“Caleb?” Her blue eyes went to my hand on my duffel strap.
“What’s going on?” my father demanded.
There was no point beating around the bush. “I’m moving out,” I said. “I’ll be staying with a friend.”
For a second, my parents simply stared at me. Then my dad’s expression darkened. “You’re really going to pull this stunt now?”
“A friend?” my mother asked, pressing a hand to her neck like she was searching for pearls to clutch. She said “friend” the same way someone else might say “mafia” or “small arms dealer.”
“Bullshit,” my dad said. “I didn’t agree to this.” Behind him, my mother gasped, probably seconds away from slapping her hands over her ears in case he tossed out more profanity.
“I’m an adult,” I said. “You don’t have to agree.”
Something in the air shifted. Before August, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. But now, a charge filled the kitchen. It lifted the hair on my nape, tensing my muscles and making anger flare hot in my chest. The rest of the usual symptoms scuttled after it. My pounding head. The ants crawling through me. My skin shrink-wrapping to my bones.
Every bit of it was bad news—and it would only get worse. Memories of Aiden Cross’s bloodied face flashed in my head.
“I’m going,” I said through a tight throat. “Don’t try to find me.” I spun on my heel and headed for the front door. But I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.
Chaos exploded behind me, my father’s bellow bouncing off the walls. “You think you’re walking out of here?”
Well, yeah, that was exactly what I was doing. I took two more steps when something hard nailed me in the back ofthe head, pitching me forward and almost taking me down. I whirled, pain blazing through the base of my skull, as the crystal vase shattered on the floor, sending water and roses spraying in a dozen different directions.
I stared at the mess, disbelief pounding through me, before lifting my gaze to my father. He stared back from the kitchen doorway, his face draining of color.
“You moved so fast,” he said, shock glazing his eyes. The sharp scent of burning rubber hit my nose.
His fear.The anger pushed against my chest. Red tinted my vision, washing my mother’s white cabinets in pink.
“You threw a fucking vase at me,” I growled, my voice low and dangerous in my ears. The urge to leave fled, replaced with a need to punish the source of my pain. And the man backing away from me had caused me more pain than I cared to acknowledge. I’d never been good enough for him. My whole life, he’d forced me to contort myself to fit an ideal. And I’d tried. For years, I’d twisted and bent, struggling to mold to a definition I couldn’t see or touch.
Now I knew he couldn’t see or touch it, either. Because he didn’t want me to change. He simply didn’t wantme. And maybe I would have been okay with that, but he couldn’t be. It wasn’t enough that he hated my guts. No, he hated my gutsandhe wanted to see me suffer. He wanted me to hurt because he thought I deserved it. How fitting that it finally took a vase slammed into the back of my head to drive that home.
The anger exploded, propelling me forward and wrapping my hand around my father’s throat. His eyes bulged, and someone screamed as I lifted him off the ground and carried him into the kitchen. He clawed at my hand, but his pitiful attempts to free himself were nothing to me. The gouges he dug into my skin healed instantly, pain spiking and ebbing. Laughter built in my throat as I raised him higher.
My skin itched fiercely, the stinging sensation worse than the time I slept in a patch of poison ivy during a scouting weekend. I’d been forced into that too. Never good enough. Never worth the time or effort.
“Fuck you,” I grunted, the words so mangled by anger I wasn’t sure my father understood them. But my expression must have conveyed the sentiment, because his bloodshot eyes flared with outrage. Just as swiftly, his lids drooped. He was losing consciousness.
Movement in my peripheral vision made me turn my head. My mother’s reflection flashed in the oven as more movement fluttered on my other side. Before I could spin toward it, something slammed into the side of my face, bringing a white-hot burst of pain. I staggered, releasing my grip on my dad’s throat as my mom struck again, braining me with a frying pan. A sizzling sound filled my ears just as the stench of burnt flesh seared my nostrils.
I hissed as pins and needles spread across my face. Fatigue swept in, too, dragging at my limbs. Chest heaving, I flung up a hand to ward off another blow.
My mom stood a short distance away, her blond hair tangled around her shoulders and her face a mask of fear and shock. She held the frying pan in both hands like a batter at home plate. The piece was one of her splurges—solid silver cookware that went for something like two grand a pop. She had no idea she’d chosen the perfect weapon to take me down.
“Run, Michael!” she screamed, darting a look at my dad. He’d fallen to all fours on the floor, one hand clutching at his chest like he was having a heart attack. Shit, maybe he was.
I lurched toward him, twenty-three years of good manners prompting me to help, but he lifted his head and glared at me with malevolence that stole my breath.
“You are no son of mine.”
The words hit me square in the chest. I’d known he felt that way, of course. But hearing it out loud was like a bitch-slap—abrupt and somehow more humiliating than a punch. His raspy declaration hung in the air, and for a second, the kitchen was still.
Then my mother hefted the frying pan higher.
I ran past her, ducking as she swung. The pan caught me in the ribs, but my duffel absorbed most of the blow. I kept running, and I hit the front door and stumbled into the night. Frozen air blasted my lungs as I raced down the sidewalk, passing landscaping lights and basketball hoops. Shiny SUVs and front doors festooned with big wreaths. Ordinary family shit. Things that didn’t belong to me and never would.
No son of mine. No son of mine.The words flowed through my head on a ribbon of malice. But it was easier this way, right? My parents disowning me was the best-case scenario. I didn’t need them or their money. Not when I had Jesse.
