It was half midnight when the sharp sound of flesh on flesh cut through the veil of sleep. A veil that was perpetually thin, and wearing more with each passing day. Mason was silhouetted at the door where he was peering with one eye through the narrow sliver of an opening. He could hear his little brother gasp a breath and hold the next. More distinctly he could hear the yelling from down the hall.

 

“How fucking hard is it?! All you do is sit around here on your ass all day while I'm out providing for you and your brats. Why can't you keep this place clean?”

 

“They're your children too!”

 

Another slap.

 

“Don't lie to me you whore!”

 

“I'm not lying! I've never been unfaithful to you.”

 

Something broke.

 

“Mason, move.”

 

The filched knife felt heavy in his hands, even if it was a little thing. It was too much. He had waited too long, been too afraid. He had to do something now. Ross' drinking was getting him in trouble on the job and it was just making him drink more. When the dock finally sacked him, that would be the end of it.

 

“Don't do it. Don't go. Just stay here. You'll only make it worse.”

 

“Move. I have to. I have to go stop him.”

 

“But what if he hurts you? What if he kills you? Who will protect me and Mum?”

 

Mason threw his arms around him, tried to push him backwards. Mason was a scrawny kid though, couldn't make him budge.

 

“Just move.”

 

Their mother screamed, pleading something he couldn't make out between her sobs. Another slap.

 

He finally shoved Mason out of the way and threw the door open. He ran down the hall, heedless of the thundering of his bare-footed steps giving him away. He threw himself at Ross' back with the knife in both hands. The lumbering dockyard worker swung around and knocked him clean over the couch with one backhanded blow. His Mum sobbed again.

 

“Ross, no, not the boys!”

 

“Shut up you worthless whore! That's all you do! You cry over your useless brats, let this house go to shit, embarrass me in front of my mates!”

 

Ross grabbed her up by both arms, shaking her violently. Tears blurred his own vision, face stinging from the strike. He wiped at them wildly and picked up the knife again. He threw himself at the same moment Ross drew his hand back. His own scream and the sound of the slap blurred together. His Mum fell backward, head connecting with the corner of the dining table with a sickening crack before she slumped to the ground.

 

The knife sunk in between Ross' shoulders just as she did. The drunk howled in pain. When he turned, the blade flashed again. It caught him right in the throat. The spurt of blood startled him so badly he let go, stumbling back.

 

Ross hit his knees, mouth agape and working like a hooked fish. There was gurgling sound, but no words. He moved a pace, then two, before collapsing forward.

 

Mum was motionless beside the table, a halo of stark red blood pooling beneath her brown hair. He rushed over to her, grabbing her shoulders. Her bruised face was wet with tears that weren't flowing anymore.

 

“Mum! Mum wake up!”

 

Mason screamed from behind him.

 

“What did you do?! What did you do Bubba?”

 

That obnoxious word he'd used since he was two and couldn't say “brother” properly.

 

“It's your fault!”

 

He screamed back at Mason.

 

“If you had let me go I would have got here sooner!”

 

“I didn't do it! Don't yell at me! Don't yell at me like Pa!”

 

The fear in his little brother's eyes hurt. Blood streaked through Mason's blonde hair as he threw his arms around him and began to drag him toward the door.

 

“Come on Mason, come on. We've got to go.”

 

The last thing he saw as they raced out the door in their pajamas was his Mum's body and the blood around it. Her brown eyes were open, lifelessly staring up at the ceiling. It wasn't like in the movies, they didn't close. And just beyond her there in the living room was a pile of Mason's toys; the big mess that the drunk had been raving about.

 

- - - - -

 

It was one thing to see it in his head over and over again, but another to say it all out loud, recount the story for someone to hear. Worse yet that he was sitting there hastily wiping his face in front of her. Sitting. At some point he had dropped down on the edge of the bed—the right side, her side—while she remained standing.

 

The look on her face was a crack in her walls of her defenses; abject horror, doubt, anger, suspicion, maybe just a touch of sympathy. Or was that last part his own hope? She shook a little. He wanted to reach out and touch her, but he suspected that wouldn't make her feel any better.

 

“How do I know you're not lying?”

 

A fair question, really. He still had never given her a single reason to trust him. Not that she knew of. When he stood up, she stepped back. When he began to unbutton his shirt, she looked like she wanted to bolt.

 

He turned his back to her. It took a moment to hear the hitch in her breathing as she caught sight of what he was showing her. The thick, badly healed old scar that stretched from one shoulder blade down toward his ribs. The drunk had lost hold of his belt buckle one night when he was handing out whippings. The wound had been opened up again and again for weeks after until it finally got infected and had to be seen by a doctor.

 

He stiffened as he felt her fingers against his skin, warm and unsure. She traced the line all the way up, feeling the knots of tissue with a wavering touch. When he turned she didn't run. He caught her hand, as gently as someone like him could manage, pressing it against the mark she'd left on his side eight years ago.

 

“I'd take a hundred scars from you just to be rid of his.”

 

Her lips were parted just so when she accidentally looked up at him. The glistening at her waterlines was thick before she blinked it back. She cleared her throat. There was a moment, half a breath, where he felt something unidentifiable knowing that something about the tale had moved her. Then it was gone because that wasn't what he wanted, not precisely.

 

“Don't cry for me love, I don't deserve it.”

 

She finally pulled her hand away when she realized that she was touching him. She stepped back, well out of his reach. The walls were going back up.

