“What about, like, Sonic the Hedgehog?”
I shook my head. “Sonic was Sega, and I only had a Nintendo and Super Nintendo. One of my old friends …” I took my hands from the metal now attached to the wall, and Noah followed suit. “He had a Sega Genesis, so I’d play sometimes when I was over at his place.”
“Your friend that died?”
Man, kids were funny. Their lack of filters, their uninhibited honesty … it was refreshing and startling, all at once.
“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “Different friend.”
“Oh … what happened to him?”
I shrugged. “Who knows? He moved when we were in the fourth grade.”
Noah nodded like this all meant something to him as I screwed the mounting plate to the back of the TV. And then, together, we hoisted it up and brought it to the wall. I could’ve asked one of the other guys in town to help me out, and maybe I should’ve, just to be safe. But this felt like a Noah and me thing, and I wanted to keep it that way. To make that memory, so years from now, we could say, Hey, remember that time we fumbled like idiots to get that TV on the wall? Yeah, that was fun.
I hoped I still knew him then.
“Okay, let’s get ‘er up,” I said. “Ready?”
Noah nodded, and on the count of three, we had the thing up from the couch and in our arms. I held most of the weight while Noah did his part to steady it. Twice, I asked if he was okay, and despite his lips being rolled tightly between his teeth and his face being the color of a fucking tomato, he nodded. We hung it up easily enough, and with a lung-emptying exhale, Noah stood back to admire our handiwork.
“Good job,” I said, lending my hand for a high five.
“Now, we just gotta get you a Switch.”
He grinned up at me, waggling his brows, and I responded with a laugh.
“One step at a time, pal. We—”
The moment was fractured by the cracking sound of splintering wood coming from somewhere outside. Noah and I both turned our heads so fast that my neck popped in places I hadn’t known it could.
“What was that?” Noah asked in an urgent, hushed voice.
I was already moving to the door. “I don’t—”
That was when she screamed.
“Mom!” Noah shouted, sprinting the twenty feet from the living room to the door, where I stopped him, my hand against his shoulder.
“Stay. Here,” I warned him while my heart resounded like a bass drum in my ears.
Noah’s panicked eyes, already flooding with tears, met mine as I opened the front door. Then, before I could warn him again to stop, he ran.
“Fucking hell,” I gritted through clenched teeth, and I took off after him.
Thirteen steps from my stoop to her porch. Up the stairs. Through the broken front door, splayed wood and splinters everywhere. Past a knocked-over chair and a broken lamp. I searched for Ray, but I couldn’t find her at first. All I saw, all I could focus on, was a man, standing near her kitchen table.
Seth.
The bogeyman had returned.
Through the sound of whooshing blood pumping past my eardrums, I could hear Noah.
“Get away from her! Get off! Asshole, get off of her!”
Noah lunged at his back, and I yelled for him, “Noah!” His name tore through my throat as Seth wrestled with him, pulling at the skinny boy’s arms around his neck.
That was when I saw Ray. Bent over the kitchen table, her dress torn. A small pool of blood puddling beneath her face.
A soul-rendering rage overcame my body at the sight of her shaking. Frozen. Eyes squeezed shut. I had no idea where on her head the blood was coming from—it didn’t matter. Just seconds after entering the house, I stormed forward, eyes on nobody but the piece of shit who had dared to infiltrate the happy bubble we had built for ourselves.
“You little bastard,” Seth growled, unlocking Noah’s arms from around his neck and throwing the kid onto the floor easily. “I’ll teach you not to fuck with me.”
He raised his clenched fist and crouched, ready to strike Noah’s face, but he didn’t get the chance. My arm was around his neck, his back to my chest. I lifted him away, his feet barely scraping the carpet as I pulled him backward toward the door. He gasped and sputtered. Choking, clawing at my arm with frantic fingers.
Kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him kill him kill him, a voice in my head chanted as my arm tightened around his throat.
Seth’s strength was waning. He was about to lose consciousness.
Just a little longer. Just a little tighter, and he’ll never come for them again. He’ll never come back.
“Mom!”
Noah’s voice pierced the red fog, and my eyes dodged toward the table where I’d last seen Ray. But she wasn’t there now. She was on the floor, cowering against the kitchen cabinets. Smeared blood coated her cheek, her nose, her lips, down her chin and onto her chest—a dark contrast to the pallor of her colorless skin. She was in shock, and Noah was beside her, wrapping his arms around her and calling her name. Thinking about nothing but making sure she was okay.
“Noah, call 911!” I shouted, drawing his attention to me.
His stare was on me now, immediately blank, as though he couldn’t understand what I was saying.
“Call 9—fuck!”
I’d been too distracted. I’d put my guard down. Seth slipped from my grip, holding on to my arm and getting the upper hand. Noah screamed as my arm was pulled behind my back, my body thrust against the wall beside the door.
“And who the fuck are you, huh?” Seth growled, pressing his forearm to the back of my neck. “I’m gonna teach you to mind your own fucking business, asshole.”
“The hell you are,” I replied, my voice muffled against the wall, before kicking my foot back, knocking Seth’s leg out from under him.
He cursed and released me from his hold, falling to the floor as I turned. I gave him a second to look up at me, to see my face, to allow the recognition to settle in, if it were to come at all. And, of course, it did.
“Ho-ly shit,” he uttered, a giddy, fascinated smile stretching his ugly features. “Soldier Mason. So, this is where you ended up, huh? You’re the new guy next door.”
I said nothing as he rose to his feet, the top of his head reaching my chin. He sneered up into my eyes and pointed at the scar stretching the length of my left cheek.
“That’s a nice little souvenir you got there,” he said, nodding at his handiwork. “Too bad it wasn’t a fucking hole in the head.”
My expression was unmoving as I said in a flat monotone, “Get the fuck out of here before I kill you.”
He barked a sinister laugh. “You don’t have it in you to kill me, Mason.”
But he turned and pointed at Noah, beside his mother, clutching a phone in his hand. “Let’s go, boy.”
Noah shook his head.
“Noah!” Seth roared, making the kid jump and quiver. “You’re going to listen to me right now. Get your ass outside. We’re getting the fuck out of—”
“You don’t have to go anywhere with him, Noah,” I interjected, locking eyes with the scared boy, who now looked years younger than he was. “He’s not going to hurt you.”