Page 71 of Blitz'd

A hand catches my shoulder and I go instantly numb. It’samazing, I think, as my body spins around, that I cornered an asshole and broke his fucking fingers for touching Zander, but my muscles still tense up and freeze whenever my dad lays hands on me, like I’m a little kid again who can’t get away from him.

I hate it.

“You’repathetic, Kerian.” I set my jaw, but I don’t get a chance to respond. My dad’s hand lashes out, fist closed. I feel blood blossom across my face, my lip splitting, but I don’t fall.

I’m not small anymore.

It doesn’t stop my eyes from flicking to my mother standing behind him.

Arms at her sides.

Face impassive.

Like always.

“Fuck you.” I take a step back. My vision is flashing in and out, splotches of red and grayed out color.

Fury and numbness.

That anger I can barely control and the chill in my chest I learned when I was young that I keep wrapped around me like a cloak.

“What did you just say to me?”

“I saidfuckyou. I don’t need shit from you. I don’toweyou anything.” My eyes narrow, and I have to repeat four words in my head over and over again.

You can’t kill him.

You can’t kill him.

Fuck, Iwantto kill him.

“How do you think you can afford?—”

“I don’t needshitfrom you.” The fact that hestillthinks it’shismoney that’s getting me through and not what my grandparents left me isinsane. Yeah, I drive the car they bought me when I was a teenager, but I’d happily use the key to stab his eyes out then give them back to him. I don’tneedhis money. I have more than enough to get me through the rest of school… and there’s no world where I don’t go to the NFL.

There’s no world where I have todothis anymore.

I have everything, and there’s not a goddamn thing he could say to make me think Ineedhim. I don’tneedhim to be proud of me. I don’tneedhim to praise me.

There’s no finding a way to make my mother realize what a piece of shit she married. Her seeing my future, who I’m going tobecome,isn’t going to make her change her mind.

And seeing his face crumble when he realizes every time he hit me, every time he told me I was worthless, every time he told me I couldn’tmake itwithout his help? It wasn’t worth another second looking at him.

“Youoweuseverything.”

I step toward him, and I wonder if this is the first time he’s realized how much bigger I am than him—how easy it would be for me to give him back every hit he’s ever given. I don’t know what’s changed—I don’t know why I’m suddenly done putting up with this shit, done pretending…

But I am.

“If you come here again, I’ll fucking kill you. I’mdonewith this. I’m done with you.” My eyes flick to my mother. “Both of you. I don’tneedanything from you, and you aren’t getting a goddamn thing from me.”

Maybe it’s my expression, or maybe it’s the fact that someone comes out of their apartment at the same second I take another step toward him. Whatever it is, my dad’s eyes narrow, and he takes a step back.

“You’re going to regret this.”

My jaw clenches.

“Kerian,” my mom starts, and I shake my head. Maybe she never hit me, but she sure as shit never did anything to stop him from doing it.

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