Page 16 of Inflict

His father was who he was.

Connor couldn’t help that, only avoid it.

Knowing that didn’t help.

They were just cats.

They didn’t hurt anybody, not him, and certainly not his father. Sean hadn’t even known about the cats this whole time Connor was looking after them.

Why did he even care?

Connor headed for the back of the house, knowing there was nothing he could do and getting more pissed off the closer he came to the back porch. What was done, was already done, likely. His father had probably already killed the cats, and Connor would be left with listening to his father gloat about what he’d done, and probably dodge a slap or two for lying about the animals being under the old shed.

Or, that’s what he hoped he would find.

But he wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, either.

This was a first.

Not knowing his father’s rage was waiting; not knowing he’d done something wrong and his father had found out; not even knowing a beating was coming. No, none of that was new.

But the fear he felt about what could be waiting—that was new.

Still, Connor didn’t show how he felt as he opened up the back door to find the house was quiet on the inside. He shuffled out of his winter clothing, his gaze staying peeled on the hallway that lead to the main rooms on the bottom floor. He put away his things as he always did, knowing that leaving them out would only earn him more punishment at the end of the day.

He certainly didn’t need or want more.

Connor found the new maid—Missy—in the kitchen, sitting in the middle of the room on a chair with a garbage can between her legs, and a twenty-pound bag of potatoes at her side. On her other side, a clear bowl rested, overflowing with peeled potatoes. She barely even passed him a look, simply dropped another peeled vegetable to the large pile and grabbed another.

It was too many potatoes to eat.

Too many for them.

Connor wasn’t supposed to talk to her, but he couldn’t help but ask, “What are you doing?”

Missy didn’t look up from her task, replying, “Learning.”

He didn’t understand, but he supposed he wasn’t meant to.

“Your father is upstairs in the bathroom,” Missy said. “He said that’s where you were to go when you got home.”

Connor flinched inwardly, and turned on his heel to follow the direction without so much as a goodbye to the young lass behind him, who looked as though she could be his older sister sometimes. He tried not to think on that too much, because he knew that it wouldn’t do him any good, and it certainly wouldn’t help Missy, either.

Connor found his father waiting, leaning in the doorway of the upstairs bathroom with a hammer in one hand hanging limp at his waist, and a smoldering cigarette dangling from the fingers of his other hand. Sean looked him up and down, his usual sneer permanently in place.

“Where have you been all day, lad?”

“Playing.”

“Where?”

“In the trails,” Connor lied.

He wasn’t entirely sure why, but he knew there was no way his father would react well to finding out he had spent the day in Evelyn’s house. It wasn’t in Sean’s nature to like anything Connor did, truthfully.

His father lifted his cigarette for a drag, the heavy smoke lingering just above his head in a thick cloud as he exhaled. That twisting knot in Connor’s stomach only got tighter—made him feel sicker—the longer he was forced to stand there, waiting on his father to speak again.

He wished he could blame it on Sean.