Page 41 of The Summer of ’98

She was dressed up, her face made up and a purse in her hand. She glanced between her father and me, becoming more concerned by the minute.

“Wait,” I turned back to the bedroom, pointing at it, and then back at Natalie. “Who the hell is Noah in ther—no . . .”

“Noah?” Natalie spluttered as her eyes widened. “Is he in there with Nadia?!”

“Oh fuck.” I ran a hand through my hair. No wonder he hadn’t called the police. When he told me he was in trouble at the Weissmanns’, I’d assumed that he meant with Natalie. I never even considered that it could be with her fifteen-year-old sister. “Shit, Peter, look man, I’m—”

“Don’t bother,” Peter snarled. “He has to come out at some point and I’m going to put him in a fucking coma!”

He shouted the last part of his threat and I assumed that was for the benefit of the idiot that I was supposedly related to.

“Well, I just came to grab a change of clothes,” Natalie said. “See you tomorrow, Dad.”

He grumbled some response and then headed back over to the door while Natalie ducked in and out of her bedroom as fast as she could. This was bad. I’d lost all hope that I could talk him down from his rage. In fact, I understood where he was coming from. But unfortunately, I still couldn’t let him put Noah six feet under.

“You need to put the bat down and let us go,” I said, walking toward him. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get us out of this. But I had a feeling that it wasn’t going to end well. Peter obviously didn’t like being told what to do.

His hand flew out and he gave me a violent shove in the chest, sending me into the wall with a thud. “Leave, or you’ll get it too.”

I straightened up from the wall. “You’re going to want to keep your hands off me.”

“Or what?” he hissed.

Before I had time to think about how stupid it was, I lunged forward and grabbed the bat out of his hand. He didn’t have time to strengthen his grip, so it slid out of his hold, and I tossed it down the hall before I punched him in the jaw. He stumbled backwards a little, his hands waving to keep himself upright.

Unfortunately, when he did regain himself, he charged like a bull and bowled me up against the wall by the collar. He smacked me across the face, once, twice, three times. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth and I felt the throb in my cheek immediately. I could hear Noah shouting from inside the bedroom, but before I could make sense of it, the bat appeared out of nowhere and smashed Peter across the back.

Out of reflex, he arched his spine with a pained grunt. His arms flew backwards, and the back of his hand connected with Ellie’s face. She dropped the bat and fell backwards with a soft whimper. That was all it took—the simple sight of seeing her harmed. Whether it was an accident or not, his hand had struck her, and I lost it. While he was still grunting with pain, I kicked him in the shin and punched him again so that he landed in a heap on the floor.

“Noah, Noah, run!” Ellie was shouting and banging on the door while I watched Peter and made sure he didn’t get up again.

I turned around and saw Noah come barreling out of the room. He ran straight down the corridor and I grabbed Ellie’s hand, dragging her toward the door as fast as I could, passing Nadia who stood at her bedroom threshold, staring at her dad with fear. He had a bleeding nose, but he’d be all right. I hadn’t done too much damage.

The car was on the road in a matter of moments. But as soon as we were at a safe distance, I pulled over, the tires squealing as I came to an abrupt stop.

“Leroy, wha—”

I turned around and laid a sharp backhand across Noah’s cheek, not even stopping to cuss him out before I turned back to Ellie beside me and took her face in my hands.

My chest tightened at the sight of blood on her lip and a small swell around her mouth and cheek. “Babe, you should have stayed in the car.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she cried. “Your face is worse. I’m glad that I came in when I did.”

“You could have been badly hurt.” I turned around. “She’s fifteen, Noah. For fuck’s sakes. What is wrong with you?” The main road wasn’t alight with traffic, but the odd car sped past and lit up the entire interior for a brief second. “The Weismanns are bad enough. But Nadia? You’re a real piece of work. Ellie could have been injured!”

“It’s not my fault she ran in!” Noah pouted from the backseat. I was almost tempted to hit him again, just out of sheer need to make him suffer.

“Get out.”

“What?”

“Get out of the car, Noah.” I looked over my shoulder and fixed him with a glare. “You can walk. I’m not interested in being around you right now.”

“Once again,” he chuckled without the humor. “She’s coming between us. Unbelievable.”

“She hasn’t done anything, Noah. You’re the halfwit that decided to screw a minor and you didn’t even help. You did nothing while I was getting punched in the head. You ran. If Ellie hadn’t come into the house when she did, you never would have gotten out of there. She has more fucking balls than you do.”

I took a deep breath to calm down, knowing how much Ellie hated cursing. But my brother sure knew how to get a reaction from me.

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