Chapter 3
ASMODEUS
A s time passed, the abuse I endured gradually diminished what little self-worth I had.
The complete isolation twisted my tortured mind into believing I deserved this hellish existence.
Shame and guilt stifled any urge to speak of the depraved horrors inflicted upon me by these monsters.
The filthy secret corroded my spirit and manifested other means of coping.
“ E w! He’s doing it again, Mrs. Cadence!
” Emily Swift ratted on me, thrusting her hand into the air above her bright red head.
Her freckled nose scrunched in disgust. I yanked the long sleeve of my black hoodie down my only slightly bleeding arm.
I had barely begun to press down when she turned to look at me.
Our third-period math teacher stormed over as I pressed the X-Acto blade I’d stolen from shop class into the tacky glue smushed beneath my desk for such occasions.
Every one of my desks had a glob of it. With all the school bulletins and calendars posted in the halls and classrooms, the sticky shit was easy to come by.
I never had to worry about anyone stealing my preferred desk in any of my classes, either.
No one wanted to sit anywhere I had been, not with my family’s filthy reputation.
The majority of these kids were from Catholic families.
Nobody wanted to look at the demonic artwork I’d inked, and sometimes carved, into the face of my desks.
“Damien! Hand it over,” Mrs. Cadence demanded, jamming one of her fists into her wideset hips while thrusting the other meaty palm in my face.
I glanced up at the middle-aged blonde woman from beneath my hood. “I don’t have anything.”
“ He’s lying!” the little snitch Emily insisted. “I saw him fidgeting with his arm under the desk again!”
Mrs. Cadence attempted to wait me out, glaring at me from above the rim of her black glasses. I stared up at her blankly.
“Show me your arm, Damien.”
“No.”
“Damien…”
“ Make. Me .”
She shook her head and sighed in defeat. “Take your things and go to the guidance office… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with you.”
Without protest, I grabbed my backpack off the floor and walked out.
Math was boring, anyway. I found most classes boring by the time I’d entered middle school.
When Dominick was studying for his first SATs during his freshman year of high school, I had taken a few of the practice tests with him, scoring an easy 1600 each time.
I had no doubt I would score the same when I officially took them in a few years.
Art class had always been fun, however. So was Chemistry.
I suppose it was the access to supplies and materials otherwise beyond my paupered reach.
Instead of heading for the guidance office, I made my way toward the music hall across from the cafeteria, auditorium, and gymnasium.
There were very few classrooms in this quadrant, and it was easy to sneak out the back doors that led to an unused field behind the school.
After wedging a small pebble into the doorway’s bottom corner, I closed it gently.
To anyone merely passing, it would appear to be shut, but I wouldn’t be locked out.
I slung the backpack off my shoulder and let it fall to the ground before sitting beside it with my back against the warm brick wall.
It was only third period. Lunch was still two periods away, and I was not cutting out before then.
Friday was cardboard-flavored pizza day for us poor kids.
I’d eaten worse to ease the pain and grumbling of my stomach. Cardboard-flavored pizza was great.
The slight creak of the back door alerted me to another student ditching class, a girl from my eighth-period art class.
She was fairly quiet, a bit of an introvert like myself, and despite looking like a walking advertisement for some teen goth fashion chain , even the jock boys took favorable notice of her.
“Hello, Damien.” She dropped her shiny, coffin-shaped bag and carefully placed her violin case against the bricks, then smoothed her ankle-length skirt against her legs before lowering herself to sit beside me.
“Hello, Gemma… Wouldn’t have guessed you even knew my name.”
She smiled and shifted slightly to face me, sweeping her shiny chestnut hair over to drape down one shoulder.
“ Everyone knows your name…and your brother’s…
The Demon Boys .” There was a hint of flirtatious mockery in her tone.
“Though now it’s just Demon Boy , since your brother doesn’t go here anymore. ”
Dominick was in high school by this point, his senior year.
He kept himself busy with after-school sports and work.
I’d easily asked him a million times where this job was, but he’d always given me some vague answer about taking random work here and there.
Odd Jobs… Anything to avoid being home, I suppose.
I tried not to resent him for it, especially since he promised he’d get me out of there eventually, too.
