CHAPTER 34
A GOOD PATIENT

DAYS PASSED. Sloane wasn't sure how many at this point. It was maybe the second or third week of January, which meant her birthday had come and passed without her realizing it. Happy 27th to me, she mused to herself.

When she finally got a moment out of her medicinal haze – which meant there was more to come soon – Sloane decided that she needed to call Bobby to tell him what was happening. He would know what to do. The call would be fast. She wouldn't get overtired. And then, Bobby could get her out of this – whatever this was.

She wondered if it was even worth it to call the police. But a call with them would last twenty minutes that she didn't have. She was lucky she had this second to herself, without her mother hovering. Not to mention, she had hardly any evidence to warrant an inspection, besides two sick kids.

Bobby would help her. Bobby would know what to do.

Turning on her side, Sloane slowly reached out to grab her phone on the bedside table. Her hand began shaking as it left the warm confines of her comforter. Suddenly, it felt like the mere act of reaching was too much effort. She strained herself, scooting her entire body to the left side of the bed. With cold fingers, her hand latched onto the side of the phone and she pulled it to her chest.

Sloane released a breath of relief and turned on the phone. She hadn't used it in days now, and somehow, the battery had drained to 20%. Stupid, old, iPhone models. But there was enough juice to call Bobby. Scrolling through her contacts list, she found her boss' number. Her finger hovered over the call button –

The door to her bedroom swung open.

"What are you doing?" Sabrina asked, a hint of malice in her tone.

Sloane stammered, "Oh, I –"

"You know that you should be resting, honey." Sabrina placed her favorite metal tray on Sloane's drawer before walking over and plucking the phone from her daughter's hands. She slipped it into the pocket of her dress pants. "I'll take that until your better again."

"But Mom –" She struggled to come up with a suitable excuse, her eyes already growing tired. "My boss – my article –"

"You can worry about your article later," Sabrina advised, grabbing a metal pill bottle from her tray. She shook it and dispersed a few pills onto her palm. "I think these might help with your nausea. Your body has always been so odd with medicine."

Sabrina hovered by the side of her bed, presenting two white, oval-shaped tablets in her hand. Sloane looked up at her with worry. "Don't be finicky, Sloane," her mother warned.

Slowly, Sloane opened her mouth. Her mother dumped the pills in and she swallowed them down with a sip of water.

"Now," Sabrina sighed, tucking her daughter back in, "rest up, sweetie. I'll keep this –" She patted her pocket, where Sloane's phone now sat. "– In a safe place."

Sloane tried to do what her mother asked. Her body was just so restless from stress. She wondered what Peter was thinking, where Bobby was, if her cat was okay. But then the fever took over, and even more nausea. Soon enough, she could hardly stand without feeling tired. Suddenly, all those things she was stressed about just didn't seem important anymore.

━━━━━━

A knock sounded on her door. Sloane had been battling a fever for what seemed like days, but it could've been just yesterday when it started. She was getting her dates mixed up, and it especially didn't help that she didn't have her phone. The only times she got up was to vomit, which was happening more than usual. She hardly had the strength to murmur, "Come in."

Her mother walked in, wearing a fancy dress suit by Calvin Klein. The shimmering black fabric matched her new YSL bag, which was slung across her shoulder. She knelt beside her daughter's bed. "How are you feeling, sweetie?"

Sloane blinked, trying to get her eyes to adjust. Her vision was a blurry mess. "Uh ..."

"– Because Frank wants me to go with him to the corporate office for some company party. Said they reached a huge milestone. But I told him I wouldn't go unless you and Everett were feeling better. I just talked to Everett: he said he's feeling a lot better."

That had to be a lie. Sabrina had fed Everett some medicine last night and Sloane woke up to him barfing his brains out. Why would he lie? Unless –

Unless he wanted Sabrina and Frank gone so they could investigate the penthouse.

Sloane sat up, wiping the sweat off her forehead. Just the mere action had her feeling dizzy. Sabrina was startled by the sudden movement.

"Definitely – um ..." She forced a smile to her lips, trying to stay calm. "Definitely better. You should go with Frank. Everett and I will be fine for a few hours."

"You sure?"

Sloane nodded quickly. "Absolutely."

Her mother squeezed her hand. "Okay, sweetie. I'll be back later."

Her bedroom door shut with a soft click. Minutes later, she heard the elevator in the foyer ding before the doors closed.

They were finally gone.

Sloane groaned as she attempted to swing her legs over the edge of the mattress. Her head was spinning, her vision going in different directions. She got one leg over and her head hit the pillow again. Her eyes stung, but she couldn't start crying now. She needed to get up. She was just so lightheaded.

