“The orc camp is getting ready to break and start traveling again,” John describes for us. “The chest is being held in the chieftain’s wagon. You guys are still stationed in the forest about fifty yards off the road. You notice Aurorian and Malice start to fade, then disappear, and of course you have no idea when or if they’ll return. That leaves Murron, Corwin, and Aphex to plan the attack. What do you do?”
John is a brilliant game master. Knowing that not everyone could play each week, the first time we all gathered together, he created an in-game curse that could cause any member of the party to mysteriously vanish. That way, a group could still play any time, even if it was only a couple of people. Since John is the game master, he is here every week. And almost always Meiko, too. Kirby is here only once in a while. Lately he’s seemed distracted at school, and I don’t know what’s bothering him. Since he’s my ride to the game, Murron is never around without Aphex, Kirby’s dragonborn warrior.
I am Murron. I am a male dwarf. I carry a dozen daggers spread across two bandoliers criss-crossed over my chest. Murron is brave but not tactical. He’s better at following directions than coming up with his own plan of action.
You’d probably approve of that, wouldn’t you?
This game is the only secret I have anymore. You’ve seen too much of me. You know too much of me. You own too much of me.
But not Murron.
“I say we attack,” Kirby says. “Full frontal assault.”
“That could result in casualties,” Meiko—or Corwin the half-elf—says. She’s already in character. Her voice changes when she speaks as Corwin.
“I want casualties,” Kirby says. “The more the better.”
“I meant us,” Meiko says.
“Obviously not us,” Kirby says. “I would never hurt you. Them—them I would hurt.”
“The orcs,” I say, to clarify.
Kirby glances at me. I feel like he hesitates for just a second.
“Sure. The orcs.”
5
We play until midnight. I play well: Murron decimates three orcs on his own with his daggers, disemboweling two and cutting the throat of another. The team cheers me in real life while the characters in-game grimly fight on around me. Our party is successful at reclaiming the magic chest from the orcs. We don’t have time to celebrate, though. A white dragon flies at us after we’ve taken an extended rest to heal up, and that’s where John stops it for the night.
Kirby drives me home. We talk about the adventure. About the fun. There’s no question that pretending to hack up bad guys feels good.
“You going to be okay?” Kirby asks as I open the passenger door.
“Sure.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Okay.”
“Zach, dammit . . .”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say, and get out. I close the door before he can say anything else.
Kirby waits at the curb until I reach my house. I appreciate that. Lots of people think my neighborhood is dangerous, but it’s not. Not really. My neighborhood is safer than my own room. You moved us here after Mom left. I haven’t heard from her since. I think she’s forgotten me.
I climb slowly through my window. My legs ache, but it’s getting better. My room is dark, dark like some of the caverns our adventuring party has crept through, hunting for evil to conquer and treasure to hoard.
I replace the screen gingerly, taking my time, then close the window. Safe.
Safe until you grab my neck from behind.
Bitch.
I have no time to gasp, to scream. You pull me backward. You shove me forward. I’m facedown against the mattress. Murron would never let this happen—
Thought you could just slip in and out whenever you wanted, huh?
“No,” I say, hoping, praying, wishing. Not again. Not so soon. “No, no, no, I—”
Shut up. You shut up and don’t move.
I shut up.
I don’t move.
I also do not go to school the next day because I can barely walk by the time you’re done.
6
Someone knocks on the front door at 7:34 the next night. You’ve already finished dinner—steaks and canned corn, which I cooked. Now you are in the living room to watch football per usual.
The knock punctuates Pachelbel’s Canon, which is playing softly on my radio, an old Scotch-taped-together thing that you let me keep in my room. Who on Earth could it be? No one ever comes over here.
Who the hell is that? you shout.
“I don’t know. Want me to go—”
Go see, for Christ’s sake!
I pick myself up from my desk chair and hobble to the door. I don’t know who I’m expecting, but it’s definitely not Kirby.
“Oh! Hey.”
He grins but doesn’t seem to want to. “Hey, bud. Can I come in?”
I don’t know the answer to this. I don’t know what you will do. But I open the door and shut it quickly as soon as Kirby is past the threshold.
“What’re you doing here?” I say, glancing behind me toward the living room. You can’t see us from there.
“I know it’s after Christmas, but I wanted to give you something. Hey, can you show me your room? I’ve always wondered what it looks like.”
He’s lying. But I don’t know about what. And I don’t know the rules. No boy has come over here, ever.
“You should meet my dad first.”
Kirby grins that same non-grin. “Won’t that be fun.”
Nervous now, I take him into the living room. You barely glance up as I introduce Kirby. The only thing you say after Kirby says hello is, Don’t stay too long—it’s a school night.
“Of course, sir,” Kirby says.
You glance again, like you don’t know how to react. And I think . . . I think for just one fast moment . . . he scares you.
I take Kirby back to my room.
“Where’s your door?”
“It, um, broke.”
He knows I’m not being honest. But he doesn’t push. We go in together. Kirby scans the room carefully, and I see him eyeing the pillow on my desk chair with distaste.
