His Father

“Help me toss her out,” Sargent says as the woman hisses, spits, and sobs.

“Who the fuck is she?” she screams, clearly off her head.

“She is none of your business, you psychotic bitch,” Devon yells, grabbing her kicking ankles as Sargent grabs her arms.

Unfortunately, in her haste to escape, she brings her booted foot into Devon’s groin and he goes down like a sack of potatoes off a shelf.

“Oooh,” I hiss, cringing with him as he tries not to vomit from the pain.

I rush to him, ready to help when a stench I can’t describe fills my nostrils and a blur of graying, brown hair is in my face. We tumble to the ground and I push against her, trying to find leverage.

I feel her teeth sink into my shoulder and scream. This bitch really is crazy!

“I will end you! You homewrecking whore!” she screeches at me, her wild eyes enraged.

“Get her off me or I’m going to lose my shit!” I yell, pushing at her face with my hand as my knee goes to her belly.

“ENOUGH!” Sargent bellows, grabbing her and literally throwing her into the door. “Call the cops, she is cracked out of her fucking mind.” He slams her onto the ground and pins her with both arms behind her back as I fumble with the phone in the hall. Ignoring the pain in my arm as I dial and speak to the dispatcher.

They can hear her wailing like a banshee.

Everybody this side of the world can likely hear her wailing like a banshee.

“I thought you were clean, Kelly.” Sargent sighs, frowning at the woman who was once his wife. It’s hard to imagine a man like him ever being with a woman like her. She’s a mess. She looks bloated, sickly, her hair is graying and patchy. She has cuts up and down her bare arms from where she’s been picking them and scratching.

When I hang up the phone I race to grab Devon a bag of ice from the freezer. He accepts it gratefully, still in agony. I’m wondering if I should have called an ambulance too.

“Are you okay?” I ask Sargent as she finally stills and just sobs beneath him.

He nods and smiles at me gently. “Are you?”

I look at my arm, the skin isn’t broken but I go in search of some peroxide anyway. When I find it, I clean the wound and open the door for the cops to come in.

“I’ll just…” Devon carries himself to the sofa and collapses onto it. Poor bloke.

“I’ll get you some pain killers.” I look at Sargent as the local sheriffs handcuff the bitch in question. “You got this?”

He nods and deals with that while I deal with his friend.

There are stools on the ground and a broken glass is scattered around the far wall as though it has been thrown.

An hour passes, the cops take our statements and leave, Devon hobbles to his car, and I finish clearing away any glass. I can’t believe that just happened. That was insane.

I’m still in shock I think.

The bitch bit me. She hasn’t been with Sargent since Maddox was fourteen. Maddox said so himself.

So why did she feel territorial? Was it the drugs? I knew she was a heavy addict but I didn’t know to what extent. Now I’m wondering if Maddox knows to what extent.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Sarge says softly as he sinks onto the sofa and covers his face with his hands.

“I don’t mind,” I reply, wiping the mark off the white wall where the liquid from inside the glass splattered. “It’s probably going to need repainting.”

“If only you could paint over bad memories,” he mutters and looks at me through hooded eyes. “Come here.”

I drop the rag and move to him, taking his outstretched hand in mine.

He pulls me onto his lap until I’m straddling him and gently touches the bite mark which mars a blank space of my tattoo.

“She’s a fucking bitch,” he growls, kissing the space beside the mark gently as though his touch will make it all better. I’m surprised when it does.

I thread my fingers together behind his neck and kiss him softly.

We don’t ever kiss softly. We fuck each other’s mouths. We don’t make out like passionate lovers. What we do is brutal and painful in the best way, but right now this is sweet and calm in a new way.

He grips my hips and sits up so our bodies are flush together and my groin is against him. “Are you okay?”

I nod and he lifts me and presses my back to the couch. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t do more to help. I didn’t have an opening.”

“When she’s like that she’s strong. I’m sorry I let her get close enough to do this to begin with,” he whispers, kissing my shoulder again. He rests his body on mine and looks down at me with a gaze so soft but so tired. He looks older than he ever has, but that’s not to say he looks old because he doesn’t, he just looks like a man who carries so many burdens. “You didn’t say you weren’t mine. If you’d have said you were Maddox’s she’d have probably started hugging you, not biting you.”