Five Nights at Freddy's Fazbear Frights Collection, page 119
Myron and Angel’s mother had the biggest bedroom in the house, naturally. It was a huge master suite with a sitting area. Ophelia’s room, though, wasn’t much smaller. Her domain was also a suite, with a sleeping area, a reading nook, and a play area. She also had her own huge closet and bathroom.
Angel got a normal-size room at the end of the hall, and she didn’t get her own bathroom. She had to walk to the other end of the hall to use a bathroom. Whatever. She’d be gone soon enough.
Angel went into her plain peach-and-white room. Myron had had it decorated, without Angel’s input. She hated the colors. She hated the sheer curtains, and she hated the twin-size bed. She was almost an adult. She deserved at least a full-size bed. The only thing Angel liked about her room was the view. Her window looked out over the backyard, which was huge and filled with trees.
Flopping down on her tiny bed, Angel clenched her teeth and thought about the unfairness of it all. What was she? Trash? Something to be ignored and discarded?
Angel stood and started pacing back and forth. One day, one day very soon, Myron, her mother, and Ophelia, too, would realize how wrong they were to dismiss her. Angel was not going to be ignored. She was going to be successful, hugely successful, and when she was, she wasn’t going to share a dime with her horrible mother and stepdad and stepsister. She was going to make it. She was going to be the center of attention.
Angel dropped onto her bed again. She thought about just going to sleep. The day had totally drained her. But her stomach wouldn’t stop growling. So, she left her room and headed for the kitchen.
As she went back down the hall, Angel glanced, more from habit than from interest, into Ophelia’s room. Ophelia was nowhere in sight. She was probably in the master with her daddy. Angel saw the plastic-wrapped gumdrop nose sitting on Ophelia’s white-painted nightstand. She noticed Ophelia had placed the nose in her “treasures” dish, a little crystal (yes, real crystal) shallow bowl that held everything from rocks and seashells to coins and gold jewelry. Angel shook her head and continued on.
Back downstairs, Angel went into the kitchen and flipped on the light switch. Warm yellow glowing circles shined down from the amber glass pendants above the tanker-size island and illuminated black granite countertops. Recessed lights lit up custom cherry cabinets, and stainless-steel appliances. The kitchen was a gourmet cook’s dream. Too bad a gourmet cook didn’t live here.
Angel cooked a little but not a ton. She’d had to learn what little she knew how to cook on her own. Come to think of it, she’d had to learn everything she knew how to do on her own.
She went to the fridge, scrounged around, and found a bean salad she’d made for herself a couple days before. She was about to take the first bite when the phone rang.
Thinking of Dominic, she snatched up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Ah, I think I hear the voice of an Angel,” Dominic said.
“Very funny.” Angel thought she sounded casual and relaxed, but her pulse had at least doubled its pace the second Dominic spoke.
“I am very funny, aren’t I? Aren’t you lucky to have met me?”
Angel laughed. “I’m beside myself.”
“There are two of you? Lucky me.”
Angel groaned but giggled. “You do think you’re funny, don’t you?”
“Hilarious.”
Angel shook her head. “And also very modest.”
“Very.”
“Not to mention succinct,” Angel said, smiling.
Dominic chuckled. “ ‘Brevity is the soul of wit.’ ”
“Good one,” Angel said. “Proud of yourself?”
“Inordinately.”
Angel laughed. She had to admit she was impressed that he’d thrown out another Hamlet quote. But she wasn’t going to tell him that. “You’re too much.”
“ ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks,’ ” Dominic said.
Angel groaned.
A click came over the line, and Myron’s heavy breathing battered Angel’s ear. “I’m on the phone, Myron,” she said.
“It’s late. Who are you talking to?”
Late? It isn’t even 9:00 p.m.!
Angel was going to lie and say it was one of her friends, but Dominic, clueless about the extent of Myron’s unreasonableness, spoke up. “My name is Dominic, sir. I’m calling to ask out your stepdaughter.”
