by T. N. King
The threat this time just came in the form of a pathological man-child.
“Then why are you here Mason? Did you need something?” Overly at ease, everything he did was forced, over the top, telling… he was just convincing enough to pull it off with most people. He was just enough of a sociopath to know how to do so. Leaning back against the front porch railing like he was, hands pushed down into the tops of his jeans pockets and looking for all the world as if he and Mason were old friends, like he was actually as affable and generous as he wanted so badly for everyone to believe he was.
“You know why I’m here.” He didn’t care how trite it came across, or the cliche of it all, he didn’t even care that the malicious gleam that had been lurking just behind Aaron’s gaze the whole time he spoke grew that much brighter. He wanted it to. Like poking the bear, he wanted to incite some sort of reaction to forgive his next actions, wanted to tempt him just enough so as to excuse the violence he could feel building within his fingertips. “You know why I came.” He wasn’t stupid, it would have been so much easier had he been, he would have been able to scare him off in the same manner he had the others, or at least outwit him well enough to ensure doing so without having to scare him even.
He wanted him scared though, wanted him shaking and begging beneath him. Mason wanted him broken. Mentally, emotionally, physically…
“And I swear to whatever God it is that might be listening that if you ever leave another bruise on her skin…” a scratch, a bump, if he ever so much as looked crossways at Nicole in Mason’s presence or Mason heard about him doing so… he would kill him. He wouldn’t feel bad about it, he wouldn’t later come to regret it. Superficially, there would be people that would miss the boy, but even if it had been more than superficially…
Aaron’s smile twisted even further, smug turning of either side only partially obscuring that mean tilt just behind it. “I would never hurt her.” Plied honey sweet through every word, his voice dropping a whole octave as if that alone could convince him, although it was obvious that he didn’t actually want to. He wasn’t actually attempting to con Mason here, he wasn’t trying to convince him at all, he was just playing the part that he had grown so used to. “A bruise you say? Maybe… she fell on a doorknob or something.” Condescending, even if he didn’t sound it, his words turned only enough to incite Mason further.
Like the proverbial red haze over his vision, everything blinked. One moment he was across the yard, his jaw ticking and his eyes narrowed, and the next he was across that yard, Aaron’s face beneath a punch he couldn’t even remember throwing. It had been a long time since he’d been pushed past that point, a long time since he’d been as twisted up mentally as he was currently. A long time since that control that he had so carefully crafted and worked so hard to keep in place was allowed to slip.
Aaron’s hands were fast, just like the rest of him, catching Mason more than once in the face, in his abdomen… by that fourth hit he could feel the bone of one of his lower ribs splinter from the force alone. He was strong, but Mason was angry, and that fury wasn’t about to be contained at the point he had reached. His fingers closed, one after another, around the column of Aaron’s skinny throat, fingertips pressing hard into either side and twisting until they could better fit around it in its entire circumference. It took only a moment, fingers twisting until his hold could be solidified and he could pull that body up by his hold. Drag the entirety of Aaron’s torso up until he was having to lift off of his knees in order to finish- twisting the both of their limbs until he could slam Aaron’s head into that same porch railing that he’d been leaning against only minutes before.
Once, the resounding crack of wood accompanying the split skin that came from it, blood spattering the white of that railing.
Twice, his one hand shifting around that throat as best he could to change his grip into only the one palm, other arm cocking back and splintering the front of his face as well.
Three times, his own knuckles splitting from the force against that bone, the noise breaking past his lips loud enough to cover the agonized wail lifted up from Aaron beneath him.
His fist cocked and released in counterpart to him dragging and dropping that skull, face twisting with the rage fueling his motions. He lost count of the number of times either moved, lost count of the noises and amount of blood being spilled from that skull. Zoned out completely until hands closed about his own frame, fist changing angle in order to hit back whoever it was trying to pull him off. He couldn’t hear, he couldn’t see- not beyond that body that was beneath his thighs, the blood covering his hands and that face both. He didn’t want to see anything else, didn’t want to be interrupted by what felt like two pairs of hands now pulling at him, his frame rotating in an attempt to shrug them off that only seemed to add another pair. There were voices and he was aware of them, aware of the shouting in the background, and the screams that sounded like they were coming from the other side of some tunnel. He was aware but he couldn’t break out of it, couldn’t stop even when what felt like endless amount of hands pulled him back off of that now crumpled and bleeding body. Couldn’t stop thrashing and fighting to try and make his way back to it, the mottle bruise on Nicole’s arm flashing behind his vision.
The sight of his mother bent over double on the floor of the trailer he’d grown up in while his father stood over her with a belt. It didn’t take much to replace his father with Aaron, wasn’t difficult to see Nicole in his mother’s place instead. Too big of a heart, too trusting of a nature.
