NINE
SIXSMITH
SERA
“This place is a fucking shit hole, girl. What have you been doing all day?”
I tried not to tremble. Sixsmith didn’t like it when we showed fear. He also didn’t like it when we showed any form of confidence, arrogance or defiance, so I trained my face into the blankest expression I could and rose from the chair where I’d been sitting at the scuffed dining table.
The kitchen wasn’t a mess. I’d spent three hours cleaning it, until the counter tops, regardless of the cracked and chipped tiles, were sparkling. The floor didn’t have a mark on it. The trash was empty. There wasn’t a dirty cup, plate, or bowl in sight, and yet I’d known it wouldn’t matter to my father. He always did this—came home steaming drunk in the middle of the night, when Cressida, the bar tender at the dive bar my father frequented every night, finally cut him off and refused to serve him anymore. He’d be pissed that he hadn’t been able to get that final beer he’d whined and pleaded for, and he’d come home and take it out on my sister and me. Tonight, I’d helped Amy with her homework and made sure she’d gone to bed early, though. Someone had to wait up to serve Sixsmith his dinner. That someone would bear the full brunt of his wrath, and it served no purpose for Sixsmith’s anger to fall on Amy’s shoulders, when mine were broad enough to take it, and had done so many times before.
My father stalked around the kitchen, his shoulder-length hair stringy with sweat, his eyes bloodshot and roving; he was searching for something. Something to punish me for. Yanking open the fridge door, he bent over, inspecting the contents inside.
“There’s no beer in here,” he snarled, straightening, then slamming the door closed. “I thought I told you to make sure this thing was fully stocked by the time I got back?” His mouth was twisted into an ugly sneer as he turned to look at me.
“I bought groceries. I got everything I could. I tried to buy the beer, but the guy at the store asked me for ID. He said he knew I was only thirteen.”
The disgust that rippled off my father was a tangible thing, and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. “Don’t sass me, you little bitch. You should have convinced him you were old enough.”
I’d done my best to persuade the store clerk that he was mistaken, that I was in fact out of high school and almost finished at college now, but he hadn’t believed me for a second. Still, I’d tried again and again, until the gnarled guy behind the till had threatened to call the cops if I didn’t scat. “His daughter’s in my year,” I said quietly. “He said he’d seen me at school, and he knew I was lying. There was nothing I could do.”
“Bullshit!” My father spat the word, and flecks of saliva flew from his mouth. I tried not to stare at the fine rope of spittle hanging down from the corner of his mouth. “You’re a dumb little slut, Sera. You know exactly how to get a man to do what you want. I’ve seen the way you look at that boy down the street. You push your tits out to try and get his attention. You could have just smiled at that prick and made him harder than concrete. He’d have given you anything you wanted.”
This wasn’t going well at all. Cressida must have served a little longer than usual, or perhaps Sixsmith had scraped some cash together and managed to fill his hip flask with cheap whiskey on his way to the bar. Either way, he was much drunker than usual, and he was humming with a new kind of rage, even more volatile and unpredictable than usual. His hands were balled up into fists as he stepped toward me, and a bolt of ice-cold fear chased down my spine. The door to the living room was behind Sixsmith, and there was no way I’d be able to make it to the door on my right, the back door leading out into the garden, without him grabbing hold of me first. I swallowed, forcing my body to remain absolutely still.
“I don’t know how to flirt with men,” I said evenly. “I can’t do th—”
Lightning fast, Sixsmith lunged for me and grabbed hold of the first thing he could: my hair. Pain ripped across my scalp—it felt like he was tearing every strand out by the root—but I didn’t scream. Screaming did something to Sixsmith that I couldn’t comprehend. It made his breathing hard, and lit a wild fire in his eyes that terrified the ever-loving shit out of me. “Don’t lie to me,” he hissed. “You’re lucky I don’t take you over my knee and tan your ass raw. I know you’ve given it up to half the boys in town. You’re a whore. You’re worse than a whore. At least hookers get paid for opening their legs. You’ve been letting people ride the shit out of you for fun.”
