15. Kane
FIFTEEN
KANE
Ten Years Old
The voice that Kane had come to hate boomed. A vicious snarl that made his stomach ache. “You think I don’t know what you’ve been doing? You think I don’t know you’ve been sneakin’ around?”
In his tiny bed, Kane curled in on himself, trying to hide in the shadows that crawled through his room.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Paul. When in the world would I be sneaking around? I’m here every single night.”
“Told you I didn’t want you working at that office. Know that asshole Gene is trying to get up on what’s mine.”
His mom huffed, but Kane could hear the fear in it. The way it trembled whenever Paul came home like this. Smelling like beer and really mad.
“Gene is harmless,” she told him.
“Harmless?” Paul’s voice dropped low, like a monster had taken him over.
Something so mean in it that Kane felt like it stole all the air. His blood felt sticky in his veins, and his heart couldn’t remember how to beat right.
“Yes, harmless.” His mom’s words shook, and Kane could feel the tension shift.
“I’ll show you harmless, you stupid bitch.”
Glass suddenly shattered, and his mother yelped before there was a clatter of footsteps, then she cried out in pain.
Fear spun all around him, but he knew he had no choice. He was still supposed to be the man of the house, even though his mom told him she was the one who was supposed to take care of him.
But you took care of the ones you loved most, and he loved her more than anything else in the world.
His knees wobbled when he slipped out of bed.
Voices shouted and cabinets banged and his mom cried, “Don’t, Paul. You’re wrong. I would never step out on you.”
He heard when a fist met flesh, and there was no more hesitation.
Kane grabbed his baseball bat from where he had it leaned on the wall and went running out, his bare feet slapping against the cold tile of the kitchen. He saw Paul was getting ready to hit his mom again.
Kane barely registered the pain slicing into the bottom of his foot as he ran across the floor. Could barely register anything except for the truth that he had to protect his mom.
His mom who was bent back on the counter with Paul looming over the top of her.
Kane didn’t care that Paul was a giant.
He cracked the bat across his lower spine.
The man roared and whirled around.
Dread spread through Kane as Paul stepped toward him, towering like a raging beast.
“You worthless little shit. You’re gonna pay for that.”
Kane shivered as he tried to steady the bat, ready to take another strike.
Only his mom was suddenly a blur of movement, and a second later, she was standing in front of Kane with a giant knife held in both hands .
“You touch him, you die.” Her words shuddered and shook as she shifted a fraction to make sure she was fully standing in front of Kane, her voice going thready as she croaked, “Now get out of my house and don’t come back.”
That meanness flashed across Paul’s face, but he still raised both hands. “Rose, don’t go and do something stupid that I’m gonna have to make you regret.”
“I mean it. Get out.”
Paul hesitated, the apple in his big throat jumping up and down before he released a heavy huff, and he took two steps forward and leaned in close to his mom. “Telling you right now…you’re going to regret this, Rose. You’re gonna regret it good.”
Kane’s mom didn’t say anything, she just lifted her chin, the knife held firm in her quivering hands. She didn’t move until the front door banged shut behind Paul.
Then a big breath whooshed out of her, and she turned, gasping in horror when she looked down and found the puddle of blood that had gathered around Kane’s foot.
It didn’t even hurt as bad as his chest did when he saw his mom’s pretty face. Her eye was beginning to swell and a droplet of blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.
“Oh, God, Kane.”
The knife clattered to the table beside them, and he was way too big for her to be picking him up, but she did it anyway, hoisting him up and onto the counter so she could inspect the cut on the bottom of his foot.
It wasn’t until then that Kane let his attention travel the kitchen. To the shards of glass from the vase he had made his mom for her last birthday scattered all over the floor, along with a bunch of roses from out back that had been inside it.
“I’m so sorry, my sweet boy. I’m so sorry.” She mumbled it as she lifted his foot.
“I shoulda got there faster,” he wheezed, trying to hold back the moisture that burned in his eyes .
He didn’t want her to see him scared. He was supposed to be the man.
Her head shook and tears streamed down her cheeks. “No, Kane. You aren’t supposed to be taking care of me. Especially like that. I can’t believe I got you involved in something so ugly. I…”
She choked over the last, and he took her hand and squeezed it hard, reminding her of the same promise she always made to him. “You take care of the ones you love most.”
“Oh, baby,” she whispered, and she set her hand on his cheek. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be taking care of you. Protecting you from all of this. You have to promise me that you’ll never intervene like that again.”
“Why do you let him do that? Talk to you like that?”
Sadness took over her features, and the sparks that normally shined in her emerald eyes went dim. “Because sometimes roses wilt.”
There was something about the way she said it that made his stomach go sick again. What made the fear rise back up.
And he’d never been more sure than right then that it was his job to protect her.
Because she’d always told him that sometimes roses did wilt…but they always bloomed again.