Текст книги "Born Savages"

Автор книги: Cora Brent

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

I find it hard to picture my mother.  The last time I saw her was the morning of my father’s funeral three years ago.  We didn’t even speak that day.  “Gary and his minions swore from the beginning that there wouldn’t be any Lita.  It’s the one condition I had, although now I realize I should have added a few more.”

“Hmmph,” grunts Brigitte.

“What’s that mean?”

She wets her lips and leans across the table.  “Did you get an attorney, Ren?  One who wasn’t on Gary’s payroll to look over the show contract?”

I hadn’t.  I couldn’t exactly afford to retain an entertainment lawyer so when Gary offered to have his legal team broker the arrangement I didn’t come up with a reason to turn it down.  “No,” I admit slowly.

Brigitte slumps down with a grimace.  “Me either.”

“So what are you worried about exactly?”

“I don’t know.  But I also don’t really know what the hell it is I signed.”

I can’t really make myself care about the show or the contract or whoever might be listening to us at this point. Once upon a time I used to flatter myself that I was the sensible sister.  In reality, I’m just a scabbed wound, so closed off that simple honesty is a foreign language.

Bree seems to sense my thoughts.  “He could have been colluding with Gary from the beginning.  Who knows, maybe it was even Oscar who started feeling around to see if there was any tabloid interest in the half-forgotten Savage family.  I imagine there must have been something there, a desire for revenge or whatever.  I know it’s been a long time and you guys were just kids but time does funny things to people.”

Of course I’d thought of that the minute he showed up.  Oscar hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about the circumstances surrounding his sudden arrival.  He danced around difficult questions with course teasing and watched me with those dark, inscrutable eyes.   And then tonight…

No, it’s too fresh. I can’t stand thinking about the feel of him all over me.  I can’t even bear to examine what led me to stubbornly climb into his truck as soon as I heard he would be leaving.

Sooner or later I’ll have to come to terms with how Oscar and I crashed together, fucked like enemies and ultimately resolved nothing.  We just used each other as a way to forever kill what we once had.

Yet whoever Oscar’s become, there was once a sense of honor in him.  I won’t let myself believe that’s a quality that just disappears completely.  He was right.  I don’t despise him at all.  I don’t even know why I said otherwise.

“No,” I finally say.  “If he was out to humiliate me and make a few dollars in the process, he had his chance and he threw it away.”

“So Monty wasn’t just talking out of his ass?  Oscar really left?”

“He did.”

“Oh,” Bree frowns.  “Better that way I guess, although I’m going to predict Gary and company will be shitting bricks tomorrow.”

“Gary can suck it.”

Brigitte smiles.  “He doesn’t have to.  I hear Cate Camp does it for him.”  She raises her voice, yelling at the air.  “Did you catch that?  Did you?”  She winks at me.  “Not wearing my mic.”

I look at my sister.  She isn’t perfect.  But I love her and she loves me.  We both need as much of that in our lives right now as we can get.  “I shouldn’t have lashed out at you.  I’m sorry.”

She gives me a faint smile.  “I suppose I’ve done a few things to deserve it.”  She loses her smile.  “Look, I know all of this isn’t your idea of success.  I know you’re here because we asked you to be.  And I’m not sure I ever thanked you for that.  Or for the fact that you’ve always been more of a mother to all of us than Lita ever was.”

I swallow.  There’s a bitter taste in the back of my throat that won’t disappear.  “I’m not going to pretend like anyone’s twisting my arm.  It’s my choice to be here, Bree.”

“Fair enough.  But I’ll only forgive your worst assumptions about me if you quit using that wretched nickname.  It reminds me of childhood.”

A small, rueful grin creeps across my face.  “Not a chance.  Habits die hard, or in my case, never.  It’s my chief flaw.”

“Oh, Ren.  We’re all flawed.”  Brigitte rises from the table, heads toward the door and then spins suddenly, dropping a graceful curtsy. “Terribly, savagely flawed.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Five Years Ago: The End

 

Mina Savage is dead.

