by Hazel Grace
"Why didn't you just hit him in the shoulder," Marty carps out through my thoughts. "I had plans for that motherfucker."
A relieved chuckle rumbles in my rib cage as I place the side of my forehead on Mills's chest.
"Geezus Christ," he mutters above me. "Why do we like him so much?"
I shake my head. "No freaking idea…but we do."
Twenty Four Years Ago
The door to our double-wide slams against the hutch that Mom keeps all her glass Precious Moments figures on.
Everything rattles.
Something falls to the floor and shatters into pieces.
Mom is going to be upset. She collects them and only lets Hardy, Scarlett, and I look at them. We’re not allowed to touch.
But she won’t be getting mad at Bubba. She never does.
However, I do.
Every time he shows up with his loud Harley skidding against the dirt and rocks, hints that he’s been drinking.
That we’re in trouble.
“Sharlene!” he roars off the moment his boot connects with our floor. “Where ya at?”
Grabbing Scarlett’s hand, I pull her down to her knees and hover my hands over her ears. “We’re gonna play hide and seek again. Bubba is it. He can’t see you, and you can’t hear him. Get under the bed—” I give her a little shove towards the twin she shares with my brother. “—keep your eyes closed.”
I reach for the headphones on top of the small end table, already connected to a CD player that I stole from Radio Shack last year then I count how lucky I am.
Hardy is staying with a friend tonight.
Every time he and his buddy, Alan, want to sleep over at his house, I let him.
Just for this reason.
“Sharlene! Where’s your ass at?!”
“Your Mariah Carey CD is in here.” I give my sister a playful wink, trying to ignore the fact that a live monster is in our home. “No cheating.”
Scarlett hits me with squinted blue eyes. “Why is he screaming? He doesn’t—” I cover her mouth with my palm and shake my head.
Pushing the headphones over her tiny ears, I place my index finger to my lips, hinting that the game has already started.
“Sharlene!”
Another crashing sound permeates through the air as I watch my little sister crawl the rest of the way under the bed. When she’s safe, I reach for the door and decide that it’s better for me to tell him that Mom isn’t here before he comes into our room.
I don’t like him near Scarlett. Notice how he licks his lips like Sylvester the Cat when he sees Tweety Bird.
As if my sister is something delicious to eat.
Mom also gets angry when he mentions her too, but she doesn’t say it anymore after he slapped her one time, sending her to the floor.
When I get down the hall, Bubba already has a beer in his hand, chugging down the contents like he hasn’t had anything to drink in days. His black leather vest is old and lined with small, faded cracks. It matches his face, the deep wrinkles at the corners of his dark eyes, and the bags that hang under them.
When I step inside the kitchen, his black gaze falls on me, and my heart thuds quickly in my chest.
“Where’s your mama at, boy?” He wipes at his chin with the back of his hand and glowers at me as if I have something to do with her not being here.
I shrug as dismissively as I can. “I dunno. She said she’d be back by dark.”
He jerks his head to the window by our small dining table. “It’s dark now.”
“I know.”
“And she left you with your brother and your sister alone?” He lifts a brow, and it almost hits the black bandana wrapped around his grayish-blonde hair that passes his ears.
“Just me,” I deadpan before his mustache twists, not happy with my answer. It sets a tiny spark of relief in me that I hid Scarlett under their bed.
Bubba grunts, bringing the bottle back to his lips as his other hand begins to undo the belt. I watch him finish off his beer, then suddenly drops it to the floor, letting it break into sharp pieces everywhere.
“Grab me another,” he orders with a snap of his fingers before pulling the brown leather from his pant’s loops.
I don’t move because I don’t trust Bubba. He has a reputation around the trailer park for being what Kyson’s mom calls a loose cannon. I’m not sure what that means, but I know what he’s done. Bubba punched Ky’s ma last week, and my best friend has a black eye and fat lip from attempting to fight back.
