“I’m going to pretend that you just had a stroke, and everything that just came out of your mouth was a product of your brain shutting down. Because I don’t remember asking you to do a goddamn thing, Savage. I told you to take care of him. You didn’t do it then, and now he’s running around town playing queer kidnapper and making the Banna look like a bunch of morons who can’t tell their ass from a tree stump. I don’t know where this new entitlement is coming from, Sav, but you’d better nip it in the bud. I did not raise you to act like a little flamer. Do your fucking job.”
By the end of his speech, he’s rounding the desk to move toward me.
I’m bigger than him. I’m much stronger than him now. If it came down to a pure physical fight, I could win. But knowing that doesn’t matter one little bit as he stalks closer to me, drawing himself up until he seems larger than life.
It doesn’t stop me from cowering. Instinct and muscle memory squeezes my throat shut and I go silent. Words are useless at this point. He’s going to do whatever he’s going to do.
The first blow isn’t even really a blow. He slaps me in the face. It’s not that hard, but his goal here is to humiliate me rather than hurt me. It would work if my pride weren’t long dead andburied. I keep my face turned at an angle, my eyes open but pointed at the ground, my expression neutral.
He slaps me again.
“Answer me.”
Another one. My cheek is starting to sting as he puts more force behind it.
“You are my son, Savage. I raised you to be my legacy. Just like my father raised me. That’s the point of all of this. Do you think my father and uncles let me run around doing whatever I wanted? No. The reason I’m a strong leader is because they kept me in line. Clearly, I’ve failed to do the same thing with you.”
Another slap. This time, it’s hard enough to make me inhale sharply through my nose and rock back on my feet a little.
“Maybe I should have killed the boy while I had the chance. Before he got his weakness all over you.”
At that, my gaze snaps to meet his. He’s working hard to look detached, but I can see the excitement in his eyes. This is what he wants. He’s trying to get me to react. He’s testing to see if Micah is the right button to push.
He’s right, of course. There’s no sense wasting time lying about it.
“Don’t talk about him,” I say through clenched teeth.
The old man raises his eyebrows but doesn’t react in any other way.
“He’s been a bad influence. He always was, but I thought you’d have outgrown being sosuggestibleby this point. I obviously overestimated you. I’ll tell you what, boy.”
His hand—still surprisingly strong despite the signs of age that seem more obvious in him every day—wraps around my throat and squeezes hard enough to make me sputter and suck saliva into my trachea.
“You do as you’re told and take care of Eamon—and I mean right this fucking second—or I will wipe the little brat off theface of the earth and tell Cheryl it was a car accident. Or an overdose. Or he was raped to death by someone he met off one of those disgusting apps. I’ve tolerated him out of deference to the woman, but if he’s actively interfering in my business by turning you into an even more useless lump of flesh than you were already, I don’t have a choice.”
I lunge toward him, but he was definitely expecting it because his grip on my throat tightens enough that black spots swim in my vision.
I’ve never attacked my father in my life, but right now all I can think about is how he’s threatening Micah. Nothing else matters.
He fuckinglaughs, and that’s enough to spur me forward. With new resolve, I bring up my forearm and smash it into him hard enough and abruptly enough to break his grip on me. I use the momentum to barrel forward, grabbing his shirt with both hands and not stopping until I have him pinned against the wall.
I’m breathing rage in a way I never have before. I’m suffused with it. But as soon as I see his placid face, still looking at me like I’m dirt and he’s untouchable, I waver. I don’t want to. I want to be strong for Micah, like I promised I would. But being strong for him always, always, always meant taking the beating and learning not to stand up for myself. Trying to do the opposite now is making too many pieces of me clash, until all my internal organs want to screech to a halt.
He doesn’t hesitate, of course. My one moment of weakness is all the opening he needs, and apparently my show of disrespect was enough to push him over the edge and teach me the kind of lesson he hasn’t needed to for a very long time.
The experience blurs together with every other time I’ve caught a beating in my life. It’s easier that way. I hunker like a child, shielding my head and neck as he hits me with a closed fist instead of the little love taps he was giving me before. As soon asI hit the ground, his feet find my ribs as well. The pain blooms in a familiar pattern.
Short, sharp breaths. Fight the nausea. Keep your consciousness, but don’t focus on what’s happening. Ride it out.
Pain is temporary.
Just keep breathing until he stops.
I repeat it to myself again and again, my old mantra that lets me float on the sensations without latching onto any individual one, or trying to catalogue what he’s doing to me. Or saying to me. I hear the shape of words. It’s just enough to know how hateful they are, so I don’t listen. He won’t care either way, once he goes this far.
All I can do is wait until he tires himself out.
Which is why it’s disorienting when the violence stops. Not dwindles or tapers off, just stops cold. There’s more noise now, so I try to wind my brain back into human mode and lock into what’s actually going on around me.
