26. Kane
TWENTY-SIX
KANE
Fifteen Years Old
Roses wilted and then bloomed again.
He’d always believed it, but he’d come to hate the vicious cycle of it. The way his mother would grow strong and emboldened, standing up for herself and for him, and then she’d be sucked into the warped world of another man.
They were all the same.
Every time.
Coming off as good guys in the beginning, but it never took long for their depravity to be uncovered.
Kane had developed an instinct to it. Could feel it the first time they met.
There was something filthy lining their underbelly. A trap that she forever fell into.
Kane ached to stop it. To silence the shouts and the banging of doors and the gutting cries that inevitably fell from his mother’s mouth.
To stop the pain. To stop the torment.
To help her. Stand for her the way he’d always wanted to.
To be the kind of man none of these assholes she brought home ever amounted to .
He tried. He tried and he tried.
But she always ended up in the exact same place, the same kind of bastard, only with a different face and different name.
So, he begged her when he found her crumpled on the floor, “Please, Mom. You have to stop this. You have to stop letting these men do this to you. You deserve so much better.”
He choked over the plea, then his heart felt like it was going to split in half when she lifted her head. Her left eye was swollen shut and blood was smeared across her face from a gash near her temple.
Horror and anger vied for dominance, his chest feeling as if it were a cavern.
He’d kill him.
He’d kill him.
“Maybe it’s just always gonna be winter.”
“No,” he gritted. “No. You’re going to shine. It’s time. I can’t sit aside and watch this any longer. I won’t. You have to make a change. And if you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for me .”
He didn’t care that he was laying guilt on her shoulders. He knew she believed he was her only good thing. It was the only way he could twist it.
Grief blanketed her emerald eyes, the gold dimmed with atrocities she’d suffered. “Okay, baby. Okay.”
She climbed onto her hands and knees, and Kane carefully helped her to stand, silently promising her that’s where he’d always be.
Standing for her at her side.
Silently promising that he’d be enough.
This time it was going to be different.
Kane – Sixteen Years Old
“You fuckin’ whore. What did I tell you?”
It was never different. Never, ever different .
Shouts and clatters echoed from down the hall.
“I came right home. I promise.”
“Such a liar.”
“No.”
A heavy thud then the cry of his mother.
And Kane was tossing off his covers and jumping from his bed, fury pumping through his veins and tightening every muscle in his body.
Rage burning a hole through his being.
He wouldn’t stand for it.
Not any longer. He’d remained a coward, locked in his room ever since his mother had made him promise never to intervene again after he’d hit Paul.
But you took care of the ones you loved most.
In the dark of the night, he hurtled down the hall, hastening with the slap he heard smack across her cheek, and he barreled into the living room where Justin had his mother backed against the wall.
He didn’t hesitate.
Years of pent-up anger busted out of where he’d kept it trapped.
He rushed forward and slammed into Justin from the side, ramming his shoulder into his ribs and sending the bastard stumbling.
“Stay the fuck away from my mom!” It raked out of him, the words trembling, but not out of fear. It was purely out of hate.
Justin fumbled three steps, nearly falling onto the ground, but he managed to steady himself. Rebounding. Rising high and wide, the man a fucking giant.
Kane didn’t care.
He wouldn’t cower.
Wouldn’t back down.
“Oh my God, Kane, go back to your room,” his mother begged from behind.
“I’m not standing aside anymore.” He’d said it before, had wanted to mean it, but he’d been too young and small and na?ve to actually make it fact.
But now he could feel the shift inside himself .
The crack that had been carved inside him the first time he’d witnessed someone hurt his mother fracturing wide.
Justin laughed a menacing sound. “Think you’d better listen to your mother before you regret that statement.”
Regret.
They were always threatening regret.
But Kane would never regret standing up for his mother.
“Get the fuck out of our house,” Kane spat through clenched teeth, trying to keep his cool when he felt himself splintering apart.
His mother gasped and Justin laughed again, and his voice took on the same condescending tone he always used with Kane. “Or what are you gonna do about it?”
Kane didn’t bother with a rebuttal. He launched himself at the latest beast who’d been beating on his mom, figuring he’d show him.
Only Kane didn’t make it all the way to him before a meaty fist came up and struck him in the stomach.
Pain exploded, and the breath was knocked from his body.
He bent in two, trying to stay upright, to find his footing and go back for the monster.
But Kane had no time before another fist smashed into the side of his head.
A roar of agony burst out of him, and he stumbled to the opposite side. A dark bleakness throbbed at the edges of his sight.
Pulling him toward surrender.
But he wouldn’t.
He had to fight.
“No, Justin, no,” he heard his mother whimpering, and he forced himself to straighten when he sensed Justin going back for her. He threw himself onto the asshole’s back and locked his arms around his neck, trying to choke him out.
