Page 70 of Blaze & Ajax

“Good point. I bet we can find some goodies in the garden shed where the landscaper keeps his shit.”

As we headed around to the back of the house, I said, “Put your helmet back on. Mom has cameras around, but security was never tight. Still, we don’t want to get recognized.”

I lit a smoke and walked toward the large shed as Ajax followed me, bouncing all over the fucking place.

After a few kicks, we had the wooden door open. We walked in, and I grabbed a hammer, while Ajax grabbed a shovel.

“Did you know it’s my birthday today?” I asked.

“It is? Wow! Happy birthday, baby. I need to get you a present. Maybe we should fuck again.”

I rolled my eyes to the heavens I didn’t believe in.

“Thisismy present… to myself. Even when I lived here, Mom didn’t give two fucks about my birthday. She usually took a vacation with her girls for a week. No doubt, she’s gone now, trying to forget she gave birth to me.”

“What a fucking bitch! What is it we’re doing exactly?”

I gently hammered the palm of my hand. “We’re going to mess shit up, Precious. My mom keeps forgetting I exist. So, fuck her. And fuck my birthday.”

“Fuck birthdays!” he yelled back, making me laugh.

I yanked Ajax to me, wishing I could see his face, and nodded. “Yep, fuck birthdays.”

We walked toward the house through lush landscaping full of trees, which would hide us despite the well-lit place. Besides, the homes were spread far apart.

“Take that shovel and tear up all the flowers in the front,” I said. It wasn’t very destructive since flowers could easily be replaced, but it would keep him busy and distracted.

Ajax whooped and started bashing the plants, while I took the hammer and knocked out the lights that I could reach. Then I headed toward the door leading into the garage from the side of the house. Now for the big test. Did she change the code to get inside the garage? As long as I’d lived here, she never changed it.

I opened the panel on the wall and typed in Mom’s birth year. The garage door quietly slid open. Once I slipped inside, I headed toward the security panel and typed in the same code. A beep went off, and the flashing red light switched to green.

“Idiot,” I mumbled.

Before I did anything, I wanted to grab my ID and birth certificate, if I could find them, but the door was locked. There was no way inside unless I had a key, and the door was too sturdy to kick in.

With a sigh, I turned to face inside the garage. There, sitting all pretty, was myFord Mustang Shelby, the car I got as a replacement after I trashed my last one. Next to it was myDucati, untouched after all these years, along with Mom’sBentley. Why were they still here?

With a sudden rage, I screamed out and slammed the hammer into the windshield of her car before smashing it into the hood. All my frustrations and hatred for her grew the more I destroyed instead of making me feel better.

Years of being ignored and treated more like a cat threading around her ankles, seeking attention rather than a human being and her child. Desperate for love and affection, my stepfather seized on it and used me for his own perverted needs. I still struggled to regret what we did, but I hated him for using me and then abandoning me.

“Fuck you,Mom.”

“Fuck you,Howard.”

“Fuck this house.”

“Fuck this life.”

“And fuck this birthday!”

Ajax suddenly burst in and repeatedly yelled ‘fuck’as he bashed in my old car with the shovel, making me cackle in pleasure, making me forget my pain and anger, even for a second.

And that right there suddenly made me realize he was my one person. I would do fuckinganythingfor him. Was it love? Probably. Was I afraid? I wasterrified.

After superficially destroying the cars since Mom could fix them up easily enough, I stared at the wrecked cars. I wanted to do so much more, but we needed to get out of there. This was more about blowing off steam and anger than destruction.

“We gotta go,” I said to him.

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