No.
I was not going to be a prisoner any longer, and I was not going to be the reason this boy lived the kind of life I had lived.
Hell no.
I was suddenly so angry and yet I was terrified. How would I do this? Thinking it was one thing, but where would I go? Could I really take care of myself?
I thought of my new friend, and I realized I could haunt a street corner just like her. I could survive the same way she did.
I went over to the boy. He drew away as if he feared I would hurt him.
“I’m sorry I helped him catch you.”
He sobbed, snot running down his skinny face.
“I’m going to help you, but you have to promise me something first.”
He stared into my eyes, the sobs fading to a hiccup.
“When he comes back, I’m going to knock him out and then cut you loose. You’ll have to run for help. Tell the police what he did to you so they’ll arrest him. But you can’t tell them about me. Promise?”
His head bobbed up and down like one of those crazy street beggars on crack.
“Okay. But if you break that promise, I will come back in the middle of the night and ...”
He shook his head fast.
“We have a deal, then. You just sit right there and be quiet. When he gets here, you start your whining again. I’ll be ready.”
I didn’t have much. Two pairs of jeans. The shoes I wore. A second pair of socks and panties and one other T-shirt. I packed all of it into a plastic bag from the supermarket. Then I remembered my teddy bear. It was the one thing I’d had for as long as I could remember, so I put it with the bag. I hid them behind the ragged couch.
In the kitchen, there was no knife. He never left stuff like that lying around. But in the very back under the sink, there was one of those big old forks—the kind people used for barbecuing. I guess the people who lived there before us had a grill. I took the big fork and tucked it between the cushion and the sofa arm, and sat down to wait.
Half an hour passed with me and the kid just sitting there, waiting for him to return. I was pretty sure the kid had shit himself, since I smelled something bad. I couldn’t risk helping him clean up because I needed to be in position for when the monster returned.
Finally, he unlocked the front door and came in, a paper sack in his arms. “Got you something, too,” he announced, grinning at me. Hepulled out a bottle of Coke and a bag of chips. “I thought you might want to go next door and watch TV.”
We often heard the girl next door’s television playing. He didn’t know that I watched it sometimes when I went over there for my lessons.
“Okay,” I said.
He put the bag down on the sofa next to me. “Me and the boy are going to bed now. He’s tired.” He slid the half pint of liquor into his back pocket and turned toward the boy. “Smells like you need a bath.”
I watched for a moment, the racket the kid was making growing as he sobbed louder and louder. The piece of shit bent to touch him, and that’s when I moved. My fingers curled around the handle of the big fork, and I rammed it into him as hard as I could.
He screamed, jerked away from me.
The fork still grasped in both hands, I jumped back as he twisted around. His eyes were big and round, and he was staring at me as if he intended to kill me.
He dove at me. I thrust the fork forward, ramming it into his gut this time. He just stood there staring at me. I pushed harder, driving the fork as deep as I could.
He crumpled to the floor, but he started to rant at me. Screaming that he was going to kill me. I had to do something!
I grabbed the old ceramic lamp from the table. Jerked its cord free of the wall and crashed it as hard as I could over his head.
He collapsed onto his back and stopped moving ... stopped making sounds.
My heart was in my throat. I crouched next to him and reached into his pocket in search of the knife he carried. I knew he had one. I had seen it before. I dug until I found it. My hands shaking, I ran to the boy and cut him loose. I pulled the balled-up sock out of his mouth.
