Final Debt

She bit her lip. Jasmine was quiet. When we played, she’d laugh and joke, but when she was afraid or in trouble, she turned mute. Nothing could get her to talk. Not the threat of the knife; not my pleas for her freedom. She stood there in her father’s grasp and didn’t say a word.

But fuck, her thoughts said so much. They screamed for me to help her. They hated me because I couldn’t. She battled with love for Cut and loathing his actions. She crumpled me like a piece of rubbish, giving me no hope of focusing on anything else.

Cut dragged the knife again, only this time a little deeper.

Jasmine’s flinch turned into a jerk, squirming in his arms.

“Stop. Don’t do it again. I get it. I’m not listening to her anymore. I only feel what you are.” Lies. All lies. But truth got me into this mess maybe falsehood could get me out of it.

Cut cocked his head. “What am I thinking then, boy?”

My hands balled as my joints stretched beyond normal capacity. Jasmine’s thoughts overpowered me. I couldn’t hear him. I didn’t want to hear him.

So, I bullshitted. “You like the power over her. You like knowing you created her but can take her life just as easily as you gave it.” I sounded older than fourteen. Would he believe me?

For a moment, I thought he would.

Then reality dispelled that hope.

“Wrong, Jet.” Cut used the knife again. This time…he broke the skin. Tears erupted from Jasmine’s eyes, but still she didn’t cry out. “I hate this. I hate doing this to my children. And I hate you for making me do it.”

My fingers grazed the blade he’d used, tarnished and abandoned on the table. I could cut him. I could make him feel what Jasmine felt. But I had a better idea.

Breathing hard, I bypassed the cat o’ nine tails and grabbed the large club. Resembling a billy stick the police used to carry, this one was thicker, heavier, ready to break limbs and turn bone into pulp.

I turned back to face my father. He lay prone on the rack, his eyes wide, white hair a shock of snow in the gloomy barn. “Remember this?”

He swallowed. “I remember what a fucking pussy you were when I used it.”

Memories tried to take me hostage of him beating me, bruising me—teaching me lesson after lesson.

“Only fair you get to see why I screamed, don’t you think?”

Cut gulped. “You knew all along I didn’t enjoy what I did. I did it to try and save you from yourself. You were my children. Didn’t I have a right as your father to use my flesh and blood to help my firstborn?”

I shook my head. “Using and abusing are two entirely different words.”

He sneered. “And yet, only two letters separate them.”

My chest hurt from breathing; my side burned from fever. I wanted this over. I’d made a commitment to make him pay, but I wasn’t there to drag this out.

I wanted to finish it.

I wanted Nila.

I want to forget.

“That doesn’t matter. You were still wrong to do what you did.” Striding toward him, I held the club over his face. “Look at this and tell me what you feel. Don’t make me work for your answers, Cut. For once in your godforsaken life, tell me the truth.”

His goatee jerked as he tucked his chin into his neck, repelling from the weapon. “You know me, Jethro. You know I love you.”

“Bullshit. Try again.”

He bared his teeth. “That isn’t bullshit. I do love you. When Nila returned to London and you took your medication, I was so fucking proud of you. Never been so proud. I had the son I always knew you were. Capable, courageous, a worthy heir to everything I’d built.”

“I was always those things, Father. Even as a boy, I did my best to make you see that.”

The wood creaked as he shifted in the buckles. “But it was overshadowed by your condition. It made you weak. It made you susceptible. I needed someone strong, not just to look after my legacy but to protect your future family. Was it so wrong of me to want to give you the life skills needed in order to fight what you are?”

“What I am?” I choked on a cynical laugh. “What I am is nothing compared to what you are. You talk about life skills and transforming me into a man. I call that disabling your daughter, emotionally crippling your son, and ripping apart the only people who would’ve loved you unconditionally.”

Cut opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out.

He stared at me, and the one thing I’d hoped wouldn’t happen came true.

His emotional rage petered out, mixing with nervousness that I was right. That he’d done the wrong thing. That somehow…he’d been bad.

Gritting my jaw, my arm flew back with ferocity. “No, you don’t get to think those thoughts. Not after what you’ve done.”

The club whistled through the air, striking his thigh with sickening power. The heavy pummel and resounding aftershock made my fever crest to unbearable heights and nausea to clutch around my throat.

Cut bellowed, his body jerking in the buckles as he writhed.

Being on the opposite end of a scene I was so familiar with twisted my gut.

His agony swamped me. The unravelling sanity. The nastiness inside him giving way to fear. I wanted to vomit. I wanted to cut myself so I could focus on my pain and not his. I wanted to run.

But I couldn’t.

If I tried hard enough, I could turn off my condition. I could return to what he’d taught me. But not today. I owed him this. I owed myself this. Together, we would purge everything I’d been. Everyone we’d hurt.