Page 86 of Jerk

The poker sticks out of his leg like an arrow, my eyes widening as blood starts to pour from the wound.

Then he charges at me.

I back up, stumbling over my feet.

He gets to me before I can get up, his hand wrapping around my throat. His squeeze feels tighter than Rye’s, my hands coming to my father’s as I try to pull him off. My back hits the wall, my heart racing.

“Your mother told me what you tried to do.” My father chuckles, his grip tightening. “Know that I run this family, understand that? You two would be nothing without me."

“You run a fear factory.” It’s hard to speak, his hands cutting off my air supply.

My father spits in my face, a warm glob landing right under my eye. “You ungrateful little?—”

“Carlos!” Carrie calls from the door.

He loosens his grip as I fall to the floor with a hard thud. My hand comes to my throat, my skin tender as he whips a finger at Carrie. “Who called you here?”

She looks at me, then my mother, before she stutters, her eyes wide.

“Leave her alone,” I force out. “Or will you try to kill her too?”

"Enough!" My father’s loafer connects with my stomach, a pain ripping through my body. My mother gasps, but she still doesn't help. A groan leaves my father, more blood pouring from his leg. “This is the last straw. You're no daughter of mine.”

Rye

The screenon my phone lights up in my hand. The phone she used to ruin me and my family. Again.

Mac: I didn’t know about their plan. Ember and I will talk

Mac: I told you to stay away from Hannah

Throwing my phone across the room, it slaps against the wall before clattering to the floor.

The air still smells like her, a piece of duct tape by my left boot. Leaning over, I pick it up as I head to my bar, my eyes on that bottle of gin.

Rolling the tape between my fingers, her moans play in my head. Her touch. Her skin. Bottle to my lips, I try to drown out her words, her cries, her begs. I don’t go raw with anyone but I hardly question it with Hannah. It feels too good to be balls deep inside her. It feels too good to give her my all. Too good for it not to all fall apart.

CRASH!

The bottle hits the wall before my hands grip the cold glass of the bar. The semester flashes through my mind. Hannah doesn’t back down. She’s a force, and I reckoned with it. If I want things to go back to normal, I can never touch it again.

I can never touchheragain.

“Your sister is leaving.” My mother’s voice comes from behind me. Looking over my shoulder, she stands in my doorway with a large red scarf draped around her. She grasps an open bottle of vodka in one hand, a crumpled-up tissue in the other. “You should say your goodbyes.”

I reach for my pack of cigs on the bar without responding. I can’t face Krystal like this. She just got here. I’m the one who pulled her into this war. I promised to protect her. And I failed.

“I’ll speak with our lawyers about your father.” My mother hasn’t mentioned much about him since his “disappearance." I tried to protect her from it. I failed that, too. Tapping out a cigarette, I keep my eyes on the bottles behind the bar. They block the full view of my mother in the mirror. “That girl is poison, Ryung.”

Pulling the cigarette to my lips, I finally respond. “So am I.”

TWENTY-NINE

HANNAH

First Day of Hell

This isthe last place a girl like me ends up.