I hadn’t let anyone ride me for fun. I hadn’t let anyone ride me at all. Brody, a jock in the year above me, had tried to hold my hand last semester, but when I’d attempted to claw his eyes out of his head, screaming at the top of my lungs, hysterical and uncontrollable, he’d shoved me so hard that I’d fallen onto my ass in front of the entire canteen. After that, I’d been branded frigid. Crazy. Retarded. Not a single boy had looked at me since. I sure as hell hadn’t been pushing my tits out to get anyone’s attention. I’d been strapping them down for the last year or so, desperately trying to disguise the fact that I was developing a woman’s body, but eventually I’d had to give up. It was impossible to hide anymore.
Sixsmith jerked my head, and I bit the inside of my cheek; I wanted to fight back. I wanted to defend myself, but I’d been here before. Once my father’s temper reached this stage, there was nothing to be done. If I lashed out, pushed him away, or tried to escape, things would be so much worse for me. I formed the shape of a gun inside my head, and I imagined what it would be like to grasp hold of it by its cold metal handle, to slide my finger up against the trigger. To aim the weapon at my father, and pull…
“Now that I come to think about it, maybe I’ve been lookin’ at this all wrong,” Sixsmith said, wiping his mouth with the back of his tattooed hand. “Maybe you’d like selling your ass for money. I’m sure you’d be good at it.”
My eyes were stinging, filling with tears, but I didn’t say anything. Arguing was a bad idea. Moving was a bad idea. Even breathing was a bad idea. Sixsmith let go of my hair and slid his hand down, across my face, over my cheek, cupping my head beneath my chin, forcing me to stand up straight and look at him. He was like a deranged dog. Looking him in the eye was never an option, far too dangerous, so I focused on the end of his nose, praying this would be over quickly. Sometimes it was over quickly. There were nights when he came home and he was so unbalanced by the alcohol in his system that he’d only hit me once or twice, and then he’d stagger into the living room and slump down into his recliner, snoring almost immediately. It was a futile hope, though. Tonight, Sixsmith was fired up. He was probably going to drag this out as long as he could. He was probably going to make it hurt.
Leaning in close, he whispered to me, “You think you’re so much better than me, don’t you?” His breath reeked of rotten teeth and stale booze, a smell I’d grown so accustomed to that I didn’t even flinch at it anymore. “ANSWER ME, BITCH!”
A couple of years ago, Sixsmith hadn’t paid the rent on the tiny, dingy apartment we’d been living in, and we’d been kicked out. The three of us, Sixsmith, Amy, and me, had all gone to live at my grandfather’s house for a while, until Sixsmith ‘got back on his feet’. It’d taken a long time for Sixsmith to get money together for a new place, and so there had been a period of time when things had gotten better. Sixsmith hated his father, but he’d never raise his voice or his fists to us when we were under the old man’s roof. My grandfather was an ex-military man, a hard ass that never smiled, rarely spoke, and glowered at Amy and me whenever we were in the room. He would never have tolerated Sixsmith treating us badly, though. He had that one thing going for him.
I found myself wishing we were back there, in that stuffy, silent, mausoleum of a house, under the watchful eye of the General, as the hate beaming out of my father’s face flickered, transitioning into something else altogether. The sneer disappeared, replaced by a vacant, loose smile. “I bet Jacob would give me money for you,” he said. “That pervy bastard’s been sending looks your way for a couple of years now.”
Oh god. My heart rate soared through the roof, and I couldn’t do it any more. I couldn’t live inside calm, flat, lifeless Sera anymore. I became scared, angry, panicked Sera, exploding into action, trying to rip myself free from Sixsmith’s grasp. He had hold of me by the throat now, though. And he wasn’t letting go. “Sixsmith, please...” I croaked, as his grip tightened around my esophagus, crushing, preventing me from drawing in breath. Was there a way out of this situation right now? I couldn’t think. Couldn’t decide what to do. Couldn’t fathom a way to make him release me so that I could bolt to freedom. A long, torturous second passed, and I watched as a spark of excitement flared inside Sixsmith.
