Reckoning for Vile Acts

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

EREZ DETH

My brothers are rolling around on the ground again.

Arguing, laughing, wrestling. Well, Lanzo isn’t laughing, exactly.

He laughs at weird times. At three and five, respectively, it’s kind of funny watching them wrestle because Zephyr is two years younger than Lanzo.

He’s small, so Lanzo dominates him effortlessly.

Interestingly, he often lets Zephyr win. It’s kind of fascinating because my parents say Lanzo has an antisocial disorder, just like our Dadaz, and it’s unusual that someone with an antisocial disorder would let someone win at anything. They like to control every situation.

For a while, I watch them and listen to Zephyr’s peals of laughter. Lanzo smirks. Even as a kid, I know that it’s kind of eerie to see that kind of smile on his face.

After some time, I glance at the windows in the kitchen that overlook the backyard.

I don’t see my parents lingering. My eyes travel to the second-floor windows.

My room and Lanzo’s room face the backyard as well as the bathroom my brothers and I share.

I don’t expect to see anyone in the windows there either, so I’m not surprised when they’re still and empty.

Keeping my brothers in view, I back away from the yard toward the hedges. When my back hits them, I shrink down and crawl through them backward, always watching my brothers and the windows for a glimpse of my parents.

When I’m through the hedges, I stand again and brush the leaves and twigs off me. Grinning, I walk down the street toward town. I’ve snuck out of our yard three times before to walk around all by myself. So far, no one has caught me.

The first time, I only walked to the end of the street then crawled back through the hedges.

But the other times got longer and longer.

This time, I’m going to walk down to the ice cream shop then come home.

Maybe I should have brought some money from my piggie bank.

How much does an ice cream cost? There might be enough money to find on the ground on my way.

My attention doesn’t stay on the ground though. I watch my surroundings. Watch the people I pass. They look at me with concern. I know they’re looking for my parents. But I smile and keep walking. Smiles make people feel comfortable. That’s what Dadis says. We smile when we want someone to be calm.

I also don’t look over my shoulder. That’s a sign I’m hiding things. That’s what Dadaz says. I don’t look behind me to see if my parents are coming. I look like I’m supposed to be walking all by myself down the street. Like I’m a big kid.

The end of the road is the barrier that marks we’re leaving our neighborhood. If I stay on the sidewalk and don’t cross the street, I’ll be heading straight into town.

It’s a big city, but we live on the small side. Mommy calls it quaint. I don’t know what that means. But it’s quaint without being too crowded with big buildings. There are still green spaces and trees. There’s a park and an ice cream shop.

Maybe big cities have ice cream shops too, but I don’t know. We don’t ever walk to the big part of the city. We drive and park in a lot of the places we want to go to. The buildings are so tall when we go there. They reach the clouds.

The buildings by my house don’t get that tall. They’re still short. Like little stools at the kiddie table.

For a while, I wander around and look inside windows. I stop to pet a stray kitty cat. I even cross a street, but I’m careful. I wait with the big group of people and watch the lights and the crosswalk sign.

It’s probably been a long time now, so I should go home.

I’d like to keep exploring. I turn when I reach another corner and begin heading back the way I came.

There’s loud traffic, but it’s not on the street that I’m walking alongside.

I hear it like a tunnel. All the tires and the whoosh as it passes each building. There’s an occasional horn too.

I’m about to cross the street at the crosswalk when I hear someone crying.

It sounds like a little kid. I’m reminded of when Zephyr fell out of the tree.

The way he gasped for breath between sobs.

He had bruises and a broken wrist. The pain was so bad that he couldn’t just cry. He didn’t have breath to cry.

That’s what I hear.

I look around at the adults passing by. Do none of them hear it? I stare at the face of a woman in particular as she approaches me, waiting for her to hear the cries. She looks down at me briefly then continues without a word. There’s no indication that she heard the cries.

They’re not loud. But they’re there.

Well, I hear it. Someone is hurt. At least I can find them and help them find their mommy.

I’m no longer watching where I am as I twist and wind my way through buildings looking for the cry.

It gets louder, and sometimes it quits entirely.

Then I have to stop and wait to hear it again.

There’s someone with the little girl. I’m sure it’s a little girl now.

The guy yelling at the girl sounds mean.

