Warrior

Chapter Twenty Four

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WARNING: Violence and crazy.

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Liam

I stared up at the man I once called my father as he towered over me, the bottle in his hand wavering with every drunken breath he drew in.

“Stand up and fight,” he spat as he shifted from foot to foot, almost toppling over with the amount of alcohol in his veins, “like you never did for your mother.”

I flinched at his words, cowering closer to the wall behind me.  He followed my retreat with a step forward, the definite clomping of his boot piercing loudly in my ears.

“She died because of you,” he hissed.

I curled my knees tighter to my chest, his voice stabbing like knives in my brain.

“It’s not true,” I had to whisper aloud to myself to keep from breaking down and going deep into the cavities of my memories.

“And she still gave you her goddamned will,” he roared.  He pitched forward, slamming the hand holding the bottle to the wall and shattering the end of it.  The green edged glistened raggedly with the alcohol still burning on it.

“I loved her!” he screamed, leveling the bottle down and barely nicking the side of my face, leaving scratches on my cheek.  I cried out in fear, thinking he would strike somewhere else, and curled down into the ground.

“I was there every day,” he shouted, “I watched her die.  I was there when she died and you were not.  I loved her!” he repeated at the same volume, bringing the bottle down to lodge itself just below my ribs.  

I sobbed with a screech, the alcohol burning my flesh as his beloved bottle was yanked back out of me when he stumbled back.

“Not like I hate you,” he said, his voice lowered to a crazed whisper as he watched me bleed, “I loved her more than you ever could and she died leaving me nothing. She gave everything to you.  You good for nothing, weak, worthless piece of shit who never gave back.”

I forced my eyes to open, seeing blindly behind the red tinge of pain, only to glance down at my fingertips dripping with my own blood before pressing them back to my broken skin again.

“I love your sisters,” he said, his voice back to his crazy, quiet tone as he leaned near my face, “they are so much like her.” His eyes were glazed over dreamily as I squinted at him, trying to see past the pain my body was racked with.  “They haven’t been taken from me by you yet.  I won’t let you.”

He staggered back with the drunkenness that possessed him, dropping the broken bottle to shatter by his feet.

“Liam!”

Their voices screamed in harmony another time, this time not being blocked out by the sound of him beating me.  

He could hear them now.

He turned to glare at me, the familiar fire replacing the crazy in his eyes. “You tried to drown them out?”

I gripped the corner of the bookshelf, pulling myself up with slippery hands to straighten in a weak stand.