“It’s okay,” Devon whispered. “A quick chat and we’re gone.”
Charity’s smile held no humor. “I don’t think this is going to go how you think it will go.” She rapped on the door. “You all will want to clear to the side. He’s got shit aim, but that won’t stop him from trying.”
“This is a level of crazy I wasn’t prepared for,” Rod said in a wispy voice, stepping off the walkway and onto the mostly dirt yard.
“Real sensitive, dick,” Andy muttered.
“This isn’t the half of it,” Charity said before rapping again with hard, angry pounds. “You haven’t met my old man yet.”
“What the fuck do you want?” came through the door.
“Open up or I will bust this door down, Walt,” she hollered.
“You don’t call your dad ‘Dad’?” Andy asked.
“He didn’t do a lick of fathering—why should he get the title?” Charity rapped again. “Last chance, Walt.”
Tinkling sounded before a deadbolt turned over. The door opened a crack, revealing two long barrels.
“I’ll take that.” Fast as sin, Charity rammed the door wider with her shoulder, grabbed the end of the gun, and yanked it toward her, wrenching it out of the old man’s hands. She kicked the door, catching the side of his face on its trajectory toward the wall.
The man in the doorway had ruddy cheeks from years of drinking and a shiny bald head surrounded by tangled gray hair. His spindly arms and thin, slightly bow-shaped legs didn’t match the round gut half hanging out of a stained and ripped white T-shirt. Jeans hung too low, and his fly gaped open.
His bloodshot eyes narrowed when he saw her. He surveyed Devon next, then glanced behind them. “Get off my yard,” he rasped.
“Good to see you, too,” Charity said. “Now move. I need to get some stuff.”
“I ain’t got nothin’ of yours here,” he said with a sneer. “Get outta here, you little whore.”
“Someone needs to enter this guy in a Miss Congeniality pageant—he’d clean up,” Andy murmured, probably to Rod.
Devon clamped down on his rage. It would rile Charity up, and she didn’t need any additional distractions.
“I’ll leave when I get what I want, not before,” Charity said with fire in her eyes. “Where’d Mom go?”
His lip curled. “You tell me.”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t need you, now would I? Where’d she go?”
“Get out of here. You don’t think I got another gun? I got another gun. Get off my property before I go and get it.”
Charity tossed the shotgun into the yard. “Answer me,” she said, her voice low, her tone wobbling. A sheen covered her eyes, emotion leaking through her hard exterior.
Walt saw it and laughed, of all things. Rage pulsed hot in Devon’s middle despite his desperate attempts to keep it at bay.
“Fuck that bitch, running out on me. She was a worthless whore, just like you.”
Charity’s jaw clenched. “Did she ever mention anything about magic, or her family?”
Walt stepped into the center of the doorway, staggered, and reached out to steady himself on the doorframe. It was four o’clock in the afternoon and already he was blasted.
“Her family?” His lips curled off his brown teeth, a sick smile filled with gaps. “Sure, she mentioned her family. Her deadbeat dad who couldn’t kick down a damn dime. Her useless mother without a pot to piss in. Yeah, she mentioned them a time or two. But you know what she never did tell me about? Your family. Disgusting whore. She weren’t no virgin, I knew that already, but preemies don’t come in at nearly eight pounds. I knew something was susp’ious about that. I always did. That asshole who came knocking a couple weeks ago knew it, too. Perfect strangers know you’re nothing but a bastard. See? Makes sense why I never did like you none. You were always such a prissy little bitch, just like your mother.” He looked at Devon with foggy eyes before pointing at Charity. “You with this little bitch? Because if you are, you better be careful. Her and her mother are just the same; they’ll fuck anything—”
Devon’s vision went red, and before he knew what happened, he’d stepped forward and smashed his fist into the filthy man’s face. Walt went down like a sack of rocks, hitting the floor, bouncing, and staying there.
“Thank God someone did it,” Steve said. “I was having a hard time keeping my mouth shut.”
Charity stared down at her dad, her back stiff. A tear slid down her cheek.
Devon’s heart broke for her. “Don’t listen to him,” he said softly, this time allowing himself to rub her back. “He was drunk. Drunk and mean. He didn’t really mean those things.”
“Did you hear what he said?” She blinked her eyes to clear them, sending a few more tears gliding down her cheeks.
“He probably won’t remember—”
“He doesn’t think I’m his.”