How to Kill a Man in Thirty Seconds

Chapter 55: The Home

My face pressed against the palms of my hands in distress. Not more.

Adrian shrugged, "the matron in charge of the orphanage was a woman named Ms. Anastasia. To her, we were like an itch she was trying to get rid of. It didn't take me long to realize that all of the orphans' lives revolved around bending to the whims of four specific boys that had been there for longer than all the others. They were bigger and they were stronger. Crueler. They didn't care for rules; the orphanage was their playground."

"What did they do?"

Adrian shrugged, "They beat us if they felt like it. There was no telling how far they would go. That depended on their mood. Sometimes, they'd only bruise. Sometimes, they'd break bones. If they did wrong, it was one of us that faced whatever punishment the matron saw fit that day. Sometimes she'd make us lose sleep. Other times we'd be made to skip meals. Who was turned in, depended on who got on the boys' nerves that day. It was an endless struggle to please."

Adrian's teeth grinded, "But no matter how hard I tried, I always managed to upset them."

He chuckled humorlessly, "It was probably all the nonsensical things I muttered during another nightmare, that kept them up all night. Or how the smallest thing triggered another breakdown. Maybe it was the way I wouldn't speak a word, even when they were beating me up with everything they had. They hated me."

"Then one day," Adrian said, his gaze dropping at the recollection, "They broke the front window of the matron's car. She threw a fit when she found out, screeched that whoever did it needed to fess up, or we were all going to lose out on our meals. I could see the four of them looking at me, and I knew they were going to throw me under the bus. I was angry. And exhausted. I didn't think. I just stepped forward and told Ms. Anastasia the truth, that it was they who did it. That it was they who always did things."

My lips fell ajar, and I was struck by a mixture of admiration, relief, and fear. Trepidation gripped me.

"She punished the four," Adrian said coldly, "They were made to sleep on the cold floor that night."

His lips pursed, "They cornered me on the way to school the next morning. And they beat me up, harder than they ever had before. They used their fists first, and when their fists started to hurt, they used their feet. And when those got too boring, whatever objects they could find. I could taste the blood at the back of my throat, and I could barely breathe. I thought I was going to die, Charley.

"Maybe it was that desperation, the possibility that this could really be the end, that did it. One of the boys held a stick, and it was coming at me. I grabbed it. I felt so much anger, I didn't think. Only swung it about wildly, hoping it would hit someone. And it did. It threw one of them to the floor, and he stayed there, in too much pain to move. I scrambled to my feet then, and swung it again and again, until another fell, too weak to stand. Until the other two backed away, too afraid to come any nearer."

Adrian inhaled sharply, his face filled with sadness and what looked like shadows of regret, "I remember standing there, staring at them. I'd never felt angrier in my life. My heart was pounding. But for the first time, I saw something in their eyes that I had felt far too much but had never had another feel for me."

Adrian swallowed guiltily as shame gathered in his eyes, "I saw fear, Charley. And it made me feel more powerful than I had ever thought possible."

My heart broke at the words. I remembered then. How shockingly violent Adrian had been when he had first arrived in town. How he had pounded my friend Lucas until he had screamed in agony. I remembered the day he had nearly battered Owen with a baseball bat, pummeling him so badly the boy had had to be carried away in a stretcher. How the students had gone out of their way to avoid him, terrified that they would suffer the same fate.