I fell asleep before the final showdown.
I woke to Janie shaking me. The credits to an animated princess movie were playing. Janie loves this movie, where the princess falls in love with the monster and frees him from a curse. I will never understand girls.
“Bedtime, huh?” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes.
“Yeah.” Janie closed the laptop and gave me a hug. “Thanks.”
I hugged her back, inhaling the smell of oranges that wafted up from her hair.
Downstairs there was a crash, raucous laughter, and the sound of furniture being dragged across the floor.
“For what?” I asked when the hug was over.
“Two hundred dollars. I know it wasn’t easy.”
I told her about the party and mall trip tomorrow.
Janie nodded, understanding without needing me to spell it out. “I’ll spend the night at Clay’s.”
Clay’s mom was used to us showing up. Clay told her it was the pressure valve we needed, downplaying how bad it really was. Telling his mom not to call anyone about it because Janie and I didn’t want to be separated in foster care.
“What about you?” she asked.
“I’ll be partying all night.”
Janie nodded like it was the truth. “Just as long as you don’t come home until morning.”
“I know the drill.”
Janie stood and picked up the laptop. “Night.” Her mattress springs groaned as she lay down.
I pushed my bed against the closed door of our room. As the night went by, the noises downstairs grew louder. The front door slammed repeatedly. Men shouted at each other. A woman, crying and yelling. It got quieter, except for the television’s gunfire and action music. Every now and then, I could hear Janie’s light, whiffling snore from the other side of the partition. I imagined decapitating monsters and waited for daylight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Late the next morning, the cell chirped. I came awake with a start and fumbled for it under the bed. Flipped it over and read the message. Cursed.
“What is it?” Janie poked her head around the partition. Her hair was rumpled from the pillow.
I grabbed the hoodie off the floor.
“Cyndra’s waiting for me outside.” I cursed again, feeling my stomach knot. It was bad enough that Michael had prowled his sleek Mustang around the neighborhood after school the other day. But at least then, no one was home. Unlike now.
Janie popped around the drywall and shoved her feet into her sneakers. “It’s okay. Maybe he’s already gone or asleep.” She grabbed some clothes and the stuffed poodle, shoving them into her backpack. She hoisted it onto her shoulder.
I cracked the door open, listening. There were no noises from downstairs.
We crept into the hall and down the creaking stairs. The couch was empty.
A heavy hand pulled me back by the hood.
“Where you going, boy?”
It amazes me how someone so big can move so silently.
I turned and faced my father. Cold eyes glared into mine—blue so pale it was almost transparent. Deep-set eyes with a blade of brow ridge lowered in a don’t-fuck-with-me glare.
“Go,” I ordered Janie. She could get to Clay’s on her own.
The screen door banged as Janie lit out.
Good girl.
“Where you think you’re going?” my father asked again, giving me a little shake.
“The mall.”
“Smartass.”
I feel slow around him. I can never think clearly, and I always say stupid things. I knew enough to stay quiet when I could.
His upper lip curled on his teeth. The fang-grooves appeared in the skin over his canines. He dragged me to the window. “I want to show you something.” He pushed the smoke-scented blanket aside.
“See that car? Now, what’s a choice car like that doing driving up and down the street for the last five minutes? That for you?”
Sometimes he’ll ask something like that—and I have no idea. Maybe he’s just looking for a reason to blow. Or he’s being extra paranoid—it was that way when he came back from county, seeing a narc around every corner. But this time it’s real, and I know who’s driving the silver Mercedes with the tinted windows.
“I don’t know,” I said.
He dropped the hood and grabbed my hair. My cheek ground against the metal window frame.
“Try again. You holding out on me, boy?”
I dropped my weight and spun. My hair twisted in his grasp, and my chin jutted up, but not before I landed an uppercut into his solar plexus. It was like hitting a bag of sand at the building supply store: full, heavy, and so dense that you can’t even make a dent.
He drove a fist into my stomach. I hadn’t seen it coming, hadn’t been able to tense up enough. I fell to my knees. He let go of my hair and cocked his fist again. Came at me, his massive form gliding. Improbably graceful—wide neck broadening into heavy shoulders, almost like his whole body sloped outward in one thick, muscular flare. I tried to uncurl, tried to dodge as the punch flew toward my eye. I succeeded a little, able to rise up enough so that the punch landed on my jaw instead.
When you see a real fight, it’s not loud like it is in the movies. You don’t have these resounding whumps that echo around a room like a biology book hitting a desk.
It’s more like punching a piece of meat.
Unless you’re the one getting hit—then it rings in your head like a sledgehammer hitting concrete, and you’re shocked no one is running to see the demolition.
He seized the front of my shirt and pulled me to my feet. Did it without effort, like he was curling a weight instead of lifting a person off the floor. He shoved me against the wall. My knee shot up, but he saw it coming and knocked it aside.
I imagined the canvas heavy bag and slung a punch into his stomach.
He smiled until I sent the second one.
A fist drove at my side. I pushed into it. Sometimes that’s the only thing you can do, blunt the force by stopping it short.