“I bet Sam Harrodan would clear all that money I owe him if I let him sink his dick inside that pretty little mouth of yours, too. The girls he has hanging around his place are always young. Fucker’s always acting so goddamn high and mighty, but I know. I know what a piece of shit he is.”
“Sixsmith, please! I’m sorry. I’ll get the beer next time, I promise.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. The inside of Sixsmith’s head was a labyrinth of bizarre and confusing pathways that made no sense to me. Trying to figure out exactly what to say to him and when had always completely escaped me, and now, with his hand blocking off oxygen, starving me, I had no clue how to appease him. He was cold, and he was evil, and whenever he got an idea he thought might benefit him, he grabbed hold of it with both hands. There was a chance he was drunk enough that he wouldn’t remember this in the morning, but the prospect that he would remember it, that he’d be calling on his friends to see if they wanted to use and abuse my body in lieu of his debts, made my entire being sing in terror.
My father smiled, flashing me broken, crooked teeth, discolored from the cigarettes he chain-smoked every waking hour of the day. “Yeah, Sera. That pleading tone… They’d probably like that. They’d probably like it if you put up a bit of a fight.”
Pure instinct clawed at me, demanding I react. I had to get out of the kitchen. I had to get out of the house altogether. But how? Sixsmith wasn’t a big guy. He used to be fairly fit, back when Mom was still alive, but over the years since he’d let himself waste. His midsection was bloated and strained against his t-shirt, and his arms were wiry, barely strong at all anymore. None of that changed the fact that he was nearly two feet taller than me and a man, while I was a slender thirteen-year-old girl. I couldn’t overpower him, there was no chance of that, so I did the only thing I could think of to break free. I scrambled, trying to steady myself, and then I drew my leg back and I swung…
My knee found its mark a second later, and Sixsmith’s eyes widened. There was a moment when I thought the blow I’d dealt him to his balls had had no effect whatsoever, and then Sixsmith’s hand fell from my throat. He crumpled forward, groaning, a pained exhalation escaping his lungs as he clutched at his stomach and between his legs.
“You…stupid…cunt,” he wheezed. “You stupid fucking cunt. You shouldn’t have done that.”
A second later, I was running. I smashed my hip against the corner of the table in my haste to reach the back door, and I sucked in a gasp of air, forcing the pain away as I took hold of the door handle and twisted. The door opened, and a surge of relief washed over me. Sixsmith was still bent double, trying to regain himself. He wasn’t following after me. I was fast when I needed to be, I could put a considerable distance between us if I pushed myself as hard as I could—
Amy.
My fractured thoughts came to a screeching halt. Oh my god. My sister. She was two years younger than me, but in her head she was much younger still. Her body was still that of a child. If I ran now, if I left this stinking, miserable house, filled with so many terrible, bitter memories, I’d be leaving Amy behind. And Sixsmith…there was no telling what Sixsmith would do to her. If I left, he might use her in my place. She might be the one he tried to barter to clear his debts and earn some extra cash.
My hand stilled on the door handle. My feet were still trying to move forward and carry me away from this god-awful place, but it was as if a solid, crushing weight was suddenly fixing me to the spot. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go and leave her behind. I’d never be able to forgive myself.
My bones were steel. My skin was dread. My heart was fear. My soul was…gone. I turned back around, and I faced my father.
Sixsmith roared as he grabbed the kitchen knife I’d left in the drying rack earlier. I saw the flash of the blade as he hurtled toward me, and I felt my fear leave me. He was going to kill me. After all this. After the beatings, and the abuse, and the screaming, and constantly walking on eggshells every day for as long as I could remember, he was finally going to kill me. I’d denied myself the freedom that leaving would grant me just now, but this was an escape outside of my control. I wouldn’t be able to stop him.
