“She was there,” I say with as much venom as I ever shot toward her.
“She was. Can’t fault her for that. And you know, I have to hold up my hands and admit it—she was kinda jaded, after me. But she did try to protect you. She had a good crack at giving you a normal life.” He makes a fist and turns it slowly, observing his bloodied knuckles. “Disrespectful bitch.”
“We’ve never really been a respectful family.”
He hoots. “You think?”
“I wasn’t including you.”
“I wasn’t sure about tying you up, you know. I figured I’d be spoiling all our fun. But now I’m getting all the juicy emotional stuff, and it’s like Oprah or something—ooh, mama.” Another hoot, like a drunk owl. “Seriously. You keep going with your little boy resentment and I’ll pretend to pop the corn. I’d pop real corn but we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere, so them’s the breaks, eh?”
Keep talking, fucker. Keep talking.
“Here was me planning for us to make up for lost time, have a couple beers out on the deck there…but if we were doing that, I wouldn’t have been able to fuck your cock sleeve. Quite something, isn’t she?” His delight fades into quiet malice. “Noisy, though.”
My entire torso pulls tight. My temples pulse. My temper flares, though it’s bound to the chair like the rest of me and there’s nowhere for the stampede of blood to go.
“Maybe I can think of a new way to play Pringles with her. You could join in.”
I have to distract him.
My Leo is in there.
“You’re never going to be anything like me,” I tell him in the calmest voice I can muster. “You’ll never have the money, or the brains, or the smart, hot girls, and no amount of throwing your weight around is going to get it.”
“I already am like you. I made you, you little shit.”
“Then surely all this should be the other way around. I should be copying you, right? Let’s see—what is it you do, again?”
“Nice try.” He finishes the beer and tosses the bottle toward Harvey; it lands on his shoulder with a blunt thump and rolls off into the corner.
“No, really. I’m curious. I want to know what my old man’s achievements are. You’ve been to jail, so that’s one thing…very impressive…and you’ve killed how many people, now?” I can’t count on my hands, so I improvise by nodding. “Three women, three men…who else? I bet there’s more.”
“Maybe.”
“We should sort you out with a reward chart, like we do for Ash. Put it on the refrigerator. You can have a sticker every time you rape or pillage, and when you get to ten, you earn a Viking hat and a Twinkie.”
Blood Honey slithers off the table and slopes toward me with heavy feet. The shadows pull at him with long, oiled fingers. “What in hell makes you think you’re better than me?”
“I’m not.” I stare up, looking him right in the eye. “My body count isn’t anywhere near yours, but the truth is, I’m worse. And you can’t stand it.”
He draws his fist up until it sits right over my forehead, and takes loud, hissing breaths. “I think somebody needs a time out.”
Somebody needs a bath, a steak, and a hack saw, thank you very fucking much. But I’m not about to get any of them.
We stare each other down until the silence threatens to burst, and then he turns on his heel to march outside. The door behind me groans on its hinges; a blast of steamy air rushes in, smelling like sweet sand and sea. Outside, his footsteps creak down what must be a deck, and he mutters to himself, delirious.
Only when I’m sure he’s long gone, do I call out.
“Leo?” I sound so feeble. Like a smaller man. “Leo, he’s not here. You can answer me. Leo!”
Nothing. Just the shivering garbage bags caught in night breeze, the waves rising and falling beneath the floorboards, and the faint buzzing of flies. So much for paradise.
“Sweetheart, it’s Aeron. Fucking answer me!”
Still nothing.