“Who the hell are you?” Myron asked. “I’ve never heard her talk about a Dominic.”
“I just—” Angel tried to insert.
“We just met today, sir,” Dominic said innocently.
Angel groaned.
“Where? Are you lying? She was with us. Where do you get off lying to me, young man?”
Dominic spoke … after a slight hesitation. He seemed to be getting that Myron wasn’t playing with a full deck. “I know she was with you today, sir,” Dominic said in the slow soothing tone one used to pacify a distressed toddler. “She was at Freddy’s with your family. I work part-time there. I’m one of the assistant managers.”
“I didn’t see you,” Myron snapped.
Another little silence preceded Dominic’s patient response. “With all due respect, sir, you wouldn’t know if you did see me. We haven’t met yet.”
“That’s exactly my point. You’re not taking Angel out. We don’t know you.”
“I’m happy to come over and—” Dominic began.
“You’re not coming to this house. We don’t know you,” Myron repeated.
“I’m sorry, but how will you get to know me if you don’t meet me?”
“Get the hell off my phone, smart aleck,” Myron said. He slammed down his receiver and bellowed down the stairs. “You’d better be off in ten seconds, Angel, or I’m coming down there.”
Angel cringed. “I have to go,” she said to Dominic.
“Call me when you can,” Dominic said. Angel hung up the phone just as Myron stomped into the kitchen.
“Where do you get off handing out my phone number to a total stranger?” he demanded.
“It’s my phone number, too,” Angel pointed out.
“Just by happenstance,” Myron said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I married your mother, and you came along for the ride.”
“I came along for the ride?!” Angel threw back, incredulous. She widened her eyes and stared at Myron.
Her mom came into the room. She held up a small stack of envelopes. “I got the mail. Angel, you got a letter.”
Angel took the letter her mother held out, and she glanced at the return address. It was from the student loan office. Maybe they were going to give her more money. She ripped the envelope open and looked at the letter.
She read a couple sentences. “What?” she blurted.
“What is it?” her mother said.
Angel looked up at her mother. “They’re rescinding my student loan offer because they updated their records and discovered you’re now married to Myron, and Myron makes too much money for me to qualify for a loan.”
“Well, he does make a lot of money,” her mother said.
“But how does that help me?” Angel shouted. She whirled to face Myron. “Are you going to pay for me to go to school?”
“Not that stupid art school.”
“But that’s the school I want to go to. It’s a good school, a nationally ranked school.”
“I don’t care. It’s not a normal college. I’m not paying for something that isn’t a normal college. Shouldn’t have to pay for anything at all, come to that, but as a gift to my beloved Bianca, I’d pay for you to go to a state college. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
“But you can afford it,” Angel argued. “You wouldn’t even notice the money missing. The amount of money I need to go to school is nothing to you.”
“You have a lot to learn about money, young lady,” Myron said.
Angel couldn’t keep it inside anymore. She hadn’t said a word at the horse farm. She hadn’t made a peep in the car. But it came out now.
“You just bought your daughter two horses!” Angel screamed. “She’s five! You’re going to spend more on those horses and on her horseback riding lessons in the next few years than you would on all of my education plus a car. How is horseback riding better than a performing arts school? At least I’m going to school to learn a skill I can use to make a living. What good will riding horses do for Ophelia? She’s going to be way too big to be a jockey.”
“Don’t you insult your sister!” Myron shouted.
“She’s not my sister!” Angel yelled for the second time today. “She’s your daughter, and she’s a thief.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Myron demanded.
“She stole what should have been mine. She stole my mother, and she’s stealing my future. It isn’t fair.”
“Life isn’t fair,” Myron said, smirking.
“You’re ruining my life!” Angel yelled.
She turned to her mother. “If you hadn’t married this ass, we’d be poor, yeah, but at least we’d both be happy. At least I’d be able to get a student loan!”
