Brighter Than the Sun - Darynda Jones Page 0,24

toward her with the pedal to the metal. She turns just in time to see me step in front of it and knock it into a store window.

The guy is arrested but not for attempted murder, because Dutch doesn’t tell anyone he was coming for her. She doesn’t understand why he did it, but she can feel his pain as much as I can. Doesn’t fucking matter, though. Attempted murder is attempted murder. He should have gone down for that.

But life goes on. Then one night Earl comes home drunk and angry. He is always drunk and angry, but this night, he can barely stand. He storms into our room and starts yelling at us to clean the apartment. We haven’t been here long. We only just left a small garage where we were staying in exchange for fixing up the house and doing some yard work. But Earl never actually did a fucking thing, and the lady kicked us out. He’s been mad ever since.

Whatever set him off tonight, though, must have been a doozy. He is furious. He’s in a filthy beater and dirty boxers. He grabs my shirt and jerks me off the sleeping bag I’m on. Kim is already awake and huddling on the mattress in the corner. Her knees up to her chin. Her hands over her ears.

She’s shaking her head. Praying he is just pissed and really does want the apartment cleaned instead of something else. Her prayers go unanswered.

He shoves me into the kitchen. The harsh yellow floods my vision and I miss the first swing. It lands on my jaw and knocks me back against the wall. He smells like a sewer, and I gag when he leans into me. Fondles my cock through the sweats I’m wearing.

I’m not in the mood for his shit, so I elbow him. His head jerks back and I scramble away, but he grabs my hair. Pulls me to his chest. Wraps an arm around my waist.

“It’s you or her,” he says, his breath hot and noxious.

He lowers his hand. Slips it under my waistband. But I’m not drugged and I’m not tied up. I think about killing him. It would be so easy, but what would happen to Kim? Would they take her away from me? Of course they would. We aren’t even related. I have no claim to her.

I decide not to kill him, but no way am I just going to lie there and think of England. I hit him. Hard. I’m pretty sure I broke his jaw, but he is too drunk to realize it. He wraps a meaty hand around my throat, knocks me against the wall, and hits me over and over, his fist like a boulder.

My immediate concern is air for my burning lungs. I claw at the hand around my throat, but he hits me again. My head whips back and slams into the wall. I go limp, but only for a second or two. I try to block his punches, but when I open my eyes, my gaze locks on to something outside. Something just beyond our kitchen window. I focus for a split second, just long enough to see a girl standing on the sidewalk, looking in. I glare at her, suddenly furious that she is seeing this. That anyone is seeing this. Then Earl hits me again.

We fall to the floor and I know it’s over. He’ll get his way like he always does. Like he always has.

Through the fog, I hear the kitchen window shatter. I blink back to consciousness and look past it to the girl standing on the sidewalk outside. Half her face is covered with a scarf, and a hat hides her hair.

She yells something about calling the police, and Earl is up in a heartbeat. I take the opportunity to run. I go toward our bedroom, but Earl is right on my heels.

Kim screams at me. “Run! Get out!”

So I do. Like the coward I am, I run for the door. Earl trips and is no longer breathing down my back, but I don’t slow down. I crash into the hall, past the other apartments, and out the back door, where I stumble into a chain-link fence behind the building. I use it to leverage my weight—wrapping my fingers in the links as I navigate the uneven, frozen terrain barefoot—and manage to make it to a Dumpster. Which is appropriate, given the circumstances.

I fall onto all fours and try to