Chapter 10 #2
“I warned you not to touch!” Shaw’s raspy voice broke on every other word, and his blue eyes filled with tears as he held my father down.
Keith’s eyes had widened in fear at the sight of the weapon, and he was practically clawing at Shaw’s chest, his face almost blue now.
Shaw, however, was trembling from head to foot, tears now streaming down his face.
I jumped up and grabbed his arm from behind, fighting him from committing a mistake he could never come back from.
“ No touching! Never fucking touch again!” Shaw was raving over and over as he fought to free his arm from me.
“No choking!” He cried. “No stroking! Never again! Never again, you son of a bitch!”
“Shaw, snap out of it!” I shouted desperately, wrenching his arm. Fuck, he was insanely strong for someone who wasn’t rippling with muscle.
“What did I tell you!” he screamed, his voice cracking.
Hearing him shout like this snapped me back to the cafeteria and to the mystery person who had been calling my name.
It had been Shaw. Whispering, quiet Shaw.
I came back to it and pulled at his fingers, trying to loosen the knife from his hold as he wailed.
He released Keith’s throat, only to reach up and seize a fistful of his greying reddish-brown hair.
With a sharp thrust, he smashed Keith’s head back into the floor.
“I told you that you could no longer do this!” Shaw sobbed, bashing his head back.
“No more. I don’t like it. I don’t like it!
” Smash! “Why did you do this to me?” Smash!
“I’m your son!” Smash! “You were supposed to protect me!” He shook his arm, trying to free his hand.
When he couldn’t, he dragged it forward and me with it, shocking me at his strength.
The tip of the blade touched my father’s side, causing his body to flinch away sharply.
“SHAW!” I screamed.
Beneath me, his entire body trembled violently, head dropping.
He still held the blade to Keith’s side, still held him by his hair, but he was no longer raving.
Beneath his bowed head, from under the hood, I could hear his ragged breathing, the small sniffles he made as he came out of one of the many memories that haunted him.
Carefully, I pulled the blade free and flung it aside.
Slowly, I reached out and touched the side of his face, turning him toward me.
He fought it, but I didn’t let him hide away.
I grasped both sides of his face, cupping it, and forced him to look at me.
His eyes were down, avoiding my stare, but I saw the trail of tears on his cheeks, and with my thumbs, I gently wiped them away and whispered, “Shaw?” When he didn’t move or look at me, I gave him a small, little shake. “Shaw! Look. At. Me!”
Gradually, his beautiful blue eyes looked up, straight into mine, and he trembled.
I could see the pain left behind by his piece of shit father.
I could see the scars in his mind and the ghostly memories that terrorized him.
I offered him the smallest of smiles and said in a hushed tone, “I’m here now, okay? ”
At my words, his face crumpled and his eyes closed.
He shuddered violently and finally released Keith, letting him fall to the floor, and he reached up to hold me instead.
He clung to me desperately, and his sobs were muffled as he buried his face into my collarbone.
I shushed and embraced him tight as I told him over and over, “That monster can’t touch you now.
He’s gone. He’ll never touch you again. I promise. ”
We only held each other for about a minute before Keith stirred, coughing, choking, and spitting as he tried to roll on to his side.
I straightened up and grasped Shaw’s knife that I’d tossed aside and, after a brief pause, handed it to him.
Shaw immediately took it back, sliding it into its sheath that was strapped beneath his sweater.
Scooping up my discarded bag on the floor close to the back door, I turned, ready to leave this shithole.
Shaw, however, stood and his cold, distant, brooding self was back in full force.
Good. That meant he was back in control again.
He picked up my father’s cell from the coffee table, dialed a number, then dropped the phone on the floor by my father’s twitching form.
Without a word, he strode over to me, seized me by my upper arm, and shoved open the back door, pulling me along with him into the cold, Autumn air.
We ran across the field behind my house to the parking lot on the other side, where a small mini-mall sat, and I sagged against a lamp post to catch my breath.
My heart was racing, and my hands were shaking, but I was more worried about Shaw at the moment.