He made me swear not to tell mom, not that she’d have given a shit what we were doing, or where we were. I assumed it was because she’d have wanted his earnings to shoot up her arms or snort up her nose.
Dominick had managed to save up enough cash from these odd jobs by this point to buy himself an old dirt-bike. Most kids were being gifted brand new cars from their parents in their senior year, but we both knew that would never be in the cards for either of us.
“Are you going to the Easter Formal Dance?” Gemma suddenly asked after sitting with me in a long bout of awkward silence.
“Umm… No.”
“Why not?” She pouted.
“What’s so great about it?”
“They go all out for the Easter Formal Dance. Last year, they decorated an arbor with real spring flowers to have our pictures taken under. It was really beautiful.” I listened to her drone on about it for several minutes, though the only detail she mentioned that might have convinced me to attend was the food.
I couldn’t have gone, even if I’d wanted to.
Dances were for the rich kids. I didn’t want to admit the worn hoodie I had on was probably the finest article of clothing I owned.
It was a hand-me-down from Dominick, and who knows where he'd gotten it.
“Besides all that,” she let out a sigh, as if winded by her own list of pros. “I really love to dance.”
I pretended not to notice the hopeful note in her words and pulled the pack of my mother’s cigarettes I’d stolen out of my backpack. “You want one?”
She laughed. “ No ... And aren’t you a little young to be smoking, Damien ?”
I was a little young for a lot of things…
“Smoking suppresses the appetite,” I replied dryly.
They also helped calm my nerves…and my tormentor hated the taste and smell of them.
He also hated the thin scars I’d been carving into my skin.
Initially, I’d begun cutting as a way to relieve my anxieties…
to ease the internal pressure cooker of constant fear, frustration, and despair.
Marring this flesh he called pretty was an added benefit.
I hoped that if I did it enough, I’d no longer be the object of his twisted desires.
Gemma only looked at me curiously before the back door creaked again. This time, a group of jocks descended upon us.
“What are you doing hanging out here alone with this devil worshipper ?” one of them taunted, flirtatiously tapping the bottom of her black combat boot with the toe of his bright white designer sneaker. “Aren’t you afraid he might sacrifice you?”
“Shut up, Chad ,” Gemma muttered, unamused. She bent her outstretched legs, pulling her knees up to her chest to wrap her arms around them, and rested her chin against the black fabric of her skirt.
Chad… Everything about Chad was so…fucking… Chad .
“I’m cutting music class,” Gemma confessed. “My fingers are sore from that stupid violin my father made me take up.”
“When you develop callouses, it won’t hurt anymore.” I glanced enviously at the instrument case. I would have loved the opportunity to acquire such a skill. Alas, we couldn’t even afford the rental fee on a tambourine.
“Anybody ask you to the dance yet, Gem?” Chad went on.
I could have sworn I felt her eyes on me as I lit up my cigarette.
“No…but I’m waiting for someone to.” Her reply had seemed rather pointed, but I chose not to acknowledge it. Chad, however, didn’t miss it and immediately shifted his resentful attention to me.
“ Armani Exchange?” he sneered, cocking his chin at me.
“Did you shoplift that hoodie, or did you dig it out of the Lost and Found bin?” His minions laughed along with him.
“We all know you’re dirt poor. You’re not fooling anyone by wearing it.
Not even considering the fact that A/X is basically the bottom rung of that brand. It’s not even considered luxury.”
I pulled a drag from my cigarette and glanced down at the embroidered A/X on my chest, before meeting his smug gaze again. I blew my smoke up at him and smiled. “I thought it was some kind of Algebra joke.”
When Gemma giggled, his scowl intensified, but I stood up and walked away.
Having come from an upper-middle-class Catholic family, I knew Gemma was way out of my league.
After graduation, she wouldn’t attend public high school.
Her father would enroll her at the Catholic Prep School, where he was headmaster.
And with rich boys who were destined for the same institution—like Chad —sniffing around her, I knew a piece of shit like me didn’t stand a chance.
I ’d spent many a night squeezing a pillow around my head, attempting to muffle out the squeaking springs of the couch, among other unsettling sounds an adolescent should not grow up consistently hearing, especially not the guttural grunts of the men who visited my mother…a revolving door of men.