A week ago Ren stood right beside Oscar as they learned the news together.  Her father was the one to say the words. August had summoned her to the house along with Oscar and for a defiant moment Ren was sure it was because August planned on confronting them about being together.

She was ready.

With Oscar next to her she could be brave enough to face the censure of her parents, even if it meant she lost them.  She didn’t care a bit how it would look to the world, or that they were only seventeen or that her family would have hysterics.  No one would take Oscar away from her.

But when they reached the paneled study where her father spent most of his days he sat there alone, looking far older than he had just that morning when she’d caught a fleeting glimpse of him.   Then, in a halting, sorrowful voice he told them what he’d learned an hour earlier over the phone.

“Her heart was weak.  So many years¸ so many pills.  I don’t have the whole story but she’d apparently been stealing another patient’s meds and she took them all at once.  It was a full cardiac arrest.  Very quick.  There will be no funeral.  She’d arranged to be cremated immediately upon death. Oscar, you hear what I’m telling you?  Do you hear me?”

“Yes. I hear you, sir.”

Oscar hadn’t cried at all until much later.  And then he cried only to her.

Life stayed quiet for a few days.  The girls were unusually somber, Spencer kept on being Spencer, August closed himself in his study and even Monty stopped hassling Oscar, giving him space to mourn.

Ren spent every moment with Oscar, even climbing through his window to lie in his arms for a few hours while the rest of Atlantis slept.   She worried about the watchful glare of her mother.  Sometimes it seemed Lita was everywhere – haunting the front porch of the big house, lingering by the staircase of the brothel.  Always with the same impassive mask and never saying a word.  The fact that her mother had stopped speaking to her was no great loss to Ren, but she’d spent seventeen years learning to mistrust the woman.  The flat, dead-eyed look in her mother’s eyes chilled her more than she could admit.

Now, every day she wakes up to a growing fear of a threat she can’t name but is sure draws closer to her with each stolen moment.

Oscar just kisses her worries away and promises that soon they will leave Atlantis behind. He pointedly ignores the ominous Lita menace.  Whenever and wherever she appears, he just stares right through her.

This morning a sleek BMW coasted through the rusty gates of Atlantis and parked in front of the big house.  The grey-suited man who exited the vehicle was expected by her father.  August shook the man’s hand and led him into the house while Lita trailed after them.  Ren had watched it all from the shadows of the brothel where she was sprawled with Oscar, smoking some of Monty’s cigarettes.

“He’s a lawyer,” Brigitte is now saying with snotty authority when Ren enters the bedroom where her sisters are trying on clothes and admiring their bodies in the closet mirror.   Bree smiles at her reflection and twists sideways.  “He’s here because Mina made such a shit show out of her life and now there’s some housekeeping to be done.”

Of course a man like that would have to be a lawyer but it annoys Ren that Brigitte seems to have all the information already.

“How would you know?” Ren grumbles, flopping on her own unmade bed.

“If you climb over all the antique crap in the den and stand underneath the air vent you can hear every word that’s said in Daddy’s study.”

“And I suppose that’s what you did.”  Ren rolls over on her stomach and despite herself, hopes Bree will share whatever else she learned, especially if it involves Oscar’s mother.

“Naturally.   It’s not like August and Lita ever tell us anything.”

Ren sits up.  “So?”

“So what?”

“So what’s this garbage about Aunt Mina?”

Brigitte preens and rolls the side of her shirt down, exposing a shoulder.  She sucks her cheeks in and offers the mirror her most provocative pose.  “You’re always yelling at me for gossiping, Loren.  I should probably try to turn over a new leaf for your sake.  Starting now.  So I don’t think I should say a word about Aunt Mina and the disaster she made.”

Ren jumps to her feet and gets between her sister and the mirror.  “Bree!  You better tell me whatever you know right now.”

“You shouldn’t threaten people, Ren.  You sound preposterous.”

“What threat?  That was a threat?”

Brigitte pouts.  “Your tone was negative.  It startled me.”

