Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dragon
Seventeen years earlier…
“Fuck, Dragon,” Zach hisses from his bed. “You just made it a lot worse for yourself.”
My eyes go blurry.
I’m yanked to my feet, pushed out the door of my bedroom. By who, I’m not sure. Lewis and Tully are still on the floor.
Aren’t they?
“If any of you cunts go to the brass”—Tully’s voice—“this will be you next time.”
The door to my new room slams.
Zach, Mike, the others. They won’t come after me. I already know that.
And I’m pretty sure I know what’s coming.
They’re going to beat me to a pulp.
I’ve been beaten before. Not usually by guys this big, but when I was nine and the perpetrators were eleven or twelve, it hurt like hell.
I can take it.
Not like I have a choice.
“Where are you taking me?” I demand.
“Shut the fuck up.” A voice I don’t recognize.
Then a clattering blow to my head.
Another.
And another.
I can barely walk. I can’t see either. My vision has gone blurry again. How many hits to the head can a guy take?
I’m pretty sure I’m about to find out.
They wouldn’t dare kill me, would they?
What the hell? If they do? At least I’ll be out of this fucking place. It’s not like anyone cares if I live or die.
The two of them drag me to a door, and once it’s opened, my eyes clear enough so that I can see the long stairway that leads to a cellar or basement.
One of them pushes me down the first couple of steps, and somehow—I’m not sure how—I manage to keep my footing instead of tumbling down the entire staircase.
They’re going to kick my ass in the basement.
Fine. I’ll take it. I’ll take all of it.
When we get to the bottom of the stairs, one of them pulls the string hanging down from the ceiling to turn on a lightbulb.
Four other guys stand there.
And my blood runs cold.
“This one thinks he’s a big shot,” Tully says. “We’re going to show him he’s not.”
Six? Six guys who are sixteen and seventeen years old against me?
I won’t survive this night.
“Please,” I beg.
Then I hate myself for it.
All that time in the other group home—the beatings I took and the beatings I doled out—never did I beg.
“Please what?” one of them says. “We’ll please you all right.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Try to brace myself for the punches I know are going to come. I’ll be on the ground, staying in a fetal position as much as I can as they beat me and kick me.
But then?—
“Open your eyes, shithead.”
Slowly I open one. Then the other.
“Get his pants, Red,” Tully says.
“What?” I say.
Evil laughter surrounds me, as if ghosts are haunting this basement.
“Man, you have no idea, do you?” A big grin spreads over Tully’s face. “It’s time to pop that cherry, kid.”
Present day…
Only once.
And only that one time.
Apparently, according to Mike and Zach, sometimes it’s just a beating. Sometimes it’s a rape by one or two of the big ones. Apparently I was special. I got all six.
They took their turns with me, beating my face, my back, my legs, my ass, while they violated me, one after another. Tully took two turns.
I couldn’t sit down for several weeks. Couldn’t go to the bathroom without it being a bloody mess.
But I never told. Even when Leon interrogated me about the bruises, about the split lip and the black eyes.
I didn’t tell. I was no narc.
The kings left me alone after that.
It truly was an initiation and nothing more, and because I fought back so hard, I got it worse.
Had the same thing happened to the big boys? Did they come to the home when they were younger?
I never found out the answers to those questions.
But Tully? The leader of the kings?
He became sorry he ever fucked with me.
And that is the real reason why.
Why I am sin.
Not because my parents thought I had done something horrible to my baby sister.
Not because they abandoned me.
Not because no one adopted me while I was at the first home.
Not because I participated in plenty of beatings at both homes.
Not because I was gang raped by those fucking degenerates.
And not because I became an addict.
But because of what I ultimately did to Tully.
Diana doesn’t know. Hell, Jesse doesn’t know. My therapist doesn’t know.
The one thing I’ve never told anyone.
And the thing is? I didn’t feel one iota of guilt about it.
I’ve learned to compartmentalize. I’ve learned to live in the dusk, just on the cusp of darkness, because I leave what happened to Tully in a part of my mind that I never let myself see.
But when Diana tells me she loves me?
I have to face it.
I have to face who I truly am.
And I have to tell her.
I have to tell her why I’m unworthy of her.
I draw a breath, still holding on to her hand. “Diana, you don’t know me.”
She crinkles her eyes, shakes her head. “I do. I know you have a good heart. I know you have a tortured soul. I know you, Dragon, and I love you.”
I take a deep breath in. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“All right.”
“I’ve never told anyone. Jesse knows a lot. My therapist knows even more. What I’m about to tell you? No one knows, Diana.”
Her eyes are wide, her lips trembling slightly.
I’ve frightened her.
Good.
She should be frightened.
Because she’s about to learn what I’m capable of.
“All right,” she finally says. “Tell me whatever you need to tell me, Dragon. But I promise you it won’t change how I feel about you. Nothing could.”
She’s wrong about that.
As much as I want to believe her impassioned words, she’s wrong.
And she’s about to find out why.
Seventeen years earlier…
After a few months, I’m good as new. At least physically. I’d been violated in the worst way by boys bigger and stronger than I am.
Zach and Mike never asked me about it. Other than Leon, no one did.
But they knew. They had to know.
I never even thought about telling anyone the truth. Tully and his gang would torture me again—probably worse, if possible—if I turned them in, and like the first time, no one would stop them.
I found out that it was common knowledge at the home that you made your way up the totem pole. That when I had my growth spurt or hit sixteen or seventeen and began to look more like a man than a boy, I’d be expected to take part in this initiation for the new meat.
No fucking way.
I’ll stop it before then. I’ll think of something.
