Novak (Redcars #5)

1. Leon Novak

ONE

Leon Novak

My packed case sat by the front door—blue, small. The zipper needed pressure to close. Twice I pushed harder, listening for the snap, wondering how much force would break it.

No one else had a case.

Mom was red-eyed from crying and didn’t speak as I got in the back. Dad carried my suitcase to the car in silence. Dermot stayed inside the house, leg bandaged, with a new games console, not talking to me.

I wasn’t supposed to have stabbed him, but I wanted to know what would happen.

What did pain look like when it started?

How did someone’s body react when you crossed that invisible line?

I thought about cause and effect, about whether I could predict the outcome, and if I could, whether that made me good or bad.

Part of me even wondered if I would feel something important—remorse, maybe—but all I really felt was a curious emptiness, as if every question I asked only made more questions appear.

I hadn’t stabbed Dermot in anger. My big brother talked with his mouth full, spitting crumbs, but I was used to that.

I watched his leg muscles move beneath the skin, wondered how deep a fork would go, whether his flesh would resist or part, whether Dermot would freeze or scream first. I chose a spot above his knee—more flesh, less bone—thinking it would be safer, assuming it would be safer and cleaner.

I pressed the fork in slowly, saw the skin dent. Then I drove it harder instead of pulling out. I watched confusion turn to understanding on his face—my main interest.

I timed Mom crossing the kitchen and measured how fast blood showed through the fabric. The squelch was quieter than expected.

Dad yanked the fork out before I could gauge the depth. Mom screamed; my brother cried. The experiment collapsed into chaos. I was irritated. If they’d waited a few seconds, I could have learned more.

When Mom grabbed my shoulders and shouted, I paused, then cried too. I mimicked my brother’s hitched breathing and trembling hands. I said I didn’t mean it, said sorry, checked the blood and flinched, pretending to fear it.

Grown-ups didn’t actually care what I felt.

They cared what I showed them.

If I gave them the right expression, the right words, the right shaking hands, and lowered eyes, they stopped asking questions. They stopped searching deeper.

So, I practiced.

Sadness first. That one worked best.

That night, they held me. Mom smelled of lavender and salt, her arms tight around me, rocking me as if I’d been hurt. Dad’s hand on my back, solid and warm, held me to her. Mom checked on me twice, smoothing my hair, whispering, her voice trembling. “You’re my good boy.”

I kept my breathing even, counting seconds between footsteps. Dad locked the kitchen drawer that held the silverware.

I tried my hardest to appear as normal as I could but apparently what I’d done to Dermot had been the final straw. I heard Mom say that on the phone later.

She said I scared them.

After that, they made me see men who talked in careful voices and showed me pictures. Faces with different expressions. Drawings of boys pushing other boys. Blurry photographs of injuries. They asked me what I felt when I saw them.

I told them what they wanted to hear.

I said the pictures made me sad. I said the hurt was bad. I practiced lowering my gaze at the right moments.

I don’t remember much about their questions, but I remember the letter opener on one of the men’s desks and stabbing my hand. I timed how long it took for someone to notice—how long before the patient alarms screamed.

They called it an accident.

I let them.

I thought this trip today was just another visit to people who wanted to ask me questions, and all the while, mom sobbed and dad cursed, and my lucky brother was home eating ice cream with our aunt Kate, who wasn’t an aunt but our next-door neighbor.

I’d wanted ice cream, and Dad promised I’d have some when I got home, but I knew Dermot would have eaten it all to get back at me for what I’d done.

They were angry all the time but that was only when I hadn’t pretended hard enough for them.

The drive was long. I watched road signs, counted telegraph poles until I got bored. Mom and Dad didn’t play music or talk to me. When they spoke to each other, it was in quiet voices, as if I were asleep.

I wasn’t.

Finally, we turned off the main road and drove up a long gravel driveway lined with trees, and at the end of it stood the biggest house I’d ever seen. Gray stone. Tall windows. Too many chimneys and big gates. A man in uniform waved us through, and I saw his gun.

We passed under an archway built into a wall. Above it was a large stone cross the same as the one on the kitchen wall at home, except ours had a bleeding Jesus.

Dad parked near the steps. A woman in a black dress, hair covered in more material, stood at the top, waiting. A silver cross hung at her throat, and she didn’t smile as we headed toward her.

I saw three other children peering out of a window, watching the car.

There was also a man standing behind them.

He was tall. Broad across the shoulders. His head nearly brushed the top of the window frame. He didn’t react when I stared at him, simply watched with the same motionless attention the boys had.

Each boy wore a collar.

Not like the one the woman in black wore. Hers was white and soft against the black of her dress. These were different.

Thick bands around their throats.

Mom knelt, whispered church words, her eyes red. She mentioned God and the Devil, but I ignored most of it. Her mouth moved, her breath faltered, her tears smelling of salt. I watched the pulse at her throat, proof of life, steady and exposed. It would have been easy to make it stop.

I wondered if she’d scream like my brother.

“We can’t handle him,” Dad said, and Mom sobbed. “He’s not safe.”

The woman in black stared down at me and said, “We can fix him.” She said it as if she were promising to mend a cracked plate or one of Dad’s model planes laid out in pieces on the kitchen table. I pictured plastic parts, glue, and careful hands putting something back together.

I wasn’t broken into parts.

I don’t get it.

“…every month, and contracts signed…”

Dad was talking, and I tuned back in as he handed her an envelope. Then I stood on the steps with my blue suitcase beside me, watching them drive away under the cross.

They didn’t look back.

My hand lifted a few inches, automatically, the way Mom said I should when Dad left for work.

The lady in black crouched in front of me.

“I’m Sister Mary Agnes,” she said, staring down at me as if I were a bug she had under a glass. “And you’re a silver-eyed devil.”

I tilted my head. “I’m not.”

Her hand clutched at me. She opened the front door and dragged me past the big man, who seemed even larger up close.

He grabbed my neck and forced me to the floor.

His weight pinned my shoulders before I could react.

My cheek struck the cold tile. His knee pressed into my back, forcing the air out of my lungs.

A collar snapped closed with a hard metallic click . The sound reverberated through my jaw, sharp enough that it felt like it echoed inside my teeth. For a second, the band’s pressure made it hard to swallow.

Then the pain started.

It punched through my neck and along my back. Every muscle locked at once. I scrabbled at the stone floor, searching for leverage. Vision pulsed at the edges. My tongue was too big for my mouth—thick, useless. My body seized. I tried to breathe and failed.

The man hauled me upright by the collar, and the burning faded slowly, leaving my heart beating fast and my limbs shaking, and I gasped for air.

He dragged me forward and forced me onto my knees in front of the other boys.

Sister Mary Agnes flicked something that hung from the collar, and it made a metallic noise. “This is Francis,” she announced.

That wasn’t right. My name isn’t Francis. “Leon,” I corrected her.

Pain tore through my body, and I writhed on the floor. “Your name is Francis,” she repeated. The boys stared at me. “And Francis, this is Patrick, Gabriel, and Raphael. My angels of vengeance.”

I peered at them as Sister Mary Agnes giggled.

Patrick. Gabriel. Raphael.

None of them had moved when I collapsed, or my body jerked, or when pain forced the air out of my lungs.

They just watched.

My collar was the same as theirs.