Chapter 10 #2
I moved closer to his face, stealing the air from his breathing space.
My head jolted forward, my forehead smashing against his nose, creating splits in both of our faces.
I did it again and again and again, laughing in his face as I caused us both more injuries.
Injuries that I didn’t feel thanks to blood loss.
He stopped me with a push. My lanky legs, too thin for such force, had me tumbling away and creating a distance between us for my crimson mist of rage to fill, bringing a nice color to this ugly fucking room.
His round face reddened. “I told you, save your anger. You and I are going to have a fun night, if you can fucking control yourself!”
He didn’t tell me how, not with words. . . but memories of him already doing that crawled from the crevices inside me, where all Woodrow’s fears hid.
I saw my father’s entire plan, the glint in his eyes speaking volumes, wording the sordid script of a snuff movie that no one in their right mind would want to be part of.
But I wasn’t in my right mind.
My father sat in my room, weighing down my desk chair with his square ass. He was chomping on a chicken leg, dropping the bones into the trash bin at his side as he neared the end of his meal.
He’d got a meal deal from a place in town on his way home because his slave—also known as his wife and my mother—couldn’t take care of his dinner tonight.
I sat on the floor, amongst the destruction I’d caused trying to leave this fucking room, eager to get out and act out all my father’s desires in my own timeframe. He’d told me to wait, detailing how this would all play out.
But I was bored with waiting. Bored with my father.
I’d blackened both of his eyes, bloodied his nose, sliced open his arms, and pierced his skin.
I’d used a photo frame from the wall to create the gashes and wounds, smashing it against my bed frame and watching as the glass shards rained to the floor.
The picture of Nessie with the big brother who shared my face sat crumpled on the floor.
. . ruined, like everything else in the space.
My bare-ass crushed carpet fibers. My hand held a single shard of glass; I’d chosen the biggest one, and I still kept it wedged between my fingers as I sat amongst its siblings, naked.
I’d needed to cool down. If I could have stripped off my skin, I would have. The smell of my own blood, clinging to my sweats had made me nauseous.
And besides, I didn’t need clothes for what came next.
My father wasn’t impressed by my lack of clothing. . . no, he was probably jealous.
I’d caught glimpses of him naked in the past, waddling from the bathroom without a towel, and I’d seen enough to know his stumpy knob didn’t match the rest of his body.
But he made no comments. And neither did I.
He was aware that it would only take so much as the wrong word for me to drive the cold weapon into his skin, not stopping until I sliced through vital organs.
I looked at the clothes at my side. Old and tired, gifts from the charity store in town, because until now, I’d never received anything of a higher value.
Until my little doll.
My father had hardly spoken since plumping himself in that chair, though he did remind me of what his plan for Jolie was. And it made me want to leave even more.
I wasn’t sure my actions tonight would make Woodrow happy. . . but our father had been very convincing when he told me how much my soul-sharer would want this.
I wasn’t sure I believed him. . . wasn’t sure I believed anything anymore.
This fucker in front of me once convinced me he was a God—one, Woodrow prayed for forgiveness to every-fucking-day, and one I rebelled against.
But I didn’t care what was true and what wasn’t. For once, I wanted something for me. . . I wanted to feel something other than someone else’s pain. Woodrow would have to fucking deal with it.
I found myself glancing to the door, calmer now as the shard scraped at my arm, causing nothing but minor irritation, not even breaking my skin.
I wonder if she’s awake. . . I’d heard her creeping up the stairs hours ago, while Woodrow, somehow, wrangled me back to the vault inside him—not something he could do often.
“You over there slicing up your arms?” my father—talking with a full mouth—interrupted my thoughts.
I let his wishful thinking go unanswered. He already knew the only blood I liked on my weapons was blood belonging to someone else. He knew firsthand, as he’d only just stopped nursing his most recent wound. A lowly puncture, lost in the excess skin of his stomach.
The house was quiet now, eerily so.
Usually, if my father was in my room, my mother would go to bed, and she’d take Nessie with her. Momma and daughter bonding they called it. I called it, spooning her drugged child while she slipped into a wine coma, but my opinion counted for shit.
And I really shouldn’t comment. . .
I’d bribed Nessie out from her hiding place earlier tonight, with the same contaminated juice Momma would have given her.
