Page 26 of Babalon

Don’t ask me why I felt like that needed to be said, perhaps it was the way dad has been treating me lately and I have aninstinctual need to establish dominance. Stand up for myself to this woman and her assessing eye.

“Hmph, you’ll need it. The assholes here don’t know how to take no for an answer, and looking at you? They’re going to eat you alive.”

“I’d like to see them fucking try.”

“Atta girl. Come on back behind the counter. I’ll get you set up.”

Well shit, I didn’t know getting a job was going to be that easy.

I spent the next day or two training with the woman, aptly named Joy. She keeps me on my feet, and before I know it, I am slinging plates of eggs and sausage like I am pro. Sometimes I truly enjoy what I do, keeping me busy while my life crept by, especially as the months pass, and eventually a year or so.

Fridays and Saturdays are my favorite. Once the bar closes, the drunks come into the diner where I am able to flirt my way into more tips, but it doesn’t always end the best for me. Occasionally, a couple men get too hands-on, pushing boundaries, and end up getting kicked out. Those nights, usually, I get home late and my dad will be pissed off at me. At first, I didn’t know why until I learned the men I flirted with were his co-workers. I’m sure it is shocking getting to work on Monday, and finding out your daughter was flirting with men almost three times her age for a few extra dollars.

The day he called me a prostitute for simply working at the diner, I knew our relationship was over. In a moment of anger, I followed up with that assumption and fucked his boss, Walter, which was only a week ago.

So, here I am today, walking to work with yet another busted lip from dear old dad. With a shaking hand, I place a cigarette between my lips and light up; drawing in a deep drag, having developed the habit after long nights at the diner with Joy. Myknuckles were bloodied, bruised, and sore—the ache in them influencing the shake. A shake that, if I didn’t get it under control, would have me dropping plates and making others mad too.

Seeing me standing outside of the door, Joy approaches and looks me up and down, like always, her hands lifting to rest on her hips in an unimpressed sort of way.

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks, you bitter old bitch.”

“What happened to you?”

“Take a guess.”

“Your old man put his hands on you again?”

Sucking in another pull of smoke, I can’t help but stare down at my filthy shoes and nod. Thinking about how clean they use to be, but now, like my life, they are dark and dirty. I exhaled the smoke after holding it in until it started burning my lungs.

“Hopefully he looks worse than you.”

“He does… this time at least.”

I’ll be damned if he ever lays his hands on me again; last night was the last time. He slapped me across the face, causing my bottom lip to split wide open, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I snapped. I was on him in the blink of an eye, swinging my fist, letting it collide with his face over and over again until the flesh ripped apart, and I could no longer tell whose blood was whose.

“Come on, baby girl. Let’s get you cleaned up. You have regulars to see.”

And just like that, my life moved from one blurred day into the next. I will never let anyone ever make me feel as low as I do at this very moment. Men, women, it was me against every single person on this fucking planet, and I’ll destroy anyone who treats me the way my own flesh and blood had.

I wish he would fucking die.

Chapter nine

Kace

Past

“Here you go, inmate, your new home. Complete with toilet, sink and a bed—I hope you’re not shy. The rest you and your bunk-mate can hash out. Any questions, ask someone else because I don’t give a damn,” the old officer spouted, spit flinging from his mouth as he rattles it off as quickly as he can. Well shit, we are in the same boat—neither one of us wants to be here.

Holding onto my new belongings, I look around the small nine by fifteen cell. Cinder block walls, cinder block ceiling, concrete floors—nice, it’s like being in a tomb. The bunk is to the right with two paper thin mattresses on it and one grumpy looking fucker on the bottom.

“I’m not moving. Don’t even think about asking,” he grunts.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I rather like jumping and considering breaking my neck every time I wake up in the morning,” I snap back.

“Funny guy.”

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