on her. This woman accepted a donation of her supposed best friend's kidney as if it were the most normal thing in the world. The sight of her healthy, lively face reminded me of something. My sister called me three months ago, but she gasped sharply mid-call and told me it was just her toppling over a glass. That wasn't a glass, but I only found out after the fact. It was Charles. He had slammed a phone in my sister's face, all because she refused to sign the blood transfusion contract for Rachel. Chapter 2 Stubborn Mule "Leave." I turned back to my house. "My sister's gone." Charles strode into my yard and grabbed my wrist with enough force to make me wince. "I'll ask you again. Where is she?" "Let go." "I'm not leaving until you answer me!" I stared at Charles' hand. That was the same hand that tenderly wrapped itself around my sister when she and Charles took their wedding photo. That was the same hand that throttled my sister while pinning her against the wall. My sister had told me how it felt. She told me those hands nearly strangled the life out of her. "I saw black spots on the ceiling when he did that." "Let. Go," I enunciated, barely reining in my temper. Rachel was behind him, tugging at his sleeve. "Don't do this. She's just a kid. Maybe we should go inside and talk it out." Charles finally loosened his grip, but he inhaled deeply in an attempt to keep his rage under control. "My sister is dead," I repeated. Something in his expression cracked, but not with sadness. It was with rage. "Rachel nearly died because your sister ran away, Helen!" He lowered his voice to a hiss. "I've forgiven her the last time she ran, and now she's doing it again. Now she's even teaching you how to lie. "Does she think I'll care about her just because you lied to me? That I'd go back to her?" He stepped forth and looked at me with overflowing arrogance. "Tell her to kill her dreams. She's nothing compared to Rachel. I'd never have married her if her blood and marrow weren't a match for Rachel." I met his eyes. My sister told me that this man used to love her. In the first year of their marriage, he would dry her hair and keep vigil throughout the night when she was sick. He would drive her all the way to the other side of the city just for a snack she wanted. Everything changed when Rachel came back. She would bring up how my sister went out with another guy for a meal, seemingly innocent. She would inadvertently expose her chat history with Charles for my sister to see. She would understandingly tell Charles that my sister was perhaps feeling lonely in his absence. Things would've been fine if it were just once, but she struck at the same spot again and again, day after day. Sure enough, he snapped. Suspicion crept its way into Charles' heart, seeped into his mind, and took root in his soul. It grew into doubt and resentment. All the love he had for my sister turned into hatred intense enough to take her kidney for another woman. "I'm not lying," I said flatly. Charles sneered and turned to Rachel. "Get back in the car, Rachel. I'll talk to her." Rachel nodded obediently. When she passed by me, she stopped for a moment and huddled closer. Then, she whispered in a voice so quiet that only I could hear, "I pity your sister. She'd rather hide than actually kill herself." My nails dug into my palms hard enough to nearly draw blood, but I ground my jaw and said nothing. Chapter 3 Unbelievable Rachel left. Charles sat down on the living room's bench and lit a cigarette. "Where's she hiding?" I didn't dignify that with a response. My gaze drifted out the ajar door and landed on the black Maybach outside the yard. Rachel was lazily scrolling through her phone on the car's seat, her face pink and healthy. My sister wasn't. When we met for the last time in our lives, my sister was sallow, her lips were nearly white, and her eyes were sunken. She was barely more than a breathing cadaver. She was subjected to regular blood extraction for three years, and not the voluntary kind. They took her blood by force every other day, and every time they did, they stole 400cc from her body. When the nurse told Charles it would kill my sister, he replied nonchalantly, "She'll be fine. A bit of supplement and she'll be good as new." They would drain my sister of her blood whenever Rachel's condition flared up. When Rachel's kidney started to fail, they took my sister's kidney. When Rachel needed a bone marrow transplant, they locked my sister up in the dungeon while they arranged the surgery. My sister tried to fight back. She went on a hunger strike for three days, but Charles showed up with food and shot her with a question she couldn't answer. "Who would pay for your sister's college if you die?" My sister ended her hunger strike there and then. She then tried to call the cops. When they showed up, Charles showed them their marriage certificate. "This is a domestic dispute. Personal business." The cops left right after that. She tried to run, but she barely made it 200 miles out before Charles' men captured her. She was locked in the dungeon for seven days. Rachel was the only one who visited her during her imprisonment. She held a bowl of hot congee and said softly, "It's not his fault. He's doing it for me. You can blame it on me." Then, she splashed the scalding congee onto my sister's face. "Did it burn? I didn't mean to, sorry." The stories were horrifying, but my sister didn't shed a single