And at that, I take a step forward, though Mom tries to pull me back.
“Waste of air space,” he continues running his mouth all while keeping his jaw locked, though he raises his vicious eyes and stares right into mine. “You know what, son?” he says the last word with distaste.
I don’t reply, and the pile of shit fills the vacant space.
“If I had known you would be born with a pussy…” He smiles at that, and I see he’s missing several teeth. “I would have made sure to get rid of you when you were still in utero.”
I leap for the gun, and so does he, and then I’m flying over the table, both of our hands wrapped around the pistol, bodies crashing to the floor.
Splintered pieces of timber lay around us, the chair he was sitting on now in pieces as we grapple and tumble for power.
Mom is screaming at the top of her lungs. Neither of us hear her.
I’m on top of my father and my finger finds the trigger and I’m unsure if he let me have it, because everything happens so quickly when I get the barrel between his eyes.
“Was it you?” I spit in his face, then I jam the steel into his skull harder, struggling to speak the words that sit like weights on my tongue. “Were you the sick fuck that raped and killed your own daughter?”
He laughs, then bites his bottom lip back into his mouth, a tsk coming from behind the back of his teeth. “That’s sick, boy.”
I jam the muzzle harder. “Yes or no. Say it!” I shout.
His chest rattles with a laugh, then he starts to cough, and when he chooses not to reply all I see is a veil of red and smash the butt of the gun into his forehead.
“Tell me!” I shout, and I’m ready to bring the steel down again when he chooses to speak.
“I’ll tell you what…whoever did it…did us both a favor, especially if she was going to turn out anything likeher,” he spits in Mom’s direction.
I return the barrel to his forehead, my voice steady and even when I say, “I never should have miss?—”
Only, before I can finish talking, before I can put a bullet in my father’s skull, before I can register that the barrel has left its target, a pressure so intense and a grip I only know as my father’s, pushes my arm into the air and I’m staring at my mother…and my finger has already squeezed the trigger.
“Mom!” I wail when I watch her eyes drop, the tears that sit at both rims spilling, along with the drip of blood from the bullet hole I put in her forehead.
Everything moves in slow motion when she falls and something spears into my side, and before I can register the pain, or what is really happening, I’m jamming the barrel to my father’s temple, staring evil dead in the eye.
I clench my teeth, only so he can’t see them chatter.
“Do it, son,” he whispers, his voice a death rattle.
So I do.
I set the bullet that should have been his free.
I swallow so hard it clicks with the trigger.
Blood sprays across my face, and I keep my eyes open, never blinking.
Not when the scarlet mist seeps into the corner and not when it casts a crimson film across the surface of my vision, reminding me what I’d become—whathemade me…a killer.
Fragments of bone decorate the floor around me, the white so crisp among the pools of deep red.
The steaming gun is in my hand, shaking, when I grapple my way to my feet, stumbling toward my mother.
A sharp pain chews at the back of my eyes and I try to swallow, try to block out my mother’s empty eyes and the loss of hope when she realized she’d just lost her life…at the hands of her son.
I bracket my palms at the side of my head, squeezing when I lose my balance and catch the wall at my back, sliding down, mirroring the stream of tears at my cheeks.
I try to move again, to reach for her but my efforts are futile.
