Dub
His left eye throbbed. It was swollen almost shut. He couldn’t see much out of it, and what he could see was blurry. With that solid hit Andro had delivered with his brass knuckles, Dub wondered if he’d ever see straight again. But no sense thinking too much about it. Dub had a feeling he wasn’t going to be alive much longer anyway. He’d seen Andro on violent highs before, but today Andro had reached a new level.
Before Andro had dragged him along on this home invasion, he’d slammed Dub’s head so hard against the wall in the apartment it had left a hole in the Sheetrock. Dub’s mom had begged Andro to stop, but that only made Andro madder. He’d backhanded her across the face and she’d fallen, hitting hit her head on the breakfast bar with a sickening crack. Her lifeless body was the last thing Dub saw before his father dragged him from the apartment and out to his car.
Andro had held a gun on him the entire way here. Dub had considered jumping from the moving car, but his father had told him he’d shoot him if he tried to get away. Dub didn’t doubt it. Knowing Andro, he’d not only shoot Dub but run his body over with the car, too.
Dub also stayed with Andro because he feared what Andro was going to do. He knew his father had shot that couple in their home. He was afraid his father was going to hurt someone else now. Dub had to do whatever he could to prevent that from happening.
That’s how he’d ended up here, in this woman’s home, with Andro.
Andro had dragged Dub up to the house and waved a hand at a sign in the front window. MEEMAW’S DAY CARE. “See that? These old bitches always got lots of nice stuff.”
Andro had been wrong. This woman didn’t have much at all. Her furniture was old and her clothes looked like the kind you’d buy at a discount store. And if she was rich she wouldn’t be babysitting children at her house for money. Andro was a dumbass.
The children had been terrified when Andro, posing as a utility worker, had forced his way into the house. At least Dub had been able to convince Andro to let him put the kids in a bedroom where they’d be safer and wouldn’t witness whatever brutality Andro planned for the old lady. Of course Andro didn’t give a shit about the kids’ safety, but Dub had convinced him they’d get in the way.
Dub had grabbed a phone in the bedroom and dialed 9-1-1, but had to drop the receiver back in place when Andro stepped to the door and told him to hurry his ass up.
Dub hated this feeling of helplessness, of not knowing what to do. If he fought his father, Andro would shoot him and Dub wouldn’t be able to protect anyone. But if he didn’t fight his father, what might Andro do? It was so much—too much—to deal with.
Andro stepped in front of the woman, who had pulled herself back in the corner of her couch as if trying to disappear into it. “Where’s your silver?”
On the television to their left, the noon news was on, that bimbo reporter with the big boobs looking out at them from the screen, talking about last night’s ice storm. Dressed in a pink winter coat with fluffy pink trim, she stood next to a snowwoman built to look like her, with two double-D-sized snowballs on its chest. Like the reporter, the snowwoman wore a pink knit cap and a pink scarf.
Out here in the real world, Meemaw looked up at Andro, her eyes blinking fast like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “I don’t have any silver!” she cried. “We’ve never had any!”
“You’re lying to me!” Andro raised his right hand, which held the gun. “I know it. Now tell me where your silver is or I’ll put a bullet in your head and find it myself!”
Dub couldn’t take this anymore. He’d probably die here today, bleed out on this woman’s rug, but he couldn’t just stand here and do nothing. He’d seen Andro beat his mother too many times. Even if it meant losing his own life, he wasn’t about to watch Andro beat this innocent woman.
“No!” Dub rushed Andro from the side, grabbed his father’s arm with both hands, and forced it upward.
Bang! The gun fired a hole in the ceiling. White dust and drywall dropped to the rug.
The woman shrieked as Dub and his father fell to the floor, fighting for the gun. Andro gave Dub an elbow to the jaw, the hit so hard he’d probably never eat solid foods again.
The woman stood frozen by her couch, her hands over her face like she was trying to catch the scream coming out of her mouth.
“Go!” Dub yelled at her. “Get help!”
She ran out of the room.
Andro and Dub rolled across the floor. Dub gained an advantage when he slammed Andro up against the entertainment center. Bam! DVDs fell from the shelves. The Wiggles. Shrek. How to Train Your Dragon. Dub had liked that one.
Andro grabbed Dub by the shoulders and rolled him over onto his back. He swung his knee into Dub’s gut so hard it knocked the wind out of him and made him retch. Before Dub could recover, Andro raised the gun over his head and brought it down on Dub’s temple. Dub’s head exploded in pain. His brain wobbled inside his head. Shit! The vision through his right eye was blurry now, too. How could he fight a man he could barely see?
When his eye cleared, he saw Andro standing over him. Andro smiled a sick, evil smile and aimed his gun at Dub’s face. Dub turned his head toward the frozen snow boobs on the television. If he were going to die, he would not give his father the satisfaction of seeing the fear on his face.
Jingle-jingle.
Dub saw a flash of black and tan in his peripheral vision.
Bang!
Arf!
A woman’s voice cried, “No!”
Holy shit! Had Andro just shot a dog?