“I’m very happy,” her mother said woodenly.
“Yeah, and I’m a piñata,” Angel said. She picked up the open plastic container of bean salad, and she threw it in the sink. The container bounced up on impact, and beans flew everywhere.
Angel ran out of the kitchen.
“You get back here and clean that up,” Myron yelled.
“Clean it up yourself,” Angel yelled back. “It’s your freaking house!”
Angel took the stairs two at a time. She reached the hall and stomped down it, intending to go into her room, throw herself on the bed, and cry her eyes out. But as she passed Ophelia’s room, her peripheral gaze landed on the plastic wrapper with the gumdrop nose.
Angel stopped. She looked at the nose. And she saw Ophelia, wearing a new pair of horse-motif pajamas, sitting in her play area happily talking to her baby dolls, which were riding on plush horses.
Angel couldn’t help herself. If she was going to have a treasure taken from her, the treasure of going after her dream, of being able to live her life the way she wanted to live it, Ophelia had to lose a treasure, too. Fair was fair.
Angel charged into Ophelia’s room.
“Wanna play horsey rides?” Ophelia asked.
Angel ignored her. She strode to Ophelia’s nightstand and snatched up the wrapped gumdrop nose.
“Hey,” Ophelia said. “That’s mine!”
Ophelia started to scramble to her feet, but she tripped over her big plush horse-head slippers. She landed on her hands and knees and started crying.
“Yeah? Well, it’s mine now.” Angel unwrapped the nose and popped it into her mouth.
“No!” Ophelia screamed. She thrashed out of her slippers, stood, and ran toward Angel. “Stop!” she yelled.
It was too late.
“Mm, good,” Angel said, chewing dramatically.
Actually, it wasn’t good at all. It tasted horrible. Like sugar and … she didn’t know what. It was just a sugary yuck. But she chewed and swallowed it anyway.
Ophelia squawked like a bird and then began howling like a deranged wolf. Angel could hear her mother and Myron thundering up the stairs. She shot an imaginary gun at Ophelia, and said, “Catch you later, kid.”
Then she darted to her room just as Myron got to the top of the stairs. Ophelia continued to howl, and Angel didn’t care at all.
She went into her room and shut and locked the door. For good measure, because she could hear Myron’s raised voice and heavy steps in the hall, she put her desk chair under the knob.
She worked her tongue around inside her mouth trying to get rid of the disgusting taste of the gumdrop nose. But even as she did, she felt a nauseating sense of self-satisfaction. It felt distressingly good to make Ophelia feel bad. For once, Angel was able to take something from Ophelia instead of the other way around.
It made her feel small and ashamed that she was so triumphant.
See? There. Ophelia had just stolen something else: Angel’s self-respect.
Myron pounded on her door and shouted something unintelligible. She tensed.
Myron had never hit her or anything … he’d only used his words to berate her. But she didn’t know what Myron would do to her for eating Ophelia’s precious nose. She giggled. That sounded funny.
The roaring outside her door wasn’t funny, though. She stopped giggling. She backed up and sat on her bed.
Not for the first time, she wished she had a phone in her room. She wanted to call Dominic. Or her friends. Or the police. Someone had to be on her side.
“Get out here, young lady,” Myron yelled outside her door. “You’ve gone too far this time!”
She didn’t respond to him. She just sat on her bed, hugged her knees to her chest, and rocked herself.
When Myron kept shouting and pounding on her door, she turned off her lights and put on her headphones. She closed her eyes and began singing along with her favorite song. Singing would make her feel better.
* * *
Angel woke up abruptly. Where was she?
She rubbed her eyes and tried to orient herself. The last she remembered, she was listening to music and singing. She looked around the room. It was dark.
She flipped on the lamp on her nightstand and looked at her clock. It was just past 11:00 p.m. She took off her headphones and listened. The house was silent except for the intermittent ticks and groans—the usual sounds.
