Page 103 of A Heart So Haunted
“Not a clue.”
“You have not enough balls to lie to me,” Howie muttered.
“Who said I would lie?” Hadrian said. And grinned.
Howie shoved the desk, then flung a drawer open. He yanked out a navy revolver and pointed it at Hadrian. “Do not take me for afool. You dare to think I would not realize what has happened? My own blood, paid my own men off to work for him? To turn their backs on me?”
Hadrian stared down the barrel. “I find it difficult to pay men off that choose to work with me instead.”
Howie’s nostrils flared, neck nearly purple. “All I have done for you. And this is how you repay me?”
I heard Hadrian’s teeth grind. As if I needed to hide, I eased back toward the right corner of the room. The air started to hum, whisper. Little pokes of memory, voices, grew louder and louder until words formed.
Haddy, crying, asking for Momma.
Haddy, screaming, against rusted pliers.
Hadrian, weedy in adolescence, with a purpled eye and swollen jaw.
Hadrian, the creature, with a gaping, bleeding chest.
The hand in Hadrian’s jacket withdrew—the men fired at the same time. The faint, broken click of a jammed round. The other, a smoking pop of a filled chamber.
I clamped a hand over my mouth with a gasp. The room—no, I—was shaking.
Howie fell forward against the desk. Blood bloomed against his shirt, his gun clattering to the floor. He grunted before taking a kneel. Then he fell back against his chair. It screeched backward.
He didn’t fight. He didn’t scramble.
Not an ounce of fear danced in his eyes.
Hadrian’s eyes flashed as he stalked forward. Frustration? Disappointment, maybe? His pulse fluttered, crazed, in his neck.
“Coward,” Howie hissed. His fingers stumbled to stanch the bleeding. Blood started to bloom through the wound anyway. “You couldn’t even do this like aman.”
Hadrian’s expression splintered. The last straw—I knew that feeling. Saw the familiar, brittle fury that snapped into thousands of little pieces. “No man?” he roared. He prowled to his father, grabbed the crown of his hair and pulled his neck open. He looked Howie dead in the eye. “Tell me I am no man,” he demanded. Hadrian slammed his head into the shelf behind him. The room shook.
My breath caught in my throat. This was the moment I’d seen in the hallway when we’d first found the door.
He huffed.
“Tell me!” he shouted, spittle flying. “No man? You and Bertiewere men to beat a child?”
They breathed heavy together. The blueprint and the carbon copy. In that moment, the expression “There is a fine line between love and hate” never looked truer.
“I will always be more of a man thanyou,” Hadrian snarled. He gasped, choked on a swallow, teeth bared.
“If that is what you believe,” Howie croaked. His lips cracked, beaded with blood.
Tears welled in Hadrian’s eyes. Hatred, a burning, gasoline-lit flame.
“I asked not for you to be my father,” he spat. “I never chose you.”
Blood stained Howie’s tongue when he wheezed, “Nor I, you.”
Hadrian’s expression twisted into hate, hurt, and fury. He pulled the knife from his trousers, and swung down.
Nor I, you.
