Page 96 of Savage

“Wayno here lost another round of poker,” the man says, clapping my father on the back. He circles my mother and then slaps her on the bum again. This time she doesn’t yelp. Her gaze is fixed on Dad’s, and she’s turned white from head to toe. “You’re comin’ to keep me company, sweet pea.”

“What?” She drops the jar of mustard. It smashes against the ground and both the men laugh.

“Hope you don’t value your crockery too much?” my father says, and he knocks back the rest of his beer, and throws the can in the sink.

“I ain’t got nothin’ fancy for her to break anyway … except my heart,” the man says, and he laughs, and I see his gap-filled, rotted-out mouth. The monster laughs too.

“Wayne, you can’t be serious?” Mamma says. She searches their faces. I don’t understand why she’s so scared, why I’m so scared, but I want to take her by the hand and run away with her. I wish I were brave like Atreyu. I wish I could just stop reading and put the book down like Bastian when it got too frightening.

“Sorry, darlin’. A man can only gamble with what he owns.”

“Wayne!” My mother screams as the other man pulls her along with him. She slaps him across the face. His eyes grow very dark. “Stop it! Wayne!”

“Get her outta my fuckin’ hair,” the monster says. “I got a kid around here somewhere. Pathetic, snivellin’ fat little shit of a thing. You want him too?”

Fear seizes my chest, and my eyes go huge and round as dinner plates. He’s taking my mamma? He can’t do that. She’s mine. She’smine. I run down the hall and strike him. “Get away from her!”

The man’s knees buckle as my foot connects with them, and he yells, “You little fuckin’ shit.”

That’s when I hear the monster behind me. He catches me up in his big arms, crushing my chest beneath their weight. He smells like beer and cigarettes and something else sour that makes my stomach twist with fear.

“No!” my mother cries. “Let him go.”

I struggle in his arms, kicking out with my legs until eventually, I get him in the private parts, just like when Johnny Dover kicked me and stole my lunch money, leaving me crying on the concrete. The monster falls to the ground, taking me with him, but I’m quicker, and I jump to my feet, ready to protect my mum. Ready to take on a whole army of monsters to keep her safe, but when I look up, she’s not there. She’s shrieking, kicking, and clawing at the doorframe as the man tries to carry her out of the house. He throws her over his shoulder and fights her the whole way to his car. And the entire time, she’s screaming my name. He throws her on the ground, like a sack of potatoes, and for a moment her mouth gapes open like a fish. She can’t breathe. I run towards them and kick him in the back of the knees again, but he doesn’t fall, and he’s so much bigger than me that when he turns and shoves me away, I fall hard on the concrete drive and skin my knees. It doesn’t hurt right away, it’s just sort of numb, and then when the sting comes it’s sharp as a knife’s edge, and it brings tears to my eyes. I’m frozen with pain.

The man leans over my mamma and punches her in the face, the way I’ve seen the monster do so many times before. He bundles her into the car and slams the door. I scream and throw myself at the passenger side, but it’s too late. He’s already starting the engine, and he roars away on the sharp screech of tires and the smell of burnt rubber.

He took my mamma.

I run as fast as I can after that car. I run until my feet hurt, but I’m too slow, too late. Too small to stop it.

I never want to be small and helpless again, I think, as I stand in the middle of the darkened street, staring at all the houses around me. I don’t know where I am. Snot runs out of my nose, and tears sting my cheeks as the wind picks up all around me. I cry and curl into a ball in the middle of the road. In my mind, I’m still chasing those taillights. I chase them until the car stops, and a bigger, much older version of me pulls the man from the driver’s seat and punches a hole right through his face. Mamma runs to me, throwing her arms around me, though now I’m so big her hands no longer touch on either side.

In reality, I’m still curled on the hard bitumen when the old lady from the house across the street with the blue shutters comes out with a blanket and takes me inside. She asks me a lot of questions that I don’t answer. I’m too afraid to reply because I know the monster will find out. I tell her nothing. She offers me warm milk and cookies, but I don’t want them. I want my mamma, but the man stole her away.

I’m sleeping on the warm couch, cuddled up with the lady’s new kitten in front of a fire, when a voice wakes me.He’s here. He sent my mother away, and I know he’ll beat me for peeing the bed and kicking him in his private parts, so I run and hide. When they find me behind the couch, I cling to the woman. I don’t want to go back to that empty house. I wail. And howl like a dog caught with its foot in a trap. I want my mamma.

The woman tells me I have to go with my dad. But he’s not my dad. He’s a monster who gave my mamma away to another man. She doesn’t understand when I tell her this; she just pats me on the back and sends me off with him. I scream the entire way home. And then he slaps me hard across the face, and I don’t cry any more.

One day I’ll be big.

One day I’ll hurt him. I’ll squeeze the life right out of him, and I’ll laugh when he begs and pleads for me to stop. One day I’ll be big enough to protect the people I love from the monster, and from men just like him.

CHAPTER TWELVE

TANK

The sound of my burner receiving a text wakes me. I carefully slide my arm out from beneath Ivy and ease off the bed. She came in at some point during the night, like a little kid seeking out a warm body to curl up next to. And though my cock is being tortured night after fucking night pressed up against the smooth crease of her arse and denied entry at every turn, I don’t mind her sleeping in my bed one bit.

Wiping the crust from my eyes, I head into the walk-in wardrobe, push the boxes of old shoes and memorabilia—that isn’t even mine, but is just a cover—away from the safe, and punch in the code. I hook my fingernail in the far left-hand corner of the interior and pull. The metal slab comes away easy, and I reach for the phone strapped to the roof. I have a gun, fake passports and a shit-tonne of money hiding in there too, in case anything goes south. I take out the phone and scroll through to the message. There’s only one person who has this number, and there’s only one reason he’d text it.

P: Need you to come in and do the books. Early. Shit’s piling up real quick.

Obviously, it’s code. Even with a burner we’re not dumb enough to take that kind of risk. “Doing the books” meansI need you to come kill some motherfucker, and “Shit’s piling up real quick” means he needs that motherfucker dead.Yesterday.

T:Kinda got my hands full this mornin’.

P:Not my fuckin’ problem. Got no one I can spare. Get your arse in here.

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