Shadow Man (Grayson Duet #1) - Catherine Wiltcher Page 0,2
murmur, my words lost to an absent Texas breeze. There’s a twister coming today for sure, but it’s coming by another name. I don’t know it yet, but I can already feel it turning in my bones.
It’s the last time I ever see Cash alive.
It’s gone seven by the time I make the drop. I follow the tumbling sun all the way home, with the dark from the cornfields casting long and skinny across the track dividing our two properties. It gets me thinking about math class last week, and how our teacher, Miss B, told us to go find shapes and angles in everything.
There's gonna be a prize for the kid with the longest list. It's got my name all over it, ‘cos me and Cash have found loads:
The alphabet letters on my bedroom wall.
The coat hangers in my closet.
The spokes on my bike wheels.
The shape of the boxes inside my heart that hurt the most.
Turning into the driveway, I count the slanting roof on the feed barn as one, and then the incline of Pa’s Ford jutting out from the porch like a stuck blade as another.
Why is he home so early? Closing time ain’t for another couple of hours.
Angles. Angles. Angles. I’m gonna win that prize for sure. My footsteps sound like applause on the loose stones as I celebrate my future victory.
Why is everything so silent?
The screen door is wide open.
Sharp angle.
There’s a crimson stain throwing shadows across the doorway.
Scary angle.
I stop for a second and stare at it. I can feel the dark from the cornfields creeping slow and steady across my body.
“Ma?” I call out tentatively, heading toward the front steps. “Cash? Where are you guys?”
More silence.
More steps.
I pass by Pa’s sawn-off shotgun. It’s lying, discarded, next to the open screen door. Spare shells cover the ground next to it, like seed scattered for a steel bird.
There’s a body lying just inside. My breath catches on an inhale, and it don't release so easy.
Facedown.
Brown dress.
Elbow bent to form a perfect triangle with a blonde head soaked in red paint.
“Ma?” I whisper again.
No answer.
My gaze jerks left. The pool of paint around Cash’s body catches in the fading light, giving it edges. Angles...
There’s an explosion in my chest. It steals my balance away from me. Stumbling backward, I collide with another body. Hunkered down, knees drawn up to his chest; his eyes all wild and crazy like that mustang Cash broke last summer. The same red paint covers his hands and arms.
Not paint.
“Pa?”
He glances up, but I know he’s not seeing me. I’m just another ghost to him already.
“My twister made me do it, Joey,” he says, all mournful. “The voices. The damn voices.” His lips won’t stop moving as he rocks, back and forth, like a wounded animal.
No no no!
The pain train’s gathering speed inside of me, and its destination is a town called agony. This is the storm I’ve been waiting for. The madness in Pa’s fists has finally moved to his brain.
Run, Joey. Run.
The bastard won't stop moaning and crying.
The pain train smashes a hole through the walls of my heart and anger starts pouring out.
Run, Joey. Run.
Cash’s voice slams into my mind again, but my father’s crazy is too busy overtaking my own mouth. “You’re a thief, Pa!” I scream at him, my scrawny twelve-year-old body towering over his crumpled six-two. “You’re a dirty, bastardy thief! It was Cash’s twister to ride outta here, not yours, and you stole it from him! You stole it from him!”
Pa blinks twice, and then his chanting stops. That’s when I find I ain’t so angry anymore.
“My twister’s coming for you too now, boy.” His thin lips curl into a snarl. “Better hide from it while you still can.”
He lunges for my foot and I go down like a sack of shit. The back of my head smacks into the floor, and everything goes fuzzy.
“Stop, Pa!” Steel fingers close around my ankle, dragging me out onto the porch after him. He pulls so hard and fast, my T-shirt catches on the doorframe, ripping it up and leaving my belly exposed.
“Those damn voices,” I hear him muttering again, and with his other hand he reaches down for his shotgun.
Terror explodes in my veins—not the same fear that I keep locked away inside of myself, but one that’s real and present. Those holes in my heart are letting everything out.
Rocking sideways, I feel his grip on me loosen. Kicking out, I manage to drive him backward away