When I glanced over at him, though, he was staring off in the distance, his eyes glazed over, like he didn’t really see anything.
“How far is Meredith's?” I asked, shivering as a blast of wind cut through me. Even with my fleece sweater on, I shivered.
“About twenty minutes,” he mumbled, back to the same boy I’d seen drifting through the hallways at school.
I pulled my phone out of my bag, conscious of the knife inside, and checked the time.
It was close to three now, and I wasn’t supposed to be at her place till later, but Shaw didn’t seem concerned about that.
Instead, he nodded to me, a brow raised in question, and I nodded, ready to keep moving.
I pocketed my phone quickly, not wanting to attract thieves, pulled my hood up over my head, and started off with my hands in the pockets of my sweater as I hurried.
We ended up walking down the main street with thrift stores, pawnshops, pool halls, and bars.
Very few people were actually walking with it being this cold out, so we didn’t have to fight foot traffic.
My mind was still reeling from what a turn today took.
First with school and whatever the hell went on between Vail and Hunter, then Celeste’s weird psycho moment that got interrupted and Hunter’s cryptic message, Shaw attacking her friend, and then us running from the police and members of Jackal.
The cherry on top was my drunk-ass sad excuse of a father who went off the deep end tonight.
Though Shaw almost killed him, I’m not surprised that I felt zero remorse for what just happened back there with Keith.
Him being my blood relative meant nothing to me.
Not when Matthew proved to be a caring, amazing dad in the short time I had him.
I was more concerned about Shaw and his mental state.
Childhood memories came flooding back to me, of the times that we were both alone playing or when we slept side by side during our sleepovers, holding hands and whispering secrets to each other while Lee and Vail slept.
And some of those secrets were dark. Stuff I didn’t quite understand at six, but when I asked my mother about it, saying it was stuff I overheard kids gossiping about in the schoolyard, I couldn’t look any of the guys in the eye for about a week when she told me.
And then, to think his father subjected him to such acts, it made me sick.
I could only imagine what it looked like when he stormed into my father’s house and saw him crouched over my body, holding me down by my throat.
I nervously peered up at him, but his sole focus was on getting us to Meredith’s and Haldon’s safely. He tugged me along, pulling me in close when someone else went to pass us, separating me from the strangers with his own body.
When we were about halfway there, I could barely even feel my face, and my teeth were chattering so hard I couldn’t hear the cars rushing past us. Up ahead, beside a small food mart, was a dollar store, and I tugged at his arm, urging him inside with me so I could warm up for a few minutes.
“What?” he asked, his blue eyes shifting around as they took in every shopper in the vicinity. Jeez, is he always… on ?
“I’m freezing. And might as well grab some supplies for tonight, too.
” I picked up a wired basket and made my way up the aisle.
With Shaw so close on my heels, he might as well have been my shadow.
My nose and my fingers were stinging a bit from the blast of warm air circulating through the store, and I rubbed my hands, holding the basket in the crook of my arm, as I browsed up and down the aisles.
I felt the handle tug against my elbow, and I glimpsed down to see Shaw pulling at the basket.
I allowed him to take it, and he carried it around for me while I started picking out random toys and gifts to bring to Amelie.
I found a pack of bubbles, a glitter art set, and a mound of stickers and crayons.
When I found a pair of black-framed fake glasses with a light-up pumpkin nose, seeing as Halloween was only days away, I turned them on and slid them into place on my face as I veered down the next aisle.
“Um…”
I turned and saw Shaw watching me carefully, his stony demeanor forever in place. I grinned up at him nervously.
“What do you think? Will I win any popularity contests with this look?” I raised my brows and held my hands out at my sides, smiling wide, knowing I looked like an idiot, but he’d already seen me, so I might as well own it.
He shook his head and reached for the glasses, tossing them into the basket of goodies I’d collected for Amelie. “If you don’t, I’d be shocked as hell,” he murmured.
I smirked and moved around him, heading down the food aisle, tossing some candies, a box of crackers, some noodle soup cups, and a jug of fruit juice, then led the way to the checkout.
“Your dad hit you like that a lot?” Shaw whispered.