Page 2

ONE

“Athena,” Chris calls out, making the hairs on my arms stand up. I hate that he’s home early. “Could you come here for a second?”

“Just a minute,” I reply, pulling down my uniform skirt.

I’ve asked my mother hundreds of times to buy me pants since school started, but she says they’re on backorder. I sigh, place my backpack on my twin bed, and head down the hallway toward the stairs, only to pause when I hear him say, “I’m in the bedroom.”

I roll my eyes and grit my teeth. Turning around, I head toward my mother’s room, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling settling in the pit of my stomach.

I find him sitting on the edge of their queen bed, facing me with a hard, meaningless grin. My gaze swings toward the light from the Google Nest cam, knowing by the flashing light that it recorded me walking inside for a few seconds.

“Yes…” But as my gaze dips, the words die on my tongue as I watch my stepfather with his brown dress pants unzipped, his legs open, softly stroking his hard cock.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he says. He must see the look of shock on my face, but I don’t miss the predatory look on his as he drops his gaze to my thighs.

I look away, not believing what I’m seeing and wishing it was a horrible dream. I was always careful around him and avoided being alone with him. Something inside me told me not to trust him with the way he looked at me when no one was paying attention.

I tried to ignore my feelings and thoughts, placing the blame on the news reports about girls going missing every fall around Halloween. But I was wrong. What if he was the one doing it? No. No. That’s impossible. He was on business trips when these events occurred.

He married my mother after telling her over and over that he loved her. He promised to give us a better life. I remember him sitting on the couch, snuggled up with her, watching the news after my mother made dinner. Whenever the news report aired at ten o’clock each night, he would express his deep sorrow for the girls and their families.

“Why don’t you be a good girl and sit on my lap with those pretty thighs, Athena?” he says with hunger in his eyes. “Don’t worry, this will be our little secret.”

My stomach recoils when he strokes his cock faster. The bile in my throat rises with each back-and-forth movement. I want to scream. Run. But I’m frozen. I can’t move, hoping this is a sick joke, but it isn’t as I watch him play with himself, the small pink head of his cock disappearing with every stroke. I blink rapidly, hoping he’ll stop, but he doesn’t.

His hand moves faster.

Panic sets in, my heart races, and my legs instinctively want to run, but I’m not quick enough.

I waited too long to react.

He jumps off the bed, pulls me by my hair in a tight grip, causing pain to slice my skull, and throws me on the mattress, tearing at my panties under my skirt and pushing my legs apart. A loud scream pierces my ears, and I realize it’s coming from my throat, which is burning like acid.

He slaps me across the face, the intense pain causing my eyes to roll back.

I hear music playing from somewhere in the room and recognize the lyrics from Nirvana’s “Rape Me,” wondering why I couldn’t hear it before.

My mind searches for a way to escape, as there’s no point in screaming. He’ll just hit me again, and I need to stay conscious. Besides, no one would hear me. The house is too far away from our closest neighbors, which my stepfather loved pointing out when we moved in.

It’s funny how people don’t think about things like that until something bad happens.

My mind begins to calculate and piece things together. He made sure to win my mother’s trust. She could never have imagined that he would carry out such a heinous act against her daughter. Money does that sometimes. Comfort clouds your judgment. Material things create walls you can’t see through.

I can’t let him get away with it.

I push through the blinding pain from my face and kick my legs out, causing Chris to stumble back, panting, slick with sweat, and displaying a stunned look on his face.

I scramble off the bed. I hadn’t realized how much he was sweating or how much cool air I needed until I feel the cool air from the air-conditioned room cover my tear-streaked face and fill my oxygen-starved lungs. The muscles in my arms and legs scream with exhaustion from struggling with his weight to get him off me. I have about two precious seconds before he lunges for me again.

My vision blurs as I run toward my bedroom, losing my breath. I’m naked from the waist down; my school shirt is hanging off one arm, the buttons ripped off.

I swallow, and my throat feels like it’s on fire.

“Do it!” a woman’s voice echoes inside my head.

The song “Daddy” by Korn plays loudly in my mind. The lyrics feed the surge of adrenaline through my veins, feeding my muscles.

I turn around. My hand automatically runs along the smooth surface of the wooden handle of an ax behind my bedroom door caked in mud.

“It’s right there. That’s it. He’ll do it again, Athena. You know he will.”

The ax scrapes against the wooden floorboards in the hallway as I make my way back to my mother’s room, where my stepfather stands at the foot of the bed, his cock erect. His mouth hangs wide, and then a look of fear storms his face when he sees me.

My vision goes in and out. My breathing picks up. My pulse pumps under my skin. The melody in my mind intensifies, akin to a symphony.

I’m not sure if he comes to his senses because I don’t hear him.

When my eyes come back into focus, I yank the ax from his forehead. I taste copper in my mouth from his blood. I swing again to the beat of the music playing in my head. My vision goes black. I’m not sure if he’s screaming. All I hear is the lyrics to the music, and then I’m pulling the blade from his chest. He’s on his knees, eyes blank, but I don’t stop.

I can’t.

There is no turning back.

When my vision comes into focus again, there is so much blood on the bed that it looks like it is raining blood from a storm cloud.

His mouth gurgles. His eyes stare at me in disbelief.

When he falls back on the bed, his body starts to convulse. I lean over him with a smile playing on my lips. “Who’s the good girl now?”

I swing the ax.

My vision goes black.

When I’m done, I step back, making footprints from the puddle of blood next to his headless body. My gaze darts around the room, and it starts to spin.

“What the fuck!” I scream when I realize what I’ve done. His hands, sliced open next to his penis, are also severed down the middle lengthwise, reminding me of the way he watched me eat a hot dog from the barbecue grill the previous weekend. The way he gave me a once-over when no one was looking as I got out of the pool.

I could have run and called for help, but it’s too late.

I killed him.