Chapter 2
Thorn protected his head with his hands and arms as he was yanked feet-first up the front steps. Once inside, his father slung him. Thorn hit the wall hard, jarring the breath from him and sending shards of pain through his already hurting body. He slid to the floor. He tried to push up but couldn’t manage it. He lay on the floor, praying for strength and the wisdom to use it.
The light came on and Thorn squinted. His father looked just as he had the last time Thorn saw him–big and mean, with the same blond crew cut, ice-blue eyes and sneering mouth.
“Thought you could get away, did you?” Travis demanded, giving Irena a backhanded blow that sent her flying to the opposite wall. He moved to stand over her, wrapped his hands in her hair, yanked her to her feet, and slammed her head into the wall. “I told you what would happen!”
“Please, Travis,” Irena pleaded. “Just sit down and let’s talk.”
“I’m done talking!” Travis said. “Told you that when you called the cops on me!”
“Why are you here?”
“You know why.”
Irena shook her head as if that could negate the intent. “You can’t mean that.”
“Hell yes, I can.”
“But you said you loved me.”
“I do,” Travis said. “How you think it makes me feel, knowing you’re whorin’ yourself for that little bastard over there?”
“It isn’t like that, Travis.”
“The hell it’s not!” he said, shaking her and pushing her head into the wall again. “This is your last chance. You go get in the car. And wait for me.”
“Come on, Thorn,” Irena said.
“Not him,” Travis said, shaking his head. “Just you.”
“What about Thorn?”
“I’ll deal with him.”
Thorn’s heart raced. Desperation gave him the strength to gain his feet.
“I am not leaving my son!”
“Just what I figured,” Travis returned.
“He’s a child, Travis.”
“From the day that little bastard was born, everything’s been about him!”
“No,” she said. “We could have all been happy, but you wouldn’t stop drinking.”
“It’s always about what I got to change!” he yelled, hurling her across the room. He strode to stand over Thorn. “This!” he said, grabbing Thorn’s hair and shaking him. “This was the only thing that ever needed to change. I told you to get an abortion!” He picked Thorn up and threw him. Thorn landed on his mother and her arms wrapped around him. “You made your choice, Irena,” Travis said, looming over them. “And just like always, you left me without one!”
Thorn tried not to cry out as his father’s boot landed on his back, but the sound was torn from him. Irena rolled on top of Thorn, placing her body between his and his father’s before Thorn recovered enough to stop her. Thorn felt the impact of his father’s fist on his mother’s back as she was pressed into him. Then they were lifted together and thrown. They hit the floor and rolled until they slammed into the couch. Then Travis was on them, his fists flying. He was yelling, but they weren’t a man’s sounds. He was like an animal raging above them.
Using both hands, Thorn managed to deflect his father’s fist as it rushed toward his face, but it hit Irena instead. Thorn struggled to put some distance between himself and his mother so he wouldn’t hurt her again.
”Run, Thorn!” Irena shouted as she landed a well-directed fist on her husband’s nose. He howled with rage as the blood started, but only hit her harder.
Thorn had never seen his mother fight back. She always said it was better to endure than to make Travis angrier, and so they’d both gotten good at enduring. Evidently she realized they couldn’t take what Travis had planned for that night.
There was no way Thorn was going to leave his mother. He would stay and help her. He doubted it would do any good, but he couldn’t leave her. Between them, Thorn and his mother had four hands and four feet, and they used them all. Thorn gained some measure of satisfaction as he drove three fingers into his father’s right eye. Travis bellowed and leaned away. Thorn scrambled to escape, preferring to fight on his feet rather than his back. Travis caught his arm. Thorn spun, ignoring the pain, and landed his heel at the base of his father’s skull. Travis’s grip loosened for a second, and that was all Thorn needed.
He jerked loose and scrambled across the room, knowing Travis would follow. Thorn’s eyes sought the bat. He found it but couldn’t get there in time. His father’s weight crashed onto his back and he fell to the floor, pain screaming through his body as he was sandwiched between the hardwood floor and his father’s massive bulk.
A crash sounded above him–something broke–and his father yelled. The weight rolled away and Thorn crawled forward. He looked back over his shoulder as Travis turned on Irena. She backed away, holding what was left of the lamp. Thorn couldn’t watch. He turned and fixed his eyes on the bat. His hand closed around the handle and he rolled to his feet.
By the time Thorn got there, Travis had hit Irena again. Thorn aimed high and swung hard as Travis turned toward him. He hit the side of Travis’s neck, knocking him down. While Thorn raised the bat for another swing, his mother closed in with the fireplace shovel. She brought it down on her husband’s back and he grunted.
Thorn knew they might not be able to hold onto those weapons at close range. If Travis got hold of them, he’d be able to take them away. “Go to the kitchen,” he told his mother as he hit his father with the bat again. There was lots of stuff in there they could use. Thorn was only a few steps behind her, but he was limping. The car had done something to his leg.
His mother flipped the switch, flooding the kitchen with light. “Don’t!” Thorn said, and she immediately flipped the switch again. There was still a little light flowing in from the other room, but he thought the kitchen was dark enough to provide them some cover.
He heard his mother slide a knife from the wooden holder. “What you gonna do?”
“Throw it!”
“No,” Thorn said. “Then he’d have it. Just keep it, in case he gets close.”
“Right,” Irena said.
The wooden block holding the knives was too close to the door, too close to his father, for his comfort. He wrapped an arm around the block and carried it to the other side of the kitchen.
