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And the screaming is getting louder. It’s definitely not a movie.
Cold dread grasps at my throat. I open the door and hiss.
“Shit! Isis!”
I collapse at her side. She’s sprawled against the wall, unconscious. I push her hair from her face, check for blood anywhere. There’s a dark red wet spot on the very back of her head, and a splatter of blood on the wall.
“No,” I croak. “No, no, no, you can’t. You can’t!”
I fumble for my phone and dial 911. The operator insists there are already people on their way, and I roar.
“Make them faster! Get an ambulance!”
“Sir, we’ve done all that we can. Help is on the way –”
“Useless cow!” I snarl. “If she dies – so help me if she’s dies –”
The screaming upstairs pitches, glass-shattering in its intensity. I swear and look around for something, anything.
That’s when I see it. A closet half-open, full of sports equipment.
And a baseball bat.
Aluminum.
I grab it and take the stairs two at a time, my fury red-hot lava pulsing through my veins. My mind screams at me to calm down, to wait for the police, but the other part of me that’s lain dormant for so long whispers encouragement. Urges me on. It’s wanted this. It’s missed this.
The man towers over a woman cowering on the bed – Isis’ mother. He’s unbuckling his belt, holding her legs in place.
The smell of the forest comes back to me. The feel of pine needles beneath my feet. Fog encroaches, soft and white on the edges of my vision. Sophia, curled up against a tree trunk, and the shadow men advancing.
I walk behind him. Isis’ mother sees me, her eyes terrified and wide as a dying fish’s over the man’s shoulder. He’s enormous. At least twice my weight and nearly my height. His arms are thick with muscle and sinew and the scars of hard work. Evil work.
Sophia cried, her head in her hands, her wrists thin as a bird’s wing.
“Help me, Jack.”
I was pi
“Just stay still, princess. This’ll all be over soon,” One of the advancing shadows cackled. Some swayed drunkenly. Five of them. Five huge men, shoulders broad and grins oily in the forest moonlight.
Isis’ mother looks at me and croaks.
“Help me.”
They started pulling Sophia’s dress off. I bit the man holding me and picked up the bat he dropped. Swung. And swung. And kept swinging through the cries and the blood.
I grip the bat, spread my feet, and pull back.
The first hit gets the side of his head. The ear. His eardrums bursts instantly, blood spraying. Hot droplets land on my face. He turns to look at me, and I smile.
Another swing.
Kneecaps. They tried to grab me, but I was fast, strong, stronger than they thought. Too young to fight back, or so they thought. The first and second had weak skulls. The third pulled out a gun to shoot me and shot the fourth, instead. I smiled and launched myself at the third, slamming the bat over his neck. There was a sickening crack and he went still. The fifth barely had his pants on when I slammed the bat into his side. He staggered, reached for a gun, but I swung again.
The man’s dark eyes widen as the bat co
“You fucking bastard!” He screams, and lowers his shoulder, ru
I cracked his gun hand. He was so shocked he just looked down at it, like it was a riveting TV show instead of something that was happening to him. And I swung again. The bones cracked, his hand split open, blood and meat spraying over the pine needles. He cried. He crawled away from me and cried, begging.
“Please, man, we didn’t mean – we weren’t go
“L-Listen, kid, I’ll just leave, okay? There’s no need for –”
I swing again, into his gut. And again, between his legs. He keels over, howling, and I step on his chest and look down at him.
“There are crimes. And therefore there is a need,” I say. “For punishments.”
“Please –”
I smile and tap his nose with the end of the baseball bat lightly.
“No begging. Die with some dignity.”
I raise the bat, level with his head, and he screams and shields his face with his good arm.
The thing in me laughs with delight.
-15-
3 Years
23 Weeks
2 Days
I wake up in Satan’s butthole. Everything is white – white walls, white beds, white light. Or Narnia. It could be Narnia. Did I die and go to Narnia? Because that would be rad. But then I see the IV attached to my arm and hear the steady ‘beep-beep’ of my heart monitor and all hope deflates out of me quickly. Nope. Satan’s butthole, aka a hospital.
I sit up from the pillows and my head tries to turn itself inside out and run off my neck. The headache splits me down the middle and sews me back up again with electric pain.
“Hairy monkeyballs!” I hiss. “Dogshit on a stick! Puke pancakes!”
A head pokes in. Wren, green eyes smiling, walks over to my bed.
“I knew you were awake. Who else spews such original and captivating swears?”
I feel my head. A massive, turban-like bandage wraps around it. There are flowers on the small table at my side, and a smiley-face balloon cheerfully watches me from a corner, slowly rotating just to get a better view of me. From all angles.
“Where am I? Other than hell.”
“St. Jermaine’s Hospital,” Wren offers, pulling up a chair and sitting on it. “You’ve been out for a week or so.”
“Mom!” I sit up. “Is Mom –”
“She’s fine,” Wren puts his hand on mine reassuringly. “She went to work today, but she said she’d be back at night. We’ve all been taking turns coming to see you. Me, Kayla, Avery –”
“Avery? Like, red-head Avery? Avery who hates me? The Avery we threatened?”
“It’s weird, I know. But she brought flowers.” He motions to a bunch of white camellias on the desk.
“What about Leo? The guy who broke in –”
“The police said he knocked you out, and then went upstairs. And then –”
Wren’s expression cracks with uneasiness.
“Then what? What happened?”
Wren’s eyes slowly move up to meet mine. “Jack. He said he came over to talk to you, and found you on the floor passed out.”
“Who?”
“Who what?”
“Jack who?”
Wren smiles. “C’mon, don’t play dumb. Jack. He came over, and he took care of Leo. Four broken ribs. A broken arm. A burst eardrum. Fractured skull.”
I suck in a breath. Wren shakes his head and tries to smile.
“You have one too, you know. Skull fracture. You hit your head pretty bad on the wall. For the first few days the doctors didn’t know if you were going to slip into a coma or not. But you pulled through. There was some internal bleeding, and bruising. But they patched you up and you pulled through.”
I look at my hands, and lift the sheet to look at my body. Almost-healed bruises cover my legs and arms.
“Leo’s in custody,” Wren says. “Jack’s mom got him a lawyer. He’s not locked up or anything, but he’s on watch. The police say he’s got a really good chance of getting away with no charges if you and your mom testify, but Leo’s going to jail, definitely.”