Page 6 of Make Me Scream (Visceral #2)

PERIS

“He’s not going anywhere,” I snarl, jaw clenched tight enough the bones click with every word I spew.

“Unfortunately, Peris, the judge made her decision and has granted Lucy her parental rights given four positive supervised visitations over the next two weeks.”

“What does that mean?” Ma asks, voice sharp with pain. I can hear it, and it makes my chest ache.

“It means that a couple times a week, Abel has to have visitations with Lucy. They will be supervised by either me or someone from CPS over the course of a few hours. As long as they go well, everything will move forward as planned.”

“And if they don’t go well?” I mutter through a snarl.

Bill lifts a thick brow. “They will.”

“This is fucking bullshit.”

“It’s certainly… not common,” Bill amends.

“He’s eighteen,” I try, knowing it won’t do any fucking good.

Bill laughs loudly, and for some reason, it seems to break Abel out of his stupor. He glares over at the big man. “That’s what he tells me,” Bill drawls, smirking at Abel like they have their own little secret.

I don’t fucking like it.

“When have I ever fucking lied to you?” Abel questions rudely.

“You didn’t tell me the truth about Morana,” Bill answers just as quickly, and that shuts Abel up immediately.

“Who’s Morana?” I ask.

“Shut the fuck up!” Abel screams, making all three of us jolt in place at the sudden volume coming from such a small body.

Ma startles, eyes wide with worry as her gaze ricochets between us.

“Abel, honey, it’s okay. We don’t have to talk about…

” Ma glances up at Bill from where she’s leaning toward Abel.

“We don’t have to talk about it, okay? It’s all right.

” She tentatively runs her hand up and down his back.

He doesn’t relax, but he doesn’t pull away from her either.

I’m frozen watching their interaction and wondering who the fuck Morana is and why he’s screaming about her.

“You’re not eighteen until February, Abel. I remember your birthday, baby.” Lucy strides back into the room and enters the conversation like she never left, which means she was probably fucking eavesdropping the whole time, the cunt.

Abel, the deranged little maniac he is, starts to laugh. And it’s not a good laugh. It’s ugly. The kind of cackle you see in horror movies when someone’s been possessed by a fucking spirit and they’re about to go on a murdering spree, lips spread so wide you can see every tooth in their skull.

The tension is hung so heavy, I can taste it with every breath, nearly choking in its potency.

“She doesn’t even know when my birthday is,” Abel says after long seconds tick away. He’s so quiet at first, I’m not sure I hear him right. The room grows so quiet, it feels as silent as death.

“What?” Lucy asks, her voice absolutely grating, and that was the wrong thing to say.

“I said,” Abel repeats, voice getting louder with each specific letter he enunciates, “you don’t even know my goddamn birthday, you dumb fucking cunt.

And you expect me to want to leave here, my fucking home, to come and live with you?

!” He’s screaming now, and I’ve never heard a better sound in my life.

“You’re a fucking stranger to me! I don’t know you, and I haven’t known you since I was taken when I was five goddamn years old! Why are you trying? Why now, when it’s almost too late, when I’ve finally gotten everything I wanted? When I am finally almost—” He chokes, breaking off suddenly.

My eyes widen, and I lurch toward him, but Abel runs out of the room, hand to his mouth, face more pale than its usual ghostly parlor.

With Abel gone, everyone stands around awkwardly as the tension multiples again without the common denominator in the room.

“I need to go check on Abel and make sure he’s doing all right,” Ma says after a minute. Bill nods, jaw set tight as he drags his eyes away from the hall.

“Yes. I will call you with the schedule once I have it, which should be within the next day or two. Again, I am sorry for this last minute change. I know it’s not what anyone expected, but I do appreciate your willingness to cooperate and for taking such great care of Abel.”

“I’ll always take care of Abel,” Ma replies. Her eyes flick toward Lucy, whose gaze is roaming the room, judging like she has any goddamn right. “He’s my kid.” At that, Lucy’s eyes find Ma’s, and I watch them narrow. Mom lifts her brow in a challenge before straightening. “I’ll see you both out.”

Before they’ve even left the kitchen, I’m rushing toward the bathroom where I know Abel ran to. I hear water running on the other side. I try the knob and find it locked. I jiggle it a few times. “Open up, pup. It’s just me.”

A loud sigh meets my ears and then the snick of the lock being turned.

I push inside and lean back against the closed door.

Abel’s sitting on the closed toilet seat, face in his hands, back hunched over.

His choppy, blonde hair hangs over the shaved sides of his head, and I crave to run my fingers along the short, soft hairs.

“I threw up,” he says bluntly.

“Nice,” I reply.

“Hot, I know.”

“Very.”

“Wanna kiss me still?” he asks, lifting his head to peek at me through his fingers. I stare at him for a minute before taking the two short steps toward him and bending down to place a chaste kiss to his chapped, pink lips.

Abel lets out a surprised hum, his eyes widening as I grip his chin and tilt his head back so I can look into his bloodshot eyes.

“I never wanna kiss you, runt.”

He huffs, rolling his eyes with a sniff. “Right.”

I drop his chin like it’s on fire and step back to the counter. “Why’d you throw up?”

He sniffles again, dragging the back of his hand across his nose. “Just sick of it all.”

“That was some serious fucking bullshit, I will say.”

“Yeah,” is all he says. He sounds so tired, so unlike him.

“How can they even do that?”

“That’s the court system for you. They don’t care. Never have and never will.”

