“I said, let us go. Please.”
Davie shook his head. “I can’t. You’ll get my brother into trouble.”
Rebecca huffed. “He’s already in trouble. Kidnap is serious.”
“He hasn’t kidnapped anyone. You’re still at home.”
“It’s still kidnap. He’s holding us hostage. Davie, please.”
Hearing her say his name sent a shiver down his spine. Girls like Rebecca didn’t usually talk to him, let alone speak his name. Skanks like Michelle were more the type of girl he was used to being around. He shook his head once more, but this time tried to express how much he regretted the situation. He wanted her to know that if it were up to him, none of this would be happening. “I hate all this,” he said. “I really do, but Frankie’s my brother. Family comes first.”
“What about my family? Do they mean nothing? Innocent people who never hurt anybody.”
Davie shrugged. It seemed there was no right answer he could give. Frankie was his brother, and that was that. He would trust him as he had always done. Things would work out somehow. They had to.
“Look what they’ve done to my mother,” Rebecca kept on.
Davie looked to his right and examined the woman. She was sprawled back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling and almost never blinking. She had a dusty film of cocaine particles all over her naked bod and thicker clumps of it clung to the fabric of her bra. Davie tried not to stare at her large, round breasts.
“Do you know that she’s a special needs worker?” Rebecca said. “She teaches kids from broken homes, just like you. She tries to help people just like you.”
Davie knew the role of special needs teachers–he’d dealt with many–and could agree that they were generally very kind people, but none of them ever did any good. Kids like him and his brother never had a chance of anything aside from turning out just like their deadbeat parents. In fact, special needs teachers succeeded only in giving false hope. Davie didn’t waste his time with such things.
“Be quiet,” he said. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Fine,” Rebecca conceded, “but by doing nothing, you’re just as bad as they are.”
Was it true? thought Davie. Am I… bad?
He scanned the room, observing his brother and girlfriend as they kissed and groped each other on the floor. Then he watched Dom and Jordan, scratching at their balls and laughing at a television program that was not trying to be funny. Finally, he looked back at Andrew, who looked right back at him, eyes swollen half-shut on either side of a crumpled nose.
I’m not bad, he told himself. I’m not like Frankie… but I’m not good either, am I?
Or maybe I’m just weak…
Davie stared at the television and tried not to think anymore. He had a feeling that the truth would hurt him.
15
Horror melded with disgust inside Andrew’s stomach as the teenagers cavorted on his floor. Under the influence of grade-A drugs, Frankie’s lack of inhibitions persuaded him to pull off Michelle’s jeans and tug aside her skimpy thong. He then proceeded to enter the moaning girl, right there on the carpet, rutting like monkeys on the Discovery Channel.
How could anyone be so decadent? Frankie truly had no conception of other people’s feelings at all. It was almost like the world was just an illusion that revolved around his desires.
Andrew turned his head away as Frankie began to climax, his naked buttocks clenching as he ejaculated for what seemed like forever. Dom and Jordan lay watching television as if they didn’t notice.
“You disgust me,” said Bex from the sofa, far braver than her father for being the one to speak out.
Frankie pulled his dick out of Michelle, and a sloppy, wet sound emanated from between them. He stood up and fastened his jeans, then laughed right in Bex’s face while grabbing his crotch. “Just jealous because you want a piece of this too. Don’t worry, sweetheart, maybe later.”
“Never going to happen,” she said. “I’d rather fuck a pig.”
Frankie’s joking demeanour suddenly soured. “You show me some fucking respect, or I’ll forget all about my earlier offer of leaving you in one piece.”
Bex chose to say nothing, and Andrew was relieved about it. If she just kept her mouth closed, then perhaps she would escape tonight without suffering. The ironic thing was that watching his daughter’s torment hurt Andrew more than anything Frankie could ever do to him directly. By staying quiet, Bex would be doing everyone a favour.