Kirby takes his backpack off and sets it on the desk. For some reason, the last thing I want to know is the reason for Kirby’s sudden visit. He fixes me with a friendly but determined stare.
“Missed you at school today.”
“I was sick. I am sick, I mean.”
“You sound okay.”
I don’t answer.
“Anything happen when you got home last night?”
I shrink under Kirby’s gaze. His words automatically bring up a replay of last night and make me feel like I’m six years old.
Nothing, I almost say. Nothing happened. I was bad, I got what I had coming, end of story. Happens to everyone.
But it doesn’t. It doesn’t happen to everyone, and I know that.
Kirby’s chin drops, adding a degree of severity to his already serious expression. “Let me help you.”
I look at the floor and count bits of fuzz that dot the cream-colored carpet.
Kirby steps up to me. He keeps his voice low so you won’t hear. “He’s killing you. Don’t you see that?”
“You can’t help.”
I’m still counting bits of carpet fuzz when from the corner of my eye, I see Kirby go into his bag. He unzips it, then turns toward me, his arm raised. When I look up, my heart seizes and my vision goes cross-eyed.
In the middle of the blur is the matte black barrel of a pistol.
“Oh yes I can,” Kirby says, and lowers the gun to his side.
“Are you out of your mind?” My voice is a clenched fist. “Do you know what would happen if he came in here and saw you with that thing?”
“Yes. I know exactly what he’d do.” Kirby moves a step closer. “Don’t I?”
“That’s a gun.”
Kirby nods easily. “Yeah. And I know how to use it. Want to see?”
I try not to,
but my eyes drift down to the pistol still hanging in Kirby’s right hand. It looks heavy and deadly.
“It’s a nine-millimeter Glock ninteen,” Kirby says. I’m grateful he’s still keeping his voice down. “It’ll stop a person. You know?”
I actually laugh. This scene must be fictitious. Sixteen-year-old Kirby, sax player, dragonborn warrior, standing in my room and giving me lectures on firearms.
“You are not serious,” I say.
Kirby plops down on the edge of my bed. “Zach, look. I love you, okay? I’m not going to explain that any further because you know what I mean. I know what he’s doing, and I know it hurts because you can barely walk. But can you guess how much it hurts to know that it’s happening and I can’t do a damn thing about it? People shouldn’t be able to do that. He shouldn’t be allowed to hurt you. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of—”
He clenches his jaw shut, eyes glistening like Murron’s daggers. I sink into my pillow-softened chair, gripping the back with small, dry hands. I know he’s right. Kirby scoots toward me, still seated on the very edge of my mattress.
“Do you know how much Meiko hates watching you sit in the bleachers during gym? She told me you tell Coach Thomas that you hurt your knees, and that you can’t dress out because you keep losing your gym clothes. You’re going to be the first person on Earth to fail P.E. Because of him.”
My voice barely carries. “When I’m eighteen, I’m moving out. Maybe I’ll go to New York or Seattle or Canada or something.”
“That’s two years away. You can’t wait that long. You have to do something.”
“I will. Someday.”
A shadow in the hall. I gasp and stand up, then bite my lip to stifle a groan. My legs and back are knotted.
You stand in the doorway. Kirby has slipped the gun under his leg.
You’re done in here, you say. Time to go.
I nod. Fast. Urge Kirby to leave without a word. You sneer at him and go down the hall to the bathroom.
Kirby gets up and slips the gun into his bag. “You’re sure you won’t take it?”
“No. I mean, yes, I’m sure. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me.” He puts the bag over his shoulders. “Take care, okay?”
“I will.”
Another lie.
We walk to the front door. I open it for him. He steps out onto the porch, and turns back to me.
“Doesn’t it make you mad?”
Back in the hall, the toilet flushes. I hear you go into your office. I don’t say anything to Kirby. But maybe I nod a little.
“Doesn’t it make you want to do something about it?”
I nod a little more.
“Yeah, well. Just saying. I know the feeling.”
He goes out to his car and gets in. I watch him drive away and don’t close the door until I can’t see him anymore. I wonder what he means. His family is nice, as far as I know.
Get me some ice cream!
I shudder. You sound like a child. I waddle into the kitchen and make the bowl for you, bringing it down the hallway to your office.
You are seated at a long brown desk. Your computer screen displays some sort of accounting program. I wonder how I will manage my own finances without you when the time comes.
What if it doesn’t come? What if you never let me go?
Can you do that? Is it legal?
Does it matter if it is or isn’t?
Is that Birdland bastard finally gone?
I turn to go back to my room. “He’s my friend.”
Didn’t ask, don’t care. He’s a Birdland bastard. All those Birdland assholes think they’re hot shit.
“He’s not like that.” I am almost out the door.
I didn’t ask for your opinion. That better be the last thing I hear out of your mouth.
Kirby’s voice rings inside me. Not in my ears, not my brain—my entire body. Doesn’t it make you mad? Doesn’t it make you mad?
I’m so tired. Exhausted. I’m sick of it too, Kirby. I’m sick of it too.
“Fuck you.”