Zach and Mike and the others seem to take it with a grain of salt. “It’s just the way things are,” Zach says to me one night at dinner. “Nothing we can do about it.”
I remember Zach’s words that night.
Oh, Dragon. You just made things so much harder on yourself.
I see what he meant.
“You shouldn’t have fought back, Dragon,” Zach continues. “It’s not so bad when you don’t fight.”
I don’t answer.
I wasn’t raised like that.
I was raised to fight back. That’s what my father taught me. Before he abandoned me, of course.
But my father at least looked me in the eye that day in court. More than I can say for my mother.
I’ve been hatching a plan to get Tully back. We all know that he’s turning eighteen in a couple of months. That means he’ll leave the home.
When I was a little kid, I always thought about how great it would be to be an adult. After nearly six years in group homes, I don’t think that way anymore. Glorious freedom isn’t so glorious without any family and without any money.
Where is Tully going to go?
I don’t know. He doesn’t either.
And I don’t give one single shit.
I’m thirteen. Five more years here. Five years to kick ass in school and get myself a scholarship or something. Or at least learn a trade. Or get better at my drums. The music director at school thinks I have real potential.
I’ll make sure I have a place to go when I get sprung from this hellhole.
Tully though?
He doesn’t have a place.
I see it in his eyes. His birthday is around the corner, and I see the opposite of what I saw in his eyes that night he took out his aggressions on me.
That night I saw anger, sick delight.
Now?
I see fear. Uncertainty. Maybe even dread.
And I know fear and dread, because it’s what I felt that night he and his friends attacked me.
He’s letting his guard down, and I plan to take full advantage of that.
He’s still nearly a head taller than I am, and though I’ve started to grow, I’m still gangly with very few muscles.
But I’m working on it. I’ll use my brains to take out his brawn.
I don’t dare tell Zach or Mike or anyone else of my plans. They’d try to stop me, or they’d blab to Leon or someone else.
I can’t take that chance.
My idea stems from what happened to Griffin that horrible night. Someone took a knife from our own kitchen and cut her.
That’s all I need.
A knife from the kitchen.
We don’t get sharp knives in the dining area during meals, of course, and the staff members count every utensil when we turn in our trays.
But there are sharper knives in the kitchen. The kind of knife used to harm Griffin was a simple steak knife with a serrated edge.
Child’s play.
I’m going for a chef’s knife.
A few weeks ago, I woke up in a cold sweat from a dream. It was far from the first dream I’d had about beating the hell out of Tully. Strange that I didn’t dream about beating the other five. But Tully was their leader, and he was the one who hurt me the worst.
I dreamed that I got a job in the kitchen. And that’s how I got the knife.
Some of the older boys worked at the home. They were paid minimum wage, and I decided that’s how I could kill two birds with one stone. Tully hadn’t had the foresight to do it.
The next day when I talked to Leon, I asked for some kitchen duty to make some money. Technically, anyone under sixteen isn’t supposed to work, but some of them do. I told Leon how I was very interested in the food service industry, and I wanted to gain some experience so I could find work once I got out of this place. I didn’t want to end up as one of the statistics on the street.
I used my words very carefully.
And Leon?
He fell for it. Hook, line, and sinker.
In a few weeks, Tully will be kicked out. Every time I see him, he looks a little more fearful. A little weaker.
Perfect.
Tonight, after my shift, I grab one of the sharp knives and shove it under my shirt.
No one even noticed. The kitchen staff doesn’t pay much attention to us, other than to yell at us to work faster.
If anyone saw me, they didn’t say anything.
The steel is cool against my skin.
It’s a powerful feeling. Knowledge that I’ll get Tully back.
I planned it all carefully. Tully’s exit interview is tonight. I get up from one of the desks where I’m doing homework.
“Where are you off to?” Zach asks me.
“I don’t feel too well.” I fake a nauseated face. “I’m going to go see the nurse.”
“Oh. Okay. Hope you feel better.”
I rub my belly, letting the steel of the knife prick me just a bit. “Yeah. Me too.”
I walk down the hallway, stopping by an empty bedroom and grabbing a pillow on the way. Finally I make it to the room where Tully is with his exit counselor.
And I wait.
Five minutes go by.
Ten.
Fifteen.
Until the door opens.
Tully walks out and turns toward his room—all the way at the end of the hallway.
And that’s where I wait for him, hiding in the shadows.
When he gets to the room, I step out.
He glares at me. “What are you looking at, shithead?”
And I say the words I’ve rehearsed so many times before.
“I’m looking at a pathetic dead man.”
I grab the knife and plunge it into his stomach.
He lets out a gargling, choking cry, and tumbles to the floor. “Fuck you, you little cunt!”
He tries to get to his feet, but I have the upper hand here. I grab the knife and stab him again. Then three times. Four. Five.
I lose count.
His blood is everywhere, soaked through his T-shirt. Puddles of crimson seep into the carpet.
But he’s still fucking alive.
I anticipated this.
I grab the pillow and force it over his face. His muffled shrieks still ring through the cushion, but no one seems to hear him.
No one heard me the night he raped me. Guess people have learned to tone out the screams.
Or they just ignore them.
He keeps kicking, but he’s starting to slow down. I hold the pillow over his head strong, not wavering once.
I shouldn’t be able to keep this pillow against his head so forcefully, but something inside me has stirred some extra strength to the surface.
Finally, after several minutes, he stops kicking. I hear a small shudder from under the pillow. I remove it from his face and meet the cold, impassive stare of a corpse.
He’s dead.
And I’m the one who killed him.
And I feel…
Elated.
Fucking elated.
And I know, in that moment, that I’m evil.
It’s not this place. It’s not my parents.
It’s me.
I am sin.