Page 12 of Never To Suffer

I should find out if his wife has a pre-nup agreement for if he’s caught with his pants down. Maybe that would jog his memory about the time he locked me in the janitor’s shed when we were eight. Three days alone, cold, and hungry at eight years old can become quite the catalyst for some nasty revenge plots.

Mitch

How Much?

$250 for

Mitch

Be behind the bar in 20. You know which car is mine.

I’ll bring a grand.

Blackmail gets messy. But sometimes, messy serves me well.

“A bar fight? The day you’re supposed to go to your parent’s house? Seriously, Xan?” Dani hisses each word under her breath, but loud enough for me to hear her. She’s decorated the sink in colorful cotton balls, ranging from dark red of dried blood toward the bottom and a lighter pink toward the top when she had the bleeding under control. We’ve been in the bathroom for almost an hour, patching my face up and trying to cover the damage in concealer. She steps back, hip jutting out as she stares at her handiwork. “Wear your glasses. It will help hide some of the bruising that hasn’t developed yet.”

I nod; my lower lip tucked between my teeth like it’s been since she dragged me in here. I’m fighting back the pain I don’t want her to see along with all the other emotions. I’m a mirror to those assholes because I feel the same way about myself. I hate that I’ve become this.

I won’t do it again.

The desire to scream those words—and mean them—makes my splitting headache worse. I don’t need those guys. I don’t need this shit. And yet, I keep going back.

“I’m sorry, Dani.” Her shoulders drop at the pathetic sound. She doesn’t recognize the sound of it, but I do. Childhood to me, full of fear after a nightmare. The voice begging for someone to tell him they’d protect him from the monsters.

Oh, go back to bed, Alex. I have a meeting in the morning and don’t have time for your nightmares.

“You, well, you could have picked better timing, that’s all,” Dani sighs and kisses my head. Some days, I wonder if she realizes what I’m doing. “Let me clean all this up while you go get changed. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“What are you going to wear?”

“Is that you asking, or your mother?”

“Me,” I answer too quickly, lowering my head again. “I…thought we could match or something.”

Her scowl melts, letting the worry show in her features before she slips on her mask. “Leggings and that t-shirt dress I made from your old suit. The gray one. I love you, honeybee.” She kisses my cheek and shoves me out of the bathroom.

“No, Xander, I will not sit down and pretend that your family is normal and everything is fine!” Dani barks in a harsh but hushed tone. I don’t think anyone else heard her. “I wanna go home, Xander. Now.”

“What? Why? It’s not that bad!”

“Like your black eye wasn’t that bad? Or the other bruises I had to cover up so we could even come to this thing?”

“I told you; it was a stupid bar fight!”

“Sure, Xander. And thatthingin there is an animatronic,” Dani says, rolling her eyes.

I grab her jacket from the closet before she gets to it. To judge what level of pissed off she is, I hold it high out of her reach. “Come on, this is bullshit!”

“Xander Marie Moneypenny! Give me that jacket!”

“No chance—wait, Marie Moneypenny? That’s all you’ve got? Not your best work.” I toss the jacket over my shoulder and cross my arms. She’s annoyed, not pissed. To be fair, I would be, too, if I wasn’t into meat and walked in on a huge ass pig staring at me with dead eyes while it slowly turned over a pit of fire. “Come on, this is seriously ridiculous. Dad asked about your band. I told him about the contest the other day, thinking maybe he could help. You’re mad about that?”

“It’s not! Your parents are nice, okay? They’re super nice. Too nice. Like creepy aliens who want to eat all of humanity nice! Like putting out candy that’s too delicious in little dishes that are too expensive to lure me into their trap nice! They’re an episode of Twilight Zone, Xander!” Dani catches the sleeve of her coat and rips it off my shoulder, hugging it to her like it’s the last coat on Hoth. “Their creepy routine won’t work on me! Soylent green, Xander!”

“You need to cut back on the sugar and late-night horror shows, D. That wasn’t Twilight Zone.” I can’t hold back the chuckle, even though it will only annoy her more.

“Stop laughing! There’s a fucking whole ass pig outside! A PIG, Xander. On a spit! Over a fire! What the fuck kind of crazy ass cartoon world do you people live in?”

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