Twenty-four years ago
Ryder McKay woke up in his race car bed, sweaty and damp underneath his new Star Wars comforter.
The room was pitch-black.
He didn’t like pitch-black.
That’s why he had his R2-D2 night-light. But it wasn’t working, because if it was, he’d be able to see something other than black.
His dad didn’t think he needed a night-light. He’d said it was only for babies.
Ryder wasn’t no baby.
His brother, Finn, had told him he sometimes got scared of the dark, too, and Finn was fifteen, ten years older than him. Then Finn had bought Ryder the night-light from his own allowance.
Ryder missed Finn a lot. He’d gone to visit his mother in a whole ’nother state for the summer.
Ryder didn’t have no mother.
She’d died giving birth to him. That’s what Dad had said when his eyes had gotten shiny.
Ryder had killed her.
Dad hadn’t said that, but Ryder was smart, so he’d figured it out.
Ryder had never even seen a picture of her because Dad didn’t have none. It must make him too sad. Ryder got sad about it too sometimes because all his friends had mommies.
But he had Finn and that was better than a mommy. When Ryder got scared, Finn would make him feel safe.
Dad and Nanny Spector didn’t do the kinds of things Finn did to make him feel safe. No hugs. No smiles. No funny jokes. Dad just patted him on the back and told Nanny to take care of him. Nanny pretended she liked Ryder, but she liked his daddy more. He knew this because he’d seen them hugging and kissing in Daddy’s bed once. Naked! It was yucky and it made him feel weird to see, so he’d left before they knew he was there. He didn’t know why she had to sleep in Daddy’s bed when she had her own room in the house.
He didn’t like Nanny. Her breath smelled funny after she drank from the square bottle she kept hidden in her purse. Sometimes she fell asleep with the bottle in her arms like it was her baby. On those nights, Ryder couldn’t wake her up even when he jumped on her bed.
A loud bang came from downstairs, shattering the silence.
His body twitched before he lay perfectly still.
It sounded like a firecracker had exploded inside the house.
That would be so cool.
He hopped out of his bed and put his arms out in front of him to find the door.
He heard angry voices. His daddy and a lady. It wasn’t Nanny. This lady was talking in another language, but he understood one word very clear.
Ryder.
Ryder slid his hands along the smooth wall until he found the door. Not wanting to make any noise, he slowly turned the knob and cracked open the door. The shouts grew louder.
Careful as to not make a sound, he tiptoed along the carpeted hallway, passing by all the fancy artwork on the walls that Daddy always warned him not to touch.
“You’re not taking him, you crazy bitch!” Daddy shouted.
Daddy said a bad word.
He must really be mad.
Ryder got on his knees and looked down through the white wooden railing. Yep, there was his daddy, and he was wearing his shiny pajamas, so the lady must have woken Daddy out of bed.
The lady kept yelling at his daddy in that funny language while waving something gray in her hand. Every time she moved, her long, straight black hair swayed. He’d never seen hair so long. It was like that stupid princess stuck in the tower, only this lady’s hair was black instead of yellow. Black as his room without his night-light.
And she was just as scary.
“Give me the gun before you hurt someone,” his daddy said. He spoke to her like Ryder talked to his friend’s dog when he wanted to pet him.
But maybe the lady didn’t understand or maybe it was because his daddy didn’t say please, because she started screaming for Ryder. Then she said another word he recognized.
Mama.
Ryder must have made a noise because both the lady and his daddy turned their heads toward the stairs.
Was the lady his mama?
He touched the top of his head. He had black hair too.
But his mother was dead.
Wasn’t she?
The lady started running toward the stairs and Daddy grabbed her arm, swinging her around and stopping her from going anywhere. She growled like a wild animal and then they were wrestling over that gray thing in her hand. For a moment, they looked like they were dancing, and he giggled.
There was a loud bang, so loud it hurt Ryder’s ears and made him shake. Warm pee trickled down his legs and turned the white carpet yellow.
The lady slumped to the floor in front of the stairs and Daddy stood over her with the gray thing in his hand. There was bright red blood all over both of them and it was pouring out of her stomach onto the tiled floor.
Ryder wanted to run and hide, but he was too scared, so he curled into a ball, hoping he could make himself small enough to disappear.
The lady’s eyes rolled upward, and she stared at him. “Ryder,” she said between coughs. Blood was dripping from her mouth now as she whispered his name over and over.
Then she stopped whispering. Stopped coughing. Just…stopped.
That’s when he knew that the lady with the long black hair was dead.
Daddy had killed her.
Daddy spoke on the phone. “Got a situation. I need the crew here for cleanup.” He hung up without saying goodbye and looked upstairs.
Ryder’s heart was beating really fast. Would Daddy kill him next?
His eyes filled with tears. He didn’t want to die.
He crawled backward until he could no longer see downstairs. After jumping to his feet, he grabbed a towel from the closet and tried to get the pee out from the carpet. Maybe if he cleaned it up good enough, Daddy wouldn’t notice. As he worked, he heard doors slamming, lots of footsteps, and a bunch of different men’s voices.
A few minutes later, he ran to his room and stripped out of his wet clothes. He threw them and the towel into the back of his closet and changed into dry pajamas. Things began to get quieter downstairs as he fell back into bed and drew the covers over his head.
It was pitch-black again.
But this time, he didn’t mind.
Because it was much scarier out there in the light.
His door creaked and someone walked across the carpet toward him.
He held his breath, wishing that Finn were here to save him.
“I know you’re up, champ,” Daddy said, dragging the blanket off his head.
Light beamed into his room from the hallway. Ryder blinked, his eyes focusing.
Wearing different pajamas than earlier, Daddy stood over him and rubbed his eyes with his hands like he’d just woken up.
He didn’t look mad anymore.
Just tired.
“Was she my mama?” Ryder whispered.
Daddy’s eyebrows crinkled. “Who?”
Ryder sat up. “The lady you killed downstairs.”
Daddy grabbed his shoulders. “Nothing happened.”
“But I saw—”
“Nothing.” Daddy sat on the bed and leaned in close, his breath blowing on Ryder’s face. It smelled like Nanny Spector. “You saw nothing. You had a bad dream. But Daddy’s here now. He’ll always be here. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re mine.” Daddy put his hands on both of Ryder’s cheeks. “As my son, you belong to me. And that means, no matter what happens, Ryder, I’ll never let you go. Now go to sleep and don’t let me ever hear you talking about the bad dream again. Because if you do…well, let’s just say, I would hate for anyone to get hurt.”
Ryder didn’t want to belong to Daddy.
Not if it meant being trapped in this big, scary house like a hamster in its cage.
But if he told on Daddy, Finn could get hurt. And he didn’t want nothing bad to happen to Finn.
He’d have to keep it a secret.
Even if it killed him.