Chapter Three #2
Maddi is moving towards me slowly. Her phone is in her hand, but I think the screen is broken.
Her face is set in anger, gray eyes flashing precipitously, just the way Cade’s do, and it makes her look more like him than ever.
She’s fourteen now, and every day she looks more and more like her brother, somehow.
She keeps moving steadily until she’s standing next to me, and I take a step forward to put her behind me, feeling her fingers tangle in the back of my shirt for comfort once I do.
Of course, the person here who looks the most like Cade is Kyle.
The one and only time I met him, I was amazed how similar they seem. The same lean but muscular build, the exact same perma-tanned skin tone and dark, perpetually messy hair. The same slate-gray eyes and high cheekbones.
But where Cade’s all combine to make him look like a model who got lost in the discount section of a Dollar Tree, Kyle looks gaunt.
Still strong enough to be intimidating, but with that thin-skin-stretched-over-bone thing that you get from too much meth and not enough decent food.
His eyes have a hint of crazy to them, of course, and his fingers are twitchy with uncontrollable anxious energy.
He was pacing the living room and smoking a cigarette when I walked in, but now he’s frozen in place, taking in the sight of me, the intruder, with his daughters in hand.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asks, his voice hoarse.
“Go get in my truck and lock the doors.”
Sky makes a sound of protest when I put her back on her feet, but Maddi grabs her hand and hauls her through the door. I plant myself in front in case Kyle makes a run for them, but he stays still, continuing to focus on me.
At least that probably means he didn’t come for them. I know an abrupt custody battle for some perceived value has always been one of Cade’s biggest fears.
“Kris?”
I don’t know what I’m asking her. I guess I’m trying to figure out what’s going on.
Cade’s mom is standing in the corner, also smoking a cigarette. She looks upset and a little mussed, but not visibly bruised and about as sober as she always is, as far as I can tell. That seems like a good sign.
She sighs like she’s trying to expel so much breath from her lungs that they’ll never refill themselves again.
“Get out, Kyle. We don’t want you here. See?”
Kyle scoffs. “Is this your new boy toy or something?”
I wrinkle my nose without thinking, because no thank you, and Kris lets out a humorless laugh.
“Just get out. You know what Cade’ll do when he sees you. I don’t know what you thought was gonna happen. You fuck off all these times and then when you need a place to squat, we’re what? Just supposed to roll the red carpet out for you and your skank?”
What?
“Watch who you’re calling skank, lady. I didn’t come here to start a fight but I’ll rip that hair out of your head if I have to.”
It takes me a second to figure out where the new voice is coming from. I take a step slightly deeper inside, and realize the person was tucked away in a corner so I couldn’t see her.
She’s rail thin, just like Kyle, but clearly closer to my age than his.
Yikes. She has light blonde hair and pale skin showing under a lot of bronzey makeup, and I can’t quite figure out if her short but willowy stature—highlighted by super-skinny jeans and a fleece-lined bomber jacket—makes her look delicate or tough.
Tough, I decide. Like battered steel: thin but durable. The bored expression on her face tells me this isn’t her first time in a weird, conflict-heavy situation as well. Which is understandable, I guess. This is no one’s first time. I’d also be bored if I weren’t so invested in the outcome.
“What’s going on?” I ask again, still confused about why Kyle’s here.
“I’m still waiting to hear who the fuck you are, that’s what.”
Kyle stalks up to me as he says it, emanating aggressive energy, his movements loose and his hands out, making his implicit threat as obvious as possible.
I’m not a fighter. Not like Cade. I don’t have that inherent anger in me that he constantly struggles to control.
But I do know a lot about men like this, considering I was also raised by one. My dad was less physical and more of a drunk, if that’s possible, but still. I know right now that if I let him think he has intimidated me, he’ll run with it.
And even if I still feel young and small most of the time, I don’t look it. Not to people who don’t know me.
I take a firm step forward into his space until we’re eye to eye.
I don’t reach for him, but I hold myself strong, close enough to him that my nostrils burn with the acrid scent of his cigarette.
He stares at me defiantly for a few seconds, trying to decide if he’s going to fight me, I assume, and then it seems to click.
He remembers me. He was more fucked up last time he was here, but it looks like he remembers me tackling him into that counter hard enough to crack it before dragging his ass out of here with Cade’s help.
“This is still my house. You don’t belong here,” he says with a growl.
We’re going in fucking circles.
“It’s my house, you asshole, where I live while raising your goddamn children!”
