Page 26 of Collateral Damage

“Do you want the serious answer, or the not so serious answer?” I finish my beer and place it down beside me, cracking my neck to release tension as my eyes fall on hers and if looks could kill, I think they might actually out dagger mine, and that's saying something.

“I like to game?” I've never done this shit in my life. Is this what they call thetalking stage?I don't even know what my favourite colour is, let alone my hobbies. I can't exactly tell herI murder domestic abusers for a living as it will stir questions she's not ready for answers to yet, but what I said seemed to deter her as she let's an adorable snigger slip.

“What, like… Crash Bandicoot?” The devilish little grin on her face tells me she wants to laugh but she's holding it in and part of me wishes she didn't. It's been awhile since I had a good laugh.

“I will have you know that it is a very good game. Have you even played it?” I'll be honest. I can't even remember the last time I played my PlayStation, it probably wouldn't even turn on now but it's all still sitting there under my TV along with my Moms record and video player.

“Absolutely not.” She shakes her head, mocking my interests and I want to take her over my knee for laughingat me,not with me.

“Diabolical.” I see nothing else better to do so I make my way back to the fridge to grab another beer, running out of bottles, moving onto cans as I glare at the empty shelves. I should probably stock up now that I have aguestin the house.

“Is that your Mom?...” A wave of sickness raises my temperature, closing the fridge door to see her standing there holding a picture frame of my mom, stroking the glass gently. My heart rate increases like she's holding a knife to her throat. That image is all I have left of her and it's in someone else's hands.

“Yes.” My nose flares and the metal can is slowly crumpling underneath the palm of my hand. The laughter subsides and there is a heavy shift in the atmosphere.

“She's really pretty.” The way she speaks of her as if she's still alive makes my beer go down in one.

“Was.” I've barely shared my past with anyone, but I feel I owe her that and this could go one of two ways. Not that I want her to sympathise. I took her mother from her just as he didmine and I punished her for something that was not her fault but my past is no excuse for that.

“Oh… How did she?…” She's hesitant to ask but she is curious. I've relived that night in my head more times than I spent nights in that prison cell, which was 3,810 days. But I've never said the words out loud.

“Someone killed her.” My empty can feels my abuse, crushing it with anger as I picture her lying there with a hole in her heart when it should have been buried inside me. I didn't even get to say goodbye. She has no gravestone and her ashes were spread across Lake Michigan by my Grandmother who unfortunately passed during my time in the cell. His side wanted nothing to do with me after they found out I murdered their son. Not even my own flesh and blood believed I was innocent, even after my statement was aired about his abuse. None of them visited or phoned. He was their golden boy who could do no wrong. It made me sick to listen to the praise they would shower him with on our one family holiday a year. I've not heard anything since my release and I intend for it to stay that way. I never fucking liked them anyway; they are all blind to the fucking Devil they spawned.

“I'm sorry.” My mouth parts as I hear those words come from her mouth.She's sorry?I killed her mother in cold blood and she's apologising formy loss?I urge to smack her for being so fucking naive. I don't want her to apologise for shit. I want her to realise it was her father’s fault. “Was it accidental?” I won't tell her the ins and outs of her demise just yet, or even at all so I just go straight to the point.

“No.” I wish it was an accident. I wish she had drifted off into a deep sleep so she didn't have to suffer, or even better, still be here with me. But she's not and she did suffer. She suffered for four minutes and fifty-two seconds. It doesn’t sound long but when those are your last moments alive and all you can feel ispain, it doesn’t feel like it's ever going to end. Luckily for her the suffering eventually stopped but mine didn’t and it still hasn’t.

“Oh…” Her expression holds a thousand different emotions, ones that feel everything I'm feeling and one's that rebel against me for putting her through the same pain.

“If I knew what I know now, I would have killed the bastard that day but it would have meant missing things I've grown to like.”

“What things?” She is peace in the chaos I've slowly built and she doesn't realise the war she's waging against my darkness, but it's peace I've slowly come to enjoy the company of. My silence. An innocence that is corrupting the monster inside of me. She makes me feel something worse than pain. She makes me feel the child inside me left dormant, the child I abandoned when she needed me most. She is getting under my fucking skin and distracting me from the bigger picture.

“Doesn't matter…” I shake off my thoughts, too afraid to admit that she's starting to have a positive effect on me. It's the last thing she needs. I take a seat on my sofa, legs spread wide as I lean into my elbows trying to block out these feelings that keep creeping up on me like an illness.

“Was she a good Mom?” She wasn't perfect. But she was good. She cared for me when no one else would and she stood up for me even when her life was in danger. She would have killed for me and on many occasions she almost did, but I took that responsibility from her in hopes to save her, tosave us. To keep her safe and in the end, I lost her anyway.

“She was.” She finally puts the picture down, being gentle not to break it as she slides it back onto the shelf next to another. A picture that holds her breath for a brief moment. She glides her finger, smearing the dust from the glass to reveal the face of a little girl.

....

“Is that you?” She looks for me in the room as she picks it up, comparing pictures like she will find any resemblance.

“What if it is.” I don't know why I kept it. I practically removed all pictures from this house besides Mom and the albums in the loft somewhere, but that picture stayed. It was taken a week before he first laid his hands on me and I suppose it holds meaning. It's to remind me that I will never be thatweakagain. It holds theinnocenceI once inhabited, the pain I endured, the beatings I suffered all in the name ofLove.All because I was too scared to fight back. It’s a lesson.

“You looked cute.” I mimic a gag in response, making her contagious smile nearly slip onto my face.

“Your definition of cute and mine is rather different.” I rummage around the sofa looking for the remote trying to ignore the compliment. She's stalking me, trying to figure out where it all went wrong and the truth is, there was never a good period in my life, we just covered it up with photos to hide the prison we were both trapped in, this prison. In some ways me and her are a lot alike.

“Do you miss the old you?” An unfaithful laugh escapes me at the thought. She died along with them and I'm much better for it. Why would I miss years of mental and physical abuse? Why would I miss being a punching bag and an experiment to someone sworn to protect me? Why would I miss the fear and the relentless pain, the sleepless nights?

“Not even a little. The old me wasweak.” Weakness is a sickness. If you're weak you're hopeless. Only the strong survive and I'm still here, much to my detest.

“Because you kill people you think that makes you strong?” She bites softly, her approach timid but forceful and my anger spikes, shooting me off the sofa. I stalk towards her slowly untilher backs pressed against the shelves of DVDs, she’s clutching to the picture of me in her little hands like I'm going to jump out and save her. I inch towards her face, stroking the woody hair from her heated cheek, now raw, red andvulnerableas she peers at me through frightened eyes and I whisper gently through my teeth.

“It's power I can control.” I clutch to her forearm and she grips the picture harder. Part of me wants to punish her for pushing all the wrong buttons, all the buttons I've kept untouched. I've given her a voice and unleashed abrat, I should be happy, this only makes things more fun for me but she's too soft for the sins I would commit on her body,she wouldn't survive.

“You said you wouldn't touch me.” She rips her arm from me and I'm heaving heavily through my nose in frustration. I don't want to touch her to hurt her. I want to touch her to claim her. She has the same loss in her eyes as I and it's addicting. It's terrifying. It's dangerous. It's fucking consuming.

---