Page 43 of Dirty Tricks

He smirks, and the expression fills me with cold rage. Rage and regret that I let him get away with things for so long. I tried once, confessing to a private tutor, but it didn’t get me anywhere. Not when they were on dad’s payroll and happy for a raise to keep their mouth shut.

Now I’m filled with sorrow that I never tried again. That I didn’t understand there were other types of people in the world. People who couldn’t be bought. People like Xander. People who would believe me and help me, even if they were hard to find.

“Three.”

Fuck starting at ten. I want to move things along.

“Two.”

We stare at each other, his lips thinning where he presses them hard together. Perhaps to stop saying something he’ll regret.

It looks like it pains him to rein himself in and I take my first small sip of delight.

The moment my lips part to say, ‘One,’ he retreats a step, then another, finally turning his back on me to walk to the connecting door, stepping into the chilling confines of the garage, the breezeblock walls and concrete floor retaining the cold like it’s their sole purpose.

“Now what?” He’s immediately belligerent, jerking his chin at me.

He stands on the fancy rug my mother bought way back when I was six or seven. Before she died and things got really bad.

The fancy rug he delighted in laying in the garage so it would be ruined with oil and grease and tyre treads, the hateful, hateful man.

There’s no remorse on his face. No sign of concession. “Let me guess. You’re going to whine about—”

I shoot him in the abdomen, my gaze fixed to his, absorbing the moment the shot hits, his eyes widening in surprise a second before the pupils contract with the pain.

The puncture wound gapes for a second, a neat hole, then releases blood and stomach acid and shit from his pierced bowels in a wet spurt.

The noise of his screams annoys me far more than the crack of the gun firing. He falls to his knees, and I walk a step closer, this time shooting him in the throat.

His eyes are wide above the glut of blood leaking from his new wound. His mouth opens and closes, no sound emerging, his vocal cords trapped in the carnage.

“What was that, Daddy? I didn’t hear you.”

I get closer to him, close enough to touch as his hand holds his throat, fingers straining to stop his lifeblood dripping free.

“Are you asking me to stop?” I tilt my head to the side, staring at him like he’s a museum exhibit. “Are you trying to say no?”

His eyes are shiny bright, then his eyelids flutter, settling closed as his arm drops loosely to his side a second before he collapses forward, his face making a dull thunk when it hits against the solid floor.

And I’m aggravated that was it, that was all it took after so long spent in misery.

I shoot him again and again until the gun runs out of bullets, then I turn it, smashing it onto his skull, rolling his lifeless body over until I can crunch it into his face, mashing his lips against his teeth, crushing his nose until the cartilage makes the same snap crackle and pop as my favourite breakfast cereal.

When the gun isn’t enough, I lunge for a hammer, hung from its special place on the wall, the outline clearly showing its domain.

I grab it and hit him until my arm grows tired, until I’m breathing in the spatters of blood.

And Xander doesn’t pull me away. He doesn’t tell me to be silent. He rubs his hand on my back to remind me he’s near but lets me scream and crash the heavy tool into my father’s increasingly unrecognisable body.

My twisted emotions shatter into tiny pieces at the same time. Not erasing them but making them smaller, manageable.

Making it so I can breathe.

Finally, I stand, sobbing with exhaustion and overwhelm. I let Xander pull me into his arms, let him hold me steady.

“Is there anything more you want to do?”

I nod against his chest, palms splayed across the warmth of his muscles. I can’t believe I mistook him for Finn, not for a single second, not when my ex was the laziest boy alive, and this body shows the effort of years of manual labour.

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