I’d told her I wouldn’t hurt her. And it wasn’t a lie.
. . I had no intention of hurting her. I just wanted her out of my fucking way, asleep and quiet, while I hunted for Jolie, who, had somehow, escaped my senses.
Probably closer than I thought. . . probably here in the house the whole fucking time.
God, I’m stupid. I didn’t even think to check.
“It’s quiet now. And late.” My father looked to the moon shining its beam down on the world beyond the giant tree at my window. His gaze lingered, like he was counting the stars in the black sky and making dangerous wishes on them all.
We’d been up here for hours, alone in the gloom of the dimly lit room.
The only time either of us left was when he stepped out to the hallway to retrieve his late-night lunch, blocking the doorway with his giant frame to ensure I didn’t go skulking down the corridor before he’d dished out instructions.
No sound filled the air, nothing but the rumbling of my hungry stomach, and each growl worsened my already vile mood.
My father’s eyes moved to a small pink clock on the computer desk—the clock Woody had stolen from Nessie but couldn’t fucking read.
I focused on the noise emanating from the little time-teller. Tick-tock. Tic-tock. The sound gnawed at me as I watched the hand go around.
“Come on, I think they're asleep.” He shifted to the door, making little and poor efforts to hush the sound of his giant feet.
I stared at him blankly, not moving a muscle.
“Get up on your feet!” he commanded, his tone quieter than usual.
I didn’t deliver an answer. I taunted him with my shard, fascinating myself as I watched it dance across my knuckles. I had every intention of going. But he wouldn’t control my pace in any of this, and I wanted him to know that.
“Up. Now. Trust me, this will be good for you. It’s a good way for you to release some steam, and you don’t have to part with that.
” His head bobbed to the glass in my hand.
“You can bring it; you can use it. . . but remember, you cut too deep and the fun is over. . . forever. You fuck this up, and I put a bullet in your head the next time your moods get out of control. Your mother thinks I already should have.”
I didn’t care about her opinions. I hated the fucking woman.
“You have one chance to become all I want you to be. The perfect son. Or, you die.”
I brushed off his threat, not at all bothered by it.
I climbed to my feet, watching his steps as they pulled him from my room.
I stepped into the darkness of the hallway, and I followed the creak of the floorboards because the blackness of night had stolen my vision.
But I knew every inch of this place and had no trouble moving until my feet stomped all over my father’s shadow.
He’d stopped at a door.
Nessie’s room.
In the dark, it was hard to see, but I knew the pink chalkboard with her name in the center, hung crooked yet proudly against the wood.
The floorboards groaned with my stomach. The house was feeling as miserable as me. . . and probably, for at least one of the same fucking reasons. We didn’t like our company.
My silver eyes twinkled in the shadows, staying on my father until his hand turned the brass knob, letting us into the room.
A small toy chest spread through the carpet fibers as the door shifted it away.
The room was peaceful and still, waiting for destruction and dishonor—waiting for me.
Shades of pink clothed the room, making it more feminine than the rest of the house. Jolie lay on her side, wrapped snuggly in the lower bunk of a purple-framed bed.
The blankets were tucked up to her chin, keeping her safe from dwelling shadows; her pretty face was stained by tears of fear, highlighted by the moonshine, perfectly in line with the window. Its glow kissed her skin, appreciating her beauty as it deserved.
I bent to her side, flicking her hair from her face with the edge of my shard. The dry blood of my father wouldn’t taint her with his grime. Her eyes fluttered, but they didn’t open. She was lost in peaceful dreams.
“Get in.”
I glanced back at my father, struggling to see the expression on his face.
“Into the bed, Woodrow.”
He called me Woodrow, and I was almost sure it was to fucking piss me off. Testing me. Testing me to see if I’d turn on him when an object to release the tension inside me was laid out before me.
“For what?” I inquired, daring him to fill in the blanks.
“I think you know what for. Not even you are that stupid.”
I made out like I was thinking about it, but this wasn’t something I needed to think about. “And I can do what I want?” I was challenging him to disagree with me.
“Anything you want. She’s your gift, remember? She cost me a lot of money, so get your fucking use out of her.”
“And what exactly are you going to do?”
My father took a moment, collecting all the dirty thoughts in his head, preventing any of them from slipping through his lips.