Page 250 of Lessons in Cruelty

I whip my head to the side.

Melissa. Hands on her mouth. Eyes like saucers. Why isn’t she helping me?

“Every bitch needs to know her place.”

She runs forward, but someone grabs her arms, drags her back.

“Yours is on your knees, like the trailer trash bitch you are.”

Ezra plants a foot on my ass and shoves me onto my face. There’s a rattle, a clank, and sudden pressure around my neck.

“Now eat your fucking dinner, bitch,” he grates. He puts out his foot, and there’s a metal scraping by my knees.

I look down, staring at the bowl full of wet dog food.

But I don’t smell anything. It should stink. Pet food always smells bad.

Am I dreaming?

Nightmaring?

What. Is. Happening?

“Eat it, bitch!” he yells, grabbing the back of my head and shoving me down.

And then he’s gone. And I’m tumbling onto my back. Body paint blurs. Someone grabs my arms. I hear a wet, angry thumping behind me as the DJ helps me to my feet, his eyes wide, confused.

“Go,” he says, pointing. “Just go!”

…scat, bitch…

That voice propels me more than the DJ’s command. That voice, buried so deep, so far, so way way way way back it’s dusty and dry and powdery and I don’t recognize it anymore because I haven’t heard it in so fucking long.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

My heart?

The music?

No.

I swing my head around, knowing, feeling him close.

Kai is on top of Ezra. Straddling him.

Elbow rising, falling.

Rising. Falling.

As he beats his brother’s face in.

Blood.

Fucking.