Gun Shy(22)

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I am so fucking rude.”

“You’re not,” she says quickly.

“No, I am. You’re right. I kind of did forget how to have a conversation.”

She shrugs. “That’s okay. Makes sense, I guess.”

We drive in silence the rest of the way. Something about the way Jennifer has aged so rapidly in the past eight years has woken me the fuck up - in prison, time has no meaning. Nobody grows or is born. Nobody is ever a child. You go there and you live each day the same as the last, and sometimes you stay so long you die there.

Not me. I’m not ever going back. I’ll die before I go back.

Jennifer pulls on to the shoulder in front of our property, watching quietly as I grab my backpack and the bag of food.

“Thanks for the ride,” I say, opening my door.

“I guess I’ll see you at the house sometime,” Jennifer replies. “My brother’s home. You should come around and see us, Leo. He’d like that.”

I slide out of the car and turn around, smiling at her. “Yeah, me too. Drive home safe, okay?”

She nods, and it’s only as I’m closing the door that I realize how fucking ridiculous that sounds, coming from the mouth of a man who just served eight years in prison for driving the opposite of safe.

I stand on the side of the road and watch her taillights as she drives away.





CHAPTER EIGHT





LEO





As soon as I get home, I almost wish I were back in prison.

The moment I trudge down to my room, my makeshift shipping container, my feet sinking into the thick snow blanketing everything, I’m greeted by what sounds like two people fucking each other to death.

Animals. Of course, it makes sense that anyone of age in our house would use my room for some privacy instead of trying to fuck in the trailer, paper-thin walls stifling nothing. Of course. While I was away, they’ve turned my room into a goddamned brothel.

I just about rip the door off the hinges, I’m that furious, my brother’s name on my lips. I mean, it’s either Pike or my mom using this room, and I can’t even think about it being Mom.

So what I see breaks my fucking heart and makes me want to commit murder all at the same time.

“What the fuck is this!?” I yell, my voice filling the small room. It stinks like sweat and sex and pot in here. Everything is as I left it – the bed, the sink, clothes hanging on a piece of rope strung up in the corner. They don’t look like my clothes anymore.

My baby sister, naked and bouncing on top of some guy I vaguely recognize, is the thing I didn’t leave here. Hannah is fourteen, and as if that weren’t bad enough, she’s slow. Special, I call her. My mom drank too much when she was pregnant with her and she’s mentally the age of a pre-schooler. The last time I saw her, she was six years old, and in all the time I’ve been in prison, she’s never mentally progressed. At least, that’s what Pike told me.

And now she’s fourteen, she’s on top of some guy, and he’s making this noise with his hands on her big belly. Her big pregnant belly.

I see red. I’m pretty sure I’m about to set a record for how quickly someone can get arrested for brutal fucking murder after being let out on parole. I charge at them, Hannah’s face breaking into a smile as she sees me. “Leo!” she says, reaching for me. I dodge her, grabbing the stunned guy by the neck and literally dragging him out from underneath my sister. I throw him onto the ground, kicking him in the ribs as hard as I can, and the guy looks like he’s about to have a goddamn heart attack.

“Derek?!” I say. Derek Jackson is one of my mom’s sometime boyfriends and occasional business partners when they do a cook together. He was hanging around like a bad fucking smell when I was arrested. Time has not treated him well. He’s missing more teeth now, and he looks fucking terrible.

“Jesus Christ,” I seethe, putting my boot on Derek’s throat when he tries to get up. “Does my mother know about this?”

“Don’t hurt him!” Hannah interjects.

“Get dressed, Hannah. Get dressed now!” I find a pile of clothes on the floor and throw them at my baby sister; I don’t even know if they’re hers, but I don’t care.

“Man, just pass me my pants—” Derek says, choking when I step harder on his windpipe.

“Did I say you could talk, fucker?” I ask him. “Just give me a reason. Just give me a reason to break your fucking neck.”

“You dressed?” I say to Hannah, without taking my eyes off Derek. The dude looks completely fucked up — he’s missing half his teeth, no doubt thanks to all the ice he smokes, and his eyes are so bloodshot it looks like somebody burned them with a blowtorch.

“Yeah,” Hannah says. I glance at her, fighting the urge to roll my eyes. She’s wearing an oversized checked shirt that definitely isn’t hers, a pair of men’s boxer shorts, and slippers. Apart from the fact that she’ll freeze outside like that, none of the clothes are hers. I focus my attention back on Derek, who is staring at Hannah.

“Don’t look at my sister,” I snap, pulsing my foot against his throat so that he chokes painfully. “You aren’t ever going to see her again, you hear me?”