Jinx {forty} Well, I Have Some Bad News

Kate's P.O.V.
Approximately an hour later, I sat in a creepy waiting room, Billie sitting on top of me, trying to keep me from escaping. We got plenty of strange looks as I squirmed and screamed obscenities to my soon-to-be murdered husband, but I didn't care that the woman sitting next to me was covering her son's ears, or that the receptionists were whispering things about me between themselves. All I cared about was getting the fuck out of that place. I didn't want to be anywhere near there, and I especially didn't want to see a damn doctor and have him tell me something I probably didn't want to hear.
"If you thought being a cat was bad, just wait until we get home, you asshole!"
Billie groaned as I continued to fight him. "Just stop, please."
"I will as soon as you let me go," I said through gritted teeth.
Mike laughed. "Kate, you seriously need to get over this fear of hospitals. See, we're here sitting in a room full of people, and we're not dead, are we?"
"Not yet," I muttered, glaring as a little girl across the room sneezed.
"Well, Mike, this isn't all because of her problem with hospitals. She just doesn't want to find out she's preg-- ow! Mother fucker!" Billie exclaimed after I bit his shoulder.
"Armstrong?" called a way too perky nurse dressed head to toe in bright pink. She glanced around the room, and I grinned, realizing no one, except for me, had heard her. Billie and Mike were too busy discussing the possible reasons as to why I hated children to notice.
"Why do you hate kids?" Mike asked me curiously.
"I just do," I mumbled quietly.
"There has to be a reason."
"I've tried asking her, Mike. She won't say anything," Billie sighed.
"Why don't you wanna be a mommy?"
"Maybe she just doesn't know why...."
"Yeah, maybe. Oh, look, that chick's calling us."
"Oops. We're over here! Kate, it's time to go in. Hello, Kate?" I didn't even blink as Billie waved his hand in front of my face, and I barely even felt him stand up and take my hand. All I could focus on were Mike's words. They had reminded me of something from a long time ago, something that I couldn't believe I would still be able to remember. As we walked into the room, my mind drifted off to somewhere else.

And that place is where...? (Kate: right down there. *points down*)

I was in my old house-- the house I had moved out of after almost being killed by my mom's boyfriend. Henderson and I were sitting on the floor at the coffee table, in the middle of the living room. We were probably about five. I could tell because that year my hair was cut into a really short bob (I absolutely hated it) that Mom had insisted on doing so she could tell me and my sister apart. Evidently, it's extremely difficult to tell which of your twin daughters is which when you're completely drunk off your ass.
Tre, or Frank as he was called then, was across the table from us, excitedly scribbling blobs on a piece of paper with a purple crayon. We were all drawing, making pictures for Mom and Dad, and trying our best to be quiet while they fought in the kitchen.
I watched Henderson draw a bow on the top of her self-portrait's head, wondering if I could draw one as I finished coloring the last petal on my flower.
Tre grinned as he held up his paper, showing us the messy, purple swirls. "Looky what I made!"
"What is it?" the two of us asked in unison as we stared at his masterpiece with raised eyebrows.
"A doggy!!" he squealed. Henderson and I glanced at each other and shrugged, shaking our heads slightly as we returned to our papers.
"Frank, shut up! Play quietly, or I'm taking that shit away from the three of you!" our mom yelled, and Tre quickly sat back down, hugging his paper and crayon protectively.
Henderson glared at him. "You better be quiet, 'cause I'll hurt you if you make Mommy get rid of our stuff again." Tre gulped and nodded, continuing to perfect his drawing.
"I'm not going to take much more of this, Frank! How many times are they going to get sent home from school because Henderson keeps taking things from her classmates with her mind-- or when Kate's pencil is writing by itself?! The teachers are getting suspicious. Pretty soon we''ll run out of excuses, and they're going to wanna know what's going on!"
"But binding their powers isn't going to do any good! They don't need them taken away! They just need to be taught how to use them!"
"And who's going to do that?! Are you going to teach them before or after you're out fucking one of your whores?! Because I'm not going to!"
The three of us winced as their yelling got louder. Tre whimpered, and Henderson threw him another threatening glare. I grabbed my doll (her name was Rosie, if you were curious) off the floor, clutching onto her as Tre continued to make noises; I knew he was going to keep doing it, and Mom always ended up taking our toys away because of it.
"We both know this has nothing to do with them using their powers in public, Cheryl. You're just mad that they got them from me!"
"Fuck you!" Soon after that, Dad stormed out of the house with a suitcase. We sat in silence for a long time, the three of us terrified that Mom would yell if we breathed too loud.
"Can I have a pink one?" Tre asked suddenly, his four-year-old mind already forgetting the reason why we were being quiet. Henderson smirked (her memory not being much better, evidently) and grabbed the pink crayon out of the box, holding it high enough to where Tre couldn't reach it. As he continued to grab for it, they both stood up, Henderson teasing him as she dangled it over his head. "Henderson!! Gimme!! Gimme the crayon!!"
She quickly dropped the crayon and sat back down after we heard Mom stand up from her seat in the kitchen. Tre, still oblivious to what he had done, happily grabbed his pink crayon from the floor and, after deciding his paper didn't have anymore room, he started coloring on the coffee table.
"Frank Edwin Wright III!!" Mom screamed after walking into the living room. She grabbed him and spanked him as Henderson and me watched, wide-eyed, and dreading what she was going to do next. Once she was finished with him, she turned to us and grabbed Henderson's picture, ripping it down the middle as Henderson gaped at her. When it finally came down to me, I closed my eyes and braced myself for whatever she was going to do. I pretty well knew she was going to take Rosie, but sometimes she surprised me by doing something I wasn't expecting.
This time wasn't like that, though. I tightened my grip on the doll as she tried to rip her out of my hands. I had always been extremely stubborn.
"No, Mommy! Don't take her! I didn't do anything!" I begged as I struggled to keep control. "You can't take her! I'm her mommy! She needs her mommy!"
She let go after that and stared at me with a cruel smile. "You don't want to be a mommy. If you're a mommy, the daddy leaves you to go screw his secretaries, and then you're left to take care of the annoying brats! The daddy won't like you anymore! If you're a mommy, you'll end up like me!" she shouted, taking the doll, that I had suddenly let go of, and throwing it across the room. She smirked, satisfied like she always was after she tortured us, and left the room to get drunk.
A few minutes later, after we had made sure Mom wasn't going to be coming back for round two, Tre wiped his eyes, sniffling as he got up to retrieve my doll. "Here, Kate," he said, setting Rosie in my lap. I glared at her and angrily threw her back to where my mom had thrown her.
"I don't like her anymore. She's stupid."
Tre looked at me with wide, disbelieving eyes. "Why don't you wanna be a mommy?"


