The water hit like a shiv to the ribs, ice daggers shredding my sleep shirt into a second skin. My spine arched off the couch springs, a feral scream ricocheting off mold-speckled walls. Through dripping eyelashes, Louise's Aqua Net halo quivered like a toxic mushroom cloud.
The cold wasn't the worst part. It was the way Louise would smile afterward, lips peeling back from nicotine-stained teeth like a gator sunning itself on a rotten log. Last time she'd thrown the bucket, I'd cracked two molars biting back screams.
The numbers calcified in my gut every morning, another layer of sediment in the fossil record of my survival. 14,472 hours choking on Louise's Kool fog. 14,472 breaths of mildew and Silverado exhaust. 14,472 chances to fuck up and end up in Hank's 'hunting cabin' again.
"Fifteen minutes, Drucilla! Or I'll make juvie look like Disneyland!"
The peeling wall calendar behind her head blurred as I subtracted days. *603 mornings left. 602. 601.* Her chili pepper muu-muu strained against last night's vodka gut as she swung Hank's belt—the one with the Confederate buckle that left star-shaped bruises.
I rolled over the couch arm, denim seams catching on broken springs. My knees hit mildew carpet as the belt cracked the air where my ribs had been. "I'm moving!" My throat burned like I'd swallowed battery acid.
"Damn right you are." Louise's nicotine infested breath fogged my face. "Toilet's backing up again. Fix it before supper."
I button my jeans over the latticework of scars—silvery old friends, others still scabbed souvenirs from last week's "attitude adjustment." Reminders that in this house, love is pain.
The denim seam caught on a fresh welt. For a heartbeat, the sting ripped through me like sunlight—not the basement's flickering bulb, but real sunlight, the kind that used to dapple through cypress knees and taste like honeysuckle stolen from the vine.
*Three years old, bare feet sinking into bayou mud that smelled of blackberries and secrets. A woman's laughter, round and golden as a jar of sun tea, her braids threaded with swamp irises. "Fè kronn flè pou ou, cherie (Making flower crowns for you, sweetheart)." Her thumbs brushing my temples as she settled blossoms in my hair—crisp magnolia petals, their lemon-cream scent drowning the iron tang of the coming storm.*
*Behind her, a man's shadow stretched long across the water. His voice rumbled through the humid air, Cajun French melting into English: "Dis-moi ce que tu vois, p'tit oiseau (Tell me what you see, little bird)." He held up a cattail, its fur bursting into a thousand winged seeds. I chased them, giggling, until my knees sank into cool mud. The woman's flower crown slipped, petals dissolving like sugar in the downpour—or was it the bourbon, sharp and sour, that later drowned her laughter?
The bell's shrill scream jolted me awake as completely as Louise's ice water. My cheek peeled off the Civics textbook, electoral college diagrams tattooed in drool on my skin.
*Third period. Two hours since Louise's 'attitude adjustment.'*
For three breaths, the classroom smelled of ginger and wet moss. Then Tyler Jacobs' Axe body spray seared my nostrils, chemical and cruel. My fingers crept to my scalp—no flower crown, just the bump from where Louise had slammed my head into the toilet tank last Thursday.
"Sleeping beauty graces us!" he smirked from the next desk, his letterman jacket stinking of weed and privilege. Three Sharpies danced between my fingers as I resumed inking out chloroplast diagrams in Brady Carmichael's notebook.
"Twenty gets this an A," I muttered. "Forty I'll take your chemistry quiz."
Brady's gold chain glinted from the seat behind me. "Make it look like a C student."
"Careful. You're paying for plausible deniability, not actual intelligence," my pen hovering over his notebook. One wrong stroke and Louise would have another reason to break my fingers—her version of career counseling.
He chuckles nervously, "Just don't make it too good."
"Funny. That's what your dad said to the hooker at the Truck 'N' Go," I deadpanned. Let him sweat. They always paid extra when you knew their skeletons. New Orleans didn't care about timelines, but I'd carve my escape route one stolen dollar at a time.
