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But he just kept coming.
I slipped, knocking my hip painfully on the corner of the table and Drew hit me again, the blow glancing across my ear, making it briefly ring, the memory and pain of my father’s abuse suddenly almost sending me to my knees.
The blow to my ear.
The hearing loss.
Torin’s face when he knew what happened.
Then the slow, deliberate torture of my father as Torin sat and smoked and watched the life drain from him.
Then the trial.
No.
And I reached for the tool drawer, my desperate hands closing on a hammer.
I swung it at Drew, my fingers clutched tightly on the handle, and it caught him under the chin.
He stumbled back and I hit him again, right across the face, sickened to see a few of his teeth fly out.
Then I darted by him, my toiletries scattered all over the floor, and ran for the door.
I burst through and outside, where it was already dark. I could hear noises from behind me. Drew was following. I turned to cut across my neighbor’s yard, the branches and bushes flicking in my face.
I had to outrun Drew. I had to lose Drew. I didn’t want to think what would happen if I came running up to the truck with a black eye and Drew chasing me. Afterward they’d be scraping his innards out of streetlamps for blocks.
So I ran on in the dark, my lungs bursting.
My heart was pounding so hard my chest ached, and the dark shapes in the yards I ran through seemed to crowd me from every side, reaching for me with long, spindly fingers.
Had I gotten turned around? In my terror and my fear, had I taken the wrong turn? In the dark I couldn’t be sure. I knocked into a carved Jack O’Lantern, sending it skittering across someone’s lawn as I suppressed a shriek. But then I made it to their garden gate and breathed a jagged sigh of relief. Torin was parked across the street, his big body leaning against the truck’s side, the streetlight creating a halo around his head as he smoked. A very deceptive illusion. In reality, he was more like the devil.
But I didn’t care. I felt the sick sweet relief of seeing him.
Safety.
I’m safe now, I thought as I slowed my steps so he wouldn’t get suspicious, clutching my leggings so he wouldn’t see my hands shaking. I was leaving this fucking city now.
My back felt soaked with sweat.
Torin saw me as soon as I reached the fence, straightening up, the last of his cigarette wreathed in smoke around his head.
“Ready to go, baby girl?” he asked.
“Yes,” I croaked. “Take me home, Torin, please.”
“Of course,” he said, but he frowned as he saw me approach in the dark.
“Are you ok, Lele? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I gasped breathlessly, relieved that the dark hid my face. “I’m just anxious to go.”
He stepped toward me, his hand on my chin and he bent to kiss me, his tongue in my mouth, making me taste like smoke and flame too.
Then he pinched my chin gently.
“Let’s go home, baby girl,” he said, and he pulled my door open, heading around to the other side.
