Page 12 of God of War

It doesn’t take me long to ride home. Dad’s at work, so his car is gone, and he sold Mama’s before we even put her in the ground. Aaron’s squad car is also absent — thank God. What was he doing at the house, anyway? Dad must have let him in, or given him a key, but the why of it all is what makes me uneasy.

After pulling my bike around the side of the house, I return to the front and fumble for my keys in the side pocket of my backpack. My eyes drift to the front yard across the street and a few houses down.

The old lady’s house.

That’s still the way I think of it, even though I know it’s not hers anymore. There’s a dark oil stain in the driveway from where he parks, but that — and the way my bedroom windows rattle when he tears up the street on his bike — are the only signs he even still lives there.

I eye the garden beds in the front yard. The yellow blossoms are drooping a bit in the midday heat and I wonder if I should slip over there to water them, rather than wait until night like I usually do. It’s Saturday, so he’ll be at the Wastelander clubhouse tonight — I can take my time, with no fear of getting caught.

Satisfied with my decision, I go inside and hurry to my bedroom. The envelope of cash from Rodney is already in my hand, ready to be tucked away with the rest of it. How much is there now? Four thousand? Five? I don’t know exactly how much I’ll need, but I figure the more the better.

Then, something crunches under my sneakered feet, just inside my bedroom door.

I look down.

My heart drops.

Glass. Broken shards of colorful glass.

I start to shake, my whole body trembling in fear, as I inch forward, over the shattered pieces of my wind chimes. My room is completely, utterly, destroyed.

Clothes spill out of the broken dresser drawers, my mattress is half off the bed frame — stuffing popping out of the deep slash through it.

And then my eyes land on a flash of torn pink cardboard.

“No, no, no, no…”

I drop my backpack and dash forward, skidding on my knees as I claw for the box in the back of my closet. The old cardboard box of sanitary pads falls apart in my hands. All that’s left are the empty pink wrappers — the ones I used to wrap up my wads of cash. Dad’s a snoop and would happily search my room, but I knew he’d never look in there.

Aaron, on the other hand…

My money is gone. Everything I’ve saved, the only hope I had for me and Lilly getting away… It’s all gone.

5

Delaney

By the time I make it to the station, I’m drenched in sweat. I’m too pissed off to lock up my bike, I just throw it down beside the front steps and storm inside. Cindy, the receptionist, looks up, but her smile drops as soon as she recognizes me.

“Your father is too busy for your antics today, Del,” she says primly.

One of Dad’s pastimes is moaning to his co-workers about what an awful kid I am: that I’m so dramatic, that I lie all the time, just like his damn ex-wife. Which is, disgustingly, what he calls Mama, as if she were off living it up on his alimony payments somewhere and not just plain old dead.

“Don’t care,” I snap at Cindy as I stride past her desk. “I need to see him.”

She makes an annoying squeaking noise and gets up to chase after me, but I’m already breezing into Dad’s office like I own the place.

It may seem brave, but I know that’s not it. It’s terrified, animal desperation, that’s all. Like when a coyote is caught in a trap and gnaws its own leg off.

Two weeks. Two weeks until Lilly comes home and I have nothing.

“Sheriff, your daughter—”

“That’s fine, Cindy, you did your best,” grunts Dad, sending her off with a wave of his hand. She throws me a sharp look, then closes his office door behind her.

There are two windows in Dad’s office. One with a view of the parking lot, and the other beside the door, overlooking the desks of the deputies. Right now, the blinds on the internal window are drawn, leaving me completely cut off from help.

As if any of these assholes would help me, anyway.

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