Ava finishes smearing a thick layer of lipstick on herself and joins the conversation.  “Come on, spill it.  I want to know too.  Do we have another hot blooded cousin stashed somewhere?”

“Nope,” Bree smiles. “In fact we don’t even really have one.”

Ren shakes her head.  “Quit speaking in riddles.”

“I’m not.  Mina never went through with Oscar’s adoption.  She paid off a stack of important people for that kid and then didn’t even bother to finish the basic paperwork.  So Oscar Anonymous is no Savage.”

Ren mulls this over.  It sounds just like everything she’s ever heard about the chronically irresponsible Mina.  It might be a pain in the ass for Oscar, but not the end of the world.  “Is that all?”

“Hmmm,” Bree taps a fuchsia fingernail against her teeth.  “Almost.  Apparently the great globetrotting basket case didn’t leave a will either so Oscar doesn’t get anything, which actually doesn’t matter since she didn’t own shit except a pile of debt and eight trunks full of the tackiest designer labels her bad credit would buy her.”

Ava stops examining a turquoise necklace and looks at Ren.  “What does all that mean exactly?  What does it mean for Oscar?”

It means he’s nameless and penniless. 

Brigitte is staring at her and looks slightly mournful.  “It means Lita is already making the case to toss him out on his ass.”

Hearing it out loud is unsettling but Ren and Oscar have already talked about what they would do, where they would go.  Of course they were counting on having a few more resources at their disposal but Ren isn’t bothered by the idea of working hard, doing without.  As long as she gets to keep Oscar nothing else matters.

“Well,” she says lightly. “Lita never did waste an opportunity to be a bitch.”

Ava’s eyes are wide.  “You’d better watch out for her, Ren.  There’s something off between her and Oscar.  It’s like she hates him or something.”

“The feeling is likely mutual.”

Ava swallows and sinks down on the edge of her bed.  “Sometimes I think she hates you too.”

“Again, mutual.”

Bree pulls her shirt over her head and cups her breasts, pushing them together.  “Did you guys do it?”

“Who?  Do what?”

She grins sweetly.  “You’re such a shitty liar.  You fucked him, didn’t you?”

“Brigitte!” Ava squeals.

“What?  She can do it but I can’t even say it?  I am surprised, Loren.  I kind of thought you’d die a knee-locked virgin.”

Ren doesn’t react.  Bree’s just fishing like she always does.  She knows nothing.

“We haven’t done anything.  We’re friends.  And to hell with you and your filthy mind, Brigitte.”

“Don’t be pissed at me.  I just repeat what I hear.  Although it would be better if it wasn’t true, especially given all the circumstances.”

“All what circumstances?  So he’s not rolling in cash and his last name is a question mark.  So what?”

“I meant in light of who else he might have fucked since he got here.  Although if that’s true, his standards are disgustingly low.  Oh my god, would you stop with the face of shock every time I drop the F bomb?  Let’s all say it!  Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!”

“Fuck,” says Ava with a weak smile.

Ren feels slightly dizzy.  “Brigitte, you’re not making any sense.  You have not messed around with Oscar.”

“God no.  Not me.  And you can’t point the finger at Ava either.”

“Then what in the hell are you babbling about?”

Bree starts to talk, then seems to change her mind.  She glances out the window and sighs.  “Nothing.  It’s nothing.”

Ren’s had enough.  If she hangs out in here for much longer trying to dodge Brigitte’s outlandish crap there might be blood.  She rushes out of the room and ignores Ava when she tries to call her back.

When she reaches the hallway where her father’s study is, she hears voices and the sound of a slowly opening door.  She feels slightly idiotic ducking into the den and flattening herself against the wall but further family communication isn’t appealing right now.

The den is densely packed with the possessions of the dead.  Every once in a while August mentions clearing it out and letting Ren have it as a bedroom but that day will likely never come.  Ren finds herself wedged between an empty curio cabinet and the mounted head of an antlered creature that was probably felled by Rex Savage.

