Final Debt

by Pepper Winters

  I couldn’t stomach the thought of how much strength that would take. How much courage to do something, knowing you would feel every inch in kind.

  “I know he has to do this, Jaz. I just wish—I wish I could be there with him. To give him another emotion to focus on. To feel love even while drowning in pain.”

  Jaz tucked her hair behind her ear. “My brother knows what he’s doing. He’ll remember how to block it out. He’ll remember how it felt when Cut taught him all those lessons.”

  My heart froze.

  What if he doesn’t remember how to block it out?

  What’s the worse fate? Remembering or not?

  My fingers clutched Jasmine’s harder. “Please, tell me he’ll come back.”

  Jaz sat higher in her chair, pecking my cheek with a kiss. “He’ll come back. And when he does, it will be over.

  “For all of us.”

  “YOU HONESTLY EXPECT me to believe you’re going to be able to do this?” Cut spat at my feet the moment I removed his gag. His tongue worked, dispelling the taste of being silenced. “Come on, Jethro. We both know you don’t have it in you.”

  I didn’t answer.

  Leaving him tied up, I moved toward the main attraction in the room.

  Just like the guillotine had rested in the ballroom pride of place, the torturous device sat in this one. Dirty grey sheets covered the apparatus, looking part phantom, part ancient relic.

  Cut shifted on the spot¸ his jeans rustling. “Jet, I’m still your father. Still your superior. Stop this fucking nonsense and untie me.”

  Once again, I didn’t answer.

  The longer I concentrated on what had to be done, the more I remembered my childhood lessons.

  Silence is more terrifying than shouts.

  Smoothness is more horrifying than sharp motions.

  The key to being feared was to remain calm, collected, and most of all, with a finely balanced decorum where the prey believed they had a chance of redemption, only to take their final breath with hope still glowing in their heart.

  He’d taught me that.

  My father.

  It was thanks to him I’d built a shell around myself and portrayed to the outside world I was strong and unflappable. While internally, I combusted with chaos and calamity.

  Fisting the material, I yanked it off. The billow of moth-eaten fabric floated like wings as it settled elegantly on the floor. Dust shot into my lungs, dried leaves flurried in a vortex, and grit stung my eyes. But I didn’t cough or blink.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the implement of my childhood.

  The rack.

  My fingers shook as I stroked the well-worn wood. The leather buckles stained with my blood. The grooves of my heels as I kicked and kicked and kicked.

  “No!”

  “Stop your fucking bitching, Jethro.”

  “Dad, stop. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Cut didn’t listen. “You did do something wrong.” His fingers bruised my ankles as he tightened the buckles. I kicked, doing my best to prevent the thick leather imprisoning me, but it was no use. Just like it’d been no use trying to stop him tying my hands above my head.

  This wasn’t the first time I’d been here, nor would it be the last.

  But I wished so much I could finally be better so he didn’t have to hurt me.

  My ten-year-old heart punched against my ribcage. “I didn’t. I can’t help it. You know I can’t help it.”

  Notching the leather one more loop, he patted my knee and walked toward my face. “I know, but that is no excuse.”

  I lay horizontally, looking up at my father. His dark hair turned whiter with each year. His leather jacket reeked of long rides and hard excursions.

  “Haven’t I been lenient the past few months? I tried to help you with kinder means. But that doesn’t work with you.” His face contorted with affection and disbelief. “Jet, you jumped in front of my gun. What the fuck were you thinking?”

  “You were going to shoot it!”

  “Yes, it’s food.”

  “No, it’s a deer, and it felt fear.” I squirmed, wishing I could make him understand the agony of hunting, of watching an animal notice the gun, feeling it understand my father’s intentions and the wrecking ball of knowledge it was about to die. Animals were intelligent, beyond wise. They knew. They felt—same as us. “Can’t you feel them, Dad? Can’t you see how scary it is for them?”

  “How many times do I need to tell you this, son?” His fingers grabbed my cheeks. “Animals are there for us to eat. We are all disposable and huntable if we don’t fight back. Screw their fear. Screw their panic.” His anger drenched his voice. “You. Are. My. Son. You will block it out. You will not embarrass me.”

