Page 74 of From the Ashes

Another hit comes a moment later, this one harder, and I know without opening my eyes that it’s my dad. “Where did you hide them?”

“I didn’t take your shit,” I snap.

“After all we’ve done for you, boy, this is how you repay us?” he growls.

I’m about to ask him exactly what he thinks he’s done other than starve and beat me. Burn and cut me. Cover me with so many scars and bruises I have to wear long sleeves and long pants anytime I leave the house, even if that doesn’t hide the ones on my face.

“You’re a leech,” my mom screams, her bloodshot eyes glaring down at me with such contempt that most would shrink beneath it. But not me. Not when this has been my whole life.

“Why didn’t you give me up then?” I shove myself to my feet, ignoring the pain when my dad gets me in the ribs. “Why the fuck did you have a kid if this is how you were going to treat it?”

They both stare at me with their mouths open in surprise. I’ve never stood up to them before, but I can’t live like this anymore. Either I stand up for myself, or I end it all. I wouldn’t be missing out on anything if I ended my life, and no one would miss me. Hell, I doubt anyone would notice if I disappeared tomorrow, and I often fantasize about how peaceful death must be because life sure as hell isn’t.

“How dare you speak to us like that!” My mom advances on me once more, shoving both fists into my chest, but I don’t budge. I’m taller than she is, and even with the malnutrition, I’m stronger too. That’s what drugs will do to you. Plus, Joel has been out of town the last couple of weeks, which has meant my parents haven’t been as heavy-handed…until tonight.

I reach behind me, feeling for the knife I have stashed in the back of my sleep pants. They’re two sizes too small and were full of holes long before I pulled them out of a donation bin at school, but there, pressed against my back, is my ticket to freedom.

I can end it all.

The abuse.

The pain.

The sickness.

I can make it all go away.

And once they’re no longer breathing, I think I might follow them to the other side, because it has to be better than living with the memories of what they’ve done to me.

Dad gets me in my barely-healed ribs, and a wave of nausea rolls over me as pain engulfs my entire body, but I don’t stop.

I can’t stop.

This might be my only chance to end this once and for all.

Mom kicks at my bad knee, the one they snapped two years ago when I ran out of the house one night during a party. I was fast, but I was dumb, and one of their friends caught me before I could even make it out to the street.

But I stay up, ignoring the agony that threatens to take me down.

“You’ve been nothing but trouble since you were born,” Dad growls when I dodge a punch sailing toward my face.

“And yet you never killed me.” I glare at him. “You’ve had opportunities. Hundreds, thousands of them, but you never took it.” I swallow past the fear climbing up my throat as I reach for the knife pressed against my back. My hand wraps around the handle, and I take a breath. “That was your mistake.”

I pull the blade out from behind me, allowing the nick of the blade against my lower back to settle the raging emotions pumping through my veins.

Their eyes widen almost comically, but then the laugh comes. My dad’s booming laugh is quickly followed by a cough that he should have had checked a year ago. Oh well, he won’t live long enough to die from whatever that is.

“You think you’re going to hurt us with that, Joseph?” The hatred in his voice is more familiar than any kind of care ever will be, and I lean into it.

“I know I’m going to,” I say, my voice even and devoid of emotion.

I advance on him before he can get in another hit, and I don’t hesitate to bury the blade into the middle of his chest, and for a moment, time stands still. There’s no sound. No one moves. I don’t even think any of us are breathing.

But then the blood comes. Crimson red paints my hand as it pours out from around the knife, and the sight of it comforts me, because it’s not mine. For once, the blood I’m covered in doesn’t belong to me, and I like it.

I tug the knife free of his chest at the same time Mom attacks, tears of anger rolling down her gaunt cheeks, but I don’t falter when she slams into me.

I shake her off easily, and when she stumbles over her own feet, I slice the knife across her throat.

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