Page 21 of A Handsome Devil

“No,” I said, placing my palm firmly on Gunning’s chest. “Just because you rode a Harley doesn’t mean you’re ready for this.” I nodded at my road dog Denmark, who firmly nodded back.

“We good,” he asserted, and we started up the path, overrun with weeds and twenty-year-old Big Wheels that I probably rode around back in the day.

I knocked, and a kid about twelve answered. Was it a boy or girl? Too hard to tell. And knowing Mr. Leonard Skinner as I did, the kid was probably more like a starved eighteen-year-old boy, as I had been. He peeked around the doorjamb.

“What!” he declared, his eyes sunken, encircled with green-black bruising.

I was surprised Leonard let him answer the door. “We’re here to see Mr. Skinner.” I knew the milder I started out, perhaps the less the confrontation would elevate. But I doubted it.

Before the kid could respond, Leonard stuck his head in the narrow opening, shoving the boy away by encapsulating his skull with his palm. Much grayer and balder than last time I’d seen him ten years earlier, Leonard’s hawk nose seemed to have gotten more crooked, his eyes beadier. “What do you want!” he demanded, acting as if he didn’t know me.

I pointed at my chest. “You forgot? Alessio Messina. One of your so-called foster kids.”

“More like abused kids,” shot Denmark, and I frowned at him to shut up.

“I don’t remember you,” spat Leonard through missing teeth, and tried to slam the door shut.

I lodged my boot into the doorjamb. Elbowing my way into the entryway, Denmark encouraged me by shoving from behind. It was easy enough to overpower the weakling Leonard, jamming my palm against his shoulder while the boy cowered in a filthy armchair.

“Hey!” protested the pervert. “You can’t come barging in here like that. This is my house.”

“Yeah,” I snorted. “Paid for by the state of California for all the hard work you do fostering these kids. What’s your name, son?” I demanded of the shaking boy.

He barely peeped. “Lucas.”

Denmark sidestepped to protect the boy, his pistol now evident. My Ruger was still in my back pocket. “Lucas,” I said, without taking my eyes from the grimacing old fool, “you should go up to your room.”

“It’s all full,” he whispered. “Of other kids.”

“Lucas!” snapped the creature. “You don’t need to talk to this asshole. Do what he says. Go up to your room!”

Denmark lifted his chin at the boy to indicate it was all right to leave. But Lucas went into what they called the dining room, the table a mélange of wall-to-wall crusted dishes and opened moldy jars of—well, who knew. Whoever had known?

Now Denmark moved to level his handgun at Leonard’s head. The deviant noticed—his hands were even lifted a bit in surrender. But as per the olden days, he was just too thick-skinned and hardhearted to back down a shred. He was just protecting his own ass by pretending to go along.

“I’m here to fucking tell you,” I growled, “that the abuse you perpetrated on me and all the other fucking kids, it marked us for life, physically and mentally. They’ve all suffered like I have, with a fractured hip from being continually raped by you, drug addiction, suicide.” I had heard one of my fellow foster siblings had offed herself by, well, leaping from a six-story building. “Your so-called fucking home education took you off anyone’s radar so you could do as you fucking pleased. Math and history? What a goddamn joke. We learned that your dick in our mouths equaled pleasure . . . for you!”

Denmark spat on the bug-riddled carpet. He snorted snot so he could spit some more.

“I learned you!” protested Leonard. “I learned you good!”

Yeah. Learned. My hip burned and stabbed sharp as a steel trap. The stench of dirty feet and hamster poo imbued my nostrils and I wanted to spit like Denmark. Too afraid I’d puke. “You learned us nothing, you complete and utter piece of shit. Not one kid in this house ever graduated high school. Paul became a fucking janitor. Joshua was lucky to get a job in a liquor store where he drank himself to death. Not one fucking kid made anything of himself.”

Leonard sputtered, “Except you!” His fingers clawed out in desperation, spittle shining on his loathsome lip. I had to look away at the wall in disgust, the idea that he’d been trolling me too nauseating to entertain. “You’re a big—a big—a big—”

I wheeled back to him. “See?” I roared. “You can’t even think of the fucking term for what I do!”

At this, Denmark couldn’t restrain himself. Taking two long strides forward, he bashed the motherfucker on top of his skull with the pistol grip. “There!” Denmark yelled with satisfaction when Leonard slowly sunk to the rug.

But the hope that that would be our revenge was just pulverized when an older teen came down the stairs clinging to the rail, ducking his head to see what the fuck.

I squinted and ducked too. “Tyler?” I asked hesitantly. Everyone glanced to Leonard. With heavy-lidded eyes he looked like a bag of filthy clothing on the filthy carpet.

“Alessio?” Tyler asked. All at once he released his grip on the rail and came bounding to me, limbs flailing.

And yes when I hugged him, I smelled and felt the stench of a shower not taken for weeks. Was that how my hair had smelled? When you’re in the middle of it, there are plenty of things you don’t notice. Now as an outsider, it all stood out like some twisted angel who’d lost his radiance. Lucas had been eight when I had saved myself. Now at eighteen he needed saving too.

Gripping him by the biceps, I held him in front of me. He’d lost way more teeth since I’d last seen him. “Tyler, is he still—”