The Pagan Stone Page 0,29

was blurry and mean.

"'Fuck you looking at?"

"A drunk."

"Had a couple beers with some friends, don't make me a drunk."

"I guess I was wrong. I'm looking at a drunken liar."

The meanness intensified. It was like watching a snake coil. "You watch your fucking mouth, boy."

"I should've known you couldn't do it." But he had done it, for nearly five months. He'd stayed sober through Gage's birthday, and that, Gage knew, had been when he'd started to believe. For the first time since his father had stumbled down the drunken path, he'd stayed on that wagon over Gage's birthday.

This disappointment, this betrayal was a sharper slash than any lash of the belt had ever been. This killed every small drop of his hope.

"None of your goddamn business," Bill shot back. "This is my house. You don't tell me what's what under my own roof."

"This is Jim Hawkins's roof, and I pay rent on it just like you. You drink your paycheck again?"

"I don't answer to you. Shut your mouth, or-"

"What?" Gage challenged. "You're so drunk you can barely stand. What the hell are you going to do? And what the hell do I care," he finished in disgust. Turning, he started toward his room. "I wish you'd drink yourself dead and finish the job."

He was drunk, but he was fast. Bill lunged across the room, slammed Gage back against the wall. "You're no good, never been any damn good. Never should've been born."

"That makes two of us. Now take your hands off me."

Two quick slaps, front and back, set Gage's ears ringing, split his bottom lip. "Time you learned some goddamn respect."

Gage remembered the first punch, remembered plowing his fist into his father's face, and the shock that fired in his father's eyes. Something crashed-the old pole lamp-and someone cursed viciously over and over. Had that been him?

The next clear memory was standing over his father as the old man sprawled on the floor, his face bruised and bleeding. His own fists had screamed from the pounding, and the healing of his swollen, bloody knuckles. His breath wheezed in and out of his lungs, and sweat soaked him like water.

How long had he beaten on the old man with his fists? It was a hot red haze. But it cleared now, and behind it was ice cold.

"If you ever touch me again, if you ever lay a fucking hand on me again in your life, I'll kill you." He crouched down to make sure the old man heard him. "I swear an oath on it. In three years, I'm gone. I don't care if you drink yourself to death in the meantime. I'm past caring. I've got to live here at least most of the time the next three years. I'll give my share of the rent straight to Mr. Hawkins. You don't get a dime. I'll buy my own food, my own clothes. I don't want anything from you. But however drunk you are, you'd better be able to think this one thought. Hit me again, you motherfucker, you're a dead man."

He rose, walked into his room, shut the door. He'd buy a lock for it the next day, he thought. Keep the bastard out.

He could go. Exhausted, he sat on the side of the bed and dropped his head in his hands. He could pack up what was his and if he showed up on Cal 's doorstep or at Fox's farm, they'd take him in.

That's the kind of people they were.

But he needed to stick this out, needed to show the old man and, more, show himself, that he could stick it out. Three years till his eighteenth birthday, he thought, then he'd be free.

Not quite accurate, Gage thought now. He'd stuck it out, and the old man had never raised a hand to him again. And he'd taken off when his three years were up. But freedom? That was another story.

You carried the past with you, he thought, dragging it behind you on a thick, unbreakable chain no matter how far you looked ahead. You could ignore it for good long stretches of time, but you couldn't escape it. He could drag that chain ten thousand miles, but the Hollow, the people he loved in it, and his goddamn destiny just kept pulling him back.

He pushed away from the computer, went down to get himself more coffee. Sitting at the counter, he dealt out a hand of solitaire. It calmed him, the feel of the cards, the sound