Series Wednesday: Family Game Night Page 17

It’s a toy box of Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots. I use to love this game as a kid. "I haven't seen one of these in years." My dad says. "Grace and I broke ours remember??" I say. My dad opens the toy box and inside is another picture of Percy and broken toy pieces. "There is a note my dad says as he moves the toy pieces out of the way. My dad begins to read it out loud. "Grace I can't help but notice that you are fighting within yourself to tell your secret so to help you out I will take 2 days away from my original time line. You now have 3 days to tell you secret or I send a box with Percy's arm."  Grace takes a deep breath. "We need to figure out who is doing this. We need to put all the facts together and see what we come up with." I tell them. "This has to be someone in our lives. How else would they know that Grace isn't telling us her secret?"  We all just look at each other. I know none of us would ever tell anything to anyone. "Who here would open up to anyone about any of this?" I ask. "No one" my dad says. "So this means that this person is watching us." My mother says. My dad looks down at the bottom of the toy box. "The box is lined with a newspaper article." My dad pours out the broken toy pieces.  "What is the article about?" My mother asks. "It's about a whole family gone missing? The family went missing over the span of a few weeks," My dad says reading the article. My mother and I move closer to my dad to read the article with him. "Why would someone line the box with this article?" My mother asks. "Maybe this is this person’s previous victims? Maybe this is some kind of warning?" My dad says. I turn to ask Grace her opinion and she is gone.  "Where did Grace go?" I ask my parents. They both look around; my mother walks into the kitchen. "Back door is left open, she ran."  We all sigh. "Why does she keep doing that?" I ask. "She isn't the person I thought she was. She is running because she is weak and has no control over her emotions," my dad says. I just look at him. "Are you joking! She is running because she is scared of something. She is very strong to be a part of this family!" I can't help but defend Grace. "Stop Cahira, this is not the time to talk about what horrible parents we are." My mother says to me. I look at her and can't believe that is where this conversation is going. I just walk away I am not going to try to find Grace again she will come back when she is ready.

                "Cahira wake up please." I open my eyes to see Grace sitting on top of me. "Grace what are you doing?" She climbs off me. "Come with me." Grace say as she grabs me shoes. "Okay," I put my shoes on and follow Grace to her car. Grace hops in the driver seat; I am not sure where she is taking me. We seem to be driving for a while. We finally pull up to a house. "Whose house is this?" I ask her as we get out of the car. "The family in the article this was their home."  I don't understand why Grace has brought me here. "Family game night?"  Is all I can ask. "Yes," Grace responds. Now it is starting to make sense to me. "Since when do you guys kill whole families?" I ask Grace. "We don't it is against the rules for us to kill more than two people a month. Dad says that we could get blood lust and become uncontrollable." Now I am even more confused. "So how did this whole family go missing?" I ask her. Grace just starts crying. "I just felt so bad. I couldn't control it. I have Enrique stake out the family of people I kill. If they seem to get over the lose I'm okay. It's when they can't let it go that it starts to eat at me so much that I start killing off the ones who can't move on. I can't help myself." That's her secret that she is killing outside of family game night. She has remorse that turns into blood lust. I take a deep breath and try to calm her down. "Grace its okay we can fix this. I am not sure how but we can." Grace drops to her knees in tears. "You don't understand because you’re not a part of it with us. They gave me another chance and if I messed up again I was going back into the cage until I learned to control my urges." I have no idea what she is talking about but I know that this is my parents all the way.  "I won’t let anyone put you in a cage!" Grace looks up at me. "Someone knows what I have been doing, there is no way we can hide it from them." Grace says. I never intended on hiding it. "We are not hiding a damn thing." I tell her. "I wish I was more like you Cahira. I just want them to love me. I try so hard to be the daughter they lost." I know she is talking about me before the coma but she talks about me like I'm dead. I pull Grace up off the floor. "They are not capable of love. Once you accept that your life will get a whole lot better trust me." Grace gets up and dusts herself off. "That might be how you feel about them but I see the love in their eyes when I do what they want." I hear Grace and can't help feel sorry for her. "Come on lets go home." I tell her as I grab her car keys. "How are we going to help Percy and hide this?" I look at Grace. "We are not hiding a damn thing. I will protect you but we have to tell them for Percy sake." Grace sighs and gets in the passenger seat. I am not sure how I am going to do this but I will do what I have to for Percy and Grace.