I drop my hand from his nose, wiping the blood on my black tank top, unfazed, and then I wrench the gun out of his mouth, crouching down to stare the devil straight in his demonic eyes.
I try not to bristle from the mess of his face,the skin missing.
“What did you have with my mother?”
This was the part I hadn’t told Harlen, or Rusty, or Keaton…I hadn’t told anyone.This was the part of my story that I was struggling to accept, the part I had hoped maybe I’d imagined in my trauma.
There’s shuffling behind me. I ignore it, and when Manic smiles, I growl, “It was you, wasn’t it? You ran us off that road all those years ago?”
Manic’s smile only grows wider, then he spits a mixture of blood and vomit in my face. Harlen is pulling me away, though I fight him when Manic says, “Your mother was a fucking whore, and she chose the wrong man. Your father was a weak piece of shit.”
I shudder because everything starts to make sense. Harlen’s hands rub down my face, then his shirt replaces his palms, cleaning me up.
I remember the way Mom was during those months that my father had left. She had quickly become a shell,a bruised, broken shell,and I had no idea what had happened.
She had fallen into the clutches of evil.
Before Manic can speak again, Keaton is ramming his fist into his mouth, and the sound of teeth clatter to the ground.
“I could have been the best brother you ever had.”
I snap my head toward Menace. He has a wide grin cut across his face when he continues to spew literal shit. “I would have looked after you, so fucking–”
Harlen moves fast, his fist connecting with Menace’s mouth, and his teeth fall to the ground the same way his father’s just did.
Then, I’m striding toward him, and before I can blink or even register what I’m doing, the gun in my hand finds a place in Menace’s toothless mouth.
“I can look after you better,” I whisper.
Then, I pull the trigger.
The shot is jarring as it bounces between my ears. Speckled, scarlet mist spraying across my face, and I stand there, eyes wide, never blinking.
My whole body shakes, the gun now at my side rattling.
What the fuck did I just do?
The thud of my heart is loud in my ears, and I can feel my pulse trying to pound out of my wrists.
“You stupid fucking cunt,” Manic screeches. It’s a mumbled mess, and I find myself spinning around calmly, launching a bullet right at his knee cap. And while he’s wailing the same way I did when they raped me with a bat, the same way I did when they branded me, I shoot one right into Knuckles’ knee, too.
They sing together.
And it’s music to my ears.
I turn around, my back to the men who did everything to break me, my body, my fucking soul…everything,and find my eyes latching onto my brother’s matching blues. They’re usually emotionless, but today, I see the pain–the pain for what this sick motherfucker did to us,our family.
And when I find Harlen’s and Rusty’s, they’re filled with the same agony.
He tore families apart.
“What, you can’t finish the job, little moth?” Manic’s words are slurred, but I hear them loud and clear.
I suck on my front teeth while Manic laughs at my back. “Weak, fucking useless you were.” He is still laughing when he directs his next statement at Rusty, “A little like your sunshine wife.”
My eyes snap to Rusty’s immediately, and his own have fallen darker than I have ever seen them.
Fuck.
