I fought for calm; assessed the situation. My way to the front door was blocked, and even if the drugs had sucked away a lot of his bulk, Lee was a lot bigger than me. I couldn’t fight my way past him no matter how badly I wanted to.
Plan B. Wait for a chance and run like hell.
I dropped duffel bag on the stairs, pretending to be defeated, and hung my head so that my hair over my face. “Yeah okay,” I said dully. “I’m sorry, Lee. I’ll make you dinner.”
I started to walk past Lee, to hook around to the right towards the kitchen when his hand lunged like a striking snake. He grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking me to him. His breath smelled like gasoline, and his eyes were watery, hate coursing along their red veins, as he thrust his face into mine. Whatever goodness Lee had when I first met him—and there hadn’t been a whole lot—was eaten away.
“You never learn, do you?” he seethed. “You don’t leave. You don’t even think about it. Remember what happened last time?”
“I r-remember it wasn’t always like this...” I said, my voice shaking with terror, my breath coming in harsh gasps. “Why do you want me around? Y-you don’t even like me anymore. Just let me go.”
His face screwed up in confusion. “I don’t like you? I’m trying to help you, you ungrateful bitch. Do you remember what you were when I met you? A fucking wretch, that’s what. You can’t make it five minutes on your own without me. The way I see it, you owe me. The very least you can do, Josephine, is make my goddamn dinner.”
Lee dragged me by the hair towards the kitchen. I stumbled and nearly fell trying to keep up. Pain burned my scalp and shot down my spine, zinging up over the crown of my head and deep in my neck as he slammed the side of my face against the refrigerator.
“This is where you get my food from.”
I let out a cry as he swung me from the refrigerator and jammed my face against the vent hood over the stove.
“And this is where you cook my food.” He held me over the dirty pots and pans, and the heavy iron skillet I’d used to make his fried chicken the night before. He gave my head a jerk. “You got that?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, panting through my nose as I tried to hold back the cries. A scream escaped as Lee yanked me to the dirty yellow linoleum floor. His boot buried itself in my gut like a cannonball. I curled up tight as all the air in the world whooshed out of me.
Lee’s face swam before my vision as he knelt down. “Now look what you made me do, Jo. Look what happens when you try to leave me…”
His hand brushed the hair from my cheek, exposing my scar. “Ungrateful bitch.” His hand squeezed. My scalp burned. He raised my head up and slammed it down onto that dingy floor.
The black descended before the pain could find me.
Muffled words and shouts. I listened through a gauzy haze of pain. I tried to open my eyes and but couldn’t.
Pacing footsteps. Floorboards creaking. Heavy treads and a crash. Lee was on a rampage.
“It’s fucking over…”
That’s not Lee’s voice. Someone else is here.
My head thundered with pain, drowning even my thoughts. I tried to claw my way to the surface, but slipped back under…
Pain woke me, a dull prodding against my temple. I opened my eyes to a blurred vista of cruddy green carpet strewn with squashed cigarette butts. I moved my gaze up and a flash of pain came like a white beam, lancing through eyes into my brain. When the light faded, I saw a jean-clad leg and a boot. Lee’s boot. I blinked and looked again. I was on the living room floor. Lee was lying a foot or two away from me. Lying so still, the carpet stained under his head…
I flinched as gentle hands touched my shoulders.
“Jo?”
I got to my knees, wincing at the agony flared at my neck, while my head kept a dull banging in time to my pulse. My stomach roiled with nausea. The strong hands helped me to stand, but the frantic fear of my fight with Lee awoke and sang in my veins. I pushed the hands away brushed the hair from my eyes.
Evan Salinger. Here in my living room. I struggled to remember what came before.
I was leaving with him. He was waiting for me.
Blood leaked from Evan’s nose and split lip. His t-shirt was torn at the shoulder and blood smeared all along the collar. I looked at his hands—swollen, bloody knuckles—then to Lee on the carpet. The stain under his head pooling now. Red. His head. Jesus Christ, the back of Lee’s head was dented in, his dark hair damp with blood.
“Did you do this?” I asked when I’d caught my breath. “You…killed him? Because he’s dead, isn’t he? Lee’s dead?”
Evan stared at me hard for a handful of seconds that seemed like forever.
“Yes,” he said finally, and bent to pick up something I hadn’t noticed before on the floor—the heavy iron skillet.
Evan took up the pan, twisting the handle in both hands, like he was strangling it. There was a wet, circular splat of blood on the back. I thought I’d be sick.