Free The 13th: Destiny Awaits by Ela Lond Page B

the stairs, the pace of her heartbeat increasing with each step she took. Today, she was going to make everything right.
    She pushed the door open and strode into the room. She could see her mother's arm on the armrest of the yellow armchair, standing before the window looking out. That was all her mother did, observe the garden outside and talk about him to anybody who was willing to listen.
    Kate closed the distance that separated her and the yellow armchair.
    “It's not Saturday,” her mother said.
    “No, it's not.” Kate's hand fell onto the curve of her mother's shoulder, feeling tense muscles underneath her fingers. “How have you been?”
    “Do you have something for me?”
    Kate’s gaze fell on her mother's fisted hands, which rested in her lap, and her white knuckles. As long as Kate could remember her mother had always been easily agitated, especially after the incident, but Kate had never seen her trying to suppress her nervousness like she seemed to be doing now. “What's going on?”
    Trembling fingers wrapped around Kate's wrist. “You brought the salt and charms?”
    “No, I'm afraid not.” She had forgotten, but it didn't matter, not when --
    “I need them.”
    “I will bring them next time,” Kate said to ease her mother's anxiety.
    “I need them now. They took them. They took them all. And I need them.” Kate’s mother tugged her down and her words tumbled out in a whisper, “You have to bring them to me. You have to. I can't be without them.”
    “It's okay.” With her free hand, Kate stroked her mother's long silken black hair. “It's okay. Don't worry, nothing will happen to you.”
    “I need them now.”
    “Everything is fine.”
    Kate’s mother drew her closer, her blunt fingernails cutting into Kate's skin, and hissed, “ He 's going to come.”
    “Everything is fine,” Kate repeated. “You'll see.”
    “But he ... He 's going to come.”
    “I'm going to show you something.”
    Her mother's jaw tensed and her grey eyes glittered with something akin to horror, just like her gaze had been right before she had tried to hurt Kate. “I need them!”
    Kate jerked her hand out of her mother's hold, and she would have moved one step backwards, if not for the bony fingers that captured her arm and held onto it like a steel vice.
    “I need them, please,” her mother whimpered. She turned sideways in the chair, her eyes looking big on her face as she blankly stared at Kate's face and then at Kate's collar. “Give it to me, the pendant.”
    “The pendant?” Kate's hand shot to her neck. She didn't wear it anymore, didn't need it, like she didn't need the help of the charms anymore. She had intended to wear it while visiting her mother, but she had forgotten to put it on. “I... I don't have it.”
    “You don't have it,” her mother repeated slowly. The expression on her face became an ugly grimace. “You don't have it!” she snapped, jerking Kate closer.
    “You are hurting me!” Kate hauled her arm out of her mother's fingers, her breath laboured. She won't hurt me, she won't hurt me , she tried to reassure herself. And she couldn't hurt her, not when people would come running at the first press of the button installed by the door.
    “You don't have it!”
    “I don't need it anymore.” Kate moved out of her mother's reach, watching her mother as she turned in the armchair. She expected her to stand up and to come after her, but her mother stayed in the upholstered armchair like she was trapped in it, like it was a cage from which she couldn't escape. “And you won't need it either, you'll see.”
    Her mother was silent, observing her with a scowl on her pale face, her hands curled around the edge of the chair's back. She looked weak and scared.
    In the therapy Kate had to attend after her mother was committed, the doctors reassured her that she wasn't responsible for her mother's state, that it wasn't her fault, but Kate still felt guilty that her mother was confined