  Moving toward my head, the distinct thump of his hand hitting the lever sent blood whizzing through my veins. “Okay, I’ll stop. I didn’t mean it. I won’t do it again. I don’t want to be a vegetarian. I’ll hunt. I’ll kill. Just don’t—”

  “Too late, Jet. Time for your lesson.”

  The lever cranked, the leather tightened, and pain began in earnest.

  The memory ended, slamming me into the present. My heart raced as fast as it had back then, making me breathless with panic.

  Only a memory.

  Why did I come back here? Why didn’t I choose an easier place?

  Because this is where it all began. It needs to end here.

  Fever drenched my brow as I glared at the rack. I’d lost count how many times I’d been subjected to its binds and stretching agony. Cut would leave me for hours to think about what I’d done, all while my joints popped and cracked.

  Until the day he brought Jasmine along to share my lesson, of course.

  We’d just been children. Trusting, gullible children.

  Motherfucker.

  Spinning, I marched toward my father and grabbed him by the arm. “Even now you look at me as if I’m a disappointment. I feel you, Father. You truly don’t think I’ll have the strength to do this.” Pressing my face close to his, I snarled, “Well, you’re wrong. I’ll do this because of what you did to me. Nila might’ve forgiven you, but I won’t. I can’t. Not until you’ve paid.”

  Cut stood taller, rolling his shoulders in my hold. His bound hands couldn’t hurt me, but it didn’t stop him from trying with his voice. “You always were a pussy, Kite. But if you let me go, I’ll honour the inheritance. On your birthday, I’ll give you what you want. I’ll give you everything.”

  I clenched my jaw, shoving my father against the wooden rack. “I don’t want your money.”

  He stumbled. “It’s not my money. It’s yours. I was just the safe keeper until you were of age.”

  “Bullshit.” I sliced the rope around his wrists—the same rope that’d been wrapped around Nila’s—and shoved him backward.

  He grunted as his back slammed into the rack, his clothing smearing the dusty wood. He tried to shove off, but I pushed back. He lost his footing, sprawling over the contraption.

  Without thinking, I looped the rope I’d just removed from his wrists around his neck and prowled to the other side of the single-bed sized platform. The twine hooked under his chin, forcing him to arch back, keeping him pinned and choking.

  His fingers fought at the imprisonment, angry curses percolating in his chest.

  I didn’t give him leeway to talk. I pulled harder.

  The harder I pulled, the more his emotions grew stronger. I could ignore them…for now.

  “Nothing you say can save you, old man. I’ve learned a lot from you over the years. Let’s see how much I remember.”

  “Wait—” Cut gurgled as I tied the rope to a hook below the rim, keeping his neck throttled. He lay awkwardly, his legs dangling off the side. Moving around to his front, I grabbed behind his knees and scooted his bulk onto the table.

  He couldn’t stop me, too focused on fighting the rope to breathe.

  Once his body was in position, I grabbed his flailing arms. Fisti
ng his right, I pinned it to the unforgiving wood above his head, wrapping the leather around his wrist and fastening it tightly.

  “No, wait!” His voice wheezed, his fingers clawing at his throat.

  He continued to pant while I remained silent, moving down the table to capture his right leg. The leather had turned stiff with age and blood, but I managed to wrap it around his ankle, shoving his jeans out of the way and fastening tight.

  “Jethro—stop.”

  I didn’t obey.

  Meticulously, I drifted to the left side of the table. His left leg tried to kick as I crushed his knee against the table. I wrestled with him to buckle the strap. I panted with exertion but won.

  I was weak. Tired. Sick from traipsing around the world and dealing with complications he’d caused.

  Yet, I had enough strength to subdue him.

  Our gaze met as I skirted the table, reaching for his left arm.

  “Don’t.” His eyes widened as I forcefully removed his fingers from around his neck, slamming it unceremoniously against the wood above his head. Bending over him, his chest rose and fell as I threaded the leather around his wrist and finished the final binding.

