Page 47 of Full Throttle

Immediately, she nodded, her skin flushed. I did my best to ignore that, turning away from her. As I crossed the yard, I heard a bang from inside the house, followed by my name. “Cain! Get your ass in this house right now!”

I climbed up the back porch steps, casting another look into the garage before opening the screen door.

Bile rose up in my throat as the smell of rot and smoke hit me. Flies and bugs crawled all over the floor, weaving through the various piles of trash.

I kept my eyes scanning the rooms as I made my way through them, always on guard—a lesson I had to learn when I was thirteen when she attacked me from behind for not stealing her enough cigarettes from the gas station. I came home from school and got hit in the back of the head with a frying pan. I was out for a day and a half. When I woke up, there was a drunk man standing over me with hunger in his eyes. I’d kicked him in the balls and hightailed it out of there.

“Cain!”

My head snapped to the left to find my mother with her back to me, wearing a dirty t-shirt and someone’s boxers. Her skin was covered in scars, bruises, and dirt. Her hair was a rat's nest, filled with dandruff and grease. She turned to me, baring her yellow stained teeth. “Where’s my purse?” she barked.

“How the fuck should I know?” I drawled, keeping my distance from her.

My mother was insane. This wasn’t an insult; it was the truth. She needed to be medicated but she refused to leave the house. In fact, she hadn’t left the house in over six years. The only way she made rent was by selling her body. All my life, I’d grown accustomed to strange men coming and going. I stopped caring when I stopped sleeping here.

“I need my purse.”

“I don’t have it,” I snapped.

Her head twisted to me then, her dead eyes filled with hatred as her lip curled. “What did you just say to me, boy?”

That line didn’t work on me anymore.

Once upon a time, I would hide in fear the second she asked me that, but now, I was bigger than her. Stronger than her. Her threats were as empty to me as her damn heart.

“Right,” I muttered, spinning on my heel to head back outside to the shed. To the engine I’d been working on. To my sweet girl from next door.

A faint clicking sound compelled me to look back, my eyes widening as they landed on the gun pointed at me. I froze, the old fear taking over. My mother was the person who was supposed to love me most in this world. That’s how it was supposed to go, but here I was, in the claws of death as she held her life in my hands.

I swallowed. “Where the fuck did you get that?”

My mother laughed, a cruel sound coming from her. “Tom said I needed something to protect myself with,” she sneered as she stepped over a pile of trash, nearly tripping. “What do you think the police will say when I tell them it was self-defense?”

I remained silent, every muscle in my body tensing, ready to fight as she continued. “What kind of a son attacks his own mother?” she gasped, acting as her hand went to her chest. “What kind of pathetic kid would do such a thing?”

“Cain?”

A sweet voice filled the cold, dirty house, and my mother’s eyes widened. “Who is that?” she barked.

A second later, Dominique came into view, her light having no place here. Not in this place. Suddenly, my mother’s focus wasn’t on me anymore. She whirled to the side to where Nik stood in the mouth of the hallway that led back into the kitchen. “Who the fuck are you?”

Nik didn’t answer. How could she? Her eyes were on the barrel of the gun pointed at her as she stiffened in fear.

“Put the gun down,” I demanded, my voice unsteady. A new fear slithered across the floor, making its way up my spine before coiling around my neck, fangs out. Ready to strike. “Put the gun down!” I roared.

Outside, the skies had darkened, an afternoon storm greeting us. Thunder clapped in the distance as the silence in the place I’d never called home became deadly. Tears formed in Nik’s eyes as she looked over to me slowly, her bottom lip trembling.

“C-Cain, w-what’s going on?” she breathed out, her words choppy.

“Oh,” my mother chuckled, looking at me. “Is this your little girlfriend?” Her arm lowered a fraction, and she lifted her foot to take a step.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” I growled, halting her movements.

The gun was pointed back at me as my mother screamed, “You don’t tell me what to do, boy! I am your mother! I am your superior! You answer to me and only me! You got that?”

I looked over her shoulder to Nik. “Get out,” I barked.

She began shaking her head. “No. I won’t—”

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