tear. She stared at the ceiling and said, "I kept thinking to myself, 'It'd be great if I managed to escape the first time,' Helen." The first escape happened in the second year of her marriage. She climbed over the wall only to fall and break her tailbone. However, my sister was made of sterner stuff. She crawled on all fours for a mile and so. Alas, Charles' men dragged her back right before she got to the highway. Her second escape attempt happened after the forced kidney donation. She was in a hospital bed, and the anesthesia was still swimming in her system, but while the nurse wasn't looking, she ran away in nothing but a patient's gown. The security guards pinned her in the lobby. When Charles rushed over, he slapped her right in front of everyone. "What is wrong with you?" he said. She made a break for it for the third time, and it was a success. She was in the dungeon, and she cut her wrist with the shards of a broken bowl. A panicked Charles sent her to the hospital. She took advantage of the ER's chaos and switched into her flip-flops. Then, she went for broke. It took her a whole day of sitting on a bus to get back to me. When she got out of the bus, she tripped and fell into the sludge. The drainage tube opening on her waist tore open, letting blood and pus dribble freely. I carried her to the town clinic on my back. When the doctor pulled her shirt up, the sight made me gag. There was a fleshy crater the size of an adult fist on her waist. It was a sign that she was missing a kidney. The surgical wound was sewn, torn open, sewn, and torn open again. The flesh was curled up, revealing the ligament within. My sister's skin was blackened and hardened, just like necrotic meat that'd gone through twelve sessions of punctures. My sister was subjected to the bed where she told me, "Don't go after Charles. His family's too powerful. Just pretend I never existed." I swallowed all my bitter anger and resentment as I swore to do as she wished. She died three days later—at 5:17 a.m. I was in the corridor, on my knees, and bawling my eyes out. I buried my sister underneath the tree on the hill behind our little town. Gregory asked a carpenter to whip up a coffin on the spot. It was made out of pine and never painted. My sister was laid to rest in her favorite floral dress. It had a hole in the collar when I found it in our pile of stuff. My sister didn't even have proper clothes. Rachel took all the good ones she had. "Ooh, that's a nice coat. Can I have it for a couple of days?" "That's a pretty necklace. Charles bought it for you? Oh, I envy you." She never gave the clothes back, and she barely took off the jewelry she apparently borrowed from my sister. My sister said nothing, not out of tolerance, but out of fear. Charles would call her petty, and the edges of Rachel's eyes would go red. Everyone would think she was possessed by jealousy if she tried to confide in anyone. "I'm asking you a question, Helen," said Charles, and I snapped out of it. "Where is your sister?" His voice was laced with impatience now. "Charles," I said. "Have you ever loved my sister?" That caught him by surprise, and his frown deepened. "What's the point of that question?" "Just answer me." A moment of silence later, he turned his head away. "I used to, but she changed. She was possessed by jealousy. She became harsher, colder, bitter, and impossible to reason with. "She'd go after a patient like Rachel. She tried to pull out her drainage tube. A woman like her doesn't deserve my love." My sister would never pull out that woman's drainage tube. My sister couldn't even muster up the courage to slaughter a chicken. The truth was vastly different, and I knew the true story. That woman set the drainage tube to the maximum speed, and she screamed for the nurse. When everyone came, she accused my sister of a crime she never committed. Rachel was curled up in the corner of her bed when Charles came. Her eyes glistened with tears when they met his face. She said, "She probably didn't mean it." There was no security cam footage or a witness. So, it was her word against my sister's. My sister could scream herself hoarse over how she didn't do it, and it wouldn't matter because darling Charles lapped up the lie like it was gospel. He stopped looking at my sister with love. Instead, he was looking at her like a criminal waiting to pounce. "It wasn't her," I said. Charles stared at me for a long moment, and he smiled. "You're a liar, just like your sister." He stood up and looked down at me. "I'll give you 24 hours. I expect Queenie to be here when I come back tomorrow or else…" He threatened, "My family can get you expelled from college, make you lose out on your degree, and the job you're trying to get after you graduate. Are we clear?" I knew he wasn't kidding, as did my sister. It was the only reason she clenched her teeth and agreed to the blood extraction and supposed kidney donation. She didn't want me to suffer. Charles swiveled around and marched off. The Maybach drove off a moment later, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake. I stood like a stone statue, watching the road dust rain on my hair, my shoulder, and my soul. Chapter 4 To Her Grave Charles didn't come the next day, or the day after that. I thought that was it and that he had given up. Violent banging on my door woke me up in the dead of the morning on the fourth day. Yes, someone was banging on my door like they wanted