Unqualified Mother

Chapter 1

My stepdad’s kid was just born bad, and he killed my little sister while I was out.

Two days later, the cops found Lily’s body in a drainpipe in this soon-to-be-demolished complex.

The coroner said the wounds showed she was tortured for six hours before she died.

My mom says Brad, my stepdad’s son, is just a minor, and I need to forgive him and not hold a grudge.

Then she turns around and gives my stepdad three grand, telling him to buy Brad some supplements so he can grow tall and strong.

Later, Brad disappears, and my mom’s strangling me, saying it’s my fault.

There wasn’t any proof I did it, but my mom’s convinced I’m the culprit:

“Your father only had Brad! If something happened to him, your dad would be the saddest man alive! We can’t do this to him! Swear on your dead sister you won’t let anything happen to Brad!”

I give her a sweet smile:

“Don’t worry, Mom. Brad will be fine.

1.

Brad was the person I hated most in the world.

He’s my stepdad’s son, a real rotten kid.

The first day my mom married my stepdad, Brad sneaked into me and Lily’s room and slashed Lily’s face with an X-Acto knife.

Lily screamed and cried, and I tried to shield her.

When my mom and stepdad heard the noise and barged in, Brad dropped the evil look in his eyes, and put on this innocent face.

“I’m sorry, Jess and Lily.

“I was just playing a game, but Lily was too slow.

“I didn’t mean to, I’m just a kid, you guys aren’t going to get mad at a little kid, are you?”

So being a kid means you can try to scar my sister for life?

He did it on purpose, no doubt about it.

And the way he acted, he probably pulls this crap all the time.

I grit my teeth and look at my mom.

She was actively avoiding my eyes, not even glancing at Lily’s bleeding face, and smiles.

“Brad’s just a little kid, he was just playing around, he didn’t know that could hurt someone.

“Lily, you too, why didn’t you dodge when your brother played with you? Why are you so dumb?”

Lily looked at my mom in shock.

Neither of us could believe that she was just writing it off as “playing around,” glossing over everything, and blaming Lily instead.

“Aw, Brad’s the smartest, he didn’t know that would hurt.

“He’s seen too much TV, that’s where he gets it.

“It’s nothing, let’s not make a big deal out of it.”

My stepdad gives Brad a loving pat on the head, trying to smooth things over, but doesn’t take the dangerous knife away from him.

“Yeah, yeah.”

My mom stands behind my stepdad and Brad, all understanding.

Like they’re the real family.

I didn’t know then that this was the start of a real nightmare.

After Lily disappeared, I found her diary under her bed, I learned that Brad wanted to play were all deadly.

And my mom, trying to suck up to my stepdad, and indifferent to Lily and me, made it all worse.

2.

“Brad put broken glass in my dumplings, Mom saw it, but she still watched me eat it, the glass went down my throat and hurt so much, Jess, I peed myself, and there was blood in my tears.”

“Brad let rats bite me when I was sleeping, my whole finger turned black and was rotting. Mom said I stole chocolate from the kitchen, that’s why the rats bit me, my stepdad was laughing the whole time, Jess, I haven’t slept in 4 days, I’m so scared.”

“Brad deliberately pulled the chair back and crushed my toes when I walked past him, he sat on the chair and crushed my feet and toes until they were bloody. I screamed and screamed, the neighbor lady called the cops, but Mom slapped me…”

“Brad and my stepdad both saw me when I was taking a shower.”

“Mom’s changed, I wish this awful mom would just disappear.”

“…”

After Lily went missing, I came home from school and found Lily’s hidden diary under her bed.

The diary covered what happened in the last month or two.

I bought Lily the notebook last summer, and now half the pages are ripped out.

Lily must have written down all the times Brad hurt her, and they found it and tore it up.

There was dust and dried blood on the notebook.

I think Lily managed to hide it, hoping to show it to me, but she never got the chance.

I grabbed the book and kicked Brad’s door open.

“Tell me! Where’d you hide my sister?!”

Brad was pissed that I woke him up.

When he saw how furious I was, he clapped and laughed, with a real evil look in his eyes.

“How would I know where she is? She’s not my girlfriend.

“Or, you think she’s trying to hit on me?

“If you hit on a minor, you’ll go to jail.”

I saw red and kicked Brad right in the chest.

He cried, and when he saw the diary on his face, he tore out the page that had him and my stepdad spying on Lily in the shower, and threw the rest back at me.

“Haha, so you know the games me and Lily play, huh?

“But, I’m not even 12 yet, so even if I killed her, I wouldn’t go to jail.

“You know how pretty she looked when she cried?”

