Page 105 of Rot In Knotty Pieces

“Good. This is really good.”

“What about his clothes?”

“They are all black, the jacket is thick and always spotlessly clean, not even a hair or speck of dirt on it. His shoes are always polished, and they never have any dirt on the edges or the soles. He’s got big feet.”

“What about when he gets angry?” Rolly asks suddenly. “What is he like when he gets emotional?”

I sit on that for a moment, considering it. “He’s explosive, dangerous, and he likes to talk really soft and nice. That’s how you know you’re in trouble. He doesn’t shout. In fact, he laughs, like it’s pleasurable for him to be this mad. It’s the only time he will touch us either, and his touch is always soft, like a caress right before he hurts us.”

“And-”

“But it’s when he gets upset that’s the strangest thing. He comes sometimes, and when he’s sad, he locks us in the manacles and just sits on the table and stares at us. He tells us that we’re bad people, and we need to be punished.”

“What happens after he does that?”

“That’s when he will leave us in the manacles. I’ve thought about it a lot over the years, and I’ve wondered if he feels regret during those times and wishes he could be different. Like leaving us there like that to die is his way of quitting smoking.”

“That is horrific,” King hisses.

“Sometimes we’re there for days. He always keeps us in warehouses, massive, abandoned places that are full of dust. There is never water or food, and it’s always cold. No lights. No people. No sounds of anything human. Different places each time.”

“He’d let you go for jobs, right?”

“Yes, but he kept tracking collars on us. They had various assortments of ways to hurt us. I remember the time he put a bomb on me. That was scary. I kept wishing it would go off and kill me. The names are the same, but we get replaced if we die or misbehave. There have been more of us than the seven that exist now.”

The air in the car gets cold and dangerous.

“Is that how he makes sure that you return? With the collars?”

I nod. “He didn’t really ever give us our freedom, it was just an illusion.”

“How did you escape, Jay?”

“We didn’t escape. Merle did. She’s good at escaping, and I believe she probably picked the chains he left us in. She would have run, and when she was safe enough, Dove took over.” I pause, taking a deep breath. “There is one other small thing you should know.”

I wait until they all look at me, including Blaze in their rear-view mirror.

“Yes? What is it?”

I smile slightly. “He has no idea about the alters.”

“What?” Roseland almost yelps. “How can he not?”

“He doesn’t spend enough time with us. He’s got his second-in-command to feed us and dress us up. To beat us. He doesn’t need to pay that much attention, and we don’t speak to Father very often, so he doesn’t know about us.”

Pix blows out his cheeks. “Then you are the secret weapon that is going to be his downfall, Jay. He can’t have power over all of you because what works on one won’t work on the other.”

I stare at Pix. “I’ve never thought about it like that.”

“That’s what pack and family is for, a different perspective and a whole new way of seeing.”

Merle

The more Jay has been talking, the more upset the body has been getting, so upset that he didn’t even notice how close to panic we were until I stole up into the front and booted him out. I glance out the windows, but we’re going too fast. The car slows and stops in the line of traffic; the red light is too bright, too brilliant. A black car pulls up beside us, and in the shadows of that window, I see a distorted face. A shape. It’s my imagination, but it’s not.

We start moving again, and the car vanishes, taking the image but not the fear.

They keep talking, but I’m silent, drowning in the words, the memories. His touch, the way he would beat me senseless and then stick his gloved fingers in my mouth, ignoring the way I gagged, rubbing my teeth and rocking the loose ones. That disinfectant smells slightly of lemon with the rotted vegetation under it fills my lungs. He’s taller than me, almost twice as wide. I look up, and I can see just a hint of grey hair and wrinkled skin. He’s Caucasian and older.