Page 39 of The Filth Kings

“Impurity cursed my baby boy! He’s dying! Apologize for disrespecting my baby!” I looked up at Jalissa and grinned. Her well put together demeanor from when I first walked in had evaporated.

Her face was crimson red, all of her veins had popped out of her neck and face as tears of anger fell down her cheeks. Her eyes were wide and wild. They darted around my office erratically. Jalissa’s breathing came in ragged as she gasped and struggled to steady herself, which only made her chest rise and fall in frantic jerks.

“Jalissa, if I see you again…I’ll kill you. If you want to get back at Impurity, you’ll do it alone. Iwilltell him all about today. While I despise him for my upbringing, he never turned his back on me. Don’t bother Monster again and…” My chest grew tight, I wanted to go stand next to Monster.

For the first time in my life, I wanted to apologize to him. I shot him because I thought he had betrayed me in the worse way. Although he came in my life under disguise, it dawned on me when Jalissa opened her mouth to speak that she manipulated him to. She took her ass to Thailand to act like a super mom that saved her long-lost son, when in reality, she only wanted to use him as a tool to get back at Impurity.

I couldn’t fathom the life that he had to live by the hands of Impurity and Jalissa. I saw all his scars in a new light, which caused me to grow sick in the stomach. He spent years battling rejection, hurt, and pain. While I had one crazy parent to raise me, he had no one. My fingers itched to pick up the gun and kill Jalissa, but something inside, stopped me.

Me not being able to shoot her like I shot Monster made me even angrier.What was holding me back?I couldn’t answer that question as I watched her have a manic episode right in front of my desk. Monster’s gunshot wounds bled out into my carpet. He stopped shaking, and panic settled inside of my gut then eased away once I noticed his chest still rose and fell.

“There is a lot about Impurity that you don’t know! Your loyalty resides with the wrong fucking person! That motherfucker broke me down into nothing! You all owe me! Octavio is dying and when he takes his last breath, you all will regret it. You go ahead and warn Impurity, let him know that I’m coming with a vengeance so strong that it’ll force him down to his knees and do what he’s never done before…”

“And what’s that?”

“Pray.”

Eighteen

The Past….

Things had shiftedat Impurity’s estate after my mother left. Impurity was already dark, but with mom gone for an entire year after he banned her from ever returning, he became the devil himself. I started to see major changes a month after she left. More women everywhere, all over his estate. Two months later, I heard screams from behind my closed bedroom door. Their screams of pain and fear echoed off of the stone walls.

I stopped wandering around the 105,000 square foot estate when I discovered that he kept women locked in cages. He openly had sex fests wherever he decided to without warning of the location. Julius was more than just a guard for me, he was my second guardian. He made sure that I ate, he brought books for me to read, and he even convinced my father to get me homeschooled so I could have a proper education.

My young eyes had seen things around this cold and eerie place, they made me intrigued by what all my father was into. I knew that he was powerful, everyone including myself feared him. I wasn’t sure if he was heartbroken, or maybe even bitter. I caught him in the act watching women perform sexual acts and if they didn’t do one thing that he commanded right, he’d get physical. I witnessed him kill with his bare hands.

I never saw him partake in any of what they did. My young, perverted mind wondered if he even had sex with any of them. I wanted to know all of the why’s, but what was the point? It all seemed twisted. My mind was in and out of reality and living through dreams of my mom coming back to love me and take me wherever she took Octavio to. I wondered if she went to go look for the brother that she mentioned Impurity getting rid of. Why couldn’t I be with my siblings? What was so wrong with me?

She claimed that she saw so much evil and corruption in me like she saw in Impurity. I felt like that wasn’t true, he just loved me more than she did. Months turned into an entire year of her absence. Today was my birthday, there was no ‘happy birthdays’, no gifts, or even a cake to acknowledge my special day. Impurity barely checked in on me, he’d see me in passing and grunt or mumble something that I couldn’t make out.

