Page 138 of A Dead Man's B-Side
I jolted, palpably.
“Sasha, what’s wrong? Did Mr Browne do something?”
Paris. It was Paris coming to check on me. She didn’t go to our next class, but she must have been waiting near it until I failed to show up. Her voice was soft and hesitant.
I blinked, and with each drop of my eyelids, another memory locked itself away, returning to its rightful place behind those shut and bolted doors in the farthest crevice of my mind. I released myaching fingers from the tight fist they’d been in and walked so leisurely, too leisurely, to retrieve my bag. The very one sitting slumped and sad on the checkered marble floor. “He didn’t do anything.” I scoffed, the hatred I’d felt for the man coming back in full force. “We came to an agreement, and I needed a moment to think, is all.”
The silence she’d chosen to keep us in, no words following, proved that she didn’t believe a single thing coming out of my mouth.
I could still feel the ice cracking and stinging through my veins, and with every passing second, I kept it reigned in underneath, I felt like banging my head against the wall.
I turned to her when I straightened, watching her hard swallow and jerky nod before turning to walk back to class.
She didn’t say another word to me until I’d arrived at her dorm just after nine to head to Fenlon Hall. Perhaps it was fear or self-preservation. Or maybe, because it was something plausible for Paris and something I was most hoping to be the case, she was giving herself space.
By the time we all reached Fenlon Hall, I’d made up my mind.
I was going to kill Mr Browne if it was the last thing I ever did on this earth.
Flashback
Circa 1979
Alexei knew to admit that he wasn’t as strong-willed as the other boys around him. The ones who roughhoused and filled the air in their lungs with harsh words that shaped around their thin and cracked lips. The ones who marred buzzcuts and wore tattered clothes that didn’t hold the same effect as when Alexei wore a similar attire.
They were foster kids, and it didn’t take a genius to know that their clothes would have at least a few threads out of their respective sewing lines.
When he trudged downstairs and into the living room, he tried to press himself against the wall as much as he could, hoping to make it past the group of boys piling against each other in front of the old television without notice.
As if out of sheer coincidence, the sound of the movie they were watching crackled and stopped before it turned to black. And Alexei’s heart seized up in fear and anticipation. He tried making a run for it, but even he knew that it was only a matter of time and circumstance before Martin Addams would find him to punish tenfold.
It was a hot, summer day, the rusted fan in the corner turned at a glacial pace that barely produced a breeze of air and made a squeaking sound every time it made a full circle. Alexei’s shirt clung to his skin from the heat, but the sticky feeling skimming over his back wasn’t from the humidity.
Slowly, as if a monster, Martin seemed to sense his prey and turned his attention to Alexei. A sinister smile grew upon his lips as he stood with careless posture. “Alexei, we were waiting for you to wake up. Must be pretty tired from last night, huh?”
Alexei pursed his lips against the involuntary swallow, strained and painful. He was mocking him, which seemed to make the fresh bruises ache at the mere reminder.
Bass Robinson and Aaron Blaine, the two boys always flanking their leader’s side, almost lapped up Martin’s words in excitement. All four boys were well aware of what was going to happen next. Except, only one of them was dreading it.
Bass was a boot licker. He was weak, and Alexei, if he was ever strong enough to say it, would consider him a loser. But his laugh was loud and crackling, like a whip against lightning, and his teeth were a little crooked.
He reminded Alexei of a comic book villain. Only, he was worse.
Aaron, on the other hand, was the most vicious of them all, though too weak to be a leader like Martin. The darkest of ideas always came from him, in a suggestive whisper before slipping behind Martin’s final word.
“Let’s go back upstairs. You look like you need a little bit more sleep.” Martin wrapped his arm around Alexei’s shoulders as the smaller, malnourished boy flinched, before steering him back up the stairs that made a sound every time anyone stepped on them.
Alexei hated those words, but he knew what resistance meant, what it led to. He was starving, but it wasn’t like he was going to make it to the kitchen, so why bother focusing on it?
During the day, the boys residing in the home always spent their time in the yard or in the basement where the ‘game room’ was. Martin and his small gang hogged the television, and besides, no one liked to be around them.
The adults were always busy doing one thing or another, coincidentally. Or maybe they just didn’t care enough to solve any problems when the checks came fresh and on time. Alexei imagined if Martin, or Aaron, or Bass were moved because of a complaint, the useless caregivers wouldn’t be getting their checks, and they would very soon grow unhappy.
In the end, there would always be someone that found Alexei to take their anger out on.
When they made it into the cramped bedroom filled with bunkbeds and discarded clothes that littered the floor, Martin’s grin sharpened. He nodded to the door. “Get the door, Bass.”
The routine was the same, Alexei found.