“I’m gonna make you beg for your fucking life,” Sixsmith growled. Advancing, he held the knife aloft, and my heart stopped. The blade seemed to take forever to reach me. I thought he would plunge it straight into my chest, but he didn’t. He held it to my neck, baring his teeth. “Beg, Sera. Beg me not to fucking kill you.”
I wanted to. Begging wasn’t beneath me. If it would save my life, and save Amy from future misery, too, then I would do it. It was a small price to pay. But when I attempted to push the words out of my mouth, they wouldn’t come. My voice had fled me. Everything had fled me. I sighed, letting go of the breath I’d been holding, and I felt strangely light. As if I’d been relieved of a burden I’d been carrying around with me for so long that I had forgotten all about it until now.
Sixsmith pressed the blade harder against my skin, and I didn’t move. I didn’t blink. My father’s eyes were a void, black and bottomless, merciless and cruel. “Beg,” he hissed.
When I did nothing, Sixsmith’s face contorted into a rictus of pure, uninhibited fury. I waited for the piercing, burning agony that would accompany having my throat slit from ear to ear, but it never came. Instead, pain flared along my jawline, as Sixsmith slashed to the right with the blade. A moment of shock claimed me; he’d cut my face?
The knife clattered to the floor, and then Sixsmith’s hands were tearing at me, ripping at my clothes. The NASA t-shirt I was wearing ripped, the sound filling the kitchen, and then he was tugging at my bra.
I thought I’d known fear before. There had been countless moments in my life when I’d been so claimed by my own fear that I thought I’d never be able to surface from it again. At least not whole. But now, with Sixsmith greedily staring down at my exposed body, I experienced a level of fear I hadn’t even known possible.
The smell of copper flooded my nose. Something wet and warm was flowing down my neck, but it wasn’t until I caught sight of the bright crimson droplets hitting my bare breasts that I realized I was bleeding so badly. Sixsmith lifted his right hand, and it was shaking. I was never going to forget how terribly his hand shook as he reached out and tentatively cupped my breast. I was marble, solid and immoveable. What was he doing? What…how could he… why? My skin was crawling, a thousand insects burrowing into my pores, as Sixsmith sucked his bottom lip into his mouth. He wasn’t shouting anymore. His anger had evaporated, leaving behind a strange, rotting silence that coated me like grease. Sixsmith stared. Not at my face, but at my chest. I needed to cover myself up, hide myself away from him. He shouldn’t be looking at me the way he was looking at me. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right at all.
My father was no longer standing in the kitchen with me. He’d gone somewhere far away, withdrawn into himself, and all he seemed to register now was the fact that he was holding my breast in his cupped hand. Slowly, he moved his fingers, and he rolled my nipple between them.
My mind was fragile. It was going to snap in two. I couldn’t…I couldn’t even…
“Daddy?”
Amy stood in the doorway to the living room. Her pajama bottoms were twisted around her body, as if she’d been tossing and turning in her sleep again. She’d never been a very good sleeper. Her eyes were wide, her face ashen, drained of all its usual color. There were tears streaming down her cheeks—silver ribbons of abject grief and horror.
“Daddy, what are you doing?” she whispered.
Sixsmith recoiled like he’d been stung, his hand pulling back from my skin. The anger returned in a flash, contorting his face once more. I hiccupped—the strangest reaction to what had just taken place—then I was grappling with the torn material of my shirt, trying to cover myself, hands frantic and trembling.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Sixsmith spat between gritted teeth. “You’re meant to be asleep.” Rounding on me, he lifted his hand and whipped it out, striking me so hard across the face that I stumbled, my legs giving out underneath me. “Get her to bed. And get this mess cleaned up. You’re a fucking disgrace.”
The mess, of course, was my own blood. Large, round, fat spatters of red stained the floor, and a good amount of it had run down the length of my body and pooled at my bare feet, collecting between my toes. I hiccupped again, pressing my palm to my burning cheek, biting the urge to burst into tears myself.
The back door opened.
The back door closed.
Sixsmith was gone.