Page 169 of Dance With A Devil
“Boring,” I groaned. “Park Sun Joo’s still breathing, so that’s a problem. I wanna slap her ugly face sometimes.”
“Athens Jane Walker.” Her tone snapped like a blade unsheathed. “We don’t talk like that.”
“We don’t do anything either,” I muttered, tugging at my shoelaces. “She pulls my hair. Calls me names because I’m different. I tell the teachers, they laugh behind their hands. So why shouldn’t I hit her?”
Mom turned the faucet off. Her eyes did that flicker thing again, like she was watching two timelines at once. “That’s not how we solve things.”
“Then how?” I said, crossing my arms. “Because being nice isn’t working.”
Before she could answer, Dad stepped into the kitchen. Something about the way he lingered in the doorway made my stomach tighten. “Just tell her, Kai. She deserves to know.”
“Tell me what?” I squinted between them, suspicion rising like bile.
“We’re moving,” she said finally. “To the United States.”
“The U.S.?” That caught my attention. “For real? Like, away from here?”
She smiled. I caught the way it didn’t reach her eyes. “Your daddy got a new job. Big opportunity. We leave next month.”
I launched into her arms, clinging like a vine. “This is better than getting a baby brother!” But just as I looked up to see her smile, I caught a flicker of something else, fear. Guilt. Regret.
It passed.
But I saw it.
And then I ruined everything.
“Maybe now I won’t have to smell that dog-faced Park Sun-”
“Athens.” Her voice cracked like thunder, and for a second, just a second, my body remembered something my brain couldn’t name.
My breath stalled. My vision blurred.
She raised her hand, just to swat my behind like always. Nothing new. But the moment it moved toward me… Boom.
The thunder outside cracked open the sky.
And so did I.
“No!” I dropped to the ground, screaming and trembling as shadows closed in. “Don’t touch me like that, Daddy! I said I was sorry, I said I’d be good. Please, don’t hurt me again. Don’t make me bleed.”
“Athens!” My mother’s voice tore through the air. “Henry, don’t touch her. She’s, she’s somewhere else right now.”
“Mama!” I sobbed into the hardwood. “Mama, please, make him stop! I won’t tell anyone, I swear, I swear.”
But I was there.
I was back in that room. That bed. That night.
And then, like a rope being pulled around my ribs, her voice reached me.
“It’s just a storm, baby. Just a bad dream. Come back to me.”
Her hands cradled me like I was made of ash. She whispered things I barely caught. But I came back. Slowly. Dragged from that place. Ripped from it.
“Momma?” My voice was a ghost of itself.
She pulled me into her arms and I felt her tears on my cheek. “We’re here, baby. We’re here.”
