See? See? I told you! I told you he left. Ritcher crawls away, far from father and further from Turnus.

Where'd you go, boy? Thomas waits in his leather chair with a belt in his hand, the room smells of cheap beer. He can only describe it urine and of salty ocean water. Mother must be crying.

I just went to the dance.

With that poor whore, you're seeing? Right? He gestures at Turnus. A wave, come here, come here. And Turnus stands still in the door frame. Outside, windy storms and the sound of maples hitting electrical wires.

Or was it with the boy? Hmm? You don't think I know? You don't think I see your oddness? You're a crooked aberration, the mirror misaligned from what you should have been. Come here![/b] He hits the floor with your belt. I'm going to beat the deviltry out of you. I'll choke it out if I have to. Come here I said!

The door closes behind him, he wishes he had ran. But Turnus moves forward. Little Ritcher is in his pajamas, he can't bear to see his brothers face. Because his brother, Turnus, is glaring mostly at him now.

"We'll be there soon, the casino is only ten minutes away." Turnus turned to the pair. "You kill him - you buy your freedom. You fail - you die. You run away - you'll wish you died."

They nodded. Dark skinned youths, though they don't wear shackles around their arms, it's obvious what chains them. The look of a slave was upon their faces; it is the look of hopelessness, of blind obedience, and of hostility too. A little anger, just a smudge in the corner of their eyes.

He slaps the boy before he whips him.

You've too many sins to pay for tonight, Turnus! You don't think I know about your escapades with the thing in the barn?

He's not a thing! He's my older brother, there ain't nothing wrong with him ei-

He can't finish. The belt hit his mouth because even drunks can aim well if they've practiced enough. And father, Thomas Sr., has had plenty of practice to hit his child in drunken stupors. He probably aims better that way.

He ain't of my seed, you hear me? He's your mother's failure, not mine. So ain't your brother either, how does that feel? He hits him. The belt drags against the flesh in his arm, he places the hot leather on Turnus's shoulder so he can feel the sting contrast against the worn, cracked belt. Then, as if kissing his arm with the belt, he draws it back and slams it down. It's the only love he's ever known.

And if she has her way, that bitch will ruin you too. You don't think I know where you get your queer thoughts? She's the reason you fool around with half the town. Boy and girl. Her and that abomination she birthed from her filth. Him. Him. Her! Her! He whips. He whips. He whips! HE WHIPS

And it comes like a crack of thunder set against dark skies, and it feels like numbing blizzard-snow burying his body, and he's reddened all over his chest and arms and face like an animal pegged with the arrow shot.

Stop hitting him, Tom! His mother walks in. He wished he wished he wished she hadn't.

"You be careful when you face him, I don't know what he's capable of," Turnus told his slaves.

"Don't you worry, he'll be dead." Their eyes were empty, and the way they turned their heads was mechanical. It seemed that even to themselves, they weren't human.

The passing lights of a car flashed in his rear mirror. It looked like a little candle in the hands of a monastery man. A monk's dying flame in the study.

It wasn't dark, but quickly getting there. The sky bled its color out into the evening sky, past the plateaus of desert mountain ranges, lowering itself to the small hands of cactus plants. Best now than any other time.

"He's your brother." The other slave says, in the back.

“And?” Turnus asked.

“I’m just saying.”

"Good thing I didn't ask you to think." Turnus pointed his finger down to a button in a remote held by his right hand. He flashed it. It had a dial, and on the two slaves were the small chokers they instinctively grabbed. They looked decorative but were anything but. "I don't want your questions or statements. You can blabber away when you're fucking free."

The other slave, the one in the front, dogged the girl in the back. He looked angrier about it than Turnus.

Their orange eyes looked like pieces of copper logged in the hollows of their skulls. They look like the sun a bit, a sun now setting down on the highway and down the side of the casino El Rey.

Turnus looked at the casino, it seemed staggered, crooked in a way.

It can't even stand straight when she walks down the stairs

Stop hurting him. Mother has dried her tears, most of them. He's done nothing wrong but be himself.