You're messed up in the head. (Kate: Why thank you!)
I blinked back tears as I looked over at Billie. He was standing next me as I sat in an examination room. How did I get in here? I wondered as I searched for a clock, thinking that it might tell me how long I had been sitting there and how much I had missed.
"How'd we get in here?" I asked him, confused after my clock theory failed. I didn't know what time it had been when we had gotten to the hospital, so there was no point in knowing what time it was then.
He stopped reading the chart on the wall and turned to me, crossing his arms. "Oh, so now you decide to talk."
"Hm?"
He rolled his eyes. "During the entire time the doctor was in the room, you spaced out. I thought you'd at least want to know what was wrong with you, but no, you had to ignore him."
"The doctor was already in here?" I asked, wide-eyed.
"Duh! What is wrong with you?!" He stared at me like I had just told him I was the Pope. "How could you not remember that?!"
"I... I had something else on my mind," I mumbled as the door opened. An old man in a doctor's coat, who looked like he was about to die any minute, walked in, his face buried deep in the chart as he tried to read it.
I bit my lip as he looked up at us; his face seemed to show that he didn't want to tell me what he was about to say. "Well, Mrs. Armstrong, it appears that you're not pregnant."
Ladies and gentlemen, cue the world's loudest sigh of relief ever.
o.o (Henderson: Kate, you are so disturbed...)
Thirty minutes later, we were pulling into the driveway, and I was still grinning. Mike hadn't even parked the car, and I was already jumping out of it and running towards the house. I couldn't wait to tell Henderson and Tre my news, which in my opinion was the greatest news in the universe. Billie didn't seem to agree, though. He had been pretty quiet after the doctor had told us I wasn't pregnant, and he hadn't said anything on the ride home. But I had hardly noticed, since I was busy gushing about how happy I was to Mike as he drove.
Apparently, my symptoms were all caused by stress, not pregnancy like some people thought. I had laughed when the doctor had asked if I had anything to be stressed about. What didn't I have to stress about? And after he had suggested I take a vacation or something to relax, I was dragging Billie and Mike out of that fucking place.
I quickly opened the front door and ran up the stairs. "Henderson! Tre! Guess what!!" I searched Henderson and Mike's room first, and then moved on to the other rooms, finding neither of my siblings upstairs. I ran back down the stairs and into the kitchen to find Tre staring blankly at the wall in front of him as he sat at the table. His face was pale, and I'd never seen him so wide-eyed as he was then. "Hey, what's wrong?"
"Well, I have some bad news, and I have some more bad news," he said, not moving his eyes from the wall as he spoke.

I sat down next to him and braced myself for what he was going to say. "Okay, tell me."
"Henderson left. I don't know why, or where, but she's gone. I tried to stop her...."
"What?" After hearing Billie's shocked voice, I turned my head towards the door. Billie and Mike were both standing in the doorway now, and when I looked at Mike, it broke my heart to see the pain and worry in his eyes. He immediately turned around and ran out of the room. I heard him run up the stairs, and then I turned back to Tre.
"What do you mean, she left?" I asked Tre, not understanding what he meant.
"She's gone, Kate. Gone...," he whispered. Mike returned a few moments later, a paper in one hand, a ring in the other, his face noticeably paler.
"Oh my god...," he whispered, dropping the paper. "No... she didn't...."
Billie quickly snatched it off the floor and started reading it. Mike's knuckles turned white from the tight grip on the ring in his hand, and he sat down next to me, trying to calm his breathing.
I stared at the floor, confused still. There was no way Henderson was gone. She couldn't be. She just couldn't. There was no reason for her to be. This was just some sick joke.... Why would she leave us? She wouldn't.... At least I didn't think she would....
"I'm afraid she did... and she left in... Jimmy's car," Tre added, and my eyes widened. Now that he was involved it made a little more sense. Not much, though. Why would she leave with Jimmy? Maybe it wasn't willingly....
"I'm gonna kill that son of a bitch," Mike snarled.
"You guys wanna hear something funny?" Tre asked suddenly, his tone clearly showing that what he was about to say wasn't in the least bit funny. "I finally found Jessica's last name. Never would have guessed it in a million years, though."
"What is it?" Billie asked cautiously, being the only one of us able to speak at the moment.
Tre smiled sadly and looked up at us. "Cade."
I had never been prone to passing out, but this moment seemed to be a good time to start.
And right before losing consciousness, I came to a wonderful conclusion...
We were doomed to be miserable forever....
We were... jinxed.
And sadly, our problems had only begun....
That doesn't sound good... (Kate: That's 'cause it's not good! *grins*)... great. (Henderson: I know! Isn't it wonderful?!)
Sooo... that was the ending to Jinx. Well, it wasn't really an ending. More like a stopping point, so we can start the sequel, which will be out soon. Hopefully....