I grabbed Brad’s shirt and slapped him across the face over and over again:

“Give me my sister, or I’ll kill you!”

My mom and stepdad heard us and ran out of the master bedroom.

They each grabbed a vase and smashed me over the head, knocking me out.

“Brad, honey, are you okay?”

The last thing I heard before I passed out was my mom’s scared voice.

Not for her daughter.

3.

Before I could get any answers, they found Lily.

The cops found Lily’s body in a drainpipe in a complex that was about to be torn down.

Lily was curled up, her fingers were dug in hard, her face was twisted up, and her whole body was covered in dried blood.

Anyone could see she’d been tortured something awful.

I rushed forward, trying to get a look at Lily, but the cops stopped me.

A cop I didn’t know pulled Lily out, half-naked, tied her up with a rope, and pulled her out of the pipe.

That’s when I saw her skin was covered in tiny cuts, not even half an inch deep, from her fingers to her wrists to her arms, from her toes to her ankles to her thighs, from her stomach to her chest to her neck, even her head…

The marks were dark, and the skin around them was pale, there must have been hundreds of them.

When the coroner did the autopsy, they found a beer bottle stuck inside her.

It ripped everything up.

After the interrogation, they quickly figured out who did it, Brad.

Brad used a video he secretly took of Lily in the shower to lure her to the empty complex.

He hid and waited for her, then knocked her out when she got there.

He drugged her with some tranquilizers he stole, then started hurting her.

The first cut was on the scar on her face, and Lily woke up right away.

But her hands were tied, and her legs were pinned under a big stone, so she couldn’t run.

The drugs made every cut feel ten times worse.

My sister died screaming.

Then they threw her in the drainpipe.

But after the interrogation, they let Brad go.

A bunch of cops gave Brad a warning, and gave my stepdad and my mom a lecture, and then one of them drove them home.

“Wasn’t my sister’s death awful enough?”

I said, my voice shaking, watching them walk away.

“Yeah, but the killer’s a minor. Underage devils are the scariest devils in the world.”

The cleaning lady at the police station patted me on the shoulder.

Her eyes told me there was nothing anyone could do.

I went home, numb, and the house was cozy, Lily’s stuff was thrown in the trash can in the living room.

Brad was playing video games, my stepdad was yelling at Lily, and my mom was complaining about how she was getting harder to deal with the older she got, and how she deserved to die.

“I want your life!”

I lost it and picked up a chair and tried to smash it over Brad’s head!

My mom screamed and stopped me: “Jess! Are you crazy! When will you stop!”

I screamed, “He killed Lily, he has to die! A life for a life, that’s the only fair thing!”

Brad was finally scared, and showed the fear a normal kid would have.

While my mom was stopping me, my stepdad kicked me and pinned me down, not letting me hurt Brad.

“Lily was no angel!

“She was hitting on me at a young age, she deserved to die!

“If you hurt my son, you’ll have it worse than Lily did!”

I couldn’t move, my muscles were aching.

My mom wiped away her tears and went to the bedroom and got out a familiar-looking box, and took out three grand.

“Don’t be mad, this is all Jess and Lily’s fault. I’ll make it up to you, this money’s for Brad to get some supplements.”

“Mom! Brad killed Lily! And my stepdad was spying on Lily in the shower, he’s not a good person! Why are you using Dad’s death money to suck up to them!”

“Jess, calm down, Lily’s dead and can’t be brought back. And it takes two to tango, if Lily listened, she wouldn’t be dead, and your stepdad wouldn’t be mad at me, would he?”

Brad grinned, stuck out his tongue, and chimed in:

“Yeah! It takes two to tango, Lily’s the one who was being a slut, she deserved to die!”

Blood rushed up my throat, and I spat it out and passed out.

4.

When I woke up, I was lying on the cold floor, and they went out for hot pot.

The loving pictures on social media didn’t hurt any worse.

I stared at my mom’s profile picture, full of fortune, and finally understood.

My dad died early, and she raised me and Lily on her own for eight years, and it broke her back.

When Lily was scarred, my mom protected Brad, but that didn’t make me and Lily forget all she’d done for us.

But then Lily went missing and she didn’t call the cops, then I found Lily’s diary and saw my mom side with her new family every time they hurt Lily, and then Lily died and my mom didn’t care at all…

I don’t feel bad anymore.

Anyone who hurt Lily, or betrayed her, needs to die.

I went to the doctor and got some meds, and went to the hardware store to get some rope and a hammer.

I had a lot on my mind, so I made sure to take a route where there weren’t any cameras.

I hadn’t gone far when a stranger stopped me: