AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I always will.
Tick. Tock.
Tick.
I opened every cupboard again then went to the fridge for the second time and just stood there.
The cupboards held a blanket and cigarettes instead of food.
The fridge had a carton of milk, but I’d already looked at it yesterday. There were chunks in it and bluish-green fuzzy stuff on the very top of the carton.
I looked over my shoulder when the people in the room next to me laughed and bit on my lip as I watched them.
Momma didn’t say I couldn’t talk to her or her friends. But I hadn’t ever wanted to be near them.
See nothing. Hear nothing. Be nothing.
I’d promised Jentry that, and I’d stuck to it these last two months.
Besides . . . they scared me in a different way than Daddy did.
But the last things I ate were two hard crackers I’d found at the top of the neighbor’s trash two nights ago.
I crept silently to where they were gathered around the living room and whispered, “Momma, I’m hungry.” When she didn’t look my way, I said it again.
She groaned from where she sat in front of the coffee table and dropped her head. “Then get you some fucking food, Jess. Jesus.”
The men with her laughed. There was only one other woman, and she was doing something to one of the men that I knew I wasn’t supposed to see.
One of the other men was staring at me.
See nothing. Hear nothing. Be nothing.
I stepped closer to Momma and bent my head. “Momma, you need to eat too. You haven’t eaten in days.”
She laughed. “I’m about to.”
She sounded weird. Excited.
My mom had never been excited about anything other than leaving Daddy and Jentry.
The man looking at me nodded my way. “Why don’t you come sit over here and keep me company?”
“You’d ruin her,” Momma snapped at him.
“Jesus, AJ,” one of the men said. “She’s eight, you sick fuck.”
All the men laughed so loud that the sudden noise made me jump.
“I don’t want to,” I said softly.
“I think you do,” the man named AJ said.
The men laughed harder then started throwing out words I knew I wasn’t supposed to understand.
Pervert. Horny. Pussy.
See nothing. Hear nothing. Be nothing.
