After the talk #2
“Pa’s dead.” I straighten up. “I killed him. And soon you’ll join him. So then who will come looking for the boys if you die? No-one. Just like no-one looked for me, just like no-one looked for Justine. But those boys will be safe away from you.” Her face twists in anger.
“LIAR!” She screams and pounces for me. One hand grasps my hair, ripping some from my scalp.
The other tries to stab me with the drug filled syringe.
I manage to loosen her grip, grab both arms, and spin her so she is facing the wall.
Keeping her there with my shoulder against the top of her spine.
The syringe bounces off my sneaker and rolls until it is stopped by a crack in the floor.
“Bull, go.” I order and nod toward the twins.
The second one is now unconscious laying against his brother.
Bull covers them both with some frayed blankets laying on the back of the chairs and picks them up gently.
I can see his hands trembling from here as he starts to make his way back to the truck.
“Pea, don’t jump in unless I need you okay? ”
“You got it boss, just throw me the signal.” She puts her thumb up. I guess that’s the signal.
“Hey, bring them back!” Ma calls after Bull . “OI!” She struggles against my grip and once I hear the truck doors close I let her go. The boys are safe, our goal is complete. Now to do one last thing.
I take a relieved breath, regretting the decision to take my attention from Ma as she manages to shove off the wall, making me trip over some takeout boxes left on the floor and bite back my scream as a fork stabs into my back.
Ma starts punching, again, and again, and again in her alcohol and drug fuelled rage.
I’ll take every punch she has to offer as long as the boys are safe.
“You fucking whore.” Ma punches me again, this time in the face rather than my stomach. “He was meant to have been with me last night, not you!” She screams at me. It’s the day after Pa raped me for the first time and Ma just found the blood on my sheets from where he took my virginity.
“Ma, stop please.” I cry, another punch coming down on my jaw, dislodging it from its socket.
“You, all you filthy sluts keep trying to steal my husband from me. Wandering around with your tiny bodies and flawless skin. I must make you ugly so he wont want you anymore.” She spits in my face, pulling her knuckle dusters from her pocket. “He’s my husband, not yours. MINE!”
I can’t speak, I can’t explain to her that I didn’t want him to do what he did. Instead I whimper as she breaks my skin over and over again with the spikes of her chosen weapon.
“Tell your partner to bring back my money makers!” She screams now, pulling me out from my past and back into the present.
I taste the blood from where she’s split my lip open.
My nose is painful and hard to breathe through, letting me know she has broken it - again. Her punches weaken as time goes on.
“THEY ARE CHILDREN!” I cry. “We were all children. You found us when we were at our lowest and took advantage of that.” I somehow manage to find the strength to roll us both over.
She struggles beneath me. Standing, I bend over her, pulling the knife from the pocket of Julian's jacket. “Time for you to join Pa in hell.” I don’t have the energy to drag out Ma’s death.
She won’t be awake for long anyway, not with all the drugs and alcohol in her system.
Pea is still standing in the same spot, her fists clenching and unclenching the only movement I can see.
“You liar.” She mumbles. The heroin she injected into herself starting to take effect.
“You believe what you want. Ma.”
“I should have killed you back then.”
“I wish you did.” I hold my scar from where she shot me in my leg, “just a shame you’re a shit shot and I had the will to survive.” Bending my knees, I lean over her and grab the syringe she dropped. “Who was this for? You look like you’ve had your fill.”
“He wouldn’t stop crying about the pain, it was giving me a headache.” She groans.
She was going to drug up a six year old!
My jaw ticks. I don’t think through my next actions as I grab Ma’s foot and stab the needle between her toes, she’s already high enough that I know this final injection will cause an overdose.
“Natalie.” She laughs. “I always hated you.”
“Ditto.”
I stand, kicking Ma away from me as I do. Then signal to Pea, she deserves to have her fun before Ma dies from the drugs.
Skipping into the room with the baseball bat kept by the front door, she swings a bat into Ma's jaw, the crack echoing throughout the house, followed by the thud of her body hitting the floor.