I drop my head back between my shoulders as I blow out a breath. My hair grazes my forehead, making me shiver as it clings to my skin from sweat. “I… I don’t fucking understand.”

Abel scoffs, which turns into a loud, boisterous laugh. It echoes off the walls and sends gooseflesh burning down my spine. “Good thing it’s not for you to understand, Peris.”

I rear back at his venom to find two molten orbs glaring back at me. “Runt…”

“Get the fuck out.”

I start toward him, only to stop short when he lunges at me.

He plants his palms against my chest and shoves me.

I stumble back into the wall with an umph, my breath knocked from my lungs, but Abel doesn’t stop.

He keeps coming at me, forcing me into the wall with surprising strength hidden in his little body as he pummels my chest with his fists.

Screams escape in hoarse rasps from his throat, so loud my ears ring. Tears burn hot trails down his flushed cheeks, leaving streaks in their path. “Abel?—”

“Shut up! Just shut up!” he bellows so loud, his voice cracks. My heart is pounding so hard and so fast, I can feel it in my throat. I reach out and wrap my arms around him, pinning his to his sides. The constriction makes his screams louder. My ears ring from the reverberation.

“Abel! Peris!” I hear Mom shout down the hall. “What’s going on?!” Her footsteps grow closer, and then the door is being shoved open. “What the?—”

My head whips to the side as I struggle to hold a chaotic, flailing Abel in my arms. I pin him to me, his back to my chest, and forcing his head against the side of my neck. His thrashing slows, and I take a deep breath, thinking he’s about finished.

Mom and I share a look, her concern mirrored, when Abel kicks upward, plants his feet against the wall, and uses the force against the wall to shove us both backward.

“Fuck!” I shout as we both fall.

“Oh!”

Abel’s cries grow louder as we fall to the floor in a pile of tangled limbs and groans of pain. My elbow knocks into the counter, ankles jammed into the floor by Abel’s weight pinned on top of me.

Ma rushes over and frets between us, not sure where to grab or what to do. Abel’s shouts dissolve into sobs, and the fight leaves him instantly as his body sags against me. Dead weight encumbers me, and I suffocate under the burden of it.

Unsure of what else to do as Abel’s body is wracked with uncontrollable wails, I meet Ma’s gaze and nod my head toward the door. Her eyebrows furrow, gaze flickering between us, obviously sick with worry and uncertainty.

“It’s okay,” I mouth to her. “I’ve got it.” Even though I fucking don’t.

She winces but nods and quietly makes her exit, leaving with the quietest snick of the bathroom door latch.

Time bends and blurs as my runt loses his mind in my arms. He thrashes occasionally, and I only hold him tighter. He hates it, but I don’t care because the moment I loosen my grip, his sobs only get worse.

It’s like he wants to be pinned down, forced to stay, only to panic when he is.

“You’re not going anywhere, runt, you hear me?

” I tell him over his snotty sniffles and wretched whimpers.

“That bitch doesn’t have a say-so over you.

” And I know I’m telling him lies. That I don’t have a say-so over any of it, but if it helps him feel better—and me, while we’re at it—I’ll fucking do it.

I’ll do anything to not feel so helpless.

Abel never responds apart from an occasional soft whimper and the faintest nuzzle of his nose against my throat. My blood warms in increments as time passes in a fever-ridden daze.

Eventually, he calms enough to move, and when that happens, I groan loudly, my body protesting considerably. Every muscle and joint twinges and throbs from the awkward angles and weird pressure points.

Abel sniffles, face blotchy and perfectly pink, bloomed in his favorite color.

“You don’t know what’s about to happen, do you?” he says—his first words in so long. His voice is so weak, it cracks, and his words are barely distinguishable.

My brows furrow, and my stomach sinks simultaneously. “What do you mean?” I ask, but I don’t think I want to know the answer.

Why can’t we just keep living in our weird hate-fuck situation we’ve been in? It was working just fine—better than fine, even. When it was all so much less complicated apart from our fucked up internalized shit cohabiting into a disturbingly toxic vortex.

“It’s over, Peris.”

My heart stops cold.

“Over,” I repeat, deadpan. “What could possibly be over between us?”

At this, Abel laughs. It’s a wet, choking sound. I hate how fucking hot it sounds, the way it makes my groin tighten and my dick twitch, like he’s been choking on it.

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Fuck you, Abel,” I snap as shove him, needing him the fuck away. I can’t touch his skin, see the flush of it when I graze each scar…

“Yeah, baby. Fuck me, ” he snarks, and goddamnit! I bend down and wrap my fingers around his throat—just like he wanted me to. I slam him down to the floor until his head cracks against the tile. I bend over him, teeth bared and skimming the tip of his crooked nose.

Abel’s eyes are half-lidded and so bloodshot, each vein is burst from the intensity of his cries.

It makes it look as if his eyes are bleeding, and I’ve never seen anything more apt.

I close my fingers around his windpipe and cut off his oxygen until he begins to choke, reveling in the sound as it travels through my ears like harmonious music.

“I think I was starting to forget how much I fucking hate you, runt,” I rasp against his nose, slowly dragging the edge of my teeth along his skin, leaving vivid, red marks along his pale flesh in my wake.

The drag of his lips against me burns hotter than the sun. I pull back just enough to notice he’s trying to speak. Narrowing my eyes, I debate for a moment whether I want to hear his voice or not before I finally give in and release my grip on his throat just enough to allow air in.

Abel sucks in oxygen, gasping and panting like a bitch in heat. “It’s better if you hate me,” he finally chokes out, and my world stops spinning.