“It was a Friday night, around Christmastime, when it kicked off good and proper. My mum had gone to work, and I was down in the cellar, as usual, but the rope he used to tie me had gone missing. He accused me of hiding it—which I hadn’t—and flipped his shit. He kicked the crap out of me. He, uh, took my clothes, and used a cable to string me up to this old picture hook, and then he turned the TV on loud and went out.”
Cold sweat beaded on Lenny’s neck. Hearing this kind of horror about any child was bad enough, but this wasn’t any child. It was Nero, and the slashed scars on the back of his legs now made a sickening sense. “How long did he leave you there?”
“I don’t know, to be honest. I was pretty out of it for the most part, but I woke up when my hands started to slip out of the cable. My finger got caught, so it was holding my bodyweight. The bone snapped and the cable eventually severed it.”
“Jesus.” Lenny gagged, glad Nero wasn’t looking his way. Some doctor you’d have made. “I can’t imagine how much that hurt. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“I’m not.” For the first time in what felt like days, Nero slid out from under the bus and met Lenny’s eye, letting Lenny truly lose himself in his molten gaze. “I lost my finger, but what I got back in return was worth every fucking limb I had.”
“You escaped?”
“And then some. I ran screaming into the street—naked and covered in blood, battered from years of that cunt stamping on me. I never went back to that house . . . not inside, anyway.”
Lenny let out a long, shaky breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. “Did your mum leave him?”
Nero pushed himself free of the bus and shrugged. “She didn’t have much choice when he got sent down for child abuse, but she didn’t get me either. Social services decided there was no way she hadn’t known what was going on, and gave me to my grandparents—my dad’s parents—instead. She didn’t bother arguing, just fucked off to Birmingham to shack up with someone else. Never heard from her again.”
Despite Nero’s matter-of-fact delivery, crippling sadness washed over Lenny. He searched for relief that Nero’s tale was over, but found none. Nero absently rubbed the stump on his left hand, and Lenny closed his eyes. “It’s not over yet, is it?”
“Can be, if you want it to be. We can leave it right here and forget this conversation ever happened.”
Lenny’s nerves jangled, and he shook his head, forcing himself to look at Nero again. “Never. Keep talking. I’m good.”
“Liar.” Nero scrambled to his feet and disappeared briefly into the shed. He returned with yet another bottle of rum. “One day we’re gonna have to figure another way of making it through these conversations.”
Lenny accepted the bottle and took a deep swig. “The fact that you think we’ll have more conversations like this terrifies me.”
“Why? I thought you wanted this?”
“I wanted to understand, Nero, not force you back to a place so fucking horrific.” Nausea roared again. Lenny clamped his hand over his mouth and counted to ten.
Nero nudged his shoulder. “I’m sorry I’m upsetting you.”
“Why? It’s my own fault for being a nosy bastard, isn’t it?”
“That’s not what this is. Do you think I’d have put us both here if it was?”
Lenny shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. Just let me finish? Please?”
Lenny swallowed another gulp of rum and passed the bottle to Nero, nodding for him to continue.
Nero took a healthy swig of his own, then set it aside. “Where was I?”
“Your mum moved to Birmingham.”
“And she’s still there, as far as I know.”
“What about Malcom? Is he still in prison?”
“No. He did three years, then they let him out.” Nero’s hands twitched, like they were itching to reclaim the bottle. “And that’s when it really got messy, because his house was two streets away from my grandparents’ flat, so I saw him every day, whether I wanted to or not.”
“The police couldn’t do anything?”
“You know the answer to that.”
The truth hit home, and Lenny shuddered. “Did you ever speak to him?”