  All four points secured. There would be no running, no fighting back—completely at my mercy.

  “Still think I don’t have it in me?” I looked down at him, pitying him a little. When I was younger, I’d always hoped he’d be lenient and let me go. I held blind belief he was my father and wouldn’t hurt me too much.

  But Cut knew otherwise. He remembered what he’d done to me. He recalled every scream and beg. It was his turn now.

  I patted his cheek.

  His lips tinged purple as he sucked in a lungful of air. “Jethro…fucking obey me and—”

  “I’ll never obey you again.” Wanting him to remain lucid for future events, I unwrapped the rope from the hook at the base of the table and removed it from his throat.

  He gasped, sucking in air while an angry red line marred his bristle-covered neck.

  Leaving him to breathe, I moved toward the table beneath the grime-smeared window. No reflection or view from the outside world was noticeable. The pane had turned cloudy with age, deleting everything but us and what was about to happen.

  Cut’s emotions built until they threatened to eclipse my own. He wasn’t terrified—not yet. He still believed I wouldn’t be able to do this.

  I’ll prove you wrong.

  Grabbing the corner of yet another dusty sheet, I whipped it off to reveal a long table of nasty implements.

  My heart clenched as my eyes fell on every tool. Most had been used on me. But a few had been used on Jasmine.

  I shuddered, closing my eyes against the influx of memories.

  “No, leave her alone!”

  Cut didn’t obey. He finished tying Jasmine’s hands before twisting to look at me. The leather bit into my wrists and ankles, binding me to the table. But the fulcrum had been activated, switching the table from horizontal to vertical. I hung as if crucified.

  I would see everything. I would feel everything. I wouldn’t be able to stop anything.

  Jasmine’s bronze eyes met mine, her twelve-year-old face glowing with grief.

  “Don’t. Please, don’t.” My voice battled with tears.

  Cut marched toward the table to grab a tiny blade. “Seeing as hurting you doesn’t teach you how to switch off your condition, I’ve come up with a better idea.”

  His boots clomped on the barn floor as he strode back to his daughter.

  I fought. Fuck, I fought. The rack groaned as I threw my weight against the buckles. “Don’t touch her.” Jaz. My baby sister.

  Pulling Jasmine to her feet, Cut wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Her dainty black shoes were no longer shiny patent but dusty and scuffed. I remember the day she got those shoes. Mum had given them to her just for being the sweetest little girl.

  “You have the power to stop this, Jethro.” Cut angled the blade against Jasmine’s shoulder, slicing through her pretty blue dress, revealing a sliver of skin. “All you have to do is focus on my thoughts, rather than hers.” He dragged the blade over her flesh, not hard enough to break the surface, but hard enough to make her flinch.

  She bit her lip. Jasmine was quiet. When we played, she’d laugh and joke, but when she was afraid or in trouble, she turned mute. Nothing could get her to talk. Not the threat of the knife; not my pleas for her freedom. She stood there in her father’s grasp and didn’t say a word.

  But fuck, her thoughts said so much. They screamed for me to help her. They hated me because I couldn’t. She battled with love for Cut and loathing his actions. She crumpled me like a piece of rubbish, giving me no hope of focusing on anything else.

  Cut dragged the knife again, only this time a little deeper.

  Jasmine’s flinch turned into a jerk, squirming in his arms.

  “Stop. Don’t do it again. I get it. I’m not listening to her anymore. I only feel what you are.” Lies. All lies. But truth got me into this mess maybe falsehood could get me out of it.

  Cut cocked his head. “What am I thinking then, boy?”

  My hands balled as my joints stretched beyond normal capacity. Jasmine’s thoughts overpowered me. I couldn’t hear him. I didn’t want to hear him.

  So, I bullshitted. “You like the power over her. You like knowing you created her but can take her life just as easily as you gave it.” I sounded older than fourteen. Would he believe me?

  For a moment, I thought he would.

  Then reality dispelled that hope.

