Page 112 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

Digs his fingers deep into it.

Earth.

His spine curves, eyes rolling back in his head as black turns to white and white to silver and silver to the moon. She’s been waiting. Where were you, darling? His jaw aches and his bones crack and he has a sound inside that needs to get free. It’d be a scream, Riley knows.

He can’t scream.

They’ll find him.

He is desperate to keep going.

But he’s a smart boy.

He knows he has to be careful.

So he forces himself to go back inside.

And there, his plans deepen.

✴

He fails.

Clever plans and patience come to nothing.

Troy knew. He was reading his notes at night.

He knew.

It breaks Riley’s heart when he learns this, dragged back inside by the hair. He fights back, kicking and screaming, but gets a vicious smack for it that makes yellow explode behind his eyes.

‘You know you’re not allowed out!’

‘I HATE YOU!’

Troy grabs his face, makes him look.

‘I don’t care,’ he hisses, and Riley believes him. Such anger burns inside him then. It’s like the wildfires Riley read about. A single spark and then whoosh.

He bites Troy’s wrist as hard as he can.

The next blow isn’t an open hand; it’s a closed fist. Riley lies on the grass in the night, panting, seeing stars, mouth full of salty red.

Troy says, ‘You’re my son. You obey me.’

‘I am,’ Riley whispers. The pain of talking adds strain to it, but the words won’t die, they can’t. ‘N-nobody’s son.’

Troy drags him back inside by the foot.

Riley isn’t let out of his room for a month.

✴

Zachary is still allowed to teach him.

Riley gets desperate.

‘Do you think,’ he says, finishing up his handwriting exercise, ‘if I’m good enough m-maybe we could… go look at the plants?’