Hallows: Black Death

My Father is A Hypocrite

System of A Down-Aerials

B.B.:

I drop the two composition books on the desk between my dad and me. He's always eating. I don't remember him being a foodie but my guess is he misses it when he's in his personal hell. He looks up at me as he scoops a fork full of chocolate cake into his mouth and smiles as he chews.

"What are these, your cute poems of dying?" he asks.

"Umm, what?" Lucien sits up excitedly. Carson rolls his eyes but he looks just as interested. I actually don't have one of those. I use my notebooks for more productive s**t. Like my weed log and poisons log.

"Better, they're Delilah's," I sit down.

"Oh," he brushes them away, uninterested. Lucien also loses interest.

"Oh?" I sneer at my father.

"I'm not happy with your sister right now," he shakes his head. "She royally f****d up. Not just with you but everyone and then she opted out,"

"That's a little hypocritical of you, don't you think?" I ask, scratching my nose. The f*****g audacity of this man.

"No, I left everything the way it was meant to be left behind. She knew what she was, she had everything she needed for herself and you. I didn't leave behind any unfinished business. None. She left behind a f*****g brewing war and everyone who needed her to step up while you were awakened,"

"You don't know that she did this to herself," I sit back.

"She did this to herself, B.B.," he rolls his eyes.

"How do you know that?"

"Because she wouldn't be in purgatory if she hadn't. She'd be home. Like your mother,"

"In hell, you mean," I scoff.

"Yeah, in hell," he nods.

"When you died, did you go straight to hell?"

"When I died, I woke up right next to my body and watched your mom die inside. I can still hear her screaming when things are silent enough. So, no. I didn't. I didn't go to hell until after I spoke with you. After you were activated and fed properly. That was part of the deal,"

"What happens in purgatory?" I ask.

"You repent. Pay for the sins left behind. It's a prison for monsters like us,"

"How?"

"I don't know," he growls. "Stop asking me s**t like this, B.B. What the f**k do you want me to do with these?"

"They're coded notes," I say opening them to the first page.

"f*****g nut case," he sighs pulling them over to him. "Well, get to solving,"

"Help me,"

"No," he shakes his head. "This wasn't left behind for me,"

"She left it behind so that Tobias Blackstone could give it to me," I add. This catches his attention and he sits back looking me over.

"Really?"

His eyes slit as he glares at me. He's not looking at me the way he usually does. I'm not his favorite daughter right now. We're talking business at the moment. A sense of fulfillment floods my body and I almost smile. Is he going to treat me as an equal for now? Am I ready for that? I'm definitely excited about it.

"Yes, he's upstairs. Locked in her room and only I have the key to open it,"

"Okay," he leans forward and begins to flip through the crazy notebooks. "You still have to decode these on your own. I don't get them and you two have been passing secret notes to one another since you were five. I have a question for you,"

"I'm listening,"

"How did you two make a lab under the house without anyone noticing?" he asks. "You would have had to go through the basement and I know it wasn't there when I was alive,"

"The pool's filtration system. It runs under the house from the east wing. The year before you died, Lucy, Dilly's pet tortoise went missing and I thought she was down there. You and mom were in Toronto for Delilah's birthday so she was extra upset. I crawled over the pipes looking for her. I found Lucy, she was stuck and I found a small cave.

"I didn't start using it until she started dating Terra. She caught me sneaking out of it. She got the blueprints of the house and we figured out where we were. She had me make it accessible through here and got me everything I needed to get it set up,"

"Wait, you built all that by yourself?" he asks.

"With her help. Yeah," I nod. "I couldn't exactly hire someone to build me a secret lab. It wouldn't be a secret,"

"And she was just on board with it?" he asks.

"I mean we had just buried her girlfriend's father in an old grave. I think she was glad to have leverage over me,"

"Leverage?" he smirks.

"We did some pretty illegal s**t down there. Experiments, drugs, weapons," I whisper the last part.

"Did you say weapons?" Marco laughs and looks over at Dylan.

"Yes," I croak.

"Can I see?" Dylan smirks when I arched back to look at him over my shoulder.

"Not yet. I wasn't even ready for you guys to know about the lab. My asshole dad is well, an asshole," I turn my attention to him. He's smiling.

"It all worked out didn't it?" Dad quips playfully. He pushes the notebooks toward me. "Let's make this a challenge. You like those right?"

"Sure," I humor him.

"Do you know who Elliot Dragomir is?" he asks.

"Ooo," Natalie jumps up. "He's that f*****g crazy science dude that killed his family six years ago and went on this crazy ass rant saying that they weren't his real family. That he had cloned them and that the clones were trying to recreate him to completely take over his fortune,"

"Yeah, I know who Elliot Dragomir is," I laugh. She pretty much covered the reason why Dragomir became famous. "He's dead,"

"Nope," my dad smirks. "He's very much alive. Finish these for me by tonight and you've got yourself a teacher when I go up in smoke again,"

"You're f*****g with me, right? You want me to make clones? For what?" I ask.

"A clone," he smirks. "Just one clone,"

"No, I don't want that. That goes into some next-level creepy s**t, dad. Not to mention that creating a clone doesn't mean we get what we lost back,"

"It's a vessel," he shakes his head. "You are what you are, B.B. That's never going to change unless you change that yourself. I'll give you the means, it's up to you to decide what it is you want to do with them," he taps the journals. "You have until midnight,"

I look down at the notebooks feeling a little overwhelmed by him. A sort of deja-vu washes over me but the last time this happened I lost my patience with him. I need to get better control of myself. I've been giving in to these urges without even thinking about what the consequences might be. Up until now, we've been pretty lucky. It's time to stop running around improvising as we go.

Okay, Delilah. You wanted me to find something, let's do this. Let's see what you left behind.