to push it down. The metal door was rattling and clanging, while my house shook as if an earthquake had hit it. Before I could even open the door, someone slammed their foot into the metal and forced it open. The door crashed to the ground with a sickening thud and kicked up a cloud of dust. Charles was at the entrance, while four men in black stood behind him. The blinding beam from his flashlight rammed into my face, causing me to squeeze my eyes shut in response. "It's been three days." His voice was raspy, and there was an unhinged look in his eyes. The man looked like he'd lost sleep for days. "I've given you more than enough time. Where is Queenie?" Rachel peeked her head from behind Charles, but there was no gloating grin on her face this time. She had the face of someone dragged down by an illness, and her lips were turning white. Her condition must have flared up again. I noticed the look in her eyes. It was the same look someone would have when they were sure about an outcome. She knew Charles would do anything for her. "She's dead," I repeated like a broken recorder. Charles barged into my room and clenched my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes. "Rachel needs that bone marrow right now. Tell me where she is, or my men will scour this whole town for her, even if we have to leave no stone unturned!" "Go ahead. Maybe consider digging as well," I answered. He let go of me and stepped back. Then, he ordered his men, "Search the place. Leave no room untouched." The men spread out and rummaged through every single belonging I had, turning every drawer upside down and shaking every box for a clue. The air was filled with the shattering of plates and the groans of my cabinets as they were shoved to the ground with a clatter. I heard my sister's picture frame falling to the ground with a hard thud, but I didn't move. I remained in the living room, watching Charles go ahead with his choice. He approached my sister's room and peeked inside. There was no one there. The only things standing inside were a wooden bed, an old cabinet, and fluttering curtains. Gusts of wind drew them back, and silvery moonlight spilled onto the empty bed. Charles didn't move from his spot. "She's not here," I said. That lit something underneath Charles. He spun and darted right up to me. Then, the ingrate violently yanked me up by my collar. My legs left solid ground, and the tightening collar was suffocating me. Charles shoved me against a wall, and the back of my head hit the hard structure with a thud. "Where is she?" he roared, and I thought the roof would be blown off. "Let me go…" The world around me was turning black. Ah, was this how it felt like, Queenie? "I asked you a question!" Behind him, Rachel was uttering a "Stop it, Charles" in a voice only mosquitoes thought was booming. The wretched, insincere, monster of a woman didn't even move a step closer. Charles' hands were trembling, but not because of guilt. It was because of panic. Rachel's body was crumbling. He needed my sister's bone marrow right now. He thought my sister was hiding, and that her choice to hide would cost Rachel her life. Rachel's death was not something he would accept. My sister was chopped liver, though. Something cold coursed through my veins. My hatred was a festering thing, boiling and threatening to spill over. However, a wave of calm clarity washed over me before I could give in to the temptation of bashing his head right in. I squeezed my voice out with all the strength I had left. "Let go. I'll lead the way." He loosened his grip but didn't let go completely. "You're not lying?" "Yes." I coughed as blood trickled down the corners of my lips. "I'll take you to Queenie." He stared into my eyes for an uncomfortably long moment, then he let go. My knees hit the ground first, shards of shattered bowls tearing small gashes in my flesh. Blood streamed down my calves, but I pushed myself up and wiped the corners of my lips. "Come on." The tension in Charles' face eased up, and Rachel smiled. "Where is she?" "Under the tree on the hill behind the town." "What's she doing there?" "Waiting for someone." Charles frowned but didn't press for more answers. He walked away, while Rachel followed him. I was dead last in the procession. We passed through the yard and stepped onto the dirt road leading to the hill. The winds were howling tonight, and my sister's favorite tree had nearly gone bald. Empty branches were extending themselves toward the sky. From afar, the tree resembled a withered person with their arms open. My sister's final resting place sat underneath that tree. The soil had dried up, and blades of grass were peeking out of the cracks. The grave was nothing more than a small pile of stones I'd gathered. There was no gravestone for her, either. Only a solitary piece of wood stood before her grave. The line on it read, "Here lies Queenie Shayman." Charles stopped in front of the grave, staring at the simple decoration. Then, he turned to me. "What's this supposed to be?" His voice was flat and calm, but his hands were shaking. Rachel was standing a few steps behind him. Her sweet smile was nowhere to be seen. I approached the grave and crouched to remove some of the weeds. "You wanted to see Queenie." Then, I stood up and turned around. My eyes were on Charles, my face blank. I didn't push my hair away even when the wind blew it into my face. I kept staring at him as I said, "Here she is."