A few minutes later, we were back at the cabin, slowly pulling in behind him. Our father parked his vehicle in the garage, getting out and bringing his bags with him. He did not invite us into the house; in fact, he slammed the door quite hard in our faces.
“Is he really going to pretend we’re not here?” I asked, my patience running thin. Honestly, I didn’t understand how Sylvester could be so calm and collected right now, given the way our asshole of a father was acting.
“I guess so,” Sylvester said, rubbing the back of his neck as he stared at the closed door.
“Well, we should barge in there and make him face us,” I said. The wind lapped at me, and since I didn’t have a suit on like my brother, I shivered. It wasn’t outright cold yet, but it definitely was getting nippy.
“No. Just hold on. Let me think.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, shutting his eyes—his thinking face, I guess. God, my whole family was fucking weird.
I didn’t know how much time passed before the door to the cabin opened again, and this time our father came out without keys, though the guy still didn’t look at us. He bounded down the steps, and once he reached the ground, he made a left and headed in the opposite direction of the garage, toward the trees.
“Wait!” Sylvester called out to him, but our father didn’t wait. He kept going, which meant we had to follow him yet again. Yippee.
On the side of the cabin, our father had a little setup going. A small chicken coup, with actual chickens in it, pecking at whatever was on the ground in their wire enclosure.
Chickens. My father actually hadchickens.
I didn’t know how to take that information.
Beyond the coup was an area with a large, thick stump. The trees in the area had been cleared, and an ax sat wedged in the stump. Near the stump, logs of all shapes and sizes were strewn about.
Our father went to pick one up, checking it out before setting it down and moving on to the next. He seemed content with going about this… this, whatever the fuck this was supposed to be, so I called out to him, “Hey, asshole! We’re here to talk. The longer you put us off, the longer we’re here, and trust me when I say, the longer I’m here, the more pissed off I’ll get.”
He didn’t acknowledge me at all. He didn’t react, which pissed me off even more.
“Goddamn it,” I growled out, lunging for him when he picked up another log. I tore it out of his hands, and it narrowly avoided our feet as it fell to the ground. “Stop ignoring us!”
His dark stare locked with mine, the intensity residing in the depths of those eyes reminding me of why he’d been so feared. Feared, respected; it was all the same. As scruffy as he was right now, that was the stare of a man that could kill you as easily as he could breathe, a man who could put a bullet in your head and watch your brain explode and sleep soundly afterward.
Fine. So he might look like a lumberjack, but somewhere inside that gruff appearance sat the mob boss I grew up admiring. Somewhere deep. Very, very deep.
“Take the ax off the stump,” my father whispered, his voice low.
I didn’t know what his game was, if this was his way of challenging me or whatever. I said not a thing, moving around him. I went to grip the ax, thinking it’d be easy to yank it off the damned stump—but the thing was in there pretty good. The wood was hard, whatever it was. I had to use two hands to get the fucking thing out… and a leg braced against the side of the stump.
He went to pick up the log I’d yanked from his grasp, and he set it down on the stump, flat side up and down so it stood on its own. He gestured for me to continue, crossing his arms and waiting, never once taking that intense stare off me.
He wanted me to split the fucking wood? Fine. I’d split his damned wood and then I’d split his fucking skull.
I lifted the ax onto my shoulder. After tossing a glance Sylvester’s way, I brought the ax down upon the wood. It… barely made a dent in the wood. My brother stifled a laugh, but I heard it.
Give me a fucking break. “I’ve been in the car all morning, coming here,” I told my father, who still stared at me, waiting for me to do something. I rolled my shoulders and relaxed my muscles, breathing out a short breath to prepare myself for another go. I swung the ax up, and then I brought it down with all of my might.
The fucking ax got stuck an inch down in the wood, and no matter how hard I tried to yank it out, all I ended up doing was toppling over the log.
My father grunted out a sound of disapproval, and he pushed past me, grabbing the log and setting it back up. With one hand on the ax, he pulled it out, making it look effortless—and then, because he was an asshole, he threw a look over his shoulder and cocked an eyebrow at me, as if asking me,really?
He wasn’t going to impress me by chopping some fucking wood like a damned lumberjack. He wasn’t. Whatever this was about, whatever this was trying to prove, didn’t matter. In the end, this whole trip was going to be a waste.
“Stand back,” my father advised, and I took a few steps away from him. Sylvester stood on the opposite side of the stump, watching him and I go back and forth, not saying a single word. For whatever reason, our father was especially pissy at me. That wasn’t new; he’d always hated the fact that I didn’t give a shit about learning the ropes.
And why would I? Sylvester had made it crystal fucking clear he had a better head than me, that he’d make a better leader than me. He was smarter; I wasn’t going to try saying otherwise.
My jaw ground as our father hoisted the ax up, both hands curled around its wooden handle. He moved fast, bringing it down upon the positioned log and cleaving it in half easily, splitting apart the wood like that wood had been asking for it.
Okay, so maybe he didn’t let himself go too much. He could chop some wood. I bet that made people around here cower in their fucking boots.
“I loosened it up for you,” I muttered, unable to help myself. Both Sylvester and our father shot me a glare at that one, and all I did was roll my eyes and shrug. I wasn’t going to take it back, because Ididloosen it up. I hit that motherfucker twice before he split it; that surely had to have made it easier for him.