Frankie looked at Andrew, and then motioned to Pen on the sofa. She was in some sort of unbroken daze, fixated on an invisible spot on the ceiling. “I think she’s lost the plot, mate. She this lively in bed?”
Andrew laughed a bitter laugh. “You’re evil. Hell would be too good for you.”
“Maybe they’ll make a place just for me, then. Some deep dark abyss where I don’t have to put up with pricks like you.”
Andrew’s eyebrows rose. “I’m the prick. That’s a good one.”
“You getting lippy with me, mate? I already broke your nose; want me to break something else?”
Andrew shook his head, but still couldn’t keep a lid on his anger. “Go right ahead. What difference is it going to make?”
Frankie grinned as if he knew something that no one else did. Without warning, he turned and punched Pen in her ribs. She cried out in shock and pain before crumpling to the floor and gasping. Frankie held his fist up to Andrew and winked at him. “You piss me off, I’ll take it out on her.”
Andrew didn’t speak. He was in Hell; a hell where he could do nothing but watch the people he loved suffer.
Maybe that’s what Hell was? Not being punished yourself, but having to watch others suffer for your sins.
“Do we fuckin’ understand one another?” Frankie snarled.
Andrew nodded.
Frankie clapped his hands together. “Good. Now get up and fight me.”
Andrew blinked. “What?”
Frankie raised both fists in a boxer’s pose. “I want to see what you got, old man.”
Andrew was confused. “I’m tied up.”
“I know that, you fuckin’ mug. Dom will let you loose, innit.”
Dom heard his name and looked up from the television, fuzzy-eyed and half asleep.
Andrew thought about things for a second and decided this could be his chance. The only opportunity he might have of getting away and reaching help. He had to take it, even though he was frightened enough to piss himself.
“Okay, Frankie. I’ll fight you.”
Frankie started throwing punches into the air, fighting an opponent only he could see. “Cool. Dom, get him loose. Use the scissors–but keep ahold of em.”
Lest I drive them into your skull, thought Andrew. Adrenaline had already began coursing through his veins in anticipation. Fighting was a skill far beyond him, and he had no doubt that Frankie would beat him in short order, but standing toe-to-toe with the barbaric thug was not a plan he intended to follow. He had other ideas.
Dom hacked away at the duct tape roped around Andrew’s body. With each passing second, Andrew felt the bonds loosen and the circulation return to his arms. Several minutes later and Andrew was finally free. He stood up and winced as the pressure in his kneecaps caused them to click painfully.
Frankie stood in front of him and clenched both hands into fists, holding them aloft his chin like a boxer. “What shall we say? Three-minute rounds? Or shall we just fight till a knock-out?”
Andrew took the opportunity to, one last time, try and reason with his attacker. “You don’t have to do this, Frankie. You can just leave right now. No one blames you for any of this. Your mother has obviously failed you.”
The comment seemed to strike a chord with Frankie, and his clenched fists lowered slightly. He spat onto the carpet. “Bitch has nothing to do with me.”
Andrew nodded. “I know, and that’s a shame. No one deserves to be raised like that.”
“You don’t know shit! N
ot a thing, so don’t play the caring soul with me. People like you couldn’t give two shits about people like us.”
“Yeah,” said Michelle. “Just put his lights out, Frankie, and be done with it.”
Frankie nodded over to his girlfriend and raised his fists again. Then he rang an imaginary bell. “Ding! Ding!”
With Frankie approaching, ready to strike like a viper, Andrew made his own move. He dashed for the living room door.
“The fuckers trying to do one,” said Jordan from the floor.
Andrew shoved through the door and barrelled into the hallway. He turned to his right and sprinted for the porch. His plan was to rush into the street and cry out for help. His neighbours might not come, but at least one of them would surely call the police.
But when he reached the porch, the front door was locked.
“Looking for these?” asked Frankie, jangling a set of keys in his hand and standing in the living room doorway.
