His boots clomped on the barn floor as he strode back to his daughter.
I fought. Fuck, I fought. The rack groaned as I threw my weight against the buckles. “Don’t touch her.” Jaz. My baby sister.
Pulling Jasmine to her feet, Cut wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Her dainty black shoes were no longer shiny patent but dusty and scuffed. I remember the day she got those shoes. Mum had given them to her just for being the sweetest little girl.
“You have the power to stop this, Jethro.” Cut angled the blade against Jasmine’s shoulder, slicing through her pretty blue dress, revealing a sliver of skin. “All you have to do is focus on my thoughts, rather than hers.” He dragged the blade over her flesh, not hard enough to break the surface, but hard enough to make her flinch.
She bit her lip. Jasmine was quiet. When we played, she’d laugh and joke, but when she was afraid or in trouble, she turned mute. Nothing could get her to talk. Not the threat of the knife; not my pleas for her freedom. She stood there in her father’s grasp and didn’t say a word.
But fuck, her thoughts said so much. They screamed for me to help her. They hated me because I couldn’t. She battled with love for Cut and loathing his actions. She crumpled me like a piece of rubbish, giving me no hope of focusing on anything else.
Cut dragged the knife again, only this time a little deeper.
Jasmine’s flinch turned into a jerk, squirming in his arms.
“Stop. Don’t do it again. I get it. I’m not listening to her anymore. I only feel what you are.” Lies. All lies. But truth got me into this mess maybe falsehood could get me out of it.
Cut cocked his head. “What am I thinking then, boy?”
My hands balled as my joints stretched beyond normal capacity. Jasmine’s thoughts overpowered me. I couldn’t hear him. I didn’twantto hear him.
So, I bullshitted. “You like the power over her. You like knowing you created her but can take her life just as easily as you gave it.” I sounded older than fourteen. Would he believe me?
For a moment, I thought he would.
Then reality dispelled that hope.
“Wrong, Jet.” Cut used the knife again. This time...he broke the skin. Tears erupted from Jasmine’s eyes, but still she didn’t cry out. “I hate this. I hate doing this to my children. And I hate you for making me do it.”
My fingers grazed the blade he’d used, tarnished and abandoned on the table. I could cut him. I could make him feel what Jasmine felt. But I had a better idea.
Breathing hard, I bypassed the cat o’ nine tails and grabbed the large club. Resembling a billy stick the police used to carry, this one was thicker, heavier, ready to break limbs and turn bone into pulp.
I turned back to face my father. He lay prone on the rack, his eyes wide, white hair a shock of snow in the gloomy barn. “Remember this?”
He swallowed. “I remember what a fucking pussy you were when I used it.”
Memories tried to take me hostage of him beating me, bruising me—teaching me lesson after lesson.
“Only fair you get to see why I screamed, don’t you think?”
Cut gulped. “You knew all along I didn’t enjoy what I did. I did it to try and save you from yourself. You were my children. Didn’t I have a right as your father to use my flesh and blood to help my firstborn?”
I shook my head. “Using and abusing are two entirely different words.”
He sneered. “And yet, only two letters separate them.”
My chest hurt from breathing; my side burned from fever. I wanted this over. I’d made a commitment to make him pay, but I wasn’t there to drag this out.
I wanted to finish it.
I wanted Nila.
I want to forget.
“That doesn’t matter. You were still wrong to do what you did.” Striding toward him, I held the club over his face. “Look at this and tell me what you feel. Don’t make me work for your answers, Cut. For once in your godforsaken life, tell me the truth.”
His goatee jerked as he tucked his chin into his neck, repelling from the weapon. “You know me, Jethro. You know I love you.”
