Page 87 of Glorious Ruin
Silas reached across the center console, his large hand wrapping securely around my thick bicep, his thumb pressing into the muscle. The physical weight of his touch was the only thing keeping me tethered to the present.
Ten minutes later, I pulled the truck onto the cracked, weed-choked driveway. Engine off, we sat there staring through the windshield.
The house was in horrific shape. Paint peeled in curling strips like flaking dead skin. The front porch visibly sagged under the weight of moist, rotten wood, and the lawn was a graveyard of rusted car parts, shattered beer bottles, andovergrown, thorny briars. It looked exactly like what it was: a decaying monument for a miserable and violent man.
“Do you think if I set it on fire I’ll get arrested?” I asked in a stoic voice.
Silas didn’t miss a beat. “Probably, but I’d help you anyway.”
A dark, humorless sound escaped me as we got out of the truck and crunched along the gravel. I didn’t go to the front door immediately. Instead, I walked around the side of the house while Silas followed closely behind. The forest of weeds brushed aggressively against our jeans, snagging on the denim as we rounded the building.
Stopping outside a dirt-caked window, my breath hitched. The screen was violently ripped, its jagged edges curling outward. "That was my room." I pointed to the filthy glass. “That’s the window I climbed out of the night I ran away. Dropped onto the grass right here and ran toward the road. I didn’t stop until my lungs gave out.”
Silas stepped up beside me, brushing his shoulder against mine. He looked at the window with a tight jaw, like he was visualizing the horrifying reality of my youth.
We circled back to the front porch, the wood groaning in a miserable protest under our weight. I walked over to the dying, withered potted plant and kicked it over with the toe of my boot. The spare brass key sat there in the spilled dirt, exactly where it had always been.
“All these years,” I muttered with a shake of my head as I picked up the cold metal. “He never changed the hiding spot.”
I pushed the door open, and the second we crossed the threshold, the air hit me like a physical blow to the sternum.
Inside smelled exactly the same. A stagnant blend of stale cigarette smoke, Old Spice cologne, and sour beer hit me head on. It bypassed my brain completely and injected itself straight into my bloodstream. My vision swam, the edges of the room blurring as my nervous system hijacked my body. I was instantly transportedback to being a kid. Stuck between these four walls, suffering at the hands of a cruel man.
Empty liquor bottles scattered like landmines across the coffee table and carpet. A layer of dust coated every single surface, magnified by the shafts of light bleeding through the broken blinds.
Flashing memories of agonizing hunger hit me so hard my stomach cramped, bringing up a phantom echo of bile in my throat. I was suddenly trapped in a violent, suffocating reel of trauma: panicking blindly as he held me underwater in the grimy porcelain bathtub, screaming for oxygen while his calloused hands gripped the back of my neck with lethal force. I was forgetting how to inhale as the crushing pressure of his forearm collapsed my windpipe against the living room floor, my vision going black and starry while I desperately clawed at his wrists for a mercy that never came.
A high-pitched ringing started in my ears. The walls felt like they were shrinking, closing in rapidly on my chest. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. My 250-pound, heavily tattooed, and normally imposing frame suddenly felt fragile, like cold glass. I vibrated with panic.
And then, I looked down.
Near the edge of the hallway, illuminated by a sliver of grey light, there was a dark, rust colored stain sunk deep into the frayed fibers of the carpet.My blood.
My eyes snapped up. Directly below a crooked picture frame, perfectly preserved in the yellowing drywall, was a massive indentation. The exact spot where he had thrown me before he brought me into the kitchen and beat me until I lost consciousness.
A deafening roar ripped from my throat, tearing through my vocal chords and echoing off the walls. It was the sound of pure, blinding rage, and so raw, I didn’t even recognize it as my own.
I grabbed the wooden side table next to me, and as my fingers dug into the wood, I hurled it across the room with every ounce of strength I possessed. Itshattered against the opposite wall, a violent explosion of splinters and drywall dust.
“Cal!” Silas shouted, his voice laced with shock.
I barely registered. I couldn’t see him through the haze that had taken over my vision. I was trapped in a blind blackout of torture and trauma. The fourteen-year-old boy who couldn’t fight back was dead, and the man who now bled for a living had finally been unleashed.
I grabbed a wooden dining chair, swung it like a baseball bat, and smashed it over the kitchen counter. The legs snapped into jagged pieces flying around the room as I continued my rampage. The coffee table was next, I kicked it and sent dozens of empty bottles shattering across the floor. Every piece of furniture, framed photograph, and remnant of Ewan Kincaid, was becoming dust under my bare hands.
My chest heaved, each breath felt like dragging an anchor through quicksand as I stalked into the hallway. Squaring my shoulders, I pulled back my arm and drove my fist directly into the dent in the wall. I punched my own bloodied history so hard, the wooden stud splintered under the force of my knuckles.
Silas was still trying to get to me, dodging flying debris and shattered glass, although there was little to actually avoid. Even in my completely blinded state, my subconscious knew exactly where he was. He was my anchor, and my body rotated around his grounding force. Every time he stepped close, I’d pivot aggressively, throwing my destruction in the opposite direction. Even while consumed by absolute madness, I would never,everput aggressive hands on him.
The same way he wouldn’t let me continue to harm myself in this spiral.
Lunging forward, he ignored the danger of my flailing fists and collided hard with my back. His arms tightened around me, locking me in a vice grip as he used his momentum and massive 6’3” frame to tackle me safely to the dusty carpet.
We hit the floor hard, sending up a thick, choking cloud of dirt. Silas scrambled instantly, shifting his weight to pin me down. His forearms remained lockedaround my torso like steel bands, grounding my thrashing body in the safety of his embrace.
“I’ve got you!” Si yelled over my desperate attempts to break free, his words violently cracking from his own tears. He buried his face in the back of my neck, holding on for dear life as his body trembled against mine.
“Cal, stop! Look at me! He’s dead! He’s dead, baby, he can’t ever touch you again!”