With a deep breath, Sloane swung her other leg over, placing the pads of her feet on the cold floor. She stood, but her legs immediately gave out on her. Grasping the lip of her bedside table, she was able to pull herself up and open the door. The only way she was going to be able to walk was by holding the wall.

Almost instantly, she felt the urge to vomit.

Sloane had to practically drag herself to the closest bathroom. She didn't even close the door behind her, just ran to the toilet and began hurling. It was acid in her mouth, spewing from her sensitive stomach into the porcelain lid, burning on the way up. Sloane didn't know how a person who'd been consuming such small meals could puke so much. She wondered if she still looked the same. Getting to her feet, she grabbed a glass from the corner of the sink and filled it with tap water. She drank it whole, and then looked into the toilet.

There was a trickle of blood in her vomit.

She flushed it immediately, not wanting to look at it for more than a second. They needed to find out what was in her mother's medicine and fast.

Staggering to Everett's room, she opened his cracked door and leaned against the frame. His TV was blasting a Seinfeld rerun, but he wasn't paying attention. He was sleeping, the comforter bunched around him so you could only see tufts of dark blonde hair. Sloane didn't have the heart to wake him. She was going to be on her own for this one.

She stumbled through the penthouse for a good thirty minutes. Sloane checked all the bathrooms, resisted the urge to throw up again, and then moved on to the kitchen cabinets. She found nothing, pilfered through her mother's vanity, and even tore through Frank's office, making sure to put things back in place after. After all that, she still came up with nothing.

Standing – actually, swaying – in the middle of the living room, one hand braced on the wall, Sloane looked around and wondered what to do. There was no evidence – at least none she could find – connecting her mother to any crime. No lists detailing all the medicine she had; no receipts of pills she'd bought. Sloane exhausted all her efforts on her own, even while drugged up on whatever poison Sabrina was favoring at the moment. Maybe it was time to –

No, she couldn't involve Peter.

Sloane eyed the sliding patio door to her left, her stare landing on the toolbox just underneath her mother's planter boxes. Now that was one place she hadn't looked. Chewing on her bottom lip, she limped towards the patio, grabbing one of Sabrina's winter coats that hung by the door. She shut it behind her, careful not to let the cold air inside. While her arms were covered, her feet were still freezing in thin socks. One of them even had a hole at the top. Sloane shivered violently and kneeled by the gardening box.

There can't be anything important in here, she thought to herself while undoing the locks.

Throwing the lid up, Sloane found the same tools she saw the last time she investigated this stupid box. Gloves, pocket snips, trowel ... a whole lot of nothing. But it was when she had each tool pulled out that she noticed something.

Her phone. Underneath all those tools, her phone lay askew with the glass cracked at the corner. Sloane picked it up like a baby, not believing she actually found it. The glass screen must've cracked while being under the weight of all these tools. That didn't mean it wouldn't work though. She pressed the power button and looked back at the toolbox.

There was a latch. Her phone had been covering a latch. She always had an inkling that the box looked deeper.

Sloane lifted up the latch, unveiling a secret compartment. Her breath hitched.

A small box and a diary sat at the bottom. Furrowing her brows, Sloane plucked the diary and began flicking through the pages. She recognized her mother's scratchy handwriting. The diary was old; her first entry dated all the way back to Sloane's high school days.

7/18/2009: Sloane's first time being cared for. I love it when she needs me. She's only fourteen, so I feel like I can still baby her. But when she saw my mother's medicine tray, she said, "Am I finally old enough?"

    11/28/2011: Had to take Sloane to the hospital for the first time. The nurses said her sickness was worrying, that it was strange no one could figure out what it was. But Dr. Sharon said I'm doing everything right. He said I'm a good mother, "a caring mother." At least he recognizes that I'm doing my best. No one really understands how much I love to care for my girl. She'll be alright in the end, especially now that this has stopped the drinking. Daddy would be proud of me. I miss him so much.

12/6/2011: I found another bottle of vodka underneath Sloane's bed. She's been going out to see her friends on nights she's feeling better. If she keeps drinking on these pills ...

12/15/2011: Maybe I should let up a bit on Sloane's care. Her grades might be slipping, and she's been having tutoring sessions with a boy on days she feels better. I'm unsure about him. He looks like he's suspicious of me. I might stop giving her medicine for a week or so. Maybe after that, when I start to care for her again, she'll need me more than ever. Just like when she was a baby!

1/21/2012: Sloane is NOT a good patient. Being sick only makes her more angry, more agitated. When will she learn to love a mother's touch? Is it just the teenage hormones, or does she have my mother's spite? I think I might hate my own daughter.

2/26/2012: I almost killed her. She had too many tranquilizers in her system. She drank a little too much vodka. And now, she's been in the hospital on a breathing tube. I've never seen her vomit so much. Her skin looks yellow. I don't want to have to bury another person. Should I start making arrangements?

