Page 13 of Seven Lost Summers
Because Nate is the only thing keeping me from shattering.
A fist bangs hard on the front door—the kind of knock that doesn’t ask. It slices through the room, straight down my spine, leaving the air strung tight and ready to snap.
Another follows.
Louder.
Meaner.
The door jumps in its frame as if it’s barely holding back the storm behind it.
I freeze. Breath caught. Muscles locked.
That sound isn’t just noise; it’s a fucking warning. And I feel the vibration everywhere. In my chest. My teeth. My bones.
I see him flinch. Quick. Subtle. That split-second crack in his mask. A flicker of panic in his bloodshot eyes before something colder rolls in and buries it. He knows and so do I that someone’s here to collect.
And in that sick, twisted mind of his, I know the decision’s already made. I’m not a son. I’m a fucking transaction. The debt. The payment.
There’s some hollow-eyed, desperate bastard on the other side of that door, broken in all the worst ways, and he’s about to throw me straight at them.
Some of them didn’t want me.
Some did. The ones who liked little boys. Their hands, voice and God their fucking eyes. They still live inside me, buried in my skin like splinters I can’t dig out. Crawling. Infecting. Rotting. They steal the air from my lungs. Poison the silence. Hijack every quiet moment and twist it into something filthy.
No matter how many times I drag my nails down my arms, across my throat, over my chest, scratching, clawing, trying to scrape them off. I never come out clean. Never come out free. Their dirt stays. Their stains are too fucking deep.
Now I know exactly why he dragged me back. He fucked up, and he was certain only a matter of time remained before someone came knocking. The guys he owes are done playing nice. Empty promises and blood-stained IOUs don’t cut it anymore.
He needed someone to toss to the wolves when they arrived.
“Stay the fuck there,” he snarls, and before I can blink, he shoves me.
My body jerks sideways, useless against the force, and my head whips back before cracking against the hardwood of the coffee table with a sick thud.
Pain bursts through my skull like a flashbang. It’s white-hot, disorienting, shooting down my spine, locking up every nerve like I’ve been short-circuited. I’m gasping, blinking, trying to stop myself from slipping under, jaw clenched so tight my teeth ache.
Every instinct inside me roars to move.
To crawl.
To drag myself to the fucking window and disappear before that door gets kicked in and it’s too late. My fingers twitch. My lungs stutter. Everything in me begs to run.
But I don’t.
Because I already see how this ends. There’s no getting out. No fighting back. No waking up. Only me on the floor, waiting for the next monster to walk through that door.
So I stay down. And I do the only thing I’ve got left.
I fucking pray that today isn’t the day he hands me over again. That I don’t get shoved into the arms of another fucking monster with dead eyes and hungry hands. That I don’t lose whatever fight is still flickering inside me as I think of Nate.
Please let me survive this. One more time. That’s all I’m asking.
The pounding gets worse.
Louder, more intense, each one hits like a fucking gunshot.
My breath seizes in my chest, pulse thundering in my ears as my father storms toward the door like he’s ready to rip it off the hinges. I stay down. Frozen. Muscles pulled tight, every part of me wired and shaking.