 

“That doesn't excuse what you did. Any of it.”

 

“No, it doesn't.”

 

The agreement seemed to startle her. After a moment of consideration he sat back down on the edge of the bed. She seemed to feel better if he was sitting, probably like she had a better chance to run if she wanted.

 

“You hurt Elsie. You tried to kill me.”

 

“I never wanted to hurt Elsie. She's... she's everything that people like me aren't.”

 

He had almost said, “you and me,” but she wasn't ready to acknowledge those similarities yet. Explaining himself was more difficult than he thought, largely because he hated his own justifications. There were no acceptable reasons, he knew it.

​

“That naivety, her openness, and how she couldn't imagine anything in the world that wasn't good. I wanted her to change me. I didn't want to be the way I am. You got in the way, you kept me from apologizing to her and trying to get her back.”

 

She started to speak up but he kept going.

 

“And none of that makes it right either. You were in my head. After that first fight I couldn't get you out. I wanted to be rid of you because you had a power over me like no one else. I don't like anyone else having that kind of power over me. You know what that's like. It was the only thing I could think to do. It was supposed to be easy.”

 

For Mason. But it wasn't easy. That's why he'd left without making sure the job was done.

 

“The cat and mouse was because I couldn't stay away from you. You have a thing inside of you, you know what I'm talking about. It's hiding in there somewhere because you buried it but I know it's there. I know that thing.”

 

He knew he was right when she reached up to rub the center of her chest.

 

“Mason had a thing for you too. He had it first. Hooked him the moment he saw you in the police station. He thought you looked like our mother.”

 

She made a disgusted sound, some of the color draining from her face.

 

“You don't really. She had brown hair and brown eyes too, was about your height but smaller in other ways. Her hair was curly, and lighter, kind of an ash brown. And her eyes were more green than yours. Still, he got it in his head and that made him want you.”

 

He watched her, wondering if she really was going to be sick the way she kept looking toward the bathroom.

 

“You were never going to be what he thought you were. He saw what he wanted to see, built you up in his head. He saw perfect and sweet and a smile that reminded him of Mum.”

 

“...What did you see?”

 

The curiosity in her tone gave him the slightest hope. He kept his eyes locked on hers to watch for her responses.

 

“I saw the part of you that enjoyed punching me in the face that first time we fought. You lost control of yourself but you felt something you wanted more of. I know that part, Aidan, I understand it. But Mason wouldn't have understood. As soon as you fell short of his expectations, he would have killed you... like he did every girl that didn't live up to what he imagined.”

 

Something flashed in her eyes. She wanted to deny him, but she was remembering something.

 

“He didn't follow you because he was doing his job or to help you. He wanted to get close to you. He thought that all his fake protection would win you over. You broke the illusion that night you gave me this scar. He was going to poison you and get rid of you.”

 

He dared to stand up, to carefully close the gap between them. He reached out and curled his hands around her arms, around her firm biceps. Just her arms. Don't touch anything else and fuck it up.

 

“You're thinking something, aren't you?”

 

“I remember when he took me to the coffee shop... He got this look on his face when Belinda and Elsie came to pick me up because I texted them from the bathroom. I didn't drink the coffee, I had like... two sips maybe. But...”

 

“But what?”

 

“I did feel like shit for a few says after...”

 

She brushed his hands away suddenly. But she still didn't run.

 

“None of that lines up with what I heard you two talk about by the East River.”

 

“We lied to each other constantly, Aidan. When you called him he forgot all about how you'd shattered his illusions. He wanted you all over. I didn't want him to have you, because I knew what he would do to you. I made like it was all about Elsie and business but it wasn't. He acted like he wasn't interested in you, but he was.”

 

“You still followed me. You attacked me in England.”

 

He reached out, lifting her left hand, tapping his finger against the engagement ring.

 

“He followed you too, remember? He showed up and made you his and didn't ask what you thought about it.”

 

“Don't you dare compare yourself to him. He would have let me walk away anytime I wanted if I really wanted to. You are not the same.”

 

“No, I'm not. But I get the parts of you that he doesn't. You know the ones I mean. You know the things you hide from him.”

 

“You've attacked me again and again. You've stalked me for eight years. You broke into my house. You are still a psycho.”

 

“I don't have to tell you what that bald fuck's friend did to you, and you had yourself a nice raunchy affair with him. We've already brought up Ian Bishop and what you tried to make with him. You keep trying to hide behind normalcy but you need that danger.”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“Come on, love. Do we need to hop on your Twitter and go back a few weeks? There's something missing and you're trying to find it. Admit it.”

 

“I said shut up.”

 

“I do the same thing to you that you do to me. We've been in each other's heads for years. Stop thinking about what you're telling yourself you should feel, and just feel what you actually do.”

 

“You're a fucking creep, and a liar. I know what you're trying to do and I'm not letting you do it to me.”

 

“You're already wondering, love. I can see it. You're standing there calling me a liar, but you're not sure you believe what you're saying.”

 

“You said you would leave after I let you talk. I let you talk. So if you're not a liar, then leave.”

 

Fuck.

 

He had said it. She had him trapped now. If he didn't leave, then she was right. So he shrugged as casually as he could manage, picking his shirt up off of the bed. He buttoned it up on the way down the stairs, plucked his jacket off of the chair by the dinning table, and walked right out the front door. He felt her eyes on him for every last second.