Two for Joy - Louise Collins Page 0,31
always you that’s in control, that knows what’s going on? That knows how to win? Because I’m lost Romeo, and I’m on my own.”
“Chad…”
He backed away. “Look, I’ve had a long stressful day, I need to sort my head out.”
Romeo’s heart squeezed hard in his chest.
“Don’t worry,” Chad said. “I’ll be back same time next week.”
He left the room, closing the door softly behind himself.
“I’m so fucking confused.” Fred mumbled.
Paul laughed. “If he’s got any sense, he won’t come back again.”
Romeo waited ten seconds, then jumped up from his chair, and charged at Paul. He managed to headbutt him, but only on his shoulder, then Fred was on him, beating him with a baton.
It had been worth the beating to see the second of fear in Paul’s eyes.
****
Hell was supposed to be warm, bright, with fire, and screaming. Romeo was in hell, and it was the complete opposite. Solitary confinement. Grey, cold concrete. The only light came through a slit that posed as a window. It was silent. So silent, he could hear his own heart beating. They’d stripped his clothes and hadn’t even given him a blanket.
He was in hell, but it was cold, dead, like being buried underground. He clawed at the walls, but his nails left no marks, he couldn’t dig himself out of the situation. He couldn’t do anything but lie on his side and wait.
He’d done it to Chad.
Left him on a slab of concrete for hours while he was warm in the farmhouse. He’d fallen asleep, and the mistake had almost been fatal. Chad’s skin was like ice when Romeo rescued him from the barn and laid him down in front of the fire.
Romeo almost killed him by accident.
He released a long sigh, then closed his eyes. There were no books, no TV, no mementos of his crime, pictures of Chad, or feathers to distract himself. Sleep was the only thing he could do, but when he closed his eyes, he only had nightmares for company.
Romeo dreamed of the magpie.
He screamed at it, chased it, threw stones, and in his anger, he released the last stone too early, and it didn’t land anywhere near the magpie, it hit the roof. One of the square slates slipped and hurtled towards the unaware magpie.
Romeo’s mouth opened in shock, he couldn’t do anything, he’d seen this moment played out before, over and over, and every time he felt it right in his chest.
But this time it was different.
The magpie moved at the last second.
It skipped out of the way, made its mocking call, then flew away. Romeo’s heart didn’t break beneath his ribs. He didn’t shiver as a cold realization that he’d always be a monster set in. It was a good feeling.
He hadn’t killed it, and it had listened, it had left him.
His good deed was complete.
He touched the smile on his face, so alien because it was real. He wasn’t faking it to please others or grinning because it was expected. He actually felt happy, more than happy, he felt proud. he’d done something good, something he could be proud of, and his first thought was telling his mother.
He wanted her to smile at him, to praise him, to congratulate him for turning his back on his messed-up biology and doing what anyone else would’ve done. He’d done something normal when his heart and mind were telling him to do the opposite. He ran to the front door, knew his mother was in the kitchen, but then he heard the squawking, the chattering, and froze. He’d learned to identify his magpie’s call, and that wasn’t from his one.
It wasn’t the call of one magpie, but dozens. He could hear them behind the house. Somewhere in the trees. Not mocking laughter, but angry, sinister. The other magpies sounded more like machine guns, violent, cruel. Romeo ran around the house, heading towards the trees.
He got close enough to see them, so many, swooping down at something on the ground, then returning to the trees. They took turns, they pecked, poked, stabbed, in a frenzy.
He waved his hands, yelled till his diaphragm ached, and unlike his magpie, the rest flew away from him, leaving only one. One torn apart on the ground, twitching, still alive, but in agony. He knew he couldn’t save it, knew it was going to die in his hands and he couldn’t do a thing about it.
He saw the tree in the distance, the dozens of magpies all watching him, blood on their beaks,