Riptide (9 page)

Authors: H. M. Ward

Fuck
. He was going to get trapped in the corner. Trystan had to get out of there. Every muscle in his body tensed, waiting for the old ma
n’s fists to start flying. Trystan had
not seen his dad this irate before, not during daylight hours anyway.
“I’m not better than anyone,” Trystan
breathed the words through his teeth, his chest tightening as he spoke.

“You’re a goddamn lair and a thief.”

Trystan stepped away again. “What happened today? Why are you even here?”

His father’s face pulled into a
grim
s
mile. “
That fucking company that I spent my
entire
life working
for
let me go. They merged with another office and decided to downsize. Did they bother to tell any of us that? No. We walked in today and guess what? Surprise! After working
my
ass off for two decades,
I
have no job.” He ranted, anger surging through him as he spoke. His gaze narrowed on his son. “
And then
,
I come home and find my kid stealing my stuff. What the fuck gives you the right?” He was yelling now, his hands flying through the air.

Trystan’s back was nearly against the wall. He’d rather fly into hi
s dad’s fists than get
trapped in the corner
. Don’t fight back
, he chanted in his mind, over and over again.
Get around him and run
. But Trystan couldn’t see how.

Swallowing hard, Trystan
said, “No one gave me the right.” Trystan grabbed the shirt and pulled it over his head as fast as he could and
threw
it at his dad. The shirt
hit
his father in chest and fell to the floor.

The anger in his father’s
face exploded. Dad’
s normally nice features contorted with rage. He lunged at Trystan, his hands open like h
e planned on strangling him
.

Trystan dogged to the side at the last second and darted past his dad into the hallway. Quickly, he reached for the door and pulled it shut. His dad started screaming
profanity
at him. It was the worst verbal
assault he’d ever
had. It combined every failure,
every
short coming, and
every fear that lurked inside Trystan’s mind
. Trystan tried to let the words slip past him, but every single on
e
lodged into his skin like darts. By the time his dad tried pulling on the door, Trystan had the knob in his and was twisting the lock. When Trystan heard the metallic scrape, he knew the door was locked.

Resting, Trystan
pressed his head to the door for a second, thankful that he made it away without getting hit, when something slammed into it and shook the frame. The plaster
on the ceiling cracked and sprinkled on his bare shoulders like baby powder.
Looking up, he saw thin lines spidering away from the doorframe.

Trystan stepped back
before the second blow came.
That shot was harder and shook the wall. A picture frame crashed to the floor and shattered.
His father was cracking the
doorframe
. Trystan turned to run. He thought he was safe for a second, but he wasn’t. From the look
of it
,
Trystan only had one more
hit
to get himself out of harm’s way. That door was coming down.

Trystan ran for the front
of the apartment
, cutting down the narrow
hall as fast as he could. A
loud cracking noise came from behind
, as Trystan reached for the front doorknob. His father bellowed and
fell through the rubble
.
He
stumbled to his feet fast for a
drunk guy. The expression on Dad’s face was beyond livid, more like psychotically
angry. Trystan never pushed his dad that far before. He never fought back, he never intended to. Locking the door didn’t count, but the expression on his father’s face said otherwise.

Fear snaked through
Trystan
, strangling him.
This was something he couldn’t undo. What happened tonight couldn’t be changed. Trystan didn’t mean for it to happen. He wished he never came home. Before Trystan could think another thought
, his dad came barreling down the hall like a rabid bear, practically foaming at the mouth, with a
thirst
for blood in his eyes.
Part of him wanted this to be a nightmare, to believe that his father wouldn’t hurt him, but he’d been alive too long to think that.

Trystan yanked the door open, intending to run through and escape into the cold night air, but when he
jerked
the door open someone was there.

“Mari?” he
gasped
, taken by surprise.

Mari stood there with a red nose and eyes like she’d been crying. Huffing like she’d run to him, she
looked past him and then back at his eyes
, “Trystan, what’s wrong?” The look on Trystan’s face said everything was wrong. He couldn’t believe she was at the door. Now.

“Run, Mari. Go. Don’t come back.” Trystan turned away from her just as his dad barreled into him. Their bodies collided smashing th
e door shut before Mari could blink
.
A bloodcurdling
scream
erupted from her throat
, shattering the still night.