Page 171 of Sin City Dark
Slowly, recognition dawned on his face. He closed his eyes, sighed deeply, then caught her hand and kept it pressed to his face. “It’s OK.”
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
A sheen of sweat covered his brow, and Jannie used her free hand to gently push the damp hair off his forehead. She picked up a water bottle off the nightstand and handed it to him. “Here.”
He accepted it and quickly drained it, his Adam’s apple bobbing with each deep swallow.
“Want to tell me about it?” she asked quietly.
He passed her the empty bottle and fell silent for so long that she thought he would refuse. But then, he nodded. His gaze remained across the room, his dark eyes wide and unseeing.
“Remember when I told you my mother was expecting?”
Jannie nodded.
“I don’t think I was ever as excited as I was those few months. I’d always wanted a sibling, and to find out it was a brother … I already had plans to teach him all sorts of things. Take him places. He was going to be my little buddy, and I was ready.
“My mom wasn’t so happy. In fact, she told me not to tell anyone, including Dad. She was so stressed … always was. Living in that house was like walking in a minefield. You never knew when things would blow up. My dad … when he was home, the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. That man was never happy. Went through life constantly pissed off and ready to pick a fight. I don’t know what my mom ever saw in him, but …” He shrugged.
Nick looked nothing like his mother, but if he resembled his father, she could well guess what his mom had seen. Jannie didn’t remember Mr. Kent; he had never shown up for any parent–teacher conferences or school events.
“She’d been secretly buying things for the baby and hiding them in the basement behind some boxes of old shoes. One day, a pipe burst down there and flooded the entire area. He went to move some things to get to the problem and discovered her stash. Turns out he had suspected it for a while. He came upstairs with two blue newborn outfits and threw them in her face. Flat out asked her if it was his.”
It.
Jannie’s stomach twisted. Blake had called their babies that.
“She was so shocked and scared that she took too long to answer, and he lost his mind. They’d had fights before, but this one … it was different. He got in her face, she shoved him away, he raised his fist, and then …” He swallowed hard. “I tried to intervene.”
“Of course you did.” Jannie rubbed her cheek on his shoulder.
His eyes turned wide and haunted. “He had her at his feet, backed to the counter, and was kicking her. He had on steel-toed work boots … I had to get him away from her. He was so much bigger than she was, and I was afraid he’d…” He closed his eyes. “It worked, for a few seconds. But then he turned on me and … well, I was no match for him. He did a number on me. Left me on the floor and beat her nearly unconscious.”
Horror seized Jannie’s throat. A clear image of thin, sensitive teen Nick drifted across her mind. That his own father had hurt him so very badly, both physically and emotionally … she couldn’t imagine. And she ached for him.
“What did he do then?” she asked.
“He left us there, threw some things in a duffel, and took off. I never saw him again.”
“Did you call the police? Report this?”
“The hospital beat me to it.” Nick smiled bitterly. “He died in prison.I heard he messed with the wrong inmate.”
At least the monster had paid for what he’d done.
Nick fell silent for a beat, and Jannie lay there, rubbing his shoulder. What was there to say that wouldn’t sound like lame platitudes? She couldn’t relate to this; all she could do was listen.
“Looking back, I think he’d been trying to find a way out, and that was it for him, I guess. I later found out from my cousin that when he married her, she’d promised him she’d never get pregnant, and a lot of … things … finally made sense.”
His father hadn’t wanted him. Outrage burned, hot, in her chest. No wonder Nick was the way he was in high school; the man who was supposed to love him most had done just the opposite.
“Anyway… I called an ambulance. It took so goddamned long to arrive …”
Jannie made a sympathetic sound, gently running her hand up and down his chest. “It must have felt like forever.”
“It was.”
“I remember your mother. She always had a smile and something nice to say.”