Andrew was cornered. He looked about himself and snatched at the first thing he could find, which happened to be a golfing brolly. He hopped forward, holding the folded umbrella in front of him like a spear.
Frankie sniggered. “The fuck you going to do with that? Catch the blood that’s going to be raining down when I catch you?”
Andrew considered the viability of his weapon and realised it was nowhere near enough to win a fight with the youths. He had to run–but to where?
He eyed the stairs.
“Don’t even think about it,” Frankie warned.
With panic threatening to explode his heart, Andrew made a break for it. Frankie snatched out at him with both arms, but Andrew managed to fend him off by poking the umbrella into his face. The sharp point found its mark and caused Frankie to flinch back against the wall, clutching his eye.
“Fuckin’ dead man. I’m going to mess you up.”
Andrew ignored the hateful comments and raced up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. Frankie shouted commands, rallying his drug-addled troops into battle. There was the sound of them funnelling into the downstairs hallway.
Andrew sped across the landing and headed for the only room he knew that had a lock: the bathroom. Once inside, he slammed the door shut and turned the catch. Then he quickly dragged the linen basket across the tiled floor and placed it in front of the door to form a barricade. He collapsed on top of it, huffing and puffing like he’d just run a marathon. It was all going to be for nothing, though. The door was too thin to hold out for long, and upon realising that, Andrew understood his big mistake.
He had trapped himself.
In any other room of the house he might have escaped through one of the windows, or at least cried out for help, but the bathroom had only a slim, horizontal pane of frosted glass set high into the wall. Even if he broke the glass it was too small to get through.
It wasn’t long before Frankie arrived and started to kick the door in.
“You’re a dead man!” Frankie thrust another kick at the door.
The flimsy wood at Andrew’s back had already began to crack, and weakened further with every blow. He pushed back against the door, trying to it brace it, but it was no good. Frankie was going to get through eventually.
Andrew checked out his surroundings in a bathroom that suddenly seemed very alien to him. It had once been a room where he would relax, de-stress, and release the worries of his day–but no more. Now it was a cage, and he was the rat trapped inside of it.
Another kick and the door rattled inside the fragile woodwork of the frame. He fell away from the door and began rifling through the wall cabinets. He found nothing with which to defend himself. The recently-renovated room was a jewel of modernist design–which meant it was empty. He put his hands on the only thing that seemed even slightly dangerous and pulled at it. The chrome towel rail came away from the wall easily, the thin cavity wall offering no resistance. The quality of newer built homes did not compare to the industrious design of Victorian housing, but Andrew was thankful for that right now. However, it was also the reason that a large, cracking dent was widening in the middle of the bathroom’s flimsy door.
Andrew prepared himself.
“You’re finished, mate,” Frankie shouted through the door, rage filling his voice like boiling liquid into a beaker. “I’m going to kill your wife then hold you down and drown you in her blood”
“Yeah,” said a female voice that could only have been Michelle. “But I’m going to stamp on your head first, you fuckin’ perv!”
Andrew could hear Dom and Jordan out on the landing as well, could hear their sniggering. A desperate anger started to fill him–a sudden spark of insanity that affected him to the point of wild madness. He clutched the towel rail above his head and told himself it was a mighty broadsword. He pictured his attackers as pillaging Vikings coming to take his land and women.
Frankie continued kicking at the door.
The wood splintered.
Cracked.
Caved.
Frankie gave one last, hefty kick that splintered the frame and broke the lock. The door swung open slowly, linen basket sliding out of the way easily.
Frankie poked his head through the gap and grinned maniacally. “Hey man, what you up to? Guy spends too long in the bathroom it starts to look a little… unsavoury.”
Andrew huffed defiantly, still clutching the towel rail above his head. “Nice word. You learn that today? Here’s another one for you–Pussy!”
Frankie broke into the bathroom.
Andrew swung the towel rail.
