Mess Us Up – Jaxson Kidman Page 0,23

want to be left alone.

This was a big mistake.

It’s takes an entire block of running before the man finally stops.

“Please stop running!” his voice yells at me.

I don’t stop running though.

I can’t stop running.

I have no choice but to go to Mama Dae’s.

And tell her what I did.

Now I’m afraid of her.

I’m afraid of getting caught by the cops too.

I need Mac.

I didn’t bring the cell phone with me though.

There’s literally nothing I can do right now…

But run.

When I get to Mama Dae’s, I bust through the back door and she turns around in the kitchen, holding a knife.

She looks at my face.

She looks at the door.

“What did you do?” she asks.

“I screwed up big time,” I say. “I’m so sorry. I screwed up big time.”

I start to cry.

Mama Dae puts the knife down and steps toward me.

She slaps me across the face.

“No crying right now,” she says.

She opens the back door.

I hear the sound of a police siren.

Mama Dae looks back at me.

“Oh, Jolie… what the fuck did you do?”

I’m in the basement of the house.

In a room that no human should ever be in.

And I have no choice but to hide in this room.

Mama Dae swore to me she wasn’t going to lock the door… and, yes, I’ve checked. And, yes, the door isn’t locked.

The room in perfectly square, dark, and looks like the kind of room where a serial killer in a horror movie would take his victims to chop them up.

I mean that literally because all over the walls are different kinds of knives. Big, little, machetes, axes… blades that are tall and curved…

It’s scary as hell.

The floor is concrete and there’s a drain in the middle.

I shiver, not wanting to know what goes on in this room.

I calm myself by saying that maybe Mama Dae comes from a family of farmers and these are all old fashioned tools that she’s collected or inherited or something.

Do I actually believe that though?

Not a chance in hell.

But, again, there’s no other choice.

I did this to myself.

I should not have left the house.

But I can’t reverse time.

All I can do is wait.

I have a small light turned on above a bench that’s as old as everything else in the room.

I hear the sound of knocking and my heart jumps into my throat.

Mama Dae is right above me.

She opens the back door to the house.

It’s the police.

They’ve tracked me to the house.

I touch my forehead and want to cry.

But I can’t cry.

It won’t do anything.

I hear voices…

“A young woman here?” Mama Dae’s voice says. “Are you sure, Officer?”

“I’m sure,” the officer says. “She was reported missing and was just seen not far from here. A man spotted her in a restaurant and she took off. He followed her with his car… to this house.”

I shut my eyes.

No. No. No. No.

“This house is empty,” Mama Dae says. “I’ve been standing here making sauce. Which is probably going to burn now since I’m not stirring it properly. You know that’s the secret to good sauce, right? You have to keep stirring.”

“My grandmother came from Italy, ma’am,” the officer says. “I know how to cook. I’m not here for lessons. I need to look around this house.”

“Are you serious?”

“Ma’am, there’s a woman missing…”

“Then go find her,” Mama Dae says. “She’s not here.”

“Are you refusing to let me look around?”

“Not at all,” Mama Dae’s voice says. “I’m just confused.”

“Maybe she snuck in through a window,” the officer says.

I hear footsteps.

The cop is in the house.

I swallow hard.

If he finds me… what do I do?

I can play dumb.

I can say I ran away.

Yeah, that’s easy to do.

I can say I have no idea who Mama Dae is either.

So nobody gets into trouble.

In fact…

I bite my lip and walk to the door.

I can just turn myself in.

Just walk up the stairs and tell the cop what happened. That the guy in the restaurant grabbed my shoulder and scared me.

Simple.

It’s easy.

I touch the door.

Then I hear another voice.

“What the hell is going on here, Davidson?”

It’s Declan’s voice.

“That missing girl… she’s here,” Davidson says.

“No, she’s not,” Mama Dae says.

“Wait a second,” Declan says. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes,” both Davidson and Mama Dae say.

“You know, this is my case,” Declan says. “I’ve been tracking Jolie since it was reported she was missing.”

“I was going to look around for a minute,” Davidson says.

“I’ll look around,” Declan says. “This is my goddamn case. You stand in the kitchen with the nice, young lady.”

Mama Dae laughs. “I’m making some sauce. Mind