“Now, you little piece of shit,” he roars, jerking his body in my direction like he’s going to come after me but doesn’t.
However, it makes me move towards the fridge anyway, quickly opening the door and seizing a cold Bud Light that Mom keeps just for him and his friends.
I really wish she wouldn’t. Maybe they’d stop coming by.
The moment I turn around, I’m backhanded, stumbling to the kitchen sink as the beer is yanked from my hand.
“Slow bitch,” I hear Bubba say, followed by the cap of the bottle popping.
Reaching for my cheek, which is now throbbing along with my jaw, I move it, making sure that it still works before thinking about a way to get Bubba out of the house.
I’m not Kyson.
I won’t just launch myself on him because there’s Scarlett to consider. I might be ten-years-old, but I recognize what men like Bubba are. They’re violent when they get mad, and they say a lot of bad words.
“Come over here.” Bubba eyes me over the rim of his bottle while I slowly approach, watching him cautiously as I do. “How long has your Mama been out?”
“A few hours.”
“Do you know with who?” I shake my head, and he suddenly reaches out to seize my arm, speedily shoving my chest into the edge of our dining room table.
My arm is twisted behind my back as I feel him step closer to brush against me.
“You’ll have to do then,” he hisses out, then slams his beer on the table next to my face. I try to tear my forearm from his grasp, but he’s strong. I feel his fingernails, some longer than others, scrape against my lower spine. Then he hastily tugs at my shorts and underwear, pulling them over my butt, and I start to thrash around wildly.
“Stop!” I yell, pushing off the chintzy surface as it rattles and knocks over the beer bottle, the sticky substance pouring from the rim.
Bubba doesn’t answer before his palm covers the back of my skull, grips my hair by the roots, and slams my forehead and nose back into the table.
I can feel the blood instantly begin to flow down my nostrils as my buttcheeks are spread open then.
Using my legs, I kick backward, fully aware that if I connect with Bubba, I’m going to get punished again.
Shoot, he’s trying to hurt me anyway.
Just like he does with Mom sometimes. I’ve seen her in the same position I am before while he thrusted against her. Except, she moans and pushes back. She appears like she enjoys it.
And I’ll kill him before he ever lays a hand on my baby sister.
Turning my head, I look down the short hallway to her bedroom. It’s dark, so I know the door is still closed because when it’s opened, the light will shine through from the sun or streetlight over our trailer.
“Fucking stand still,” Bubba grunts as something hard presses up against my rear.
I want to scream.
I need someone to hear me, but it can’t be Scarlett.
A burning pain sears my backside as Bubba’s finger thrusts deeper inside me. I bite down on my forearm and clamp my eyes shut.
If I let him do this, he’ll leave.
If I allow him this...I won’t be able to look at myself in the mirror anymore.
My heel connects with his shin, but it doesn’t do much other than make him angrier.
“I was trying to warm you up, boy,” he growls. “But you must like shit done the hard way. And I’m definitely hard.”
I answer him with another kick as I wri
the to get free. My mind sprints with how I’m going to make it out of here and bring Scarlett with me. I’m not leaving her behind, no matter what happens.
My head is struck with something hard, and I gasp from shock and the pain that immediately radiates down my jaw. I feel as though my skull got split in two, and my eyes flutter to stay open because I can’t fall asleep.
Bubba grunts as something larger presses against my butt. Another burning sensation, more prominent this time. I feel a part of my body opening that shouldn’t, and I bite down on my bottom lip, tasting the copper of my blood.
“C’mon boy, open up.” Another poking against my tenderness, and I’m fighting consciousness over him trying to hurt me.
I rapidly blink my eyes, letting a stray tear fall when the trailer suddenly lights up, and my heart slams into my chest when I hear the loud squeaking of our storm door.
“What are you doing?!” Mom’s voice cries out, the door swinging shut behind her with a loud bang.
“Where the fuck were you, Sharlene?” Bubba retorts, pulsating inside me. “I told you I was coming by.”
