The Way Home (Lights of Peril Book 2) (32 page)

Following this installment of the Lights of Peril series, “Toxic”, is set to release no later than April 15, 2014.

Please enjoy the following excerpt from Shame’s story.

Content subject to change prior to publication
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Chapter One:

Dad
isn’t having a good day. He was fired from work because he was drinking on the job. Dad always drinks at work so that’s never been the actual problem. It’s when he gets caught; that’s when my life gets turned inside out.

Although I’m only seven I’ve mastered the art of blending in.
Sometimes if I hide he doesn’t even remember that he has a son. Today, I made the mistake of acting on my hunger.

My stomach was shaky and I was getting light headed.
I knew he was home, I heard him yelling at my mom because she burned his dinner. I braved it, though, hoping food was about to be available to me, in any form.

I follow the bellowing
voice, which is my father, into the kitchen. “Fuck woman, I work all day and come home to this shit?”

“I’m sorry, time just got away from me.”
Her eyes are pleading. Seeing this many times before, I brace myself against the door jamb willing it not to happen.

My dad pulls her hair at the root so she moves with him to stand in order to avoid further pain.
“Time just got away from you?” I watch from the door as he pushes her face into the table where, just a few minutes ago, she was getting high. With the sudden hit he bloodied her nose instantly. “No, what got away from you was the ability to budget. You’re in my stash, you fuckin’ crack whore.”

She’s snorting the paraphernalia without a choice now.
She’s already high, but with him pushing her into it on the kitchen table she has no choice but to continue to ingest the remainder of powder.

“Now I have no fuckin’ dinner.
How very fuckin’ smart of you.” He releases her for a moment, only to use his hand to draw back and knock her in the back of the head with as much force as his drunk body can muster.

She spots me at the door and our eyes lock, but I see no emotion in them.
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do so I stay rooted in my spot, waiting for what is coming. I can’t defend her against his evil. I’ve tried before and to this day my rib still hurts when winter sets. Even at my young age, I know something isn’t right about that.

“Let’s see what else we got here.”
Dad opens the freezer and starts taking out the frozen meals that are left in there; it’s all we have left now.

His anger continues to erupt as he throws the frozen meals against the wall one at a time.
My shoulders jump at every pound. They hit the wall then drop to the floor with equal force. Before I can turn to run back to my room, forgetting all about my own hunger, I see him turn his body towards Mom. She sits up staring at the table full of residue in front of her and is met with a frozen block to the side of her face.

She grabs the side of her head and bursts into tears while moaning in pain.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to...”

Before she can finish her apology, dad grabs her by the throat and lifts her, pinning her body against the wall behind the table. I’m standing just five feet from this and I’m completely helpless.
His fingers are cutting off her circulation and her face is turning red as tears continue to stream down her cheeks.

“Tell the boy I want dinner. Don’t care how he gets it, but I get my dinner. Don’t care if you eat, he eats, or the fuckin’ rats eat. I want my dinner, bitch.” He drops her and she falls to the floor, now clutching her face with one hand and her neck with the other.

He stalks toward me with malice heavily fastened in his eyes.
“Did you hear me? Move, get on it. You have an hour, son. I want my meal in the living room. The fuckin’ games on and I’m missing it having to deal with this shit.” He knocks me upside the head as walks past me making his point clear, as if I needed the not so subtle reminder.

The game, that’s my dad’s biggest worry right now.
I’m seven and because I was hungry I came out of my room walked into this, I’m now responsible to be sure he gets fed. A seven year old shouldn’t understand the meaning of irony already, but I do.

“Neil, come here.”
Mom’s up on her feet and she’s glaring at me as if I were the one that caused all this. When she’s high she always looks at me like that.

Apparently I don’t move fast enough so she marches to me.
She bends down to my level and I see the veins in her right eye has popped and her eye is left bloody from the frozen box he threw at her. I no longer have any feeling towards this, this is just another day in paradise.

“Go to Bag and Go and pick us up some hamburger meat.
Wear a jacket.”

I know these words.
This translates into, “Wear a jacket so you don’t get caught and get hamburger meat because it’s easiest to steal without anyone noticing the bulk in your clothes.”

“Mama, I’m scared.”
I am scared, I’m actually terrified. Not of getting caught and taken into custody because that would be easier. I’m terrified of living through this if I fail to muster the courage to steal what she’s asking and come home empty handed.

She grabs my arm and wipes the excess blow from her face onto my shirt.
I swear she does this for a no other reason than to scare me further. “Go, and don’t come back if you don’t get what your father asked because if you come back empty handed I’m telling him you ate his last bit of rice.”

The rice I ate for breakfast yesterday, it was the last morsel of food I digested and now I’m being made to feel bad for that.

“Okay, Mama.”

I run to my room, passing my dad sitting on the couch, hoping not to interrupt his game.
I get my jacket and head out the door to walk the mile to the store.

I’m shaking now only because I’m scared of running out of time.