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I scoffed. “Not to mention the car.” No matter how much I wanted eyes on that hog, I was relieved that he slowed his roll. I needed the freedom his car symbolized.
As Celt pulled into the gravel driveway of my house, I thumped my fingers a little louder. A little faster. The house looked quiet, but it always looked like that from the outside. A false fucking facade masking all the shit with Daddy that went down inside.
On the outskirts of Park Ridge, the ranch-style house, a lump of wood and gross pinkish stucco, sat in the solitude of nature. Inside the house was anything but.
Celt parked twenty feet outside the door like he was about to make a quick getaway. I couldn’t blame him. He left the car running and music pumping from the speakers. “You could come to the shop with me. I’m sure Bou wouldn’t mind catching up.”
I searched the windows at the front of the house, each shrouded in white curtains. Nothing moved, but Daddy’s beat-up, shitty, and rusty truck sat before the front door, the driver’s door cracked open and the windows down.
Fuck.
Daddy was home, but the house was quiet. So he probably wasn’t too jacked up. This early, no way he’d be high yet.
“Nah, all good. See you later.” I closed the door in Celt’s face.
While Celt’s home life was better than mine—anyone’s would be better than mine—I didn’t need to bring my shit into the Murrays’ lives. Celt had enough crap to deal with just trying to pass English inschool.
No, this was my problem. I didn’t look back as I climbed the steps, entered, and closed the front door behind me.
The scent ofburning engulfed me. Not a yummy burned popcorn or toast smell, but the rancid scent of meth. Odorless, my ass.
I dragged my heels back. Maybe Celt was still out there, and I could hide out for a while, waiting for Daddy to sober up yet again, but then I heardwhack!followed by a scream. Caring more about Mom’s safety than my own, I ran before I thought better of it, stumbling into the kitchen. My sneakers squeaked against the linoleum floor. Daddy threw his fist down on my cowering mother. Blood crawled across the floor and splattered all over the cabinets and table. Steam rose from the pot she had been using on the stove.
Mama lay in a heap, her normal whimpers silent.
Fuck, was she even conscious? Alive? Did the bastard finally kill her and just continue to beat her like she was a piece of meat?
“You finally home, boy?” Slowly, Daddy turned to me, wobbling on his feet. Mother’s blood dotted his face like freckles, and a line of it dripped from his chin. He wore a snaggletoothed smile, the teeth yellow and dangling from gray gums. The slow, disgusting, and shitfaced smile matched the glassy look in his eye.
So fucking high.
Did he even know I was standing in front of him? If I didn’t move, maybe Daddy would think I was a hallucination. I held myself still like a deer caught in the headlights until Mom whimpered.
Fuck, she was still alive. Couldn’t she just die and save herself?
She’d always refused to leave him, and for years, I’d feared when her last day might come.
Daddy looked back at her. His grin pulled a little higher.
“Stop,” I said. “Don’t.”
Daddy eyed me again, registering that I was no hallucination. Mom couldn’t fight back any longer, and Daddy wanted blood. I was the next best thing.
“Shit!” I turned on my heel and sprinted as Daddy scrambled after me. The pots and the pans clattered, and Daddy stomped like afucking bull. Each step rattled the thin and crumbling walls.
I ran out the door. Celt’s car was gone, but it was fine. I didn’t want my best friend to see what would happen next. I took off toward the old toolshed, Daddy hollering after me.
“Come here, boy!” His voice echoed inside the house. “You know it’s gonna be worse if you run, Morris! I’ll find you, you bastard!”
I hated hearing him call my name, so I threw myself into the toolshed, searching the racks and the shovels. Those would be good to bury him, but they couldn’t serve as a weapon. I rifled through another shelf. Gardens shears, pliers, wrench, clamps—everything I could use to cut up the dead motherfucker and scatter the parts for the coyotes, but nothing that would kill him quickly.
Then I slowed and turned.
Above the door, the rifle taunted me.
Outside, he gave up on following me, waving his thick hand toward the shed. Watching him stumble back toward the house snapped my last shred of patience.
I grabbed the rifle.