“You always say that,” she counters slowly, meeting my eyes with shock and…worry? “Bubba, get off of my son.”
He snorts like a hog. “Teaching you a lesson. When I say I’ll be here, I want you here.” His palm releases my forearm and lands on my spine. “And your boy is tight…unlike your old pussy.”
“You like little boys?” There’s a tremor to her tone but what she said gets Bubba to pull out of me, leaving behind discomfort and pain I’ve never felt before.
“What did you say?” Bubba leers, followed by a loud smack of skin. I don’t turn to see what he did to Mom. I need to get Scarlett out of here, and then I can come back to help.
I sprint for her bedroom when I hear Bubba’s voice ask the question I always dread.
“Where’s Scarlett?” I practically freeze when I feel the heat of Bubba’s gaze on my back as I stagger the rest of the way and slam the door shut behind me.
I hear the hard thudding of boots against the old tiled floors as I yank the heavy dresser Scarlett and Hardy share to cover the door. I’m barely able to get it all the way when I’m reaching for my sister under the bed, still safe with her headphones in her ears.
“Is the game—” I cover my sister’s mouth as she said that way too loud.
With my index finger hovered over my lips, I grab her with my other hand and move towards the window. A violent thud sounds through the room, making us jump and pivot around.
Half of Bubba’s face appears through a small, dark crack of the door, an evil smirk glazed over it as he sees my sister standing next to me.
My heart lurches with adrenaline, and the first thing my palm lands on goes right through the bedroom window.
“Kace!” Scarlett scolds. “Mommy is going to get really—” I lift her from under her armpits, my own shaking under her weight as she automatically climbs up the plastic three-drawer organizer.
I push a headphone off of her ear. “Bubba found us. We gotta run, or we’re it.”
The dresser drags eerily against the tiles sending a hysterical panic through me that Bubba is getting inside.
Scarlett’s bright blues flick over my shoulder, but I jerk on her arm to get her to focus on me. “Watch the glass and jump down,” I order.
Her little brows furrow in unease. “It’s too high.”
“You’ll be okay.” Another scrape of wood squealing at me to hurry up. “C’mon, Scar.” She looks at me hesitantly then behind me again.
“Kace,” she mutters. “Bubba looks mad.”
Fear continues to thrash against my whole body, but I don’t bother to turn around.
There’s no time.
“Scarlett, go!” I snap. She blinks once then proceeds to carefully swing a tiny leg over, but glass is everywhere. She’s going to cut herself, and I won’t have anything to clean up her wounds.
All of a sudden, my t-shirt is jerked from behind, my back slamming into the smushy chest of the goblin we’re trying to get away from.
“Kace!”
I glance at my sister and point outside. “Get out, Scar.”
“You stupid motherfucker,” Bubba growls, spinning me around just to slam his large fist into my face.
I see stars, like how they do in cartoons. They circle in my vision as my balance begins to give out.
“I’m gonna kill you!”
“Get off my brother!” My eyes widen at how close Scarlett’s voice sounds, and I find her with my wooden baseball bat in her tiny palms.
She swings weakly and hits both Bubba and me in the process. And like a blood-thirsty shark, Bubba’s focus narrows in on her, and I take the only chance I’m given. Ripping our lamp out of the wall, I crash it over Bubba’s head.
It doesn’t break like it does in the movies, but it gets him to back off and haunch over while streams of curse words flow from his lips.
Scarlett lets out a small scream as Bubba stumbles towards us. I snatch her hand and lead her back to the window.
She climbs over quicker this time, and when her legs are over, I push her out, watching her land safely in the soft grass with a thud before I jump out right after her.
“You shoved me,” Scarlett accuses as she brushes her bare knees off with her hands.
I don’t bother defending myself.
I just clutch onto her and run to the woods, where we have a small spot made up for us.
Where we’ll be safe...for tonight.
“Remember me, motherfucker?”
My tone is raw and frigid.