  “Wrong, Jet.” Cut used the knife again. This time…he broke the skin. Tears erupted from Jasmine’s eyes, but still she didn’t cry out. “I hate this. I hate doing this to my children. And I hate you for making me do it.”

  My fingers grazed the blade he’d used, tarnished and abandoned on the table. I could cut him. I could make him feel what Jasmine felt. But I had a better idea.

  Breathing hard, I bypassed the cat o’ nine tails and grabbed the large club. Resembling a billy stick the police used to carry, this one was thicker, heavier, ready to break limbs and turn bone into pulp.

  I turned back to face my father. He lay prone on the rack, his eyes wide, white hair a shock of snow in the gloomy barn. “Remember this?”

  He swallowed. “I remember what a fucking pussy you were when I used it.”

  Memories tried to take me hostage of him beating me, bruising me—teaching me lesson after lesson.

  “Only fair you get to see why I screamed, don’t you think?”

  Cut gulped. “You knew all along I didn’t enjoy what I did. I did it to try and save you from yourself. You were my children. Didn’t I have a right as your father to use my flesh and blood to help my firstborn?”

  I shook my head. “Using and abusing are two entirely different words.”

  He sneered. “And yet, only two letters separate them.”

  My chest hurt from breathing; my side burned from fever. I wanted this over. I’d made a commitment to make him pay, but I wasn’t there to drag this out.

  I wanted to finish it.

  I wanted Nila.

  I want to forget.

  “That doesn’t matter. You were still wrong to do what you did.” Striding toward him, I held the club over his face. “Look at this and tell me what you feel. Don’t make me work for your answers, Cut. For once in your godforsaken life, tell me the truth.”

  His goatee jerked as he tucked his chin into his neck, repelling from the weapon. “You know me, Jethro. You know I love you.”

  “Bullshit. Try again.”

  He bared his teeth. “That isn’t bullshit. I do love you. When Nila returned to London and you took your medication, I was so fucking proud of you. Never been so proud. I had the son I always knew you were. Capable, courageous, a worthy heir to everything I’d built.”

  “I was always those things, Father. Even as a boy, I did my best to make you see that.”

  The wood creaked a
s he shifted in the buckles. “But it was overshadowed by your condition. It made you weak. It made you susceptible. I needed someone strong, not just to look after my legacy but to protect your future family. Was it so wrong of me to want to give you the life skills needed in order to fight what you are?”

  “What I am?” I choked on a cynical laugh. “What I am is nothing compared to what you are. You talk about life skills and transforming me into a man. I call that disabling your daughter, emotionally crippling your son, and ripping apart the only people who would’ve loved you unconditionally.”

  Cut opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out.

  He stared at me, and the one thing I’d hoped wouldn’t happen came true.

  His emotional rage petered out, mixing with nervousness that I was right. That he’d done the wrong thing. That somehow…he’d been bad.

  Gritting my jaw, my arm flew back with ferocity. “No, you don’t get to think those thoughts. Not after what you’ve done.”

  The club whistled through the air, striking his thigh with sickening power. The heavy pummel and resounding aftershock made my fever crest to unbearable heights and nausea to clutch around my throat.

  Cut bellowed, his body jerking in the buckles as he writhed.

  Being on the opposite end of a scene I was so familiar with twisted my gut.

  His agony swamped me. The unravelling sanity. The nastiness inside him giving way to fear. I wanted to vomit. I wanted to cut myself so I could focus on my pain and not his. I wanted to run.

  But I couldn’t.

  If I tried hard enough, I could turn off my condition. I could return to what he’d taught me. But not today. I owed him this. I owed myself this. Together, we would purge everything I’d been. Everyone we’d hurt.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” I struck again, this time on his other thigh. The denim of his jeans protected him a little, but his cry boomeranged around the space.

  A sour taste filled my mouth as self-hatred settled around my heart. I hated that feeling his pain meant I couldn’t enjoy it. I couldn’t appreciate the power as I delivered a dose of his own medicine, finally demonstrating what an awful disciplinarian he’d been.