Angel’s neck itched. She scratched at it. Her jaw itched, and she scratched at that as well. When the itching started up on her chest, she got up and went to her dresser so she could look in the mirror. Had she gotten bitten by some insect at the horse farm?
Angel looked at her reflection. She sucked in her breath.
Even in the soft light from her nightstand, Angel could see the skin of her jaw, neck, and upper chest were mottled bright red and unnaturally pale white; the skin was all puffy and angry-looking. It looked like a rash, but not like a rash she’d ever seen before.
Angel touched her inflamed skin. It felt weird, like it had a squishy texture.
She stared at herself in horror. Oh, this was so not good. Not good at all.
Angel didn’t like to think of herself as super wrapped up in how she looked, because that was something she hated about her mother, but she had to admit, she tended to take her looks for granted. She was pretty, and she knew it. She didn’t use her looks to gain an unfair advantage or anything. She didn’t let her looks turn her into an idiot, either. Boys at school asked her out all the time, but she usually said no. She’d only dated a couple guys, and she’d found them to be immature and grabby. She’d never let anything progress pass a few dates. She’d never had a boyfriend, either. Dominic was the first boy she’d considered to be boyfriend material.
But Angel’s looks were an integral part of her plan to be a successful actress, singer, and dancer. She was going into an industry that valued looks almost even above talent. Getting some kind of weird skin condition a month before an acting workshop was the exact opposite of what she needed.
She stared at the blotchy mass of bright red nodules on her skin, and as she watched, the redness spread. It was spreading fast. She could actually see it creeping up from her jawline to the lower part of her cheek.
Maybe it was some sort of rash from the horses at the stable? She had been feeling a little congested at the barn. Ophelia and her horrible father had taken everything from her—it only made sense that they’d be responsible for taking her health, too.
“Oh, stop, please stop,” Angel pleaded as she watched the ugliness fan outward from her jaw and creep up her lovely smooth cheeks.
What could she do?
Angel went to her door, listened, heard nothing, and carefully opened the door. As soon as the door was open, she could hear Myron’s reverberant snores coming through the double doors to the master suite. The louder blasts nearly vibrated the whole house. How did her mother sleep next to that man?
With earplugs, that was how. Her mom bought the best earplugs money could buy.
Ophelia was snoring, too. Her snores were like mini versions of her dad’s.
Angel tiptoed down the hall, went into the bathroom, shut the door as quietly as she could, and then turned on the bathroom light. Ugly gold wall sconces—way too formal for a suburban house—flanked an equally ornate, framed mirror. She again faced her reflection.
She almost screamed but clapped a hand over her mouth and whimpered instead.
In just the few minutes it had taken her to get from her room to the bathroom, the rash had spread farther up her cheeks and down her chest.
Angel turned on the water and grabbed for soap. Maybe if it was a rash, if she cleaned the rest of the dust and dander from her skin, it would stop any further advancement.
She started to soap up a washcloth, then she looked at her hair. Dominic had cleaned her hair, and her skin for that matter. What had been in that plastic bottle? It had been more than water … It had a floral smell. What if the solution in that bottle was toxic? It was from Freddy’s. It wouldn’t have surprised Angel at all if something was wrong with it. She needed to take a shower.
Turning off the faucet, Angel turned around to turn on the shower, and she stripped out of her clothes. She hoped everyone was sleeping deeply enough not to hear the shower. She was pretty sure they were. Even if they weren’t, it didn’t matter. She had to get off whatever crud she’d picked up at Freddy’s.
Angel got in the marble shower and let hot water sluice over her. She reached for the shampoo and poured more over her head than she’d ever used in her life. She proceeded to scrub herself harder than she ever had. She scrubbed so hard, it hurt. And she scrubbed so hard, her skin bled. When she saw a trickle of red going down the drain, she realized she’d gone too far. She rinsed thoroughly and toweled off. She wrapped herself in another dry towel.