Being himself is what's wrong. Father turns the whip to her. He got this queerness from you, these weird ideas, the drawings in his room. The books he reads. All this. He raises Turnus by the arm. He's got a fake tattoo on his arm, from the dance where the girls were putting them for fun on their partners. From you! So don't you come in here, begging for the boy when it's your fault he's not saved in the first place.

Please, Tom. He didn't do nothing wrong. He just went out! A few hours over curfew, a little fun. That's it! Nothing under the good Lord would call that wrong.

Don't you talk about the good lord and what's wrong or right? What's a bitch like you know about morality? Huh? You should be sorry too. Sorry for these awful kids! Sorry! Sorry! You sow! And he stands up from his chair and pushes Turnus aside because the punishment no longer belongs to him. Though, seeing his father move towards his mother, he still feels hurt. As if the stinging marks across his arms and shoulder and face have gotten some kind of second-wind of pain. Because seeing mother step back, hit the wall and knock over the picture frames hanging from unsteady nails, he can't help but feel pain. Seeing mothers face, the tight face, the shivering eyes that look around for help. And he begs, begs though he can not say it

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don't look at don't look don't look at me

Father approaches her, locks her in the cage of his arms and grabs her.

don't look at me mom don't look at me I just can't take your stare I just wanted to go out I wanted to see what people who have fun so please don't look at me like I can do something, please don't

And of course her eyes fall on him, and he can't help but stand up. Father readiest the belt above his head.

She's staring at her son, asking to be defended. Well, Turnus never asked for help. That's what he wants to say, but can't.

No. He says the dumbest thing he can.

Stop. He says. No one listens, there's no strength his words. None of that conviction that he finds in fathers preaches, because father readies words with violence. Because of violence. Yes, violence is the only authority that matters in this world. It is that which compels man to do anything, violence, and violence alone. Morality is violence. Right is violence. Violence. Blood. Belt. The choking. The beating. Yes. He understands at that moment, with Ritcher behind the couch, his cowardly eyes looking at father. He understands what a little fear can do.

Father brings the belt down on mother's bundled up brunette hair. A pop, straight to the face. her hair dismantles, there are four weak bangs, wavy and dangling from the front of her head. The rest of her hair is frazzled by the blow, disheveled.

Tom! Please, not in front of the kids, please! She screams in between turning her face away and putting her only free hand in front of her. She tries to push her body away from him, but she doesn't have the strength to free herself of his grip.

He ain't a boy! And you ain't-a woman worth stopping for, Cassy. He slams down, it hits her eye. The blood streams down her eyelid forming a kind of line against her pale skin, a line crossed a long time ago. Her face doesn't stay white for long. It's red after a few blows, red and streaked black from mascara. It's the seventh time he will swing down now, and experience tells Turnus that it'll be about halfway there before the old man is just too tired to hit back. And if it weren't for his beer belly, and his strained smoked-lungs and age, then he could go for another forty.

But he can't wait that long. Not today.

I said stop!

Turnus parked in the garage which seems eerie with all the empty vans as opposed if there were no vans at all; the space left by a few dozen people disappearing all of a sudden. Nothing so much as leakage greets them; the titter prattle of excited sewage rain that runs down from floor to floor, from the cracks above to the crack below, carrying with it the stench of alcoholics and vomit and the other smells people leave in abandoned parking lots.

"He can be anywhere in that there big building, alright? You'll have to find him first. Track him down." Turnus said. "You've got the rest of the day to do the job, but try to be quick about it. He's smart. Clever. Shifty, though he preaches against shiftiness.

"Does he have a range, do you know anything?"

"No, but I don't think that'd stop you two, right? You're very capable people after all." He said. "That's why I gave you two names compared to the others. Because warriors deserve names."

They looked at him, their faces up. In their hands, a small steak knife. They dragged it across their scarred palms, the purple-dark skin. They didn't flinch. Cutting themselves seemed as natural as breathing, another process of the body.

