Page 70 of Deceiver

“A hatchet?” I feel around carefully until I find the shape of a wooden handle. “Think I’ve got it.”

“Take it with you.”

I pick up the hatchet, holding it to my chest. “What now?”

“Go inside the house.”

“What? No. I can’t.”

“You can,” my dad says, his voice somehow dark. Gone is the fatherly affection I felt from him the last few times we spoke. “I need your help. I can’t do it alone.”

“Who’s house is this?”

“Stop asking questions.”

“No way. If someone calls the cops, I’m the one here, not you.”

“No one is out here. Go in the fucking house, Keagan.”

The demand startles me, and I get the distinct feeling that I’d better do what I’m told. I quickly feel through my pockets, realizing I don’t have my phone with me. How could I? I don’t even remember how I got here. But that means I can’t call Wilder or anyone else for help.

“I’ll go in if you tell me how I got here.”

The air around me cools, and it’s so quiet I wonder if somehow my dad left, but then my chest tightens.

“You walked here.”

“Walked? Why don’t I remember?”

“I don’t know. Now go in the house.”

With a sinking feeling, I trudge towards the front door, nervous as fuck about what I’m going to find. I try the handle and it opens easily. The door wasn’t locked.

The house smells horrible—almost as bad as the shed did, but different. The air is stale, like the windows and doors haven’t been opened in years, and the scent of decaying food turns my stomach. There’s an additional foul smell that I can only guess is urine. Hopefully from an animal and not a person.

“Down the hall,” my dad says.

I turn to my right, peering into the dark hallway. There’s a dim light down there, and murmuring voices coming from a room.

“I don’t want to go,” I whisper. “Please, Dad.”

“I always wanted a son, you know,” he says, his voice softening. “A son I could mentor and who would follow in my footsteps. I thought I’d have more time, but at least we can have this. You can be the son I always longed for. Unless, of course, you’re too afraid.”

My throat tightens with emotion as my thoughts turn cloudy. “Okay, Dad. What do you need?”

“That’s my boy. Go into the room at the end of the hallway. Be quiet.”

Nodding, I creep down the hallway and peer inside the room where the light is coming from. There’s a small TV sitting on a round table. The room is filled with junk and trash, and under a very narrow window is a beat-up couch with a man sleeping soundly on it.

I recoil in an attempt to back out of the room, but it’s like there’s a wall behind me.

“This is gonna be easy,” my dad says in my ear, even though I still can’t see him. “He’s sleeping. Probably drunk.”

“What do you want me to do?”

He doesn’t answer me, but my body lurches forward involuntarily, and I feel my arm raising the hatchet in the air over the man’s chest. Panic spreads through me, and I resist as best I can.

“Do it.” My dad’s voice vibrates through me. “He’s scum and he betrayed me. He stole from me.”