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“Fuck you.” I spat a wad of red onto my carpet at his feet. “And fuck him too.”
Mitch chuckled, though his gaze grew flatter. “I read your file, Wentz. You’re a criminal. A degenerate, just like your father.” His eyes went to the Taser lying a few feet away. “A thief, too, who steals police property. I believe that belongs to me, son.”
Christ, he sounded like my dad.
“I want you to go over there and hand it to me. Slowly. Slowly.”
He rested one hand on the butt of his pistol, one hand outstretched, waiting. I retrieved the Taser from the kitchen and crossed the small space to him, our eyes locked. Every muscle in my body was coiled tight, ready to spring. But something besides adrenaline zipped along my nerves like an electric current.
Fear.
He looked nothing like my dad and yet the resemblance was uncanny, catapulting me to another time. My breath came short. Mouth dry. I put the Taser in his left hand. It touched skin, and the blue of his jacket blurred as his fist slammed into my eye in a blow I should’ve seen coming.
My head rang, but I took the hit with a grunt and answered by throwing a right hook that connected with his mouth. It would’ve knocked another guy flat, but Mitch hardly flinched. I took a shot to the kidney, another to the gut, and then he was hurling me across the room. I crashed, shoulder first, into the cheap wooden coffee table that splintered under me like kindling.
With a satisfied smile, Mitch ran his thumb under his lip, wiping a trickle of blood.
“This was a warning, Wentz,” he said, heading for the door. “You only get one.”
He went out and I lay for a minute in the wreckage of the table, feeling drunk on pain and bloody memories.
Slowly, my head cleared, and I hauled myself to my feet just as Maryann Greer from downstairs poked her head inside.
“Ronan…? Oh my God…”
I waved her off, but it was too late. She rushed in and put gentle, steadying hands on me as she guided me to the kitchen table.
“What in the hell happened? I heard a crash and saw a man leaving. Big one.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, slouching into the chair, keeping a hand over my eye that was already swelling shut. “You should go.”
If he comes back…
“Go?” Maryann stood over me, her blue eyes studying me. She wore jeans, an old sweatshirt, her dark blond hair in a messy ponytail. “Fat chance. I’m calling the police.”
“He was the police.”
Gently, she moved my hand from my eye. “Sweet Jesus, what happened? And don’t say nothing.”
“It’s over. He came to settle a score. That’s it.”
“You have scores with cops?” Maryann rummaged in my freezer, found it empty and checked out the fridge. “You have no ice. Hardly any food, either.”
“I’m fine.”
“My ass. Stay right there,” she said going to the door. “Don’t move.”
“Maryann…”
But she was already gone.
A flare of anger in me wanted more fight—a fair fight—but shame washed it away. A single fluorescent bulb lit my dim apartment. My coffee table was a heap of busted wood. A splotch of blood stained the carpet.
Sorry, Mom. I’m trying.
Maryann came back with a bag of frozen peas. Instead of handing it to me, she stood over me and pressed the bag to my eye, her other hand gently holding the back of my neck. For long moments, I just sat
there with Maryann and her peas, her worry and concern wafting over me in warm, motherly waves. She smelled like lemon dish soap.