The blow connected, and Frankie stumbled backwards, lost his balance as the backs of his legs hit the lip of the room’s bathtub and sent him tumbling into it. There was a loud crack as the back of the boy’s skull hit the enamel.
Andrew took advantage of the situation. As Frankie struggled to get out of the tub, he made a run for it. But Jordan and Dom blocked his way. Before they had a chance to grab him, Andrew swung the towel rail again. The blow missed both targets and hit the battered frame of the doorway, but it was enough to make the two boys flinch and step back. Andrew suddenly found himself facing an open doorway.
He was just about to race out into the hallway when something bit into his calf, producing a white-hot jolt that seemed to travel up his entire leg.
Andrew fell down onto his knees.
Frankie appeared, standing over Andrew and grinning. He ran his tongue along the edge of a knife he was holding in his hand, licking away a sheen of blood.
“What are we going to do with you, Andrew?”
Andrew didn’t get chance to answer. Frankie lifted up his foot and stamped on his head.
16
Davie sat in the living room listening to the ruckus upstairs. The women sat beside him and shuddered with every sound.
“It will be okay,” Davie told them. “They’ll all be gone soon. My brother’s just having a laugh.”
Rebecca looked at him like he was an idiot. “A laugh? Are you insane? Someone is going to end up dead, and you’ll be just as much to blame as your psycho brother.”
Davie shook his head. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Wake up, you idiot. Your brother’s dragged you into this. You’re the one keeping an eye on us–that makes you one of the kidnappers. You’ll rot in jail unless you let us go right now.”
Davie wanted to make her see sense, but managed only to choke on a mouthful of words that never managed to form into sentences.
“You’re in a mess and you know it,” Rebecca stated. “You don’t want any of this, do you? You don’t want to end up a worthless thug like your brother.”
“Shut up,” Davie told her. “I won’t hear you talk like that about Frankie.”
She shook her head at him in a way he did not like. “Stop defending him, Davie. You’re not like him, I can tell. You’re a good person.”
Davie ran both hands through his hair and let out a long breath. His head still ached, and now he felt diz
zy as well. The banging and shouting from upstairs didn’t help the situation. How did things get so crazy? Did it start when he was hit by Andrew’s car, or was this whole turn of events inevitable even before that? He had a feeling that Andrew and Frankie were destined to reach this point regardless. He just hoped his involvement hadn’t made things worse.
“Let us go,” Rebecca said calmly. “This is the point where you decide whether you want to be part of this or not. If you let us go now, then it’ll be clear that you just got caught up in something accidentally. Keep us here, though, and you’re proving that you’re as happy to go along with this as the others.”
Davie stared down at the carpet, down at a chunk of browning fish meat that jutted out from beneath the sofa. He thought about things long and hard before he eventually looked Rebecca in the eye. “He’ll kill me if I help you. You’ll have him arrested, and when he gets out, he will literally kill me. Frankie is all I have, so why would I want to make him hate me?”
Rebecca stared back at him with her deep, dark eyes. “Because you know that this is wrong, Davie.”
Davie nodded. He didn’t want to see this girl get hurt–in fact, he couldn’t bear it. “Okay,” he said, regretting already what he was about to do, yet powerless to stop himself from doing it. “Get out of here, quick.”
Rebecca put her arms around Davie and squeezed him tightly. “Thank you,” she whispered into his ear, then stood up and grabbed her mother’s limp hand. “Come on, mum. We can go and get help now. It’s all over.”
Davie knew the decision he’d just made was the right one–could tell by the love and concern Rebecca had for her mother–but it didn’t make him feel any less apprehensive. Frankie was definitely going to kill him.
Rebecca managed to get her mother standing, despite the woman’s hands and feet being bound, and was now looking down at Davie with an expression he wasn’t used to. It looked like compassion. “I’ll make sure the police know that you had nothing to do with this. You should get out of here, too, before Frankie comes back dow-“
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