My father inherited the lucrative business from my grandfather, and he planned to pass it down to my brother and me. It was a pest control business that doubled in wildlife relocation. If you had bugs or a fury invader, the Montgomery’s would be your first call. My family envisioned me becoming a powerful family man at the helm of the business. They wanted me to settle down with a woman who would stay at home and push out more Montgomery babies. Preferably sons. When they saw my future, they saw a man who went to church on Sundays and brought home money in a respectable, familiar way. What they got instead, was a tattooed fuck-up who spat in the face oftheir buttoned-up way of life. I didn’t want their reality. I saw first-hand what their expectations were and wanted no part of it.
My future would be mine to make. Not theirs.
The Montgomery’s prided themselves on their image. They saw themselves as helpful— good neighbors who followed the law. If you saw them from a glance, their image would project that of a happy, typical, American family. But that glance was nothing more than what they wanted you to see. Behind closed doors, terror reigned.
My father was creative in his chosen form of punishment. If my brother and I acted up, he’d take us out back and use his extensive knowledge of toxins and poisons on us. Starting with our bare feet. He would watch as the toxic spray sunk into our skin, burning us and causing painful muscular twitching. I still twitched occasionally from the nerve damage he’d done. My body carried the scars of his discipline and my brain held onto the resentment.
Every week, I found myself hauled out to the yard by the scruff of my neck, that is until I got bigger than him.
Once I had the height and muscle to overpower him, he had me carted off— too scared that I’d actually start to fight back one of these days. He had every reason to be scared because I knew that one day I would make my way back there and become the very thing he feared. I’d show him not only did I survive him and this place he’d dumped me at, but I’d become who they molded me to be— a fucking threat.
That look I saw in Delilah’s eyes when she’d stared at me held the same haunted and angry quality that I recognized in my own expression every time I looked in the mirror. She’d survived some shit. But not only did she survive, no. She burned with the kind of anger that could set the world on fire. Just like me.
“That’s too much,” I said gently, gripping the beaker from Delilah’s shaking hand. I didn’t miss the way my skin tingled at the slightest brush of her flesh against mine.
“What do you mean? It’s right at the line.” She put her hands of her hips and looked up at me, her eyebrows furrowed and her blue-grayeyes looked larger than they were due to the clear goggles she wore over them. The black, elastic strap wrapped around the back of her head, squishing her braid down at odd angles. It had pieces of her hair sticking out. God, she was so fucking cute.
“But the meniscus isn’t,” I said back.
She just stared up at me. All five foot five of her, waiting for me to explain. I let out a sigh and set the beaker down carefully with both hands.
Leaning down, my elbows grazed the polished black counter, and I pointed to where the liquid was. “Okay, you see this dip in the center here? You might have to lean down to see it,” I said.
She leaned down and I could smell her. Like soap and something citrus. She smelled like what I imagine happiness smelled like. She was so close that her arm brushed against mine and it set off a million fireflies zapping along my nerves. I’ve never been so drawn to anyone before. Sure, I’ve had a crush here or there, but this felt different. Deeper on a cellular level somehow.
Maybe it was the shared trauma.
“What am I supposed to be seeing?”
“This dip right here? This needed to be down here.”
“Well, it’s practically there.” She shrugged her shoulder.
I picked up the graduated cylinder and poured a small amount back into the beaker so that it would be level.
“Ah. So much better. Those two drops make all the difference,” she said with a small, but visible twinkle in her eyes. It hooked me.
Our bodies leaned into each other, moving closer as we argued.
Then a yard stick fell down between us with a loud smack, making both of us jump.
“Proximity!” Ms. Planchard screeched. She stared down her hawk like nose at us. The yard stick was still gripped tightly in her wrinkled hands. I knew from experience that one wrong move would end with far more than a jolt. I willed my features to remain smooth, so it wouldn’t be perceived as disrespectful. These teachers took even the smallest micro-expression as insolence. In my opinion, I think they liked hitting people and were looking for an excuse to make that happen. It’s like they’d never heard of therapy being anoption and decided to make their lack of self-reflection everyone else’s problem.
Thankfully, a loud bell rang signaling the end of the class before things could escalate. And they would have too. I’ve seen it happen in the blink of an eye. Students were frequently being hauled out to the redirection room. A place where screams become the lifeblood that pumped through these twisted halls.
If evil had a face, it would look like the teachers of Kingston Prep.
CHAPTER 3
DELILAH
They hadus sitting in a circle, on our knees with our hands face up. The floor dug into my kneecaps leaving them with a dull ache. If we dropped our hands, we’d get hit with a rod and I already had two prominent, red welts that burned. Above us sat a plain black cross that was nailed to the wall, casting a shadow of judgement down upon us. There was a crown of thorns perched on the top, sitting crookedly as if it were a symbol of how off this place was that I’d ended up in.
This theology class was run by two pastors. Or so they called themselves.
Pastor John and Pastor Big C. I doubted they had even one qualification to rub between them seeing as I heard them boasting about getting hired on for their connections, and their teaching methods seemed anything but holy.
I recognized Pastor John immediately as the one from the night before. The one who couldn’t stop leering at my exposed body. He had slicked back blonde hair, bronzed skin that looked like he spent a considerable amount of time outside in the sun, and a whisper of beard that peppered his square jaw. Conventionally, he was attractive, but those blue eyes he had held a cruelty inside them that scared me.
