Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
He hits her too.
In the face.
In the stomach.
Puts his cigarettes out on her.
That happens to both of us.
They remind me of the circle rings from the candles my ma lights every night.
Except these don’t protect me.
These make me think I’m not protected anymore.
I force myself to nod and pick up the fork, but the second I’m holding it, the window behind the silver haired man breaks. Big and small glass pieces fly through the air landing all over the table.
All over our food.
All over me.
Unsure of what to do, I stay frozen in place like a game of freeze tag I didn’t know I was playing while the silver haired man tries to run away.
Maybe for the kitchen?
Maybe for the shotgun he likes to put in my mouth when I don’t listen?
The same shotgun he puts between my legs when I ask about going to real school.
Three men dressed in all black holding guns – large guns – climb through the open space like superheroes not afraid of the silver haired man.
Not afraid of the shotgun he has.
Maybe they don’t know he has one?
Maybe their guns are better?
Maybe they’re not afraid of nothing?
I wish I wasn’t afraid of nothing.
“Downontheground!” one of the men shouts, gun being pointed at the lady in charge of taking care of me. “Now!”
She screams, falls, and smooshes her face in the dirty carpet the silver haired man says is never clean.
It’s not.
But she tries.
And I try.
When I’m not trying to do homework or what she calls homework, I try.
“Don’t. Even. Fucking. Think. About. It!” another one of the superheroes shouts at the silver haired man who was very close to his own gun. “I’ll blow your fucking head off and not fucking think twice!”
I would be okay with that.
I would be okay with him going away forever.
Maybe I could go to my old home.
My real home.
“Hey,” the last man in black says to me in a nicer voice.
I quickly look at him and start to slide out of my seat to lay on the ground too.
Maybe they aren’t superheroes.
Maybe they’re bad guys.
Bank robbers.
We don’t have much money to steal though.
Just the pennies we pick up outside the grocery store parking lot, but the lady who calls herself my momma uses those to buy the cigarettes that burn us.
They can have the pennies.
I hope it’s enough.
I don’t know what they’ll do if it’s not.
“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa,” the man says very fast, gun coming down to his side, “don’t go anywhere just yet, little dude.”
I’m not sure why he wants me to stay put or what he wants from me, but I can see one of his sidekicks – or partners – is holding his gun to the silver haired man’s head keeping me safe from him and that means I should do what he wants to show I’m thankful.
“I’m not here to hurt you, kid.” He squats to look me in the eye. “I promise.”
Silver haired man never made me that promise.
Not even the day they took me.
“My name’s Bannon.” He pauses. Thinks. “My last name is Bannon. That’s what my buddies call me, especially when we’re working like we are now.”
Is bank robbing really a job?
Or maybe…maybe they are superheroes!
“But my first name is Douglas. It’s what my mom calls me.”
I smile even though I shouldn’t.
“She taught me that only the special ladies in your life should ever call you by your first name because your first name is a very special name.”
Hm.
What makes someone special?
“Wanna know why?”
I nod even though I don’t think I should.
“It’s the first name that the first person who ever loved you gave to you.” He smiles. “You copy?”
I don’t know what that means, so I smile again.
“What does your mom call you?”
My mouth opens to answer but is stopped when the silver haired man yells, “Don’t you fucking say a word, Charlie!”
Bannon’s face tilts to the side like he doesn’t understand something. “Is that your name? Is your name Charlie?”
No.
It’s not Charlie.
It’ll never be Charlie.
I don’t ever want to be Charlie.
“Shut him up, Kaut!” Bannon yells to his friend who hits the man in the mouth with the gun. The silver hair man makes a sound like the brown hair lady usually does, and I almost smile wide. “Are those people over there…” he starts talking again, and I look back at him, “the ones my friends are…watching…are they your parents?”
His question makes my eyes grow big.
I hate that question.
I have to say yes when strangers ask me, or I don’t eat.
I have to say yes when strangers ask me, or I have to stand in the corner until I pee on myself.
I have to say yes when strangers ask me, or new circles from his cigarettes come to my back.
I have to yes to something I know isn’t true or I get hurt.