Jamie was growing tired of the sniveling. She just wanted to brood in peace, but her dad blubbered, alternating between begging for mercy and making outrageous promises if they let him go. Her mom just sat stone still and dead eyed.
She hoped Cory had escaped and took his mom to safety. She couldn’t stand the thought of her father’s life of being a fuck up would drag down another family. It was bad enough he’d dragged down her and her mom. Though, her dad might have been the only one who truly understood how fucked they were, even if he begged. The optimism of a degenerate gambler.
When the last biker left the room, shutting the door behind him, they were left alone in the room where’d she’d first been handed a gun and a photograph.
“Dad, shut up. I’m tired of listening to you.”
Her mom stirred from her seeming stupor. “Don’t speak to your father that way, Jamie.”
Her nostrils flared. “Oh, give it up, mom. This is my father’s doing. This is where his gambling has brought us. This is what years of you enabling him has earned our family. In debt to Nazi bikers. Your husband sold me to them when they came to collect. And now, they’re going to put bullets in our head and dump our bodies to be lessons for other degenerate gamblers like dear old dad.”
Her mother’s mouth hung open, her lower jaw quivering. Instead of speech, a few gasps of air sounded through her vocal chords. Finally, found some control and turned toward her husband. “Is this true?”
He didn’t even bother looking at her, instead dissolving into pathetic sobs. Her mom deflated, tears falling from her eyes as she did her best to shift her bound body away from her husband.
After a while, she asked, “Did they…harm you?”
Jamie shook her head. “No, they threatened it. But they had another plan for me.”
She didn’t know why she didn’t want to tell her mom. Maybe in some deep down part of her soul, she still wanted her mom to see her as her little girl. Maybe she just didn’t want to face the fact that she’d tried to kill a man and failed, then betrayed those who’d sent her to do it and that’s why they were strapped in to these chairs, bait for a monster they wanted dead.
She’d seen the white of his skull. The hateful flames of perdition in his his eyes. That gleaming scythe haunted her dreams, it’s blade dragging her into nightmares.
“What do they want from us? I…I can pay them the debt.” A spark of hope gleamed in her mother’s eyes.
Jamie sighed nosily. “It’s long past that time. They wanted me to perform a task and I failed. Now we’re bait.”
“Bait for what?”
“Something scarier than those who hold us.” She hung her head, staring blankly at the floor.Going to him was an act of desperation, but right now, he was the only hope she had of seeing her next birthday.
The sound of the door opening and the heavy tread of Ivar, the noise of clinking glasses, jocular shouts, and laughter traling along with him. Her dad blubbered louder, developing a hiccup to add to his pathetic lack of composure.
“Have some fucking dignity, man,” Ivar said, crouching in front of her dad to make eye contact with him. “Be more like your daughter. At least she’s got some balls on her.
In response, her dad reran his litany of empty promises and begging.
Ivar sighed dramatically. “Your mewlings are worth less than the scraps of paper your IOUs are printed on. Shut up.” He shoved out with both hands, tipping her father’s chair over abruptly.
He landed with a exhaled gust of a breath and the hollow snap of his his head smacking against the wood floor. That shut him up, or at least reduced his sobbing begging to a semi-conscious whimper until that too quieted to a steadying breath interrupted by his hiccups.
Next to her, her mother breathed shakily. “P…pl…please, sir. I can pay the debt. I have the money.”
Ivar stood up, staring at the heap of failure on the floor. “Honey, we’re long past the point where that’s the currency we’re dealing with. I suggest you introduce your bottom lip to your top lip and let them stay acquainted for a while.”
Her mom’s mouth shut quickly, her teeth clacking as she snapped her jaw closed.
Taking the two steps to Jamie, he stopped in fronter of her, filling her downturned eyes with with his scuffed, black motorcycle boots. She inhaled sharply when he patted her on the cheek a couple times.
“You better hope your new pal decides to show up. Or you’ll have betrayed us for nothing.”
Jamie lifted her head slightly, raising her eyes so they stared into Ivar’s flannel covered naval. “Maybe you should wonder why I did it. Why he’s scarier than all of you put together.”
Next to her, her mother groaned, lowering her head.
“Ha! To bad your wretch of a father isn’t awake enough to hear you. He could use a lesson in showing some spine.” Before she could blink, Ivar backhanded her across the jaw.
Stars exploded across her vision as her head snapped to the side. A moment after the shock of it, her jaw throbbed and her ear whined.
“Now, it’s time for you to learn a lesson about when to speak and when not to.” Ivar turned around sharply and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
“Jamie,” her mom whispered harshly. “You’re going to get yourself killed with that smart mouth of yours.”
“What do you care? You spend all your time cleaning up the messes made by the idiot you married. If you’d kicked him out years ago, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
Her mother let out a strangled noise, then started crying quietly.