Page 12 of House Rules

Storm:In

Atticus:Fuck, me too. Let the games begin.

4

Phoenix

I don’t takeanother full breath until I end my shift, still commando under my uniform, and head back home. The entire way home, I am kicking myself for not taking that damn watch.

If I had taken it, I wouldn’t be walking home in thousand percent humidity with my hair sticking to the back of my neck, really missing my underwear.

Instead, I would be walking home in the same Savannah heat with hair sticking to my neck, but I’d at least be dreaming of what the next day was going to bring—like freedom and new panties.

I chickened out, so I have to pay the price, which is the slow walk back to the same dilapidated trailer in the same derelict trailer park that I’velived in my entire life. Dinner will be a cup of noodles and sitting in silence as I contemplate the relative unfairness of my existence.

I don’t know why I don’t just go. Pack my backpack with my scant wardrobe and plenty of panties, and just leave. There’s no reason for me to stay here. Fear, I guess, that the unknown will be just as dismal and lacking as the familiar.

There will be nothing for me to do, no company to see or talk to until work the next morning.

Unless Scrappy comes to visit me again. The little stray dog that hangs around the trailer park occasionally comes and keeps me company. I would have taken him in and adopted him years ago if I thought I could take better care of him than he could have himself. As it stands, I’m pretty sure that most nights he eats better than I do.

When I get home, I head straight to the shower. Payment on the hot water bill was due three weeks ago, and I won’t be able to pay it until Friday. There’s a fifty/fifty shot if I have hot water or not.

Dropping my uniform on the floor, I step under the spray and stifle a shriek. Make that a one hundred percent reality that the water is cold. It’sall good. It’s way too hot outside for hot water, anyway.

After the world’s coldest shower with the last of my body wash, I dress in an old pair of pajamas and go to heat my dinner.

I don’t even get the kettle on the stove before there’s a loud banging on my door.

I lower the kettle slowly to the burner. No one comes here unless they have to. And rent is the one thing that’s paid up.

The only people who ever came before were for my father, and since he’s gone, with only me left to mourn him, I have no idea who it could be. Unless Con figured out why I was really there in his room. Would he punish me for only thinking about stealing from him? Did he somehow know that I was still thinking about taking that watch?

I peek my head around the corner of the refrigerator, trying to see through the faded curtains and dingy glass of the door.

It isn’t Con or any of the other Titans. I don’t recognize the men as security from the hotel, but when one turns to say something to his companion,the movement reveals the gun tucked into his waistband.

I duck down, pressing my back against the wall, and hold my breath as the knocking turns to a kick, and they break in the front door.

Fresh sweat trails down my back as I bite the inside of my lip to stop myself from making any noise, hold my breath, and hope they won’t see me.

Of course, I’m not that lucky.

“Over here,” the first guy calls as he grabs my arm and hauls me to my feet, slamming me against the wall. The trailer shudders under the impact. “I found the little gutter rat.”

The man holding me has a thick mustache, the kind dirty cops and pedophiles boast, and his sour breath smells like tobacco and stale beer.

The other man lumbers around the corner, a pot belly sticking out over his belt and his hair thinning.

“Where’s your daddy, girl?”

“Dead,” I say. “Died about a month ago.”

“Do you know who killed him?” Pedo-stash asks.

“He killed himself.” I clench my teeth on the words. “He ate a bullet.”

“Fucking coward,” Baldy mutters.