Kris stalks over to both of us as she yells in a hoarse voice, grabbing Kyle by the t-shirt and hauling him away from me with a surprising amount of strength.
She starts pushing him and hitting his chest in frustration.
Not hard enough to do any real damage, but still escalating the situation to a violent place that I don’t want it to go.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say, grabbing at Kris and pulling her off him.
She fights my grip on her and curses at me, but doesn’t hit me, so that’s something, at least. Kyle is staring at her with a predatory expression that I don’t fucking care for, and his girl is still leaning against the corner, watching the whole thing go down with a half-smile.
At least she has no interest in defending Kyle. That helps. She pulls a vape out of her pocket and takes a drag, filling the trailer with the sticky-sweet artificial smell of cotton candy, which is gross as hell, but it’s better than a brawl.
The tension running through Kyle seems to break abruptly.
“Why you gotta be like this? Why can’t you act fucking regular instead of being a crazy bitch all the time? I told you, Kris–” he leans towards her, raising his voice to yell the last part slow and loud like she can’t understand him, “I. Just. Need. A. Place. To. Crash.”
The patronizing aura pisses me off and it’s not even directed at me, so I’m not shocked when she lunges for him again and I have to snag her around the waist.
“Stop. Stop.” I pull her back. “He’s just trying to get a rise out of you.”
Kyle laughs. “We were together for twelve years and that woman was terrible at getting a rise out of me,” he says as he grabs his crotch.
I have officially been transported back in time and space into an episode of Jerry Springer. Just… no. No thank you. I decline.
Kris is yelling insults back at him, something involving him cheating on her with prostitutes and STDs that I’m so glad Cade isn’t hearing—although he probably heard it the first time it happened, which makes me sad about his childhood all over again.
They holler shit over each other, back and forth until I can’t make out what either of them is saying, and the other girl seems content to watch them and keep filling the room with cotton-candy-scented vapor.
“Look!” I interrupt. “Kris, do you want to call the cops?”
“No!” All three of them yell it at me in unison like it was scripted, and I take a step back.
“Jeez.” I hold my hands up.
I know I could defend them if Kyle was being violent. But apart from his need to square off with me, he’s had a manic energy but only really seemed interested in yelling. Kris is the only person getting physical, and he didn’t respond with anything but more insults, so maybe that’s promising?
Either way, I can’t just beat the shit out of the man for no reason. I know I don’t have that in me. If he’s refusing to leave and Kris won’t let me call the cops, I don’t know what else I can do.
“Look, it’s fine, Silas. Can you just take the girls home with you? I’ll deal with this syphilitic piece of shit,” Kris says, her hands on her waist.
Kyle snorts like he’s laughing and flicks his crushed cigarette butt at her feet, adding yet another burn scar to the threadbare carpet, but doesn’t respond otherwise.
“Why don’t you come with me? I don’t want to leave you here alone.”
“Fuck no. It’s my goddamn house. I’m not letting him lay around here unsupervised so he can sell anything that’s not bolted to the floor.”
Not sure she can talk, given her history with pawn shops, but still.
“It’s not safe, Kris,” I look at her, pleading.
“The Smith & Wesson under my bed would beg to differ.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder and arches an eyebrow at her ex-husband. There’s a confidence to her stance now, like she’s found some sort of equilibrium here.
I know she’s lying about the gun. She better be, at least, or Cade will have one more thing to lose his mind over.
Kris turns to look at me, and for a second she lets the false bravado fall and sighs.
“Really, Silas. He’s an asshole but he’s not here to murder me with a skanky accomplice. This is my mess, let me take care of it. You can help me by getting the girls out of here. They shouldn’t have to add more fights witnessed to their shitty childhoods.”
I hesitate again. I don’t want to go, but I also don’t feel like I have the authority to tell Kris what to do in her house. And the girls are probably crying all alone in my truck right now, wondering what’s going on.
“Fine,” I say, terrified that I’m making the wrong choice. “I’ll take them home, but Cade is on his way.”
Shit. Actually, I still haven’t called him.
“Okay. Go.”
She waves me away, and Kyle looks at me with no interest, now that it’s clear I’m not going to fight him. Unease sits heavy in my gut as I let myself out, but at least the whole situation felt significantly less like a powder keg.
As soon as I’m outside, I see that I was right and the girls are crying in the truck.
Shit. I quickly text Cade 911 asking him to call me as soon as he can and then head for the driver’s seat.
He probably can’t leave shift, but as soon as he’s not in the middle of saving someone’s life, he should be able to call me and tell me what to do.
Because I have no idea what just happened, or if any of what I did even helped.