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“Hey, Libby?” I wait for her gaze. “Hard spot, soft spot.”
She narrows her eyes in question, so I nod toward the bitches, then I lift my hand and touch my knuckles. “Hard spot.” I touch the soft part of my throat. “Soft spot.” I touch my elbow. “Hard spot.” Then I touch my eye. “Soft spot.” I touch my knee. “Hard spot.” And finally, I point at my crotch. “Soft spot. Got it?”
Beaming, she nods. “I got it.”
“Good girl. Be safe, okay? I’ll catch you around.”
I step out of the room and close the door with a softsnick. Smiling, hopeful I’ll get to see her again someday, I move down the hall toward deep voices and odd noises. I’m eleven years old and not stupid, but in my rush, I approach the door with naiveté, gently push the handle down and inch the door open.
“Colum! No. Stop.”
My mom is laid out along the heavy wooden desk I saw earlier, but her panties are on the floor, and tears flood from her eyes. I’m the kid that pretends to be tough, the kid who stole a letter opener like it could be a weapon, and speak to girls smaller and younger than me like I’m a powerful mafioso of some sort, but now I watch the army man do dirty things to my mom on the desk while the cop and the suit guys watch on.
But she doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like it at all.
“The boy is mine,” he hisses. “He’s mine, and he will stay with me.” He pushes forward into my mom, but where the movies make out that the woman likes it, my mom cries and lets her head loll around like she’s in a daze.
She turns to the left as though she knows I’m here, but I didn’t make a sound. Her right eye is swollen shut, and the right side of her mouth is cut and bleeding. Her left eye, the only one she can open, stops on me and fills with more tears as my dad does those things to her body.
“Run.” Her voice is croaky, like she’s had laryngitis for a week. “Doodlebug, run.”
My heart races so hard that it hurts my chest. I reach back for the letter opener, though I have no clue what I would do with it if I needed it. I shake my head with quick, jerky shakes. I don’t want to leave her. I don’t want to go without her.
“Run!”
Colum’seyes swing away from her for the first time since I came in here, but when I’m released from her eyes, I find the gun in his hand. The feral rage in his eyes. We stare for a minute while he… he… he pushes himself into her. His hips don’t stop for one single second, but we stare, and then Mom screams one last time.
“Run!”
Colum brings the end of the gun to Mom’s temple as his eyes go to the cop. “Get him.”
My body refuses to move. My feet refuse to run. But my brain screams and screams until it aches. I take a step into the room to get my mom, but then the cop’s hand snaps down and wraps around my wrist. Without purposely doing it, my right hand whips down so the letter opener pushes through his arm and comes out the other side.
Screams. So many screams.
The cop screams. My mom screams. Colum screams. And then my mom’s screams stop when the gun goes off, and her head slams back against the desk.
My stomach races up my throat until it comes out as vomit and splashes all over the cop’s shoes, but then Colum turns and points the gun at my face, and my mom’s screamed “Run!” echoes in my brain. Vomit on my shirt, stomach acid burning my nose, and tears in my eyes, I spin and run.
And run.
And run.
I run along the hall and down the stairs. I miss one step, then another, then one more until I’m not running anymore, but falling. I roll forever, then slam to the floor at the bottom until more vomit races up my throat. I slip in my mess, my shoes can’t gain traction, but then the men stop at the top of the stairs and bullets zing past my head.
“Don’t hit him!” Colum’s voice is booming and demanding. He grabs the cop’s collar and tosses him toward the stairs. “Bring him back. Unharmed!”
I race toward the final hall that leads to the front door, but before I turn, I catch sight of soft brown hair and loose curls. Libby stands at the top of the stairs and watches with tears in her eyes.
I want to stop. I want to help her. I want to bring her with me, because she’s not safe with these people, but then another bullet slams into the wall an inch from my head and sends wood and paint chips flying like shrapnel.
I turn and bolt toward the front doors. Toward freedom and hell. Toward the sunlight, and away from my mom.
Tears blind me as I burst into the daylight and the cold wind bites at my arms.
I forgot my sweater. I really wish I’d remembered my sweater this morning.
Footsteps echo in the club, and pee dribbles along my legs, because I still didn’t go after our drive, but I don’t slow as I hit the parking lot and my feet slip in the loose gravel.
