Page 162 of Nash

They’re my family now.

I must’ve fallen asleep,overwhelmed by it, because I awake to a crash. It startles me, and I sit up, glancing through the windows to the deck.

A violent summer storm rages outside. The extreme afternoon heat finally bursts the evening sky open with thunder, lightning, wind, rain, and then hail. The lights flicker off, and we lose power.

These storms are normal around here. It’ll pass in an hour, but it’s time to check on Alena. She loves lightning, anyway.

Barefooted, I aim down the hall. The bedrooms face the side of the house, leaving the dusk light and view to the living area. The shadows grow darker as I approach her bedroom door, but I won’t knock. I won’t wake her in case she’s sleeping through the storm.

Quietly, I nudge her door open and…

Terror seizes my heart.

A man straddles Alena, his silhouette narrow and tall. Her screams are muffled by thunder, and the sock shoved in her mouth. He’s tied her wrists to the headboard. He’s ripped her pajama top open and torn her shorts apart. The window to her bedroom gapes wide open. He crawled through it; don’t ask me how with the guard outside.

It doesn’t matter.

Hell is here.

“Daddy’s not going to like how I’ll fuck his pretty daughter up.” He holds a bloody hunting knife to her nipple. “I bet you were even prettier when you were ten.”

Lightning slashes the air, its light illuminating his face.

It’s Turner.

It’s on.

“Hey, Cyclops!” I yell. “Want another ass beating?”

He whips around, confirming my insult. The mutilated hole where his eye used to be stares me down. His flaccid eyelid is swollen and raw, like the scars that mar his face. A piece of his bottom lip is missing, too—all courtesy of Nash’s wrath for me.

“You fucking bitch,” he hisses.

“Yeah, I am. So you want another round?”Just get away from Alena.Tied up like that, she doesn’t have a fighting chance. But I do. “Why don’t you show me all your little dick stamina while you mansplain a micropenis to me?”

That’s all it takes.

Turner climbs off of Alena’s bed and stalks toward me. Instinctively, I want to run, but I wait for a heartbeat. I wait until he’ll follow me and not hurt her.

“You cheating fucking bitch,” he hisses, his lone blue eye glaring. “I’m going to carve off eighteen pieces of your flesh and then fuck them into every hole you have.”

“You couldn’t fuck a hole if you stood in one.” I whip around, running down the hall, taunting him to chase me.

Knives. In the kitchen. Go!

I race that way, sensing his heat behind me. It’s not a big house. There’s not much room to escape.

My pulse rockets to heights never known. My vision tunnels, focused on my goal.On a weapon. On a knife.The only thing I hear is his grunt as he grabs my long braid so hard, I scream. The flame of my torn flesh, of my ripped scalp, is instant.

In a whirl, I’m spun around, crashing into the wall, breath exploding from my ribs, pain ripping my vision away.

“You little, fucking bitch.” His scalding slap to my face shocks my eyes open. My world rings in my ear. “Where’s your mobster now, you cheating cunt?”

Turner grabs my chin, crushing it and forcing me to face him. His one eye is crazed as he squeezes my lips, his hot mustard breath, and Chiclet teeth nearing. The smell of his preppy cologne is repugnant, too, reminding me of…

My prom.

My nightmare.

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