Our family roles were set in stone harder than a methhead's teeth. Louise played martyr saint, I was her designated demon. Let the social workers believe her Oscar-worthy tears. Juvie's concrete hugs taught me two truths: 1) Never cry where guards can see 2) Chocolate pudding cups are the closest thing to love you'll get in this godforsaken state.
School was no sanctuary either—just another battlefield with cheaper weapons. The cafeteria pizza smelled like regret and government subsidies. I counted wrinkled bills under the table—$17. Enough for one slice and tampons if I skipped Friday's meal.
"Drakes!" The lunch lady's acrylic nails clicked. "You buying or daydreaming?"
"Pepperoni." I shoved dollars across, stomach growling louder than Louise's bible-thumping when the EBT card ran out.
Tyler's fries appeared on my tray next to his motorcycle keys. "Accident," he lied, nodding to where his brother's motorcycle idled beyond chain-link fences. Last month he'd seen Louise try to drag me through our busted screen door. Now gas prices glowed like salvation above the BP station—$2.89. New Orleans was two tanks away.
The social worker's card burned in my backpack. *Ms. Rodriguez - Birmingham DHR.* First one who didn't smell like Louise's Virginia Slims bribes.
"You gonna stare at that or eat it?"
Tyler's shadow fell across the table. I hunched deeper into my hoodie, switch marks itching. "What's it to you?"
He slid into the bench. "Hear you're good at history."
I tore into cold crust. "Fifty bucks says I'm better than your GPA."
His grin faltered. "Could use help…with other stuff."
The chain-link fence rattled as Hank's Silverado idled in the teacher's lot, exhaust fumes bleeding into the humid Alabama air. The Silverado's engine snarled, vibrating my molars. My pulse jackhammered against the fork still clenched in my fist—a pathetic weapon, but it had worked once before. Summer of '22, when Hank tried to "tuck me in." The scar under his left eye still puckered when it rained.
Through the cafeteria's mucus-green windows, his shadow stretched across the asphalt—a grotesque marionette cut from Confederate flags and bad decisions. The truck's bumper sticker glared fresh in the noon sun: "Proud Parent of an Honor Roll Student." Louise's idea of a joke.
Hank stepped out, boots crunching gravel like bones. The belt buckle winked at me, its brass stars warped from years of splitting skin. *Constellations of pain.* My ribs throbbed in agreement.
The fork snapped.
Tyler's fries turned to ash in my mouth. "You good?"
I wasn't. The Silverado wasn't just a vehicle—it was a hearse for every hope I'd ever buried. Rust gnawed its wheel wells like maggots, the bed littered with Louise's empties and Hank's chew tins. Last summer, he'd locked me in there for six hours. Now it crouched outside, engine growling like a rabid dog. *A mobile prison.*
"What kind of stuff?" My voice sounded distant, drowned by the blood roaring in my ears.
Tyler followed my gaze. "The kind that needs a getaway bike."
Studying his hands—clean nails, no track marks, "You don't know what running costs."
Leaning in, voice low, "My brother's Kawasaki's faster than any social worker's sedan."
Snorting, "Speed don't outrun a welfare check, pretty boy." I palmed the fork's broken tine. Rich boys thought danger was a video game. They didn't know how blood turned sticky when it dried on linoleum.
Hank lumbered through security, Louise's "World's Best Mom" mug steaming in his bear claw hand. The slogan was faded from microwave reheats, the rim stained with last night's whiskey dinner. Inside, a mason jar ring floated like a serpent in brown tea—proof that even kindness here was poisoned.
He raised the mug in mock toast. The keloid ridge on his forearm pulsed, a jagged monument to my 14-year-old rebellion. *His trophy. My death warrant.*
"Meet me after chem." I shoved the cold pizza in my bag. "Bring cash."
