Page 2 of Savage Heart

His one suitcase—which was still comically empty because all he owned in the world only filled a quarter of it—was packed and hidden behind some old, moth-eaten blankets in his closet.

Once the clock hit 10:30, they’d leave.

They’d get the hell out of Skimmer.

They’d leave Karl Skaarsen behind.

They’d leave the failing farm and all that poverty behind.

They’d go and start somewhere new.

He and his ma—

A loud bang from downstairs split the air, making Erik jump to his feet.

“What the hell, woman!” his pa’s voice bellowed. “What the fuck are you doin’, you whore?”

A ringing slap sounded, and Erik flinched.

His ma screamed.

“Karl! No, please!” she sounded terrified. Truly terrified.

His body frozen in fear, his muscles locked, Erik stood immobile. A block of ice seething with the icy heat of terror. Flight or fight or freight had fully landed on freight, because he was about as mobile as a five-ton shipping container.

His feet cemented to the floor, he could only tremble and listen as his father’s fists continued to hit flesh. Over and over. Glass breaking. Furniture scraping against the wood floors.

Screams.

Whimpers.

Silence.

It wasn’t until the boots began pounding up the stairs that Erik finally unfroze. But by then…it was too late.

Tears flowed unchecked down his face. His eyes, blurry from the wetness, were pinned to the bedroom door. It swung open with a slam against the wall.

His pa stood there in the doorway. Shoulders as broad as the doorframe, his chest heaving, his fists clenched at his sides.

Blood.

He was covered in blood.

It was on his shirt. It was on his jeans. It was on his boots.

It was on his face.

Erik knew whose blood it was.

And he’d done nothing to save her. He’d stood there, like a fucking waste of skin, while the man before him had beaten his own wife bloody.

Was she dead? Did that silence mean she was dead? That she’d finally escaped Karl Skaarsen?

Ice filled him, a fjord of winter’s floe chilled the tears on his cheeks.

With a steadiness he wished for moments before, Erik raised the rifle from the bed. His ma had told him to take it and hide it.

Just in case.

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