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Grabbing the tube, he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror over the washbasin. Nothing had changed since the last time he’d seen it. He was nobody’s hero, no matter how much Keiko felt like painting him that way, and it was only a matter of time before she came to the same conclusion. He was just a guy who’d spent his life fighting against his heritage. Desperate that his family history would end with him—no matter what it took.
Because evil ran in his veins, and he always had to be on guard against it. It was a message branded into his soul with each violent stroke of his grandfather’s belt.
Memories flooded his mind, and he closed his eyes against them. It made no difference. He saw them anyway. Heard them. Felt them…
“Your momma was a whore, and your daddy a murderer. You’re evil, boy. A monster.” His grandfather raised the leather belt over his head. The strap wrapped around his hand. The buckle hanging loose.
Mace tried to make himself as small as he could, pressing his body into the floor, his front to the wall. It wouldn’t make any difference. It never did. There was no protecting himself from his grandfather.
“If’n you’d been good, like the good lord intended, you woulda saved your momma from that man. But you let him kill her. You were born with the evil in you, just like your daddy. He took my girl and made her into his whore, an’ then he killed her, same as he killed those other women.”
The old man’s eyes seemed to glow red as spittle escaped from the corner of his mouth. “Fourteen kills, that’s his number. The number of the demon who lived in your daddy, and that demon lives in you.” He swung the belt. “Don’ matter how long it takes, I’m gonna beat the demon outta you.”
Thwack!
The buckle struck his side, and lightning shot through him. Mace knew if he didn’t count aloud, his grandfather would add to the number until he did, so he forced the word past his clenched teeth. “One.”
The belt swung again, and fire exploded through his hip. He’d never made it to fourteen before passing out from the pain. And he expected that today wouldn’t be any different. There was no escape. Nowhere to hide that his grandfather couldn’t find him. No one to come to his aid. All he could do was endure.
“Count!”
“Two.” Mace swallowed a sob. Tears made the old man angrier, and anger made him swing harder.
“You’re evil. There’s nothing good in you. Nothing. You come from depraved stock.” The blow hit his shoulder this time, and he felt blood trickle down his chest, under his threadbare shirt.
It would pool beneath him. The blood. He’d lie in it until it congealed and glued his skin to the floor. And when he managed to get up, the places where he’d fused to the floor would rip open, and he’d bleed all over again.
It was the pattern of his young life. First his da had hit him when he’d tried to save his ma from beatings. Now his grandfather hit him for not saving his ma. He closed his eyes tight and held onto the image of his mother. Her honey-colored hair falling around her shoulders. The gentle warmth in her clear blue eyes. The feeling of her hands, soft and comforting, as she held him close…
Thwack!
The memory shattered, and he was alone on the floor of his grandfather’s house.
“Three.” The word was a croak, but he made sure it was loud enough for his grandfather to hear.
“Fourteen women dead at his hand. And all he left behind was his spawn. I won’t let you grow up to kill like him. You’re gonna learn your lesson, boy. Learn it good.”
Thwack!
The pain from the individual strikes began to blend. Turning his body into one large, open sore.
“Four.” He managed to find the strength to cover his head with his arms.
“Begone, demon!”
Thwack!
“Five.” To his shame, he cried. He’d promised himself there would be no more tears, and he couldn’t even do that properly. The old man was right. He was no good. Just like his ma. Just like his da.
“Evil… Monster…”
Thwack!
“Six?” It was a guess. The agony racking his body made it hard to think. His thoughts blurring as his mind fought to distance itself from the pain.
He barely felt the next blow. His mind was leaving. Taking him away from the hell he lived in day after day. A hell he deserved.
Because he was a monster.
