“You saw me tag it, or you saw me the night you violated that girl?” I asked, my voice low and steady while inside, the fire was simmering, ready to ignite.
“Fuck you!” Grimaldi spat. “You didn’t see shit. But A&M canceled my scholarship. My mom can’t even look at me. You fucking ruined my life, asshole!”
I wondered if he spared a thought for Kimberly’s life and guessed not. Frankie was moving behind me, jumpy. His breath loud through the mask.
I cracked my neck from side to side. “What are you waiting for?” I asked, deadly casual. “Let’s go, if we’re going to do this.”
Grimaldi’s eyes flickered at something behind my shoulder, and I spun in time to catch Frankie’s club—a police baton—coming down. It whacked my palm, and I closed my fist around it and yanked it easily from his grasp. I sent a left hook to his face, connecting square, and he reeled.
“Fucker!” he shrieked, staggering back, clutching his masked cheek with both hands. “Not this time. This time we got you. We got you.”
From behind, Grimaldi lunged. I spun again, swinging the baton. He danced out of reach and jabbed a punch to my kidney. The baton dropped from my nerveless fingers as pain rocketed up my side. I took a fist to the cheek and saw stars but let instinct take over. I put the pain somewhere else and delivered a heavy blow to his gut. He bent in half, the breath gushing out of him, leaving himself wide open for my fist to smash into his jaw. Blood and teeth flew. Pain crackled up my knuckles, but I hardly felt it. I lifted a boot and kicked Grimaldi in the side, sending him sprawling.
Frankie was trying again, reaching for the baton. I kicked it away—it skittered across the cracked pavement and into the shadows—and gripped him by the collar, driving my knee into his gut. He made a hitching sound and I shoved him roughly. He fell on his ass, clutching his stomach.
Too easy.
I stood between the two of them, my gaze going back and forth, wanting it to be over while the dark place in me hoped for more.
“Well?”
“Fuck you!” Frankie sounded like he was crying. “I’m not done with you. I’m not…”
I leveled a finger at him. “You are fucking done. Stay down.” I looked to Mikey. “How about you? You want to go again or nah?”
He got to his feet slowly, muttering a curse and holding his gut, but his eyes through the mask showed second thoughts.
Then came a voice from behind me, turning my blood to ice.
“Sniveling little pussies, the both of you.”
I whirled around. A bigger guy in a ski mask stepped from behind the van. He wore jeans, a polo shirt, and a blue windbreaker I recognized instantly.
“Two of you can’t take him?” Mitch Dowd snorted. There was a flash of yellow and then something jumped out of the dark and bit me.
Instantly, every muscle in my body seized, each one gripped tight in its own clenching pain. My head swam, darkness faded in and out, and the ground rose up to slam into me. I convulsed, wracked by agony, my vision blurry but just clear enough to see the two coiled springs trailing out of the Taser in Mitch’s hand, its teeth buried in my thigh.
“Suck on that, fucker,” Grimaldi sneered, suddenly full of confidence again.
The steely, metallic electricity coursing through me vanished, taking the pain with it, but my body felt loose. I could hardly move. Grimaldi delivered a hard kick, and agony exploded in my ribs. I tried to curl in a ball, but my limbs wouldn’t cooperate. The blows came again and again, as if there were ten of him instead of one.
After what seemed like a lifetime, I was dimly aware of Mitch looming over me. He put out his arm, pressing Grimaldi back like a referee. “You’re up, son,” he said to Frankie. “Show him what we do to snitches.”
Through one swollen eye, I saw Frankie had the baton again. He danced around me but didn’t take his shot.
“What the fuck are you waiting for?” Mitch snarled.
“Give it to me,” Grimaldi seethed, hand out for the baton. “I’ll fuck him up good. Fuck him up like he fucked up my life.”
Frankie hesitated and then flinched as a shouted voice—high-pitched and shaky—came from my building, cutting across the night.
“I called the police and I’m recording this!”
Maryann.
Fuck, no…
I craned my neck and saw her in front of her door, twenty yards away, her phone up.
“Fuck.” Mitch jabbed a beefy finger at his son. “Go get that phone.”
Frankie jerked his head. “N-no…”
“Get it, asshole!” Grimaldi shouted. He sounded panicked but made no move to do it himself. “Fuck. Oh fuck…this is bad…”
Mitch muttered a curse. “Frankie, you goddamn shitstain. Go get that phone.”
“No, Dad. No…”
“Little bitch,” Mitch spat. He yanked the Taser’s claws out of my leg, tearing flesh. “I’ll do it myself, but this isn’t over, Franklin. You and I are going to have words about what it means to be a coward in this family…”
He started for Maryann.
Using every ounce of will I could muster, I forced my muscles to cooperate and snaked my hand out. I gripped his boot, tripping him. With another curse, Mitch went down flat, smacking the pavement, the air whooshing out of him.
I hauled myself to my hands and knees, scrabbling to hold on to Mitch as he made to get to his feet. I managed to get him in a weak chokehold that would last only until he caught his breath. I grasped blindly, shakily, as if all of my muscles had gone to sleep. My fingers snagged on the eye holes of his mask and I ripped it off his head.
“Bastard cunt bitch!” Mitch took hold of my arms and flipped me to the ground.
Hard, unforgiving pavement slammed into me. Pain radiated from between my shoulder blades. Sirens—faint but growing louder—rang in the distance. Even then, with my body screaming in agony from a thousand places, the sound woke up every memory of that day ten years ago, infusing me with terror.
Mitch towered over me, breathing hard, his face ruddy in the streetlamps.
“Dad…” Frankie whimpered. “Let’s go.”
Mitch ignored him. “You’re a snitch, Wentz. You ruined a good boy’s life. For what? A piece of ass?”
“Dad…”
“Fuck you,” I croaked, muscles shuddering and clenching.
Mitch brought his foot up and then down again, a stomping kick. I heard a crack and then pain flooded my face along with the blood that poured from my nose.
“Mr. Dowd…” Grimaldi sounded scared.
“Let’s go,” I heard Mitch say. “I’m not done with you.”
I didn’t know if he was talking to me or Frankie.
Their footsteps scrambled away, and another set hurried to me. Maryann’s arms went around my shoulders as I sat up, the sirens growing closer.
“Jesus Christ,” she breathed. “I got him. On my phone. His face. He’s done.”
“No…” I struggled—and failed—to stand up. “Don’t. He’ll hurt you too…”
Shiloh…
Now the terror pushed me to my feet.
“Don’t get up,” Maryann said. “Wait for the ambulance.”