There are footsteps in the hallway and the murmuring of men.  And one woman.

Murmur murmur “of course” murmur murmur “rotten publicity” murmur murmur “good thing he isn’t a child” murmur murmur.  Then, nothing.

Once the men’s voices recede, Ren peeks out from behind the bristly animal head and sees Lita there alone, standing in the hallway, examining her reflection before a giant round mirror in a manner reminiscent of a gothic evil fairy tale queen.

But Ren’s stomach grows queasy when she sees the wide smile on Lita’s face.  On Lita, a smile is as natural as blue jeans on a cat.  She waits for Lita to quit admiring herself and move on before stealthily heading for the back door.  She wants out of this house.  She wants away from these people.  She just wants Oscar.

She finds him with Spence.  They are spaced about twenty yards apart, clutching shotguns and scanning the desert brush beyond the fake church.  Oscar has his shirt off and in Ren’s utterly unbiased opinion he is the hottest guy in the solar system.  He glances up as her shadow approaches and immediately breaks into a grin.  She’s so lucky.  What girl doesn’t pray to be smiled at like this?  Lita can issue threats until her face melts off.  Every lawyer in the country can drive their suits and phony concern to hell and back.  Nothing is going to pull them apart.

“Hunting rattlers?” she asks, turning her face up for a quick kiss and not bothering to check whether Spence is watching.  Spence continues combing the ground.  Spence doesn’t care who is kissing who.

“Yep.” Oscar shoulders the shotgun and circles his arms around her waist.

She loves being close to him whenever she can, every way she can.  She understands now what happens to people, how they lose all sense and reason when they fall as hard as this.

Oscar squints into the sun.  “Too many of them around here lately.  Someone’s going to take a bad step and wind up with a leg full of venom.”

“We have to talk,” Ren whispers.

Oscar doesn’t ask her what it’s about.  He just nods and calls to Spence that he’s talking off for a while.  He leaves Spence his shotgun and holds Ren’s hand as they head for the barn where it will be stifling hot but quiet.

There’s a place in the narrow loft they like to go when they need to be alone and can’t find anywhere else.  Spence’s tired old mare, Pet, chews lazily and seems to be listening as Ren tells Oscar everything about the lawyer and about Mina.

He seems rather unsurprised, or else he’s putting on a brave face for her benefit.  He tells her to stop talking and then sets her gently on her back for a long kiss.  She says nothing about Brigitte’s strange claim that Oscar has been with someone other than her since arriving at Atlantis.  It’s impossible.  He tells her every day that there will never be anyone else, never again.  She feels him pressing into her and wants to give him everything he needs.  She needs it just as much.  His strong hand moves over her skin, underneath her shirt and she arches her body, pushing him higher.

“You sick motherfucker!”

Oscar jerks and springs upright as sharply as if he’s been shot.  Ren furiously rolls her shirt down and dares to glance down into Monty’s raging face.  He’s not looking at her though.  Every ounce of his fury is directed at Oscar.  “Yeah, you better get your ass down here!”

Oscar jumps down and circles warily.  “Stay up there, Ren.”

“You think you need to protect my sister from me?  Is that what you think you shitty little punk?”

“Right now?  Yes.”

Monty swings.  He’s got a hard right hook but Oscar’s quick.  He manages to dodge sideways.

“Montgomery!” Ren shouts.  “You stop this right now!”

He flashes her a look that seems almost hurt, probably because in his mind he’s doing his lousy best to protect her honor or whatever from the predatory Oscar.

“I don’t want to get into this with you,” Oscar growls.  “Not right now.”  Then he sighs tiredly.  “Goddammit, Monty, haven’t we knocked each other around enough this summer?”

Monty thinks.  Then he smiles, a cold smile.  “No,” he says and his next swing is abrupt enough to connect with Oscar’s jaw.  Another guy would probably have been knocked over but Oscar just reels backwards momentarily and then rights himself, spitting out a quarter-sized bullet of blood.  Without pausing to blink he knocks his right hook against Monty’s jaw.    Monty curses, stumbling, and the two of them stand off, each ready to charge ahead and send the other straight to the next county.

