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“I’m so sorry, sir.”
He turns, jumps on his skateboard, and starts rushing down the street far quicker than I would’ve guessed he could. I duck my head and run, pumping my arms fast, closing the distance. Looking over his shoulder, he yells and turns into a hill.
“No, don’t,” I roar. Images of what could happen if he bombs down that rush through my mind. “Zack! I can help you! Your sister and I can help you!”
But he starts zooming down the hill. I sprint after him, yelling at him to slow down. Soon, the distance between us widens. His hands are at his sides as he somehow balances on the skateboard, even when it jostles from side to side as if the wheels might fall off.
“Za—”
A car pulls out violently in front of me. Far too late, I realize this was the point. I slam into the car. My stomach tightens. Stars burst in my vision, and I stumble back, winded, my mind going to prison, to the time I saw giant men doubled-up from a liver shot. I’ve just taken a liver shot from a car because of the speed of my running downhill. A man stands over me, hazy in the darkness.
“You did well, Zack,” he says. “Now do the final bit.”
“Y-yes, sir,” Zack replies, sounding terrified.
Zack leans down and brings something to my neck.
I roll away, trying to leap to my feet, but my rib feels bruised. It tears through my chest. I try again, climb to a knee this time, and push myself the rest of the way. I need to get space, turn, and fight.
Electricity jolts through my body, wave after wave of it. My muscles stiffen. I don’t collapse, but the stun gun paralyzes me briefly. It’s enough time for Patrick to slip a needle into my neck.
“C-c-c…”
Coward, I was going to call him, but now I’m collapsing against the concrete.
* * *
When I wake, I’m tied to a metal chair in a windowless room. No, that’s not right. There’s a small slit of a window at the back of the room, but it’s covered in cardboard. A sliver of light peeks through. Otherwise, it’s empty, and the concrete walls are chipped. The paint looks like it used to be green.
A door whines open. When I turn, I feel my body throbbing, but nothing feels broken. It’s nowhere near as bad as those first moments. If I’d just had a few more seconds… but there’s no use thinking like that now.
Zack walks in, holding a tray with a needle on it.
“What is that stuff?” I say. My head is groggy, and my mouth is dry.
I can feel old parts of my brain tickling awake—the parts that led me down the wrong road to begin with. It was all my fault, and I’ve learned. I close those parts off. They don’t need feeding when I’ve got Lucy in my life. She’s already filled the hole inside of me—the emptiness.
“You don’t want to do this, Zack. I get why you’re confused. He’s been poisoning your head your entire life. He probably seems like the most important person in your life, but what he does to you and how he treats you isn’t right.”
Zack shudders, a tear appearing in his bruised eye and sliding down his cheek, but he says nothing.
“He’s listening, isn’t he?”
He says nothing, but his flinch tells me I’m right.
“You’re sick, Patrick,” I growl, straining in the chair.
He tied my hands tight, but not as tight as he should have.
“Using a child…”
Patrick finally walks into the room, looking far older than the last time I saw him. He’s smaller too, or maybe he just seems that way without all his criminal assholes fawning over him, making him seem like some petty king.
“He’s my child,” Patrick says, his eyes bright and unhinged, stoned on something. He licks his lips in a junkie way. “I can do whatever I want with him. Isn’t that right, Zack?”
Zack stares at me dully. Empty of life, but he wasn’t like that a second ago. The poor kid, it’s a defense mechanism to deal with his sadistic father.
“Yes.”
