Series: Series by Ker Dukey
Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 107407 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107407 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
I get to eleven minutes and thirty two seconds before I finally make it home. There are two cars in the driveway that I don’t recognize. We don’t know anyone here as Mom always says we need to keep to ourselves. My stomach twists into a nervous knot when I hear raised voices coming from inside.
My numb fingers push open the front door, and before I go in, I know something is wrong. Something bad awaits me inside. I can’t explain it. Just a feeling. There are these tiny bumps sprinkling all over my skin. I should turn away, run, come back later…but where would I go? I’m already so cold.
Carefully, I step inside and tip-toe toward the crying sounds I know to be my mother. It makes tears spring in my own eyes when I hear the wails from a boy pleading, joining her cries. It’s like the sound a child makes when begging not to be punished by the belt.
The sounds I make.
Fear creeps over me when I round the door frame and see the child crying is not a child at all. It’s my father, his voice distorted with terror.
The thumping of my heart roars in my ears and my mouth goes so dry I find it hard to swallow down my dread.
“No, no,” he pleads through sobs. His eyes lock onto mine, making the man standing next to him look over at me, and give away my presence.
“Run, Zane!” my mother screams out from her sprawled position on our kitchen table. A different man is above her, holding her down, and she’s bleeding from the nose and mouth.
“Mama?” I choke.
My eyes dart to my brother who is tied to a chair bleeding from facial wounds. He’s slumped forward, but is watching with tears in his eyes as our mother struggles with the monster man above her.
I step backwards and scrub at my eyes to make it all go away. This isn’t real. It’s a bad dream. I’m tired and cold. My brain is just frozen and playing tricks on me.
There are men all around now staring at me and talking in that stupid language I don’t understand.
“Run!” my father bellows and I jump.
Turning to flee, I hit a wall. A broad shadow creeps over me like a wave at the beach where we used to live, swallowing me up. Before I can do anything, a fist holding a gun comes down toward me.
Fear gets stuck in my throat. No screams escape from me when pain explodes down my face and darkness drags me backwards into nothingness.
When the light finally makes it back into my eyes, there’s no sound around me apart from the roaring of my own heartbeat. Panic smothers my body, making me sit upright.
Flinching from pain above my eye, my fingers dab there to find sticky blood and the memory of being hit with a gun springs into my mind.
“Mama,” I croak.
Scrambling to my feet, I search the space before me.
I don’t want to see. I wish I didn’t wake up.
Blood, pools of it, cover the entire floor of the kitchen like it was made to be there.
My mother’s broken body lies still on the table, her clothes gone. Red swollen slits are all over her chest and vacant eyes stare at me. It’s not my mother’s stare. She’s not there anymore. I’m going to be sick.
One Mississippi, two Mississippi…
My brother is nowhere to be seen. Maybe he got away?
Who were those bad men?
Would Dad think it was just a bad thing and not bad people now?
As the thought passes through my mind, my eyes find his body.
No. No. Noooo.
His head isn’t there anymore.
The darkness is coming back, chasing away the light. I’m falling.
Two weeks later…
Looking down at the pants swinging around my shins, I sigh and try pulling them down.
Why I couldn’t bring my own clothes with me here, I don’t know, but their clothes make my skin itchy and don’t fit right.
There’s one girl in this orphanage that speaks the language I do, and she only speaks to me to tell me I’ll never be adopted because of my ugly scar that I got when the gun hit me.
She’s probably right.
I have no one now. I’m stuck here with these people until I’m a grown up and can leave to try to find a new home.
My mother’s face haunts me here. No one will give me answers when I ask who hurt my family. Only that they’re gone now and the bad people will be caught.
Whatever that means.
The policewoman who speaks my language, though with a thick accent, told me they found my brother’s body. “He didn’t make it.”
Why are there bad people in the world allowed to hurt others?
I couldn’t do anything to help them. When I get big enough, I’m going to make sure no one can ever hurt me, can’t push me around, or take what’s mine. I won’t be weak ever again. If being a good person only gets you hurt, then I will be a bad one. The baddest there ever was. I’ll find those men who hurt my family and I’ll hurt them back.