I turn and follow her down the trail again. The woodland seems ominously quiet. The sound of our own footfalls is silent and all that can be heard is the whisper of the leaves.
Chapter Eighteen
Annie
I picture Nikita’s face the rest of the way down the mountain.
Skin flushed with rage, his eyes black and lifeless. Nostrils flared. Jaw clenched. I’ve seen that face before. Or rather, one just like it. The face of a monster.
My father used to look at me just like that.
There are so many things I remember from those years. The bricks through the window, that bloody stump of a finger in the cardboard box. I will never forget the dirty boots of the mob men propped up on our coffee table—not as long as I live.
But what I remember more than any of that, more than any of the other horrors that haunted my mother and me through the worst stage of my life before now, are the eyes of my father. Mere inches away from my face, the whites nearly gone, the pupils so dark that they seemed bottomless, I remember how he looked at me. He wasn’t my father anymore in that moment. He was just a beast.
He wasn’t like that at first, of course. It started with anxiety. After the men left, he would hold my mother and me in his arms and just apologize, over and over again.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
He meant it, too, I think. At least, part of him did. But the part of a man that cares about what he does to the women in his life? That part can’t last long, if he’s to survive in that world.
The anxiety never left, but it did change. It became frustration. It became anger. It became furious outbursts over the randomest things—the TV on too loud? He’d scream himself hoarse. A pair of dirty shoes left in the front hallway? He’d punch walls, so close I could feel the dust from the drywall.
And soon, walls weren’t enough. Then the only thing left to hit was us.
He told me once that he wished I’d never been born. “If it weren’t for you, we would’ve been fine. We woulda been just fine.” His voice was so weird when he said that. I didn’t even know what he meant. I mean, I did, but I didn’t. I just remember how weird his voice was when he said it. It was just him and me, sitting in the kitchen. I was doing math homework, I think. He was drinking whiskey, like he always did on the rare nights when he was home. And he just looked at me out of nowhere and said that, with that weird tone in his voice, like he was strangling or drowning.
We woulda been just fine.
I didn’t know what to say. How could I? I was a child, a little girl. I didn’t know anything about the world, or why he’d chosen to do the things he did. I was a good girl. I got good grades, I stayed out of trouble, I kept my room clean. But that didn’t matter. I was just a mouth to feed, in his eyes. I was a burden.
My mother came home soon after that. She had shopping bags full of groceries.
“Where did you get that shit?” my father asked her.
She hesitated before she answered. When she did, I knew right away that something bad was going to happen. She did, too, I think. But neither of us could really stop it. We were powerless, or at least we felt that way, and that meant basically the same thing. “There was a ... a market,” she said. Both my father and I knew she was lying.
“What kind of ‘market’?” he questioned acidly.
“At the ... at the food bank.” She swallowed hard.
“The food bank. The fucking food bank.” He plunged the tip of his cigarette into the whiskey as he repeated what she had said in a soft, numb voice. I could hear the sizzle as the flame died.
Then, in one sudden motion, he stood, turned, and hurled the glass tumbler at my mother’s head. She ducked—thank God she ducked—and it smashed against the kitchen wall behind her. I screamed. She screamed, and fell into a sobbing puddle on top of the bags of food. Apples rolled across the tile floor.
But my father wasn’t done with her. He marched over and hauled her to her feet.
Whap. Whap. Two quick backhanded slaps on either side of her face.
I hadn’t moved since the moment my mother walked in the door. I remember the sound of the hit, the way my mother stumbled and reached out to the counter for balance. I remember the way my father stood over her, greasy bangs falling across his forehead, rage purpling his cheeks. I remember the way he slammed his hand down on the counter over her head and said the next time he’d really light her up for talking back.
Then he turned to me.
I don’t remember what he said but I remember his eyes. Dark and lifeless. I sat there shaking. And he walked up to me, put his face right in mine, and called me a little cunt, and that I should take notes and learn how to be respectful. I was so scared I peed.
Then he walked out the door, and slammed it shut behind him.
***
I’m sitting on a rock at the foot of the mountain when Nikita approaches. He fell behind me, weighed down by the bags full of supplies and weapons. I’m just finishing tightening the bandages on my feet, which are crusty with last night’s blood, when he comes to stand in front of me.
I stare at him, unable to speak. Even if I could speak, I don’t know what I would say.
“Annie?”
Nikita gazes back at me. He says nothing either. The woods around us are