Ren jumps down from the loft and gets between them.  Monty is startled, dropping his stance and staring down at her with vague puzzlement.  “This is between me and him, Ren.”

“No, it isn’t.  You knock it the hell off or so help me I’ll never consider you a brother again.”

He’s dumbfounded. “Holy shit, don’t tell me you’ve bought into his act.  He’s a horny little con artist.”

“Monty,” she warns, falling back to stand beside Oscar.  “I mean it.   Whatever battle you think you’re fighting doesn’t exist.”

Ren watches her brother shake his head in disgust.  He spits on the ground and addresses Oscar.  “This sure as shit isn’t over.  You stay the fuck away from my sister or I swear one of these days I’ll kill you.”

Oscar just snorts.  “Drop dead you mouth-breathing prick.”

With one more ominous glare at Ren, Monty takes off, stalks over to the pickup truck and peels out of Atlantis.

“Asshole,” Oscar says.

“Sometimes,” Ren sighs.  She touches Oscar’s swelling jaw.  “Does it hurt?”

“It’s nothing.”

Ren runs her fingers across his cheek, feeling a hint of rough stubble.  It excites her.  He always excites her.  “You know, I bet he’ll be gone all day.  Monty’s fits are usually good for about twelve hours of Monty-free living.”

Oscar grins. “Well worth the pain then.”

The little caretaker’s house is messy but blissfully empty.  Ren prepares a gourmet lunch of grilled cheese and for the afternoon they pretend there is no Monty, no Lita, no such thing as a Savage.  They spend hours in Oscar’s bed, making love tenderly, then playfully rough, then tender once again as the sun fades and an electrical storm rolls through.

“You smell that?” Ren asks as she straddles Oscar and listens to the wind outside.

Oscar props himself on his elbows, leans over and pushes the window open.  “Fire,” he confirms. “Probably sparked by a bolt of lightning, likely in the mountain foothills.”

Ren shudders.  The wind must be blowing the smoke right in their direction.  The acrid stench fills the room.   “It won’t reach here, will it?”

Oscar thinks about it.  “Nah.  There’s not enough on the desert floor to burn.  Besides there’s probably rain coming right up.  That’ll take care of things.”

“Oscar.”  She rests her cheek against his hard chest.  “We need to leave.  We need to get out of here.”

He strokes her hair.  “I know, baby.  I know.  Just need a few days to get a plan sorted out.  Trust me, Ren.  We’ll make it.  As long as there’s us, there’s everything.”

“I love you, Oscar.  I want to keep saying it in case I don’t say it enough.”

“You say it plenty.  And you’re the only one I ever want to hear it from.  I love you too.”

She shivers and tries to burrow closer to him.   She can’t.  She just can’t get close enough.  “Show me,” she whispers.

It’s ecstasy, as always.  He grips her hips and helps her move with deliberate care as they connect yet again.  Ren keeps her eyes closed, letting herself go completely, and in that moment she glimpses her future, a future full of Oscar and of bliss, and she knows it will be hers.

It only takes an instant for the vision to shatter.

“What’s wrong?” Oscar asks.  He sits up and tips her chin toward him.  “Ren.  You look terrified.  What is it?”

She tries to smile but realizes her right hand is still clapped firmly over her mouth so a smile would make no difference.  Slowly, she removes the hand that had flown to her face in horror the moment she’d opened her eyes and looked at the dark open window.  Horror, because someone was right there, looking back at her.  Someone whose features were twisted into an expression of hatred in its most unfiltered form.  And then it was gone.

“Let’s go away,” she begs, clutching him. “Let’s go away tonight.  I have a little bit of money from when I did some catalog modeling before we moved out here.  Let’s just go.  We don’t even have to tell anyone.”

“We will,” he whispers, kissing her lips.  “Not tonight but we will.”

“Why not tonight?”

“You’re not eighteen.”

“Neither are you.”