3/1/2012: She's alive. I have to stop doing this, no matter how happy it makes me when she needs me. Sooner or later, she'll start to realize everything or she'll be dead. I don't want either of those. Back to the days of picking her up hungover on the side of the road.

1/5/2022: God persists and gives me miracles. My daughter and stepson need me to care for them. I couldn't be happier.

Sloane couldn't believe it. Sabrina was poisoning them; she had been poisoning Sloane since she was a teenager. That was why she had always been "sick," why she could hardly remember anything from that period of her life. This little diary held so much evidence that she almost couldn't move. She remembered that day, the day she was on that breathing tube. It was one of the scariest days of her life. If she focused, she could almost remember when it felt like when her heart faltered. At one point, she recalled seeing a light when her eyes were closed, and she saw her father reaching out a hand.

But none of it came to pass. She lived. She was here still.

And her mother almost killed her.

Setting the diary down, Sloane picked up the other item: the small, wooden box. It looked like a jewelry box, something passed down from an older generation. She flipped the lid, unprepared for what she was going to find inside.

Teeth. Some were yellow from sugar. Some still had braces attached, the colorful elastics hanging loosely off the metal. But it was still a pile of teeth. All from different people – different victims. Sloane noticed a few purple and black braces elastic in between pieces of teeth.

Jaw. Breaker.

Sloane finally released a blood-curdling scream. It was so loud that she was sure the tourists in Manhattan could hear her. The box fell from her hands, scattering teeth across the patio floor. She was crying now, not believing her eyes, screaming at the top of her lungs. Her eyes scanned the floor, looking left to right to left again. The teeth were everywhere. Some still had dried blood left on them. So had –

She couldn't help herself. Vomit erupted from her mouth and trickled down her shirt.

Sloane scooted herself away and brought her knees to her chest. Her vision was so bleary from all the tears, but they wouldn't stop. Puke coated her chin, her throat burning. Her head was spinning. Sabrina was the Jawbreaker. She couldn't see. Sabrina was the Jawbreaker. She was going to be sick again. Sabrina was the Jawbreaker. She needed to clean herself up. Sabrina was the –

Despite her better judgment, what she actually needed ... was help. She couldn't do this on her own anymore.

She dove forward and grabbed her phone. It had finally turned on, but there wasn't a lot of battery life. She was at 2%. If she called the police, it would go on forever and her low battery would cut her off at least three minutes in, before she could tell them anything. And it wasn't like her mother had a home phone she could use. She quickly looked at all her missed phone calls and quickly decided who to call.

The dial tone felt like it went on for hours. Sloane fell back onto the hardwood, allowing the cold January air to calm her aching head. Her phone sat on the floor, near her ear. The teeth were still strewn all around her. Just the slight movement made her feel like she was going to hurl again.

Finally, he answered.

"Sloane?" Peter said, and just the way he said her name made the worries go away. If she closed her eyes, she was sure she could see that pretty bright light again, beckoning her close. "What the actual fuck happened to you? You went ghost on me after that weird phone call and I've been worried sick –"

"Peter. Peter. Gimme a sec, I –" Her eyes shut, but she could still see the blinding sun behind them. "I don't have much time. My phone is on two percent. I need you to call the police."

A beat of silence passed. "What?"

"I'm still in Queens. Give them the address to the penthouse. My mother has been poisoning me and Everett with pills and other meds. She's been doing this since I was a teen. I found a whole diary detailing it. I also found a box full of teeth. I think – I know Sabrina is the Jawbreaker. You have to call the police now. She's ... she's gonna be back soon. You gotta tell them Sabrina Harper is the Jawbreaker." Sloane lifted her head and looked down at her shirt. She scooped a smidge of vomit on her finger, noticing the dark red streak of blood in it. Her head fell back onto the floor again, and she was still shivering from the cold. "I think ... I might be dying. There's blood in my puke. Tell them to hurry."

"I'm gonna call them right now," Peter promised. "Stay awake, Sloane. You gotta keep your eyes open. Please. I love you still."

Sloane pinched the bridge of her nose. "I ... I love you too –"

The line clicked off. She looked at the black screen on her phone. That was all that was left of her battery, and now she just had to trust that Peter was going to get the police here on time.

Sloane laid back, curling her arms beneath her head. She need to stay awake, but being awake meant seeing the teeth all over again. It meant vomiting again, crying more. It meant facing the card she was suddenly dealt. She didn't want it. And that light when she closed her eyes was so much more comforting.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: don't mind me.....popping back in with another chapter after taking over a month to update.......................

there is only a few chapters left!!! it both feels like yesterday and a billion years ago that I started this fic and I've enjoyed writing it so much 🫶 thank you guys for supporting this passion project!!