Two adjectives that have summed up the last thirty-some-odd hours that I’ve been back in Pittsburgh with a chip on my shoulders.
A shard of fury that I want off and put out indefinitely.
The red handkerchief that I just ripped from my victim’s eyes falls to the dirt as dark, and confused irises peer up at me. It doesn’t take but a few measly seconds before immediate recognition dawns in them instead.
A wave of genuine fear washes over his aged face as he takes me in, up and down like he has so many fucking times before.
However, it doesn’t make my body shake with anticipation or break out in profuse sweats anymore. Rather a new bodily motor response kick-starts, and it’s pure unadulterated blackout rage.
A blackness that I’m currently having a hard time containing and keeping tame.
Involuntary memories seep in from my past, reminding and creating my frame to stiffen in disgust and contempt.
Both for him and I.
“You must have balls of steel or the brain of a fucking dumbass to walk up and back here,” I sneer through my clenched jaw. “You forget something?”
Bubba Walters finally blinks as he continues to gape at me. I’m not the scrawny kid he used to abuse and chase on his motorcycle. Nor am I the teenager that he’d have his nephew and shitheaded cronies jump when I was alone.
No, I’m almost a decade of Navy SEAL muscle, violence, and carnage all wrapped into the perfect killing machine with zero remorse or emotion for the aftermath.
“Kace Bishop.” My name is said slowly, almost delicately, and with caution as the wheels in his fucked up head relive the unkempt things he used to do to me.
The circumstances he created still make it hard for me to be touched, cornered, or even looked at for too long. Monsters aren’t born. They’re designed in wicked and evil doings with a tiny chance of becoming more of something one day.
I didn’t get that luxury.
I only got worse.
”You got big,” he mutters as if we’re good friends and that the fact that I have him on his knees is for him to suck my dick.
I blow smoke from my mouth, flicking the excess ashes off the end of my cigarette. “And you got old.”
He furrows his bushy eyebrows at me. “This ain’t your home anymore, boy.”
“Yeah?” I take another hit of my fag and keep it in my lungs. “Then why are yo
u back at Shady Grove harassing my brother?”
“I don’t know anything about that.” He shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly. “Just got here.”
My entire ass.
Time has not been kind to the soon-to-be-dead corpse in front of me.
I mean, he almost looks like the crypt keeper. There are so many wrinkles on his face he should use them to his advantage and stash his old drug of choice, cocaine, in them. Shit, if his lips weren’t moving, I’d actually have to look for them centered between saggy cheeks.
“Regardless—“ I lean down and fan the smoke over his face. “—you’re here, and I told you never to come back. Or it’d cause you more than what you’re willing to give up.”
“Fuck you,” he sneers through his crooked teeth. “Last time I checked, you’re no king over this shitty ass trailer park, boy.”
Boy.
It sears my ears, and I can feel them redden.
“Don’t need to be,” I convey.
Bubba readjusts his weight, grunting at the extra forty-some-odd pounds he threw on over the last two decades. “Listen, I’m not here to start any trouble.”
“Sure about that?” I flick my Zippo lighter, watching the tall flame dance and come to life. “I can practically hear your heartbeat racing from here.”
I watch him twist his somber expression into one that looks more familiar—irritated, entitled, a poor excuse for a human being.
Bubba always had a problem with touching things that weren’t his. For going against the grain of personal space and getting what he wanted when he believed he deserved it. I was able to ward that off, keep my brother and sister safe and away from his demented hands.
Still, it came with a hefty price tag and my whole life shifting into a black abyss that I’ve never found my way out of.
However, the tables have turned—in my favor. I’m brawn and irritable while he’s a twelve-pack of beer and has snorted half his brain cells out of his damn head over the years.
“What do you want?” Bubba snaps as though I’m wasting his time here. He gives one more tug to his zip-tied hands, giving his luck another go. “You wanna kick my ass? Beat up an old man over some shit that happened forever ago?”