He grimaces.  “Maybe,” he mutters. “In any case no one would be looking for me.  You’re a different story.   This isn’t a movie, Loren.  We need a plan.  We can’t just slide into the night like a pair of criminals and expect there will be no consequences, that it will all turn out happily ever after.”

He’s right.  Of course he’s right.  She would be reported, the news would hit the tabloids.

“Teenager Loren Savage, daughter and granddaughter of Hollywood legends, runs away from home with a man rumored to be her cousin.  The two are thought to be at large somewhere in western Arizona.” 

“I know that,” she says with some bitterness as she slowly pulls her clothes back on.  “Believe me, I understand exactly how it is.”

Oscar watches her.  “Where are you going?”

“The big house.  I have a feeling someone’s waiting for me there.”

His dark eyes are troubled and he starts to rise.  “I’ll go with you.”

“No.”  She kisses him.  “No.  I’ll be back soon.”

The smoke smell is stronger outside.   Ren walks slowly, pausing on the porch of the brothel.  The wind plays havoc with her hair and darkens her vision with dust.  But in the west, toward the mountains, she thinks she sees a faint orange glow.  It could be a brush fire or it could be the last gasp of the vanishing sun.  It’s impossible to tell.

Why does she feel like she is being slowly choked from the inside?  Every step toward the house is more difficult to take than the last one.  She tells herself there is no reason to feel this way.   Yes, it was her mother’s face at the window, her mother’s cold eyes of loathing, but there is nothing Lita can do to her.  If she tries, Ren will convince Oscar that they have no choice but to leave, authorities and tabloids be damned.

The porch light is dark and she fumbles for the doorknob.  The pickup truck is still gone, meaning Monty has not returned.  For all their differences, Ren would rather have Monty around right now.  No matter how much he despises Oscar, he would never stand still and allow Lita to hurt her.  Ren has no such faith in her father.

At first the house is silent and Ren breathes with relief.  She tiptoes past the front room and takes a right turn down the hall towards the bedroom she shares with her sisters.  Suddenly she wants very much to be where they are.

A door opens at her back and light splashes the dark corridor.  “Loren,” says her father.  “Come here please.”

Ren tries to calm her quickening pulse as she turns around and cautiously enters her father’s study.  She has never been frightened of her father in her life and she isn’t afraid of him now.  But when she sees Lita sitting in a leather armchair with her legs crossed, a triumphant smile on her lips, Ren can hardly breathe.

She can’t do anything to me.  She can’t do anything if I don’t let her. 

Ren crosses her arms and stares straight ahead as August closes the heavy door at her back.  That’s when Lita unexpectedly rises, crosses the room, and with the strength of a man strikes Ren across the face so hard her ears ring with the echo.

“You fucking whore,” Lita spits.

Ren barely notices the pain.  There is just the shock of being hit.  Her nose feels funny and when she touches it with her fingers they come away bloody.  She inhales hard, levels a loathing stare at the woman who gave her life and says with stark clarity, “You goddamn bitch.”

“Stop it,” August demands but there’s no authority in his voice.  Only exhaustion.  “Goddamn it, both of you. Stop.”

“Gladly,” Ren says and turns to leave the room.  Whatever these people need to talk about, they can do it without her.   She needs to find Oscar.  She needs to let him know that remaining in Atlantis is no longer an option.

Lita tears past August and blocks Ren’s exit.  “You’re going nowhere.  Not tonight.  Not ever.”  She shakes her head as her silver earrings catch the soft light of the Tiffany lamp on August’s desk.  “I knew you were a loser, Loren.  I knew it from the moment I laid eyes on you.”

“Enough!” August actually raises his voice this time.  “Lita, you’ve crossed the line.”

Lita throws him a withering look.  “Oh, be quiet, old man. You might strain a vocal chord pretending you care.”

Ren clenches her fists.   If Lita wants a fight she can have one.  “Get the hell out of my way you poisonous cunt.”