Holding on so tight.
With all his might.
For his mother.
For his mother.
His mother who was currently on the floor, weeping with her mouth gushing where it was split. Through it, she met his gaze and gave Kane a silent shake of her head.
Telling him no .
That she wasn’t worth it.
But she was.
She was worth everything.
She was the one he loved most.
Kane tightened his hold, not even caring if he actually strangled the motherfucker to death.
Maybe hoping that he would.
Justin spun around in a circle, his disgusting, giant hands pawing at Kane’s arms as he tried to break free. “You little fucker. You think you’re gonna get away with this? Disrespectin’ me?”
Justin threw himself back and smashed Kane’s back into the far wall.
Kane grunted, and he tried to maintain his hold and not let the fresh round of pain battering through his body make him falter.
Kane might not have been a scrawny kid anymore, but Justin had at least eighty pounds on him, and he was losing ground.
Justin grabbed him by one wrist, twisting it back and spinning out of Kane’s hold all while keeping him nailed to the wall.
With the other hand, Justin struck him in the stomach again.
Hard.
Again and again.
Blow after blow.
With each, Kane gasped and choked and tried to keep on his feet, while his mother wailed and begged, “Leave him alone! Leave him alone! This isn’t about him.”
Didn’t she get it?
He was a part of her.
How could she count him out of her life? As if it didn’t affect him? As if he wouldn’t care?
“I’m gonna teach this little punk a lesson. It’s time he learned his place,” Justin growled, never ceasing with the blows.
One after another .
Kane tried to fight back, though his arms had gone weak, his spirit faltering as quickly as his bruised and crushed body.
A brutal fist landed on his right cheek.
Blackness vibrated, and he was so, so close to being sucked into it.
“No, Kane,” his mother cried. So quiet. But he could feel it. Could feel her turmoil.
The rush of her energy.
Her love.
He didn’t even realize she’d run out of the room before she was back, the glint of metal flashing in the bare moonlight that flowed in through the open window.
A knife.
“Leave him alone!”
She didn’t even break into Justin’s wrath.
He just kept punching, hammering fist after fist into Kane’s broken body.
Then Justin howled. Howled as he released Kane and whirled around.
Kane slumped to the floor, nearly unconscious.
But the fury in Justin’s voice kept him pinned to the horrors of this reality.
“You motherfuckin’ bitch. Did you just cut me?”
Through tears and blood, Kane watched his mother hold the knife between two shaking hands.
A vision so similar to the one that had been embedded in his darkest memories from years before. When his mother had begun to succumb to that darkness. When somewhere through the years she’d begun to believe that she wasn’t worthy of the love that she deserved.
When she’d been manipulated and brainwashed and led astray.
Or maybe she’d just been stuck.
Imprisoned by what she didn’t believe she had a choice in breaking free of.
“Leave him alone. Leave me alone.” Her words were brittle, broken pieces that fell off her tongue.
Justin took a step toward her, and she took one back .
“I mean it, get out.”
Justin laughed, that horrifying, disgusting sound.
Right before he jumped on her and took her to the ground.
“Get up. Get up. Get up,” Kane begged himself from somewhere inside the swimming of his mind. He had to get up and help her.
But he couldn’t do anything.
He could only listen to the grunts and kicks then a piercing scream.
One second later, Justin climbed to his feet.
The silhouette of a beast in the night.
Staring down at Kane’s mother who writhed on the ground, before the man dropped the knife that hung from his hand to the ground.
It clattered on the hardwood floor before he turned and ran for the front door. It banged against the interior wall as he threw it open and fled.
The sound of his truck roared as it was turned over before it sped into the night.
While Kane struggled to crawl to his mother.
Terror gripped him when he saw the front of her shirt was completely soaked with blood.
“No. Mom. No.” It poured out of him on a prayer.
No, no, no, no.
She blinked up at him, the emerald of her eyes too bright and glassy in the night.
“You’re such a good boy, Kane. Such a good, good boy.
My favorite boy.” His mother garbled the words, and a smile flickered at the edges of her bloodied mouth.
“Don’t ever change. Don’t ever let that beautiful light fade.
Fight for love and what’s right. I know you will…
because it’s who you are. And always, always take care of the ones you love most.”
A moan pulled from the depths. “No, Mom, no.”
He pressed his hands to the hot wound on her abdomen. Pressing hard. Tears burned and bled, and he begged, “No. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”
Her fingertips fluttered to his face, brushing soft and slow. “Take care of the ones you love most. I’m sorry I didn’t return it. ”
“Mom…” He gulped, then he shouted at the open door, “Help! Someone help! Please!”
On his knees, he gathered her up in his arms, grief clogging his throat as he begged, “Please,” as the last petal wilted and fell from the rose.