“YOU DON’T FUCKING TOUCH HER.” Bloody spittle flew from his lips, those hands forcing him back into the ground on his back even as he tried to arch back up off of it, something hard in his stomach, rammed and twisted until he was forced to flip, face first in the disturbed sod and grass that were quickly being pushed into his open mouth. He didn’t touch her. He never got to touch her again, he never got to look at her again. His teeth clenched, dirt not even being bothered to be pushed from his mouth as cold metal replaced hands and his arms were twisted so hard and far back that his whole body locked. He didn’t get to make her cry, not like that. Not like how he could hear her now, pushing through all of the other noise and piercing his consciousness in a way that only she ever managed to do.
Drug him back up, “Nicole,” mouthed into the dirt that came out as more of a strangled grunt as he was lifted to his feet, hands forcing him back down onto his knees and his head swiveling wildly around. Looking for the source of that sound, those cries, his blurred, still half blacked out vision seeking her out. She wasn’t supposed to be here, she wasn’t supposed to have seen that, he wasn’t supposed to have let go… couldn’t breathe, too many emotions fighting for dominance, his every breath labored as that one set of hands left on him pushed his knees even harder and further into that now soft ground.
Nicole. Her body half bent over, one palm pressed into her stomach and the other pressed so hard into her mouth so as to highlight the whites of her knuckles. She was sobbing, her shoulders shaking with enough force to nearly put her off balance with each breath. Her eyes were red and puffy, her skin sallow- she looked nothing like he remembered having left her back at her parent’s house. She barely even looked human, trying to push past those cops blocking the space between her and him.
He’d gone too far this time, hands pulling at him again and forcing him to his feet, this time without all of the resistance from him. “Up,” harsh in the air above him and his chin dropped in what might have been a half nod of response. Up, he was getting up, being drug to his feet and pushed until he could reach one of those squad cars parked half in the yard and half in the street below. “No funny business kid.”
No, he wasn’t even trying to answer that, watching Nicole and only just keeping from trying to push his body towards where it was she was standing on the other side of that yard.
He’d only just been led to it when those hands were moving again, forcing his torso down low enough to fit i
nside of the open door. There were too many people, milling about- what he assumed was Aaron’s adoptive family huddled on that now bloody porch. Neighbors from what appeared to be more than just the one block. And cops. At least fifteen cops, waving that ambulance to where Aaron had been left on the ground. What he assumed was Aaron anyways. His face was swollen, blood covering more of the surface than not.
“MASON!” Oh, she needed to stop this, trying to break past the cops like she was, pushing ineffectively against them and their uniforms and calling his name out like that. She was going to be implicated if she weren’t careful, she needed to be showing more concern for her broken boyfriend. That boy who didn’t deserve it, and he couldn’t believe that he was wanting her to, except that it was for her own safety. For her. His head hit the back of that seat they had forced him into, hazy gaze still trained on that little bronze girl jumping and twisting as if she could escape those hands holding her back. She was going to get herself into trouble. She needed to stop…
His head hurt, that slow throb becoming more and more prevalent the longer he was given to be aware of it. “MASON!” Making it worse, her screaming, his head falling forward that time instead of back, forehead pressing into that glass and watching as her struggles became more frantic. Which was probably due to the two cops getting into the car with him, those doors closing and the engine starting. This part he was familiar with, just as the next sequence would be… too familiar with the way that his arms were being pulled from the cuffs behind him, too familiar with those glances through the rearview mirrors being afforded his way. The radio in the front went off, those voices no more than mumbles in the background as they answered. He could only hear that throb, only hear Nicole still yelling his name.
Those sobs were breaking up his name, each time louder and louder, but that was about to change, the jerking of that car beneath him indicating their departure. Leaving. They were leaving then…. The visual of Nicole jumping behind those cops becoming smaller and smaller through that pane of glass he had been watching it through. Done then, the squad car turning to the left and all of that disappearing from view entirely.
Chapter Six
“Aaron! Don’t forget that box that was off the curb! You know my dad won’t see it and will probably run it over if you don’t!” Nicole’s voice was raised just about as loud as she could manage, watching her boyfriend carrying things in and out of the apartment with more than the occasional swear word and glare thrown in her direction. None of which she was focusing on because he was tired and grumpy and having to move all of the boxes pretty much by himself while she spent her time unpacking and organizing inside which was more than enough reason for him to have some leeway. She wanted as much of the apartment put together before her parents showed up to see it as she could manage and he was allowing her to do that, even if it was a bit begrudgingly. He was tired, that was all. Her fingers pushed the wisps that had fallen out of the bun on top of her head back up into some semblance of messy order while waiting for that complaint to register from her words.
It didn’t come, but she didn’t know if that had anything to do with him not hearing her or if he was outright ignoring her by that point. Either one would have made sense, she just… didn’t want to think on it too hard right then, cups and plates being lifted alternately out of that box she had packed them into to be instead stored in the cupboards she was working on organizing. There were so many things that she’d taken for granted living at home, like the dishes all being in the exact same spots they’d been since she was little, never having had to pull anything out of a box that wasn’t new… moving out was just the kind of hassle that Mason had always told her it would be.