I laid on top of my soft black velvet sheets that pooled around me like an ocean that I couldn’t escape. I knew that I turned twelve years old. I had a Marvel calendar that Julius gifted me from all the books that he bought me for home studies in order to keep up with the dates and time of my class sessions. I looked around my room through puffy red eyes. A twelve-year-old should feel happy in a grand looking room with towering windows that framed the distant sky. While this place appeared to be beautiful, to me, it was cold with no love present.

My frail body trembled as I buried my head in the pillow, hoping to suffocate myself. My chest heaved with each sob that I released, my world felt split open with no one here to help me put it back together. Why did mom leave me? Why did she take my brother? She cradled him in her arms as if he was the only person that she had chosen to love. I could still hear her words of rejection, I tried to hate her, I wanted to believe all the bad things that Impurity had to say about her were out of hate and spite.

Sometimes, I did hate her with every fiber in my being, and other days, I yearned for her motherly touch. She messed my mind up when she was here. Days that she got along with Impurity; she treated me better. She hugged and loved on me, then there were those days where she hated him. She’d get drunk and say hateful things to me. I guess wishing she had the courage to say it all to Impurity.

How could a mother walk away from her child? How could a mother allow someone else to get rid of a baby and still stay to create more kids with him? I tried to be the good son, I was quiet and obedient to her and Impurity. In return, they both seemed disappointed in me. Nothing I did, ever felt like it was enough. That was evident to me because I was all alone in my room on my birthday with a million questions that roamed through my head that made me feel weak.

I heard heavy distinctive footsteps stop in front of my room door. Panic made me quickly jump up to wipe at my eyes and sit up straight to fix my posture.He hadn’t forgot my birthday!I smiled weakly as my bed room door opened. Impurity stepped inside of my room with blood-stained clothes. His ashy, toffee-colored face had blood specks covering it like freckles. His pitch-black eyes went from side to side wildly before they landed on me.

He gazed at me for what seemed like forever, my heart hammered in my chest.

“Feel nothing.” His voice was cold and raspy.

“I told you, boy. Empathy is nothing but weakness, a trap! Motherfuckers will use it against you, drain you then break you. Don’t give them that power or you will forever be the next person’s toy. They’ll play with you while your shiny and new. When you get old and rusty, they’ll toss you to the side. Like trash.” He gritted.

He stepped further into my room. He stopped when he was about four inches away then cracked his neck from side to side.

“Jalissa is a prime example. She was my fuck up, a mistake that I showed empathy to. I should have learned from my father’s fuck up. Before my mother came along, he used women for the only good thing that they were good for... Good pussy and to procreate to fill up this shitty world with more people.” He chuckled dryly.

His steel toe boots stomped toward the chaise that was in the corner of my room. He pulled out his tobacco baggie then tossed a handful in his mouth before he continued to talk.

“My mother is the reason why her and my father are dead. She was a whore, just like Jalissa. My mother was a strong and selfish woman. Her characteristics were masculine. She fought with my father and helped him run Arkville with the same cold bitterness as him. She slept around a lot; my father didn’t know much about it but when I found out through all the hidden handwritten letters that she kept in the basement...” He paused then spit out a gob of spit right on my marble floor.

“Di-did you tell him?” I asked.

“No, my father was cold…he treated everyone like they weren’t worth the dirt beneath the bottom of his boots. I started to hate my mother the day I found the letters. I didn’t understand how she had a man to love her inside out, all for her to betray him. He lucked up, if you ask me…She was the only person that he had ever showed emotion and love to. If I told my father, he would have killed her and me. He loved her more than me. He hardly ever recognized me as his son. He only acknowledged me for her approval. Til this day, I’m not sure who murdered both of my parents but my gut tells me every time I think about it… that it was her secret lover. The handwritten letters showed that he was in love with her deeply, he begged for her to leave my father and to run off into the sunset with him.” Impurity stopped talking for a couple of seconds.

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