Thorn had spent a lot of time thinking about strategies. He’d also spent a lot of hours watching horror movies and Court TV. He moved into the back corner of the kitchen, pulling his mother with him, and opened the cabinet where they kept the canned goods. “These’ll hurt,” he whispered, pressing a big can into her hand. He pulled out another for himself–and they waited.
Travis appeared on the other side of the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. He made his way toward them, looking bigger with every step. They threw the cans together. Irena’s hit him on the chest. Thorn’s got him in the face. Thorn got a second one in, hitting Travis’s groin, before Travis backed away. He ducked, and Thorn couldn’t see him anymore. Thorn heard loud sounds. He thought Travis was looking for weapons. Thorn held the bat between his legs and a can in his hand.
He turned on the faucet-not all the way, but enough to get hot and have some pressure. He lifted the sprayer nozzle and put it in his mother’s hand. She held it in front of her, two-handed, as if it were a gun. Thorn reached for the phone; they couldn’t take him away now because his mother was there. He crouched so Travis wouldn’t see where he was, and dialed.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“My father’s trying to kill us,” Thorn whispered. “How do we stop him?”
“What’s he doing?”
“Looking for stuff to beat us to death with, I think!” Thorn whispered. Couldn’t the woman hear all that banging and cursing? “Hurry up! How do I stop him?”
“Son, I can’t tell you what to do. I’m not there. But tell me–”
“Send help,” Thorn whispered. “Route One, Number Fifteen. Right across from The Firelight Inn.”
“What’s your name?”
“Thorn,” he told the woman. “Can’t talk now.” His father was coming back. Thorn could hear him but couldn’t see him.
“Wait, I–”
“Gotta go,” Thorn said. “Tell them be careful. We got HIV.”
“Stay on the line!” the woman said. “Son!”
Thorn put the receiver on the floor. He kept low as he moved closer to the bar. His father was quiet now, trying to be sneaky. Thorn thought he was just on the other side of the bar–probably planning to jump it or rush through the door. He prayed for the bar not to protest as he leaned his weight on it. He wanted to look but knew his father might be waiting for that. Thorn held his breath, ears straining for the sound of his father’s breathing. There. He threw the can with all he had and was rewarded with a thunk and a howl. By the time Travis raised himself, Thorn was swinging the bat again. Travis yelped like a dog when it hit his head and stumbled backwards. Irena squirted him with hot water and he bellowed, backing away.
The first of the cans sailed back toward them over the bar. It missed, but the second one hit Irena’s leg. They scrambled for new positions. In the minutes that followed, they hurled cans, dishes, cookware, the toaster, and the microwave at Travis as he made his advances. Then came the moment Thorn had dreaded. Travis rushed into the kitchen, ignoring the barrage, and threw himself onto Irena. Thorn got in a few hits with the bat before Travis’s hand closed around his arm. He knew Travis meant to disarm him, and he couldn’t hold onto his weapon if Travis got his hands on it. Thorn used his other hand to fling the bat into the other room, out of Travis’s reach.
Something hit Thorn’s head. Maybe a can, maybe his father’s fist, he didn’t know. It hit him again. He didn’t look because if he did, it would hit his face. He saw his mother drive her knife into his father’s back and yank it away again. Another hit came on his head and he fell. With Thorn down, Travis returned his attention to Irena. Thorn managed to push himself upward, driven by his mother’s cries. He drew back his arm and slammed the heel of his hand into Travis’s injured nose. Travis roared with the pain but caught Thorn’s arm. He put his other hand to Thorn’s arm, too. Thorn struggled to get free, but couldn’t. He gritted his teeth, awaiting the pain of his arm being broken, even as he fought to save it.
His father cried out and let go. Irena had managed to bury the blade of her knife in Travis’s shoulder, but she lost her hold on the blood-slick handle when he wrenched away. Travis’s hands reached for the knife. Thorn couldn’t let him have that. He yanked the iron skillet off the floor and swung, slamming it into the side of his father’s face. Travis fell back, his hands still clutching for the knife protruding from his shoulder. Thorn hit Travis’s hands with the frying pan, yanked the knife loose, and pressed it into his mother’s trembling hand. She plunged it into Travis’s gut. Thorn ran into the living room, retrieved the bat, and hit his father some more.
Finally, Travis was lying still–but so was Irena.
Thorn moved to lean over his mother, wiping blood from his eyes. He could see her face in the light from the other room, but she was unrecognizable. He blinked back tears. “Mama?”
“Run… Thorn.” She found his hand and put the knife into it.
He shook his head. He didn’t want to be in the house but he couldn’t leave her. He tried to help her up, but she couldn’t do much. Thorn was dizzy from the hits on his head and he hurt all over. He got his mother halfway up, but they fell.
Thorn prayed for more strength. He couldn’t lift her again. Still holding the knife, he dragged her across the kitchen, over his father’s still form, and into the living room, wanting to put as much distance between them and Travis as he could.
He opened the front door and heard sirens. For the first time since he’d recognized his father at the door, hope coursed through him. He knelt beside his mother. “They’re almost here.”
He didn’t think she heard. He moved until he could see her face better. Her eyes were open but he didn’t think she saw him. “Mama?” Thorn’s heart stopped and then raced at the sudden realization. His mother had dead-people eyes. “Mama?”
The world stopped, for Thorn.
He heard movement behind him and turned, lifting the knife as he went. His mother wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be. But he wasn’t going to let his father touch her. Not ever again.
Thorn reared up as his father lunged forward. He slid the knife into his father’s throat and wrenched it sideways, screaming the agony of his soul as the blood erupted onto him.
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