Not that she wanted to be thinking about him either, that sharp pang of regret registering in her chest with the forlorn hope that maybe… even though she knew he wouldn’t. Even though she knew he couldn’t, she was still wishfully imagining that maybe despite all of that he would show up with her parents just like he should’ve been able to. Only the fight with Aaron that last month of high school had changed everything. Literally everything. The whole night was almost one large, discombobulated blur by that point and it still gave her anxiety just to have it brought up within her own head.
She remembered clearly how everything had started, she remembered Mason’s very expression when he’d seen the discoloration of her forearm, but everything after that had blurred together with only small, singular details sticking out with any sort of clarity. She wasn’t sure when she’d found the pants to get on her legs to go over after Mason in the first place, or even how long it’d taken her to do so. She didn’t remember the drive over, or how she’d been driving, or even what she had been thinking about in that time frame, but she vaguely remembered pulling up to Aaron’s adoptive parent’s house and seeing the two in the front yard with their fists flying and rolling over one another. She vaguely remembered seeing Aaron’s family on the porch and yelling for one of them to stop them or call the police or something, but they were just… standing there, eyes glassy and hands held over their mouths like breathing statues instead of the people they were supposed to be.
She vaguely remembered other bodies showing up, and the glare of the car lights atop the cop cars was a single, clear image that had captured her attention just long enough away from the tussling pair that when she looked back the whole ordeal had changed. There weren’t two bodies fighting any longer, there was no rolling, there was only Mason on top of Aaron with his fist repeatedly smashing into his face. There was only Mason, who the cops were screaming at, who the neighbors were screaming at. There was only Mason who the police officer was attempting to drag off of Aaron, and then who two and then three, and then five police officers were attempting to drag him off and all she could think about were the words being flung around her, the threat of him being charged, and she hadn’t been able to breathe.
She remembered thinking that almost the whole night, that oxygen was a problem, that the very air around her had closed in to punish her for not stopping him soon enough, for not hiding her mistake better. She remembered screaming his name so harshly that she felt her throat tear, and she remembered trying in vain to get to him, to comfort him- ease that blank, drawn expression off of his face and hug him. She had tried, and she remembered the aftermath of that even more clearly, his eyes on hers as that cop car had pulled away and her parents had come rushing out of their own vehicle at her, all soothing hands and demanding questions.
She had answered them as best she could, but with the officer there taking statements and asking even more questions… she had just wanted it to go away, explaining that bruise on her forearm away as an incident from someone else at school who had stopped her from falling off the auditorium steps when she’d stumbled. The lie had come so easily, so convincingly without any sort of planning- and yet when it had come to trying to explain it to Mason… she’d fumbled. Hours too late.
The discussion with the police was a blur, the interrogation room, their family lawyer moving back between what she assumed was the room they were holding Mason in and the room she and her parents were in… all a blur, endless questions and the three of them having to answer. Endless suspicion that finally led to her being allowed to leave. Without seeing Mason, but then they’d expected her to want to see Aaron more.
Maybe she should have, maybe she was as awful of a girlfriend as he had insinuated when she’d finally gotten to the hospital room. He was a bloody, beaten mess, with more than one fractured bone and honestly, she wouldn’t have at all been surprised if he sent her away. She was expecting him to send her away, so many apologies ready on her lips, but by the time she’d gotten there, he was already cursing at the nurses. His bed pan flying past her face in her way in and his diatribe turning instantly to how long Mason was going to rot in jail for and ‘who the fuck did he think he was’. She had been desperate.
So desperate that she’d immediately starting apologizing, just as she’d meant to, and
begging him not to press charges, promising him it was her fault and not Mason’s and trying to find any way to convince him to drop the charges completely. There would still be the matter of the cops having been called in the first place, and whatever it was they charged him with for the inconvenience of the whole incident but she was sure their family lawyer could work through that much easier than he could the assault charges being leveled against him.
She didn’t even remember what all she’d promised him, she was sure that there were some pretty fantastical things mixed up in there with all of her offerings, but he’d only been at all interested in the one, holding his hands up like he had when she offered to move in with him following graduation. It had been a sticking point for them and their plans for college for months at that point, their back and forthing over whether moving in together right off the bad was a good idea, and it had just escaped her in her rambling interest in finding anything at all to tempt him with. She hadn’t expected for that to work, or for him to ask her to promise right then and there, as if she were signing the contract in her blood, he was so serious about it.
It was easy, conceding that point in that exact moment, where before even the suggestion had gotten no more than an absolutely not from her. She didn’t have to think to make the trade, she didn’t have to pause. Mason’s continued freedom for her doing something that, as she kept reminding herself over and over now, she probably would have ended up doing eventually anyways. She didn’t like that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach when it was she paused to think too long on the fact that she had moved in with him, or the way in which her justification kept returning to the fact that it was for Mason and his wellbeing that she had done so. She was supposed to have been ecstatic, over the moon, about moving in with her boyfriend finally. She was supposed to have been thinking about all the different ways that they could begin building a home together, only she wasn’t- and that meant that something was wrong. Another thing she didn’t like was dwelling too long on or looking at too closely.