CHAPTER FOUR #2
Mom was in the kitchen, washing dishes from the breakfast we'd just eaten, while I played on the Nintendo Switch Grandma and Grandpa had given me for Christmas. I was hoping Soldier would sit down and play, but apparently, he had other ideas instead.
“Do you need my help?” Mom called from the sink.
“Nope, Noah's got it,” Soldier replied, waggling his brows at me.
I stared at him, my mouth hanging open. “What? I can't pick that thing up! It's heavy! It's—”
“You know how you train your body to pick up heavy things?”
“How?”
He flexed his arm and said, “By lifting heavy things. Come on. I'll do most of the work. You'll just be my assistant.”
With a sigh, I dropped the Switch to the coffee table and grumbled, “Fine.”
I got off the couch and trudged my way to the front door.
Soldier followed and ruffled my hair as he said, “See you in a little bit, Mom. We're right next door if you need anything.”
She laughed from the kitchen and replied, “Have fun, boys.”
Then he twisted the lock and pulled the door shut behind us.
A little bit ago, Soldier had gotten upset with Mom for not keeping the door locked at all times. I wasn't sure why it bothered him so much, but I had a feeling it might have something to do with Dad.
We walked over to his house next door, and while Soldier got out his toolbox, I played with his kitten, Eleven, who was getting bigger and bigger with every passing week.
I had always wanted a dog or a cat or something, and Mom had always told me we weren't in any position to get one—whatever that meant.
But now, I was glad we never had because I wasn't sure I'd love Eleven as much as I did if I'd already had a pet to give my attention to.
Sometimes, Eleven already felt like mine.
Soldier opened the TV box, then the box for the mounting bracket, and read the instructions. The whole time, I rolled around on the floor, wrestling with Eleven and wincing every time his small, dagger-like claws pierced my skin.
“He's gonna tear you to pieces,” Soldier muttered with a chuckle, still reading.
“It's okay,” I said, just as the little cat wrapped his legs around my arm.
“You say that now …”
“He's not gonna do anything,” I replied, laying my palm over Eleven's little face, giving him a playful shake. “Right, little guy? You're not gonna hurt me.”
“He might be a little guy, but, man, he fucks me up,” Soldier said. “You see what he did to my foot the other night? That asshole attacked me in my sleep and tore the fuck out of me.”
“That's ‘cause he was probably mad.”
“Mad about what?” He laughed. “That cat's got it made, man. Food, a roof over his head, a warm bed to sleep in … dude's got it good.”
“Yeah, but he's probably mad you leave all the time.”
“Hmm,” Soldier grunted with a nod. “Maybe you're right.”
“You guys should just come live with us,” I said with a shrug. “Or … something.”
Soldier sniffed with another laugh, but this time, he wasn't smiling. Like maybe I had said something wrong. “You guys are right next door, bud. It's not like you're far away.”
I swallowed. “Yeah, I know, but …” I shrugged again, not knowing what else to say. Not knowing how else I could tell him that I wanted them—him and his kitten—to live with us.
Maybe I'll ask Mom to talk to him about it.
“All right,” he said, dropping the instructions. “Let’s get to work.”
I helped, passing tools over as we talked about video games and friends, and in all, it took us about an hour to get the bracket and TV mounted to the wall.
Soldier had done most of the lifting, but I thought I had done a pretty good job of handing him the things he needed and holding stuff when he asked me to.
And every time, he told me what a good job I was doing, how much of a help I was, how he didn't know what he'd do if I wasn't around, and I wasn't sure anything in my life had ever felt so good.
Then Soldier gave me a high five, and we admired our handiwork as we talked about the possibility of him getting a Switch of his own. That way, if he was at home, he could still play games with me … at least until he could live with us anyway.
And that was when we heard the crack, like splintering wood.
Then Mom screamed.
My first instinct was to run, and Soldier ordered for me to stop and stay where I was.
I didn't listen.
I bolted out Soldier's front door and down his creaky, old steps to our porch. The door was busted, and it hung from the hinges. My eyes swept the scene in front of me as I stepped inside, seeing first our broken TV, a knocked-over chair, and a busted lamp, and then there was Mom.
And Dad.
He looked different now, somehow. Less like my father and more like a stranger, a villain.
He was tearing Mom's dress and pushing her to bend over the table. She was crying, her face was bleeding, and Dad held her, his hand pressed to her back as his other hand worked to open his fly.
“No, no, no,” Mom cried. “Please, Seth. No. Stop. Please.”
She was begging him, pleading with him to stop, and something red and hot and angry built in my gut and rose to my chest. Remembering her naked in her bed, broken and hurt and sad.
Something like that hadn't happened since then, and now seeing this scene unfold in front of me, I struggled to understand what that something was …
yet I knew. I knew what I was seeing and what he was doing, but I couldn't figure out how someone could be so bad, so awful, so …
I started to cry, unable to look at anything else, and I screamed, “Get away from her! Get off! Asshole! Get off of her!” as I ran as fast as I could, jumping on Dad's back. Trying to remember what Soldier had told me to do, where to aim.
Go for the head. Go for the face, the eyes.
And I tried. I tried my hardest. But I was too damn weak.