"Kacey." Turnus turned to the boy. "Jaimi." He turned to the girl. Dark haired, with hair almost similar in length. Twins. Fraternal, of course.

"I hope the night is good to you two. He should be exhausted by now," Turnus said. "If there's any comfort, take that. He's a loudmouth who pretends God. He ain't no God though, trust me."

"We'll bring his head back," Kacey said.

Jaimi turned her head to the empty vans and the lifeless soldiers around her, the wind goes through them and the car. There's a quarantine of yellow tape and blockades, a force field paid with real money by Salome who at must have believed she would have lived. So not even the police have come to inspect.

Another gust blew. Equipment, straps, dangling metal pieces ring from within the metal vans like whispers of the dead. It sounds like chimes.

"Yeah," Jaimi said.

They walked straight through the army of bodies like they weren't even there, their eyes don't even turn away. They're so tired and dead and accustomed to death. Their eyes carry the experience of the life of colosseum fights in them. That's what makes them so heavy and dark and baggy.

With the white rags and boots and baggy pants, they almost looked like cleaners.

Turnus looked down at his watch. Six, about the time for the sun to get dragged down.

Stop I said!

It looks like a comet when Turnus picks up the lamp, wire still connected. It looks hot and glowing, and it must be heavy for his skinny arms. So he uses both hands. And he runs behind. And father turns his head. He must move. But he’s holding the whip and still holding mother.

So he can’t help but get hit across the face. And the bulb can’t help but break against his cheeks. He screams. Turnus drops the lamp and takes a few nervous steps back.

You son of a bitch!

Turnus can’t even believe he’s done it. Ritcher comes in, he pounces on Turnus’s body and pushes him down. He’s younger, but already the muscle difference shows. A fourteen-year-old boy can be plenty strong.

Do you see what you’ve done? He turns to face Cassidy. She can’t believe it herself and gasps when her father’s blood begins to spill like ink drops against the parchment-colored carpet floor. It is written here, Turnus has smitten his father.

Thomas Sr. wipes it with his fingertips and looks at it, astonished-like, with his mouth ajar, and his eyes focused keenly on Turnus. He can’t move. He sits still, the broken lamp to his side and turning back and forth as it rolls and hits the floor and rolls back.

My own son, spilling his own families blood upon the homestead. The devil! You're the devil! My son is corrupt!

I'm s-sorry.Turnus inches away with his feet, black dance shoes with droplets of blood.

Why, I can’t keep you here no more.His voice is cold and low, it’s the first time Turnus has heard it that way. I must send you away, far from your mother's influence. I must have you learn the only way you can. For only loneliness waits for those who betray their kin. For betrayal is the greatest sin of all.

He grabs Turnus by the shirt.

I’m sorry!

You’ll be fine. You’re going with your brother, ain’t that what you want?

The mother has broken down, fallen on her knees and enwrapped herself in her frail arms. She can't do anything now.

Stop! I didn’t mean it. Ritcher, Ritcher! Say something won’t you?

And Ritcher stares, fear and cowardice and regret and anger all flashing like passing film frames.

You won’t be leaving any time soon, your exorcism must be severe.

It’s the longest trip through the kitchen, the longest trip through the garden and the grass. And he knows where it ends. It ends somewhere in the back, near the tool shed and with disgusting closeness to the garbage, somewhere near where the creaky chained door laughs and begs for him. But Turnus cannot stop. He's pulled by his hair, he can't pry the grip. And he begs. And he cries.

Ritcher! Ritcher! Ritcher, please!

Turnus looked upon the casino as the two entered the self-moving doors. They had to push them open, the electricity long since out. He looked through his pocket for a cigarette and held it in between lips.

“You’ve had this coming for a while, little brother,” Turnus said. He took a puff and let it burn his lungs good before exhaling. “I don’t even hate you, really. I just hate myself for letting you become what dad wished he always was. That - that - is my greatest failure. It's what got mom and our older brother killed. You. Your cowardice, your propensity for authority. You'll pay for it all, I promise."