Page 50 of Monster
I’m only eleven years old, but I’m not a small kid—not that it stops them.
I shudder as I think about my mother having one of her boyfriends over. Those nights are the worst. Every time one of them is here, they always try to come for me—worse than she does. They’re so much stronger… At least the worst thing she does is smack me around a lot and call me a bunch of names while screaming in my face.
But when they are here? They try to do so much worse, and she never does a single thing to stop them either. And that’s why I always have a knife on me. I can never leave myself unprotected. I’ve had to pull it on quite a few of them when they have come into my bedroom at night and, thankfully, they are so fucking high that the moment the see the glint of the blade in the darkened room, they leave in a hurry.
I’m terrified one day it won’t work, but it does for now and I have to hold onto that. That’s another reason why most nights, I shove myself in the closet and force myself to sleep in here—even though the stench seems to seep into my fucking skin. It’s much better than the alternative.
My door bangs loudly against the drywall of my room, and I almost let out a surprised screech, but I manage to throw my hand over my mouth to stop the noise just in time. My heart is pounding and all I can hear is the sound of it beating in my ears. My breath comes out in pants, ragged. The hand over my mouth shakes terribly and I push it harder against my face until my teeth dig into my skin to try to stop, but it instead makes my entire body shake instead.
No matter how much I hate my mother, some part of me wants to forgive her. To see past all the bad and find redemption—because she’s my mother—but moments like these make me feel so crazy for feeling that way because the fear churning through my blood is all consuming.
I bring my other hand to the front of my old, holey jeans and as quietly as I can I pull my knife from my pocket. I bring it in front of my face and lean my head down to rest it against the cool metal.
“Where the fuck are you?” I—of course—don’t answer her, but it doesn’t stop her from screaming more. I tune out her voice and focus on the knife in my hand. In the strength and confidence, it brings me in moments like these.
I squeeze my hand tighter around it as the anger begins to pulse through my veins. Anger at so many things, but I don’t care about specifics right now. What I do care about is that I’m angry. So. Angry.
“That’s it, you little bastard. Just wait until Ted gets here later. He’ll fucking whip your ass into shape, you disrespectful little boy,” my mother spits with pure hatred. I hear the door slam shut behind her and I release the biggest breath, but my grip doesn’t loosen on the knife. If anything, it tightens.I think Ted is one of the men that hit me, but there are so many of them, I lose track.
Let one of those pieces of shit come in here and I’ll kill them.
I swear I will.
* * *
I wake with a start,my body jerking upright abruptly. My head spins and my stomach clenches as the nausea rolls through me.
“Fuck,” I spit out as I lunge for the garbage can a few feet away. I hurl into the wastebasket, my stomach rolling and clenching with dry heaves that wrack my entire body. A cold sweat breaks out across my skin and beads of sweat roll down my shirtless back.
My phone begins ringing, the sound loud and shrill in my ears as my head pounds. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and crawl the few feet to the bed where my phone is. I use the comforter to pull myself up to my knees and stretch my torso across the bed to grab the annoying ass object.
I answer without a glance at the caller ID and when Leo’s voice sounds at the other end, I let out a huff of annoyance. I don’t know who the fuck else would be calling me at… I pull my phone away from my ear to see the time. Five in the fucking morning.
“What the fuck do you want, Leo?” My voice sounds raspy and gruff from sleep and probably also from puking my guts up.
“Calling because I haven’t talked to you in a while and, as much as I hate to fucking ask this, I have a job I need you to handle.”
“What job is it?” I ask hesitantly. Leo fucking knows I can’t take any jobs right now—I’m practically in the middle of one as it is. Well, I was in themiddleof the fucking floor twenty minutes ago, but that’s beside the point.
“You know I can’t say it over the phone. We need to talk, but you know I wouldn’t be asking unless it was necessary.”
“Fuck, fine. I’m assuming you need me to come home?” I choke out the last word, thinking about how Essa isn’t coming home with me, and I made a promise I wouldn’t go back without her—but Leo’s fucking family and I know he wouldn’t make me come back unless he needed me.
“Yeah,” is all he says.
“All fucking right. I guess I’ll get my ass up and what? Meet you at the pub?”
“I’m already here,” he mutters, “so, I’ll see you when you get here.” He hangs up and I drop my phone to the floor with a grunt.
Well, everything just went to fucking shit.