Her mother seems merely amused.  “Trashy little words from a trashy little girl.  My god, I always figured you for a pathetic fool but assumed you would know enough not to slut it around with the gutter rat your crazy aunt kept for a pet.”

Ren closes her eyes, wishes to be somewhere else, anywhere else. “What is it that bothers you, Lita?  That I’m with someone you consider inappropriate?  Or that I’ve found something you’ve never had?”

“Oh,” Lita says softly as her smile returns.  “I guess it’s time you heard.  Loren my dear, sweet, supremely idiotic child, I’ve had everything you’ve had.  Only I had it first.”

That’s what Brigitte meant.  It’s not true.  It’s not even in the same hemisphere as the truth.

“If you think I’ll believe that you’re more vile and crazy than I ever gave you credit for.”

Ren recoils when Lita suddenly reaches out to brush a few fallen strands of dark hair from her forehead.  She doesn’t retreat soon enough to avoid being lightly scratched with her mother’s fingernails.

“You fucking little moron,” Lita sighs.  “You actually believe he cares. No Ren, he’s the sort of trash who’s only looking for the next hole to satisfy himself.”

Ren glances at her father, silently begging him to put a stop to this nightmare.  She doesn’t believe it.  Not even for a blink of an eye does she believe Oscar would have a thing to do with Lita.  August believes it though.  Either he believes it or he can’t be bothered with a contradiction.   He breathes heavily and sinks down into a chair.

Lita laughs.  “Oh, don’t look at your father as if he’ll object.  Oscar’s not the first one I’ve had fun with and he won’t be the last.  I suppose you’re old enough to hear that your father and I have had an arrangement since Brigitte was born.  I’m free to do as I please.  And in this case, like so many others, that’s exactly what I did.”

Ren runs the back of her hand beneath her nose.  It has stopped bleeding.  “Sorry. It turns out you’ve wasted a round of theatrics, Mom.  I know exactly what you are.  You don’t know how to do anything but lie and inflict pain.  But I won’t be your problem anymore.  And neither will Oscar.”

Lita is amused.  “Is that because you believe you two will just ride off into the fabled sunset like the dreadful films once set here?  No.” She shakes her head with a private smile.  “That won’t be happening, Ren.”

“Empty threats,” Ren whispers.  That’s all you are.  You can’t stop us.”

Lita clucks her tongue.  “Well now, that’s not exactly true.  Do I really have to remind you that you are a minor?”

“Fine, I’ll get emancipated. I have less than eight months until my eighteenth birthday.”

“Yes, a lot can happen in eight months.  Scandal and disgrace.  And of course a trial.”

“A trial?”  Ren is startled.  “What crime has been committed for god’s sake?”

“Do you really think we would allow Mina’s stray to camp out here without performing a few background checks?  Among the more interesting nuggets of information we uncovered is the fact that Oscar is over eighteen and of course, as I just pointed out, you are not.”

“Oh god, Lita, you think anyone will care?  No one in their right mind would bother with a case like that.”

“They will if I make sure of it.  And just imagine all the lovely publicity that will surround you for the rest of your life.  I’m aware of how much you adore the spotlight, dear daughter.  Loren Savage will go from being Failed Actress to The Girl Who Fucked Her Cousin.”

“This is insane.  You are insane.  You think no one will realize there’s no biological connection between us?  And by the way, I know that Mina never actually adopted him so that means his last name is not even legally Savage.”

Lita sighs.  “It saddens me that you’ve learned absolutely nothing.  Truth is merely incidental.  The story is whatever will sell.  Always.  The world will see you as cousins because I will make sure of it.  And as far as legal trouble goes, if one charge doesn’t stick we can just try again with another.  For instance, I believe we will discover that there are some valuable things missing around here.   Do not underestimate my resources, girl. What do you think his chances will be by the time I’m finished with him?”

Ren won’t believe that.  Even though she’s seen the evidence her entire life she doesn’t want to be part of a world where Lita is right.  She holds her head up.  “No.  You’re just so pathetically twisted that you don’t understand that the truth actually matters to people.”