“Your name?”
“Leslie Mr. Lyon.” Now she’s shy and demure and shit. No wonder they get away with everything. The other two do pretty well in school, and never really give me any trouble, who’d suspect that they’re into this shit?
“Did my sons coerce you in any way to come here?” She got jittery as fuck and looked around the room. Kid, I’m as uncomfortable as you are. Just tell me what the hell I want to know so we can put this shit to rest and I can go deal with my traumatized wife.
“No sir.” Her face went up in flames. She was embarrassed and I could only imagine if she were one of my daughters. I’d kill the fucks. My guts dropped at the thought and now I had a new headache. I have five of them to look out for. The fuck!
“Why don’t you run on home, and Leslie, I know those two are my sons, but you better ask yourself if this is something you want for your life, if you’d look back on this with joy, shame or whatever. I’m not gonna preach to you but you’re what, eighteen?”
“Seventeen sir…but I’ll be eighteen in a couple of weeks.” Fuck me.
“Do me a favor, don’t come back until you’re twenty-one.” Maybe by then she’d have some sense or at least she’d know what the fuck she wants.
I headed up the stairs after letting her out the door. I passed the twins’ room on the way to mine and their mother’s and the fucks were laying across their beds doing homework. Fucking unbelievable.
“Daddy!” Shit, fuck!
“Dammit!” I almost stepped on her. “Mengele, what are you doing lurking around in the hallway? In the dark?” She stepped in line with me like I invited her nosy ass somewhere.
“Daddy, what was that girl doing in the boys’ room?” The fuck!
“Homework!” She gave me a look that said, ‘don’t play me’. I’m not gonna see this kid into her teens. Either I’m gonna send her away to get tested, or she’s going to do me in.
“So why did mommy scream then?”
“She saw a bug.” The little shit snorted.
“We don’t have bugs daddy.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I don’t like them, so I made something to keep them out.”
My gut went cold with fear and swear to fuck I could no longer feel my legs. “What do you mean?” She shrugged her little shoulders and I saw years of looking at her through Plexiglas flash before my eyes. “What do you mean?” What did you use?”
“Just something I made.”
“This thing you made, can your little brother and sisters get into it?”
“Of course not daddy, it’ll kill them; duh!” She rolled her eyes the way her mother does when she’s calling me stupid. I stopped walking and looked down at her. “Mengele, have you ever heard of an orphanage?”
I’m pretty sure that look she just gave me and that smirk meant that she’d have my ass in a home before I could send her off to one. “They don’t have them anymore daddy.”
“How do you know this?”
“Humph, daddy you’re always threatening to send me to one so I checked.”
She walked away leaving me to look after her retreating back. She’s maybe four feet tall, barely eight years old, why am I so afraid of her? I shook my head, rubbed my gut, and went after my wife. I can’t wait to get back to the shop tomorrow.
School is gonna be out soon for the summer and I’m already dreading that shit. It’s already hot as fuck like someone broke the barometer, but I’m not complaining, next thing you know, I do that shit and there’d be hail pelting my house.
I sighed from my soul when I stopped in the doorway of my bedroom and watched my wife.
“Kat.” She was moving around the room folding shit and putting it away. I know that look.
“Did you kill them?” She didn’t look up at me.
“No.”
“This is all your fault Colton Lyon.” Here we go.
“How the fuck do you figure? Mengele, I’m not gonna tell you again.” I saw her shadow move along the wall. With any luck that nut will do me in soon with one of her concoctions.
Just then the three little ones came barreling into the room on their hands and knees making a racket. They’d just learned to crawl and my house was now hell central.
I reached down and grabbed the first two and headed over to the bed with the third wrapped around my ankle chortling like a lunatic. “Where’s Cody?”
“Caitlin has him in her room, don’t change the subject.”
She folded the same shirt for the third or fourth time and I knew what kind of mood she was in. A houseful of kids meant I couldn’t fuck her out of her shit, but what’s new? Ever since she started trying to repopulate the state I haven’t had a moment’s peace.