Too small. And Dad easily wrestled me from his neck, throwing me to the floor and onto shards of glass.
Something sliced my arm, and I cried out, but I didn't have time to react because Dad was coming at me. His fist was raised, ready to strike my face. Fury was alive in his eyes, and I widened my gaze at him, realizing it didn’t matter to him that I was his kid, his only son. He was going to hurt me.
Maybe he's even gonna kill me.
Like Tommy’s kid.
He leaned over me, took his position, and I winced, squeezing my eyes shut and covering my head with my arms, ready to take the hit. Ready to do anything as long as he was leaving Mom alone.
Then …
There was a scuffle, and Dad's hot breath was no longer on me. I opened my eyes and saw Soldier dragging him away, his arm around Dad's neck.
My eyes rounded, and quietly, I prayed, Please kill him. Oh my God, please, please, please kill him.
It felt wrong. It felt terrible. I wasn't supposed to think things like that. But if Dad was dead, if he was gone, he'd never come back. We could live forever without being scared again, and life would always, always, always be good.
Mom.
With Soldier holding Dad back, I was okay to get to Mom, and I ran. She was frozen, crouching against the kitchen cabinets. Trembling like she was freezing, even though the house was warm. Her dress was torn up her back. Her underwear ripped around her ankles.
Her phone was on the counter above where she sat, and I grabbed it before dropping to the floor at her side.
“Mom!” I cried, wrapping my arm around her shoulders.
She shuddered under my touch.
“Mom, it's me. It's Noah.”
She squeezed her eyes even tighter. “Oh God,” she whispered. “Oh no. N-Noah, no …”
“It's okay,” I said, even though I knew it wasn't. Of course it wasn't. “It's okay. Soldier's here.”
She rested her head against my shoulder and her body trembled with every breath.
I felt like the grown-up.
“Noah!” Soldier shouted as he fought with Dad. “Call 911!”
I stared at him, trying to make sense of what he was saying. I’d heard him—I had—but the words weren't registering.
“Call 9—fuck!”
I opened my mouth to tell Soldier to watch out, that Dad was right behind him, but all that came out was a scream. A scared sound, a weak one, and suddenly, I felt nothing but shame, cowering against the cabinets with Mom.
I should've been helping. I should've been fighting Dad with Soldier, protecting Mom and the nice house we lived in. I should've been a man. But I wasn't. I was a stupid, terrified little boy who could do nothing but stare.
“Ho-ly shit,” Dad said, finally getting a look at Soldier's face. “Soldier Mason. So, this is where you ended up, huh? You're the new guy next door.”
I frowned and glanced at Mom, but she was still shaking, her stare blank.
Dad knew Soldier? I knew that Soldier and Mom had met before somewhere, back in our old town, but Dad?
“That's a nice little souvenir you got there,” Dad said, pointing at the scar on Soldier's face. “Too bad it wasn't a hole in the head.”
I gasped. What did that mean?
“Get the fuck out of here before I kill you,” Soldier warned, his voice deep and cold.
Dad laughed. “You don't have it in you to kill me.”
Then he turned and pointed at me. “Let's go, boy.”
I shook my head frantically.
“Noah!” Dad shouted loudly, and I flinched, shaking beside Mom with the phone clutched in my hand. “You're going to listen to me right now. Get your ass outside. We're getting the fuck out of—”
“You don't have to go anywhere with him, Noah,” Soldier said, and I turned my gaze to his, never letting go. “He's not going to hurt you.”
He can't, I answered silently. Not when you're here.
Dad looked over his shoulder at Soldier. “Who the fuck do you think you are? That's my son. I can tell him to do whatever the fuck I want. Noah! Get the fuck outside!”
“N-no,” I finally said, finding the strength to speak because nothing was going to happen to me as long as Soldier was here. “I'm not going.”
Dad looked surprised for half a second before turning to Soldier and saying, “You just can't get the fuck out of my way, can you?”
“Not as long as you keep showing up.”
He snorted. “And they're afraid of me? Do they know you're a murderer? Does she know”—he pointed behind him at Mom—”that she's fucking a murderer? And she's scared of me?”
I gasped. What? Soldier was a murderer? He couldn’t be.
“Your time is up,” Soldier warned. “Get the fuck out now.”
“You are fucking her, right?” Dad asked as he started to walk to the door.
He was scared of Soldier, I realized. Threatened by him.
“How does it feel, Soldier? Knowing you're just getting my sloppy seconds?”
I didn't know what that meant, and I didn't care. Because all I kept thinking about was what Dad had said. That Soldier was a murderer. Oh my God. I knew he had been in prison. I knew he had been in there for a long time, but … I didn't know he had killed someone.
Did Mom know?
She trusts him.
Mom wouldn't trust him if he was bad, but … murder was bad. And if Soldier was a murderer …
Dad was about to walk out the door when Soldier grabbed him, making him cry out. I couldn't see much because of Soldier’s body, and I couldn't hear any of the muttered words said, but Dad was gone. Soldier had made him leave, and even though Dad had said he was a murderer …
He had still kept us safe, just as he’d said he would.
But Dad will be back, I kept telling myself. Even when we think he won't … he always comes back.