Mask Off

“I didn’t want to believe Lyle,” said Stewart. “When he said he saw you at city hall.”

Jordan clenched her jaw and looked down. This was exactly what she was trying to avoid. Face to face with her family and after the sun had set.

“You will look at me when I am talking to you!” Stewart grabbed Jordan by the chin, fingers digging into her cheeks. He held a familiar bottle of pills in his hand. “How did your medicine get into someone else’s house?”

Jordan’s face went white. In all the panic of getting Elijah’s ham radio, she’d forgotten to look for the Lethenine! Stewart slammed the bottle onto the table. The top came flying off from the impact, blue pills flying all over its surface.

“And on top of that, you’re cavorting about with her?” Stewart pointed to Grey, who remained silent. “She’s wanted by the police, Jordan.” He finally let Jordan’s face go with a snarl. “That girl stole a car from another town, hit three officers with it, and fled the scene! She is a hardened criminal!”

Jordan couldn’t help herself. “As opposed to being a ‘good girl’?”

A flash of new anger lit in Stewart’s eye. “Don’t. Backsass. Me.” He reached down and began removing his belt.

The sight of it sent Jordan into a panic. She began trying to get up from the chair she was in but her ankles and wrists had been bound to the furniture with zipties. It was still enough to send her crashing to the floor.

“Do I need to remind you what happens to bad boys and girls in this house?!”

She finally understood why she had reacted the way she did when she saw the belt handing from her parents’ bedroom door.

The leather came down fast on her, whipping every part of Jordan it could find. Sometimes it was the buckle that came down and bludgeoned parts of her face.

Jordan saw between blows that her brother flinched but said nothing. Her grandmother looked to be egging her father on, but Jordan couldn’t understand it over her own screaming. But she could hear Grey was cursing her father out. And she saw a pair of dainty hands were trying to pull Stewart back as he was no longer able to make words – only the growls and snarls of a leopard.

Karen held on tight to Stewart. “Stop, please, stop! They’re already at the door, Stewart!”

That got Stewart to freeze – and Blake to look up.

“You all need to go out front and explain everything.” Karen let Stewart go. “Or they might get the wrong idea.”

Stewart grimaced, two cat’s ears now pointing up at the top of his head. “Fine.”

Karen stood there in silence. Then she pulled out a chair, sat down, and buried her face in her hands. “Oh my God.” Her voice was muffled by the hands but loud enough for Jordan and Grey to hear.

Jordan craned her head to look to Grey, who was too furious to say anything. She looked back to see Karen was standing back up and on the verge of tears. Her mother was standing over her, frozen.

“Mom,” Jordan whimpered. “They’re gonna kill us. They’re gonna kill Grey, and then they’re gonna put me in some stranger’s kitchen and make me be something I’m not.” She was speaking fast enough where she had to gasp for breath. “It won’t matter if they make me marry Lyle or some other guy. I don’t like guys, mom!”

A warm tear dropped onto Jordan’s cheek. But it wasn’t her crying.

“I should have believed you,” Karen cried.

Her mother kneeled beside her and pulled a pair of scissors out of her purse. Karen gently clipped the zipties keeping Jordan bound to her chair. “You told me the night before you snuck out to go to college. That you’d never come back because of it.” When the last ziptie was cut free, Karen hugged her daughter tight. “I thought I’d lost you forever. I will never make that mistake again.”

Karen moved to start cutting Grey free after breaking off the hug. Grey scrambled to her feet and ran over to embrace Jordan, holding her close and caressingthe back of her head. “Are you ok?”

Jordan hyperventilated into Grey’s shoulder, trying to calm herself down. She could see Grey look to her mother, who dropped the scissors back into her purse. After a moment of rustling around Karen pulled out a set of keys and handed them over.

“Thanks.” Grey looked down at the keys in her hand. Jordan saw her eyes move to the backdoor of the house. Then Grey went back to the quivering woman in her arms. “You should come with us.”

Karen blinked. “What?”

“If we escape, they’ll know it was you,” Grey pointed out. “So come on. There’s got to be room in that SUV.”

---

Jordan, Grey, and Karen all slipped out of the backdoor through the kitchen and came to the front yard.

There had been enough time for Jordan to finally calm down from her father’s confrontation. But Jordan still felt emotionally exhausted. Her cheek still stung from the lash of her father’s belt.

The rest of the family was still on the front porch, talking with what looked like a half dozen leopard-headed men.

“Come on,” said Grey. “Go inside already.”

Almost on cue, they made their way inside one by one. And the moment the last one had their back turned, the three women darted for the SUV. Grey unlocked the car and started getting into the driver’s seat, only to freeze.

“Shit.”

Jordan stopped halfway through getting into the front passenger’s seat. “What?”

“It’s a manual,” said Grey. “I never learned how to shift.” She then looked back to Karen, who was buckling her seatbelt in the back. “It’s your car.”

“Stewart never let me learn how to drive stick,” Karen admitted. “He always drove the car, not me.”

Both women then turned to Jordan. “Fine. I’ll drive.”

Jordan and Grey swapped seats. But everyone ducked out of sight when they saw everyone rush out of the front door in a fury.

“Where the fuck are they,” shouted Debra. “They were right there!”

“I know that Mom,” Stewart yelled back. “I don’t understand how!”

Debra pushed her son into the other leopard men standing there. “It’s obvious how,” she growled. “That stupid bitch of a wife you married let them go! I knew I never liked her, always complaining. You should have remarried years ago.”

Karen grumbled in the back seat.

“We’re not doing this,” snarled Stewart. But when he tried to stand back up the other leopard men restrained him.

“No. We’re not.” Debra cooly told her son. “I’ve entertained your sentimentality for long enough. Especially with that ‘mercy’ you showed Frank. Empathy for the enemy, Stewart? That’s the mark of a traitor.”

Blake stood aside, watching helplessly as his Debras’s jaw unhinged and approached Stewart. Jordan watched from a distance, unable to say or do anything when her grandmother shoved her father’s head into her mouth.

Once Debra’s mouth closed shut on Stewart’s head, Jordan turned the car keys and the SUV roared to life.