This is what it’s like to fall into a black hole. My body stretches, time stops, infinite blackness ahead and the real world left behind.
The metal prong of your belt buckle clinks as you slide the leather out of its loops. It slithers like a snake.
I run.
7
Your heavy, thumping, maddened footsteps shake the ground behind me. I turn the hallway corner, aiming for the front door.
Locked.
Screeching, I duck and spin. The muscles in my legs cry from the torque. You crash into the door above me, bellowing, swinging. The tip of your belt lands across my shoulders as I race for the kitchen. The door in there leads to the garage. Maybe I can get out that way, call for help.
—say that to ME in MY HOUSE?!
I am either screaming or crying or laughing because terror makes my brain mushy. I can hear myself apologizing, as if that will stop you. I scramble for the kitchen door, past the counter where the remains of our dinner sit in a domestic pile by the sink. The plates clatter as you bear down on me, and the butcher knife bounces in the frying pan where it’s soaking in soapy water. I grasp the doorknob for the merest of moments before your weight crashes into me, expelling my breath out in one near-fatal cough.
Your arms circle my midsection. My ribs bend and threaten to snap. You sling me easily to one side. I smash into the edge of the Formica countertop, head tapping painlessly against the faucet above the sink. The counter is less forgiving: the edge cracks into my hip, sending a pistol shot of agony down my leg. The grease-stained plates shift uneasily nearby.
You swing me around again to face you. Your eyes are demonic with rage. I don’t see the first blow coming, and don’t register the pain in my face until a half second later. My head bounces the opposite way beneath your returning backhand.
What did you say to me? WHAT DID YOU SAY?
“Nothing.”
I really say this. Because, as my brain settles down in its case, I assume you mean, what did I say just now. Recently. A moment ago. In which case, the answer is truly nothing.
It occurs to me, dimly, that you’re probably talking about what I said in the office. Oh, that. Yes . . . yes, maybe that was not a good choice.
You slam a fist into my belly. I stop breathing.
You spin me fully around with one hand and force my head into the stainless steel sink. My breath backs up as you push me against the counter’s edge. The air in my lungs can’t get past it as it drills unmercifully into my belly.
You are either muttering or screaming. I can’t tell. I can only try to maintain both consciousness and sanity.
I realize Kirby might have been right. Whatever else you’ve done to me these past years, it wasn’t like this. Right now, my life is in literal, mortal danger. Your powerful fist sinks deep into my kidney area, making flames lick the inside of my throat and lift my feet inches off the fake tile floor. My hands hang loose and numb beside my head in the sink. It’s like being in a colonial pillory, arms and head secured. I stare with absurd fascination at how close I am to the sink drain. Such vivid detail up close like this . . .
You’ve dropped your belt. You don’t bother to go back and get it. Instead of your usual weapon, you rain blows into my entire back side with alternating slaps and hammer fists, deadening my already bruised flesh. My breath chokes in and out in a painful wheeze.
Bitch! Show you what HAPPENS when you—
I go numb. This is what it’s like to die.
I twist my head. What will be the last thing I see? The dirty dishes. Wonderful. The frying pan. The cracked wooden handle of the old butcher knife, sticking out from the rim of the pan.
My right hand, oddly steady, reaches toward that handle. I pull the knife out of the pan. Watch its dull edge drip thick gobs of water. I wrap my fingers around the handle tightly and stare at it for eternity.
How’s that FEEL? Huh? Talk like that to ME in my o
wn—
In one heartbeat of time between blows, I throw myself upward out of the sink and twist my hips around to face you. My right hand shoots out like it’s got a mind of its own. I feel a sickening moment of resistance before the blade plunges into your midsection.
You are paralyzed, one arm upraised in a fist that slowly relaxes. Your face contorts, red, screwed into what a moment ago had been mad rage and is now clearly pain. You look down at the handle protruding from just below your rib cage.
And stumble backward.
I am motionless against the counter, watching with total clarity as you cup your hands beneath the knife, but do not touch it.
Oh, shit.
You state it, and it almost makes me laugh. It’s like you forgot to start a load of laundry or missed a TV show.
Oh . . . shit.
I slide along the length of the counter toward the doorway to the living room.
You collapse.
One arm stretches out, trying to find something to grab against the wall to slow your descent. You find nothing and slip to the floor. Your head angles down, staring incredulously at the knife.
That’s when thick crimson fluid seeps through your shirt. At the sight of it, I try to rush for the doorway, but the knots in my muscles drop me to the floor. I pull myself toward the front door with one hand. I manage only to crawl. It’s a lifetime before I can pull myself up enough to unlock the front door. I stumble through it and out onto the lawn. It is brown and brittle in the January chill.
I fall to the ground just as a Ford LTD drives past, thumping its bass for the world to hear. There are no clouds overhead. Just pinprick stars. My right side is a cauldron of ice spikes and fire. I try to find a comfortable position in which to pass out.
A face suddenly hovers over mine. A boy. A man. Some mix between the two. I’ve seen him around school. He’s a superstar. Gabriel. An angel.
“You okay?” he says, like it’s not something he says very often.