Eventually, I round a corner and stop. There’s a little girl on the ground and a big man. They’re just inside the little dark alley that I’m at the other end of. Beyond them is the busy highway.

I almost scream when the man kicks the girl in the stomach. She curls in on herself. I’m so startled and scared that I just stand there and stare. He’s hitting a little kid!

He picks her up by her hair, and she screams. With his other hand, he hits her so hard that she’s pulled from his grip and lands on the ground again. I think she hits her head.

I’m running at them. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I have to make him stop hurting her. I run and run and run. He doesn’t see me until I’m right on them, and I push my hands out in front of me as if I’m going to stop myself on a wall. My hands land on his stomach.

Our collision makes me fall forward and stumble down to my knees. The man can’t catch himself as my hard push sends him falling backward. He struggles to catch his balance but ends up on the highway, his foot having slipped off the curve.

I don’t watch as cars come to a skidding halt. I feel the crashes as they vibrate through the air. Glass breaks. Metal crumples. There’s a scream.

I don’t care. The little girl is bleeding and bruised and hurt. Crouching down in front of her, I brush her bloody hair from her face. “Are you okay?”

She opens her eyes and looks at me. She’s so scared.

“Come on,” I say and get up, holding my hands out for her.

She tries. But she hurts too much. Probably from where that man kicked her. So I help her get up and then pick her up. She’s as small as Zephyr. Maybe smaller. She doesn’t weigh more than the neighbor’s little puppy.

“Where’s your mommy and daddy?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer, so I make my way through the maze of buildings. I have no idea where I am, so I wander in the direction I think I came from, always moving away from the highway. There are sirens now. They’re getting closer.

I try to talk to the girl as I walk, but she doesn’t talk to me. I feel her tears. Or maybe I feel her blood. I don’t know, but I feel something wet on my neck.

Eventually, I find my way back to the part of town I recognize.

I’m a long way from home, but that’s okay.

As we walk, I tell her about the shops. We stop to see the kitty, and the girl doesn’t let me go.

She’s still scared. I can also see how she’s hurt.

It’s all over her body. Everything that I can see.

We don’t stop again. I think my mommy needs to clean her up. Maybe she needs a doctor. She seems to like it when I talk though because she stops whimpering to listen, so I tell her about my family and school and everything I think about that we pass.

By the time we get back to my house, my parents are outside looking for me. I don’t crawl through the hedges again. Not with the girl in my arms.

As soon as I come up the driveway and my parents see us, everyone stops moving and stares.

Then my mom is there, and she takes the little girl from my arms. Well, she tries to.

The girl starts screaming again and holds onto me as tightly as she can, so my mom stops trying. She crouches down to look at her.

I’m not sure what she sees, but Mom ushers us inside and tells me how to help the girl since she trusts me.

It takes some time, but the girl lets Mom clean her up.

My brothers watch in the doorway to the small bathroom downstairs.

She’s calming down now. Right up until Dadwa comes up to the door, then she’s screaming again and trying to get away, wildly shaking her head.

Dadwa takes several steps backward. “Okay,” he says, hands out. “It’s okay. I’ll go.”

It takes her a long time to calm down again, but eventually, she does. Her breaths are still a struggle. Every third or fourth, her breaths stutter again.

It’s a long time before we’re sitting on the couch. She’s beside me now, lying down, with her head in my lap and covered over with a blanket. She’s in my clean clothes, but they’re far too big. She has a lot of cuts and bruises all over her. I saw them when I helped her change.

She doesn’t talk. I gently brush her hair with my hand. My brothers remain close. Lanzo studies her. Zephyr looks… disturbed.

After a while, Mom comes into the room and kneels on the floor in front of us. I think the girl is asleep. Mom looks at me. “Where did you find her?”

I look at the girl and remember the guy that I shoved into the moving cars.

I’m afraid I’ll get in trouble, so I don’t answer.

He’s probably hurt. I’ll get in trouble because we’re supposed to keep our hands to ourselves.

Even when we see someone hurting someone else, we’re not supposed to touch them in return.

So I don’t answer.

“Erez, we need to find her parents. Where were you when you found her like this? Did you see what happened?”

Would my mom believe me if I told her an adult did this to her? Adults take care of kids.

I decide I’m still not going to answer her.

Mom sighs.