“Aww only one? That's all I get?” she stares at the bat broken along the grain. “I wanted to have some more fun. Well at least you're still alive.” She hooks one of her gloved fingers into a nearly unconscious Ma’s mouth, dragging her by her teeth back to the chairs.
I laugh at the pained groan Ma lets out as Pea drops her down onto the seat. “Look in the cupboard there.” I instruct. She walks over to the cupboard under the stairs to which I’m pointing at.
“Holy shit!” Pea exclaims. “What the fuck?”
I know exactly what's in that cupboard, I doubt Ma And Pa swapped anything out, maybe added some more things here and there though.
I hear Pea laugh sadistically while pulling out her weapons of choice. She comes back over with two 6 inch nails, and a broken half board, along with Ma’s favourite knuckle dusters - still stained with blood, and…
“A lighter? Why does it not surprise me that you like to play with fire.”
“Oh honey, you thought Julian was bad. You haven’t seen anything yet.” To my surprise, Pea removes her helmet. Passing it across to me. “I don’t want to get my helmet bloody, I won’t be able to see the road when going home.”
I step back a little more, being mindful of exposed cuts on my body, not willing Ma’s internal poison to seep into my wounds. There's no telling how many diseases she has.
“Fair enough.” I wince as she slaps Ma, telling her to wake the fuck up.
“Come on. You fought your daughter. Time to fight me.” She sneers, and draws a revolver from her pocket.
She aims the gun at Ma before shooting her in the knee cap.
The loud bang makes me jump, I look out the door to where Bull is standing outside the truck, his arms crossed across his broad chest. He physically relaxes when I give him a small smile and a thumbs up.
“Awww, no fun. Oh well.” I hear Pea say, then watch as she drops to Ma’s level.
Staying as far back as I can while still being able to see everything.
“Who the fuck are you?” Ma slurs her words at Pea. The drugs are finally taking effect.
“You’re daughters best friend - which makes me your worst enemy. And I'm now bored so I think we should play a game.” She pulls the trigger again in the other cap before punching her in the face with the dusters, knocking her out.
Within the next few minutes Pea ties her to the chair and hammers nails to the boards, placing them below her feet, she gets some razor wire and ties it around Ma's foot, and up her outstretched leg drawing blood along with it while connecting it to a propped shotgun between Ma's legs leading up to her chin.
The same shotgun that Ma hid under her chair and threatened us kids with whenever she had the chance.
Ma comes to and looks around and almost within an instant slurs, “She’s no daughter of mine. She’s just some slut who tried to take my husband.”
Smack .
“More like your husband was a predator who preyed on young girls.”
“They seduced him.”
“Sure sure.” Pea tuts, “Anyway I feel I need to explain what is going on here.” She spreads her arms and gestures to the room.
“Below your feet are nails and around your leg is razor wire, I’m sure you can feel it digging in as we speak, but here's the kicker, bitch. The wire cuts you if you lift your leg and the nails will puncture you if you lower your foot.” My newly appointed best friend smiles.
“The best bit is that you’re also rigged up to the shotgun.
If you stick your tongue out you can probably taste it.
” Her grin is almost as big as the one on bulls creepy clown mask.
“So here's the game, I have six shots left in this bad boy and I’m going to take five out.” She lifts her revolver.
“Two bullets are in your knees, so to keep it fair I’ll let Grace sing the song that picks how long you’re alive for.
Do you know the nursery rhyme ‘heads, shoulders, knees, and toes?’”
Ma nods weakly.
I pull her aside “What happens with eyes, ears, mouth and nose?”
“That’s when the fun begins” she smirks rolling the cylinder and carries on “you better sing Grace, just leave out the knees, they’ve already been taken out.”
I start as she dances and prances around the room with every body part I sing, she pulls the trigger at near point blank range unless she decides to skip it.
“ Head, shoulders___ and toes___ and toes, and eyes and ears.” BANG a bullet flies through one of Mas ears removing it and forcing her head to flinch, her reaction cuts her leg open more and the nail begins to enter her skin before the wire shakes the trigger forcing her to stop moving.
She looks at me with fear in her eyes, begging me to help her with just a look.