All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(78)

I slammed the door, and as I headed towards the apartment, the Charger’s tires squealed against the pavement and the car blazed out of sight. What a tool, I thought, trying to light a fire. What a prick. What a selfish, spoiled brat, just as bad as his kid brother. Who the hell was he, throwing those goddamn pills in my face?

The more rational part of my brain had a very clear answer: he was, aside from Becca, perhaps the only person my age who cared about me. He was worried about me. He hadn’t yelled at me. He had, for christ sake, driven me home after I knocked his little brother around.

The wind picked up, shrieking in my ears and slashing through the denim. My breath tried to plume, but the racing air dragged it into thin, wispy lines that vanished almost immediately. On the state highway, when I checked, there were no taillights or headlights. Nothing. As the broken asphalt crunched underfoot, I was alone with the neon red Slippers sign. It was bright enough that even the stars were gone.

And I was such a goddamn fool. Like, a genuine, head-in-my-ass, special kind of stupid. Because of course Austin had been mad. I had hit Jake hard. I had hit him hard more than once. And it didn’t matter, not really, that Jake had hit me first, because Austin already knew that, Austin already felt like shit about that, but that he still loved his brother. All he’d wanted, all it would have taken to start—and it would only have been a start—patching things up were two words: I’m sorry. I fumbled with the apartment door. My hands felt like they’d been hollowed out and filled with sand. Or maybe the rest of me was filled with sand and my hands were filled with clouds. I twisted the knob, panting, almost crying because it was just a stupid door, it was just a stupid, fucking door, and why couldn’t I get it open, and why had I been so stupid, and why hadn’t I just said sorry.

Gasping for air, I somehow managed to get the knob to turn, and I half-stepped, half-fell inside. It was warmer, but not by much. Dad hadn’t paid the heat, so the apartment only offered a shell against the wind. I kicked the door shut behind me, set the deadbolt, and stripped off the denim jacket. My mind was racing anywhere but this apartment. I could walk into town tonight and call him. No, that was stupid. I’d go over tomorrow, apologize in person. To Austin, to his parents, to Jake. God, I’d let that kid bust my nose like a goddamn tomato if it would make things better. I’d—

But whatever else my brain suggested, I never remembered it, because at that moment, the light went on in Dad’s room.





You can run, my brain suggested. A thin strip of light showed at the bottom of Dad’s door, and a shadow moved through that light. Run, my brain said. Run. My hand went back to the lock, but I was moving too slow. Dad’s door swung open, and I blinked against the sudden brilliance. He was just an outline, this enormous black silhouette, against the blaze of light from his room.

He stepped towards me, collided with the sofa, and veered around it. The smell of sweat drifted out of his room, and sex, and weed, and the burnt-plastic smell of meth. He’d really been on one tonight. He’d hit the jackpot. A girl, maybe, looking for trouble and with cash to burn. Or maybe he’d done well at pool or cards. Or a buddy had lent him twenty. Or—

“Vie.” Something slapped against the vinyl sofa so loud that it popped, and the noise made me jump. One of my hands was still fumbling with the lock, but I couldn’t control it. I could barely feel the metal. This was how it always was. This frozen helplessness. This petrification. My whole life, this was how it always was, and it wasn’t until I saw cartoons, it wasn’t until I saw cartoons that showed people being hypnotized and snakes being charmed and both of them, people and snakes, had swirling spirals in their eyes to show that they were being hypnotized, it wasn’t until I saw those spiraling lines in their eyes that I could make sense of how it always happened to me. And you never fight back, a nasty voice whispered at the edge of my consciousness. You run, only sometimes, but you do run. Fight back? Fuck. Fuck you, that voice continued, you never fight back, you never have, you never will. Never. Never. Never.

“Where you been?” Pop went the vinyl again, and this time, even in the shadows, I saw how the vinyl snapped taut under the force of the blow. The belt. His belt. It had been a long time. I hadn’t had the belt, not since he left Oklahoma. Mom never used the belt. Mom just wound herself tighter and tighter, more and more sprung, until—pop! I jumped again. A pale patch of stuffing showed where the blow had split the vinyl. I wanted to close my eyes. In the darkness, could he see those spiral lines swirling? Did he know I was like a rabbit, or a snake, or a man that’s been hypnotized? If I closed my eyes, if I could just manage to close my eyes, would that change everything? Would I be able to run? Would I be able to hit him back?

No, that voice hissed at the edge of the universe. No, you wouldn’t. Because you’re not hypnotized. Because this isn’t a cartoon. Because you don’t have swirly lines in your eyes, no one does, not when they’re a kid, certainly not when they’re sixteen fucking years old.

“I asked you a question, boy.” Dad’s voice slurred at the edges, but his face, as he came close enough to see, was fixed in firm, familiar lines. This was the Dad I’d known in Oklahoma. The Dad I’d seen here, too, when he was at his worst. Everything about his face looked fixed in place, like it had been stuck on with superglue and left to dry. He wasn’t smiling, he wouldn’t smile, but in his eyes, when he moved his head just right, I could see the smile, the one that was straining to get out if there hadn’t been all that superglue holding things in place. When I’d had time to think about it, all those times in between, I’d realized that he wanted his face to look like this. That he thought it was the right face to wear. For years I told myself he was trying to do what was right. He was teaching me a lesson, a hard lesson, but he was trying to do what was right. But that was just the face. That was just the superglue putting everything—eyes and lips and wrinkled brow—into tough love, into firm but fair, into this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.