The exit sign glowed red, buzzing like a dying wasp. *ESCAPE* it screamed. But Hank stood between me and salvation, his Confederate buckle catching the light. *Same tool, new prey.*
"Drakes!" The lunch lady's nails clicked. "Forgot your tray!"
Hank's glassy eyes locked onto mine. Louise's threat slithered through my mind: *"I'll vanish you quicker than my last marriage license."* The bell's scream cut through the chaos, but Hank's shadow loomed closer.
The chain-link fence pressed into my palms as I bolted outside. Tyler's motorcycle glinted beyond the diamonds of steel—a chrome prayer. Hank's boots thudded behind me, the belt's *snap-snap* harmonizing with the Silverado's growl.
After today's blackmail session, I'd be $83 closer to bus fare. 602 days left. 601. 599.
*603 days left.* The numbers pulsed behind my eyelids. But time wasn't linear here—it pooled like blood under a screen door, sticky and infinite.
The fence's teeth bit my palms as I vaulted over the fence, Hank's roar blending with the Silverado's engine snarl. Tyler's bike gleamed like a chrome coffin. I'd seen what happened to girls who hitched rides with pretty boys—their names painted on overpasses in Krylon tears. But the Kawasaki's gas gauge promised 200 miles per tank. Enough to outrun Hank's threats, the DHR's paperwork, maybe even the ghost of that 14-year-old girl who still believed in rescue.
The chem wing doors yawned nearer. I veered left towards the open doors, Doc Martens skidding on gravel as Hank's roar echoed behind me. The hallway swallowed me whole, its fluorescent lights buzzing like Louise's old bug zapper. *Flicker. Flicker. Dark.* My shadow fractured on linoleum, a dozen broken Drucillas sprinting past lockers tagged with gang signs and dick doodles. The chem lab reeked of formaldehyde and crawfish boil, the walls sweating like a drunk at confession. Somewhere behind me, a door slammed.
*Breathe. Just reach the stairwell.*
But the numbers pulsed louder—*603...602...*—each step ticking down like a metronome stuck in my skull.- *Ms. Rodriguez's card corners bit my palm. Last caseworker had taken Louise's side after she'd staged the "I'm Trying So Hard" act—fresh bruises covered with Dollar General foundation, my mattress "coincidentally" missing when they toured my "room". But Rodriguez's eyes had lingered on Hank's belt during our cafeteria "chat." Noticed how I flinched when janitors dropped mops. *Call. Don't call. Call. Don't—*
A laugh ricocheted off the trophy case ahead.
Freddy.
Freddy's cologne hit first—Axe body spray and Juul mint. My lungs seized. Same stench as the boys' locker room where Hank had cornered me sophomore year. "Just a friendly chat," he'd slurred, fingers digging into my backpack straps until they snapped. The principal called it "concern." I called it the day I started carrying razor blades in my pencil case.*
I froze. Eddie and Chip materialized from the bio lab's shadowed alcove, their silhouettes stretching long and lean like nooses.
"Lookie here," Freddy's belt buckle winked—same brass stars as Hank's. I'd polished both after "incidents," using my last clean T-shirt to buff out the evidence. The secret to removing blood? Cold water and lies. Always lies.
Three against one, but the fire extinguisher by Room 214 hadn't been inspected since Y2K. Louise had taught me two things: how to take a beating, and how to swing a lead pipe.
"Drucilla's playin' hooky," he drawled.
Eddie cracked his knuckles. "Needs a lesson in attendance."
I backpedaled. The exit sign glowed red at the far end—*ESCAPE*—but Hank's boots echoed behind me now, harmonizing with the bullies' taunts.
"Where's your boyfriend, Crazy Girl?" Chip crooned. "Oh right—you don't got one."
The social worker's card tore as I clutched it. Tyler's bike keys dug into my thigh.
*Run. Fight. Scream.*
But the hallways here were built like Louise's traps—every exit a dead end, every ally a Judas.
Freddy lunged.