Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

EVEREST

“Come on, baby. I know you can do it. Just pick up the knife and stab him in the throat. He deserves it.”

I shake my head, trying to dispel the deep, rumbling voice that’s been pinging around my skull for years. There’s no point answering it, but I think the words anyway. No, I will not stab anyone.

The voice isn’t scary exactly—it mirrors all the secret thoughts and feelings I have, but am too afraid to act on. What bothers me about the voice is it’s foreign. It’s not my own inner voice that reminds me to lock my front door when I leave the house or tells me to take the trash out before I go to work. This voice is deadly and wants me to act on the murderous suggestions it whispers in my head.

“Everest!” my boss and the lead cook at the diner I work at, Mitch, shouts. “Get your head out of your fucking ass and give me the order!” It takes me a moment to realize I’m standing in the middle of the kitchen with the order ticket just out of reach for Mitch to grab. Mitch called me a stupid piece of shit because I tried to hand it to him through the window, forgetting about his policy.

I looked away in embarrassment—he yelled loud enough for the entire diner to hear—and my eyes snagged on the knife on the counter behind him. Then my mystery voice told me to commit murder, and I was too stunned to hand Mitch the order.

He snatches the paper from my hand, causing it to rip in half. I stutter out an apology, trying to take the pieces from his hand so I can read him the order. He roughly pushes me backward with one hand, causing me to bump into the shelf behind me. I raise my hands over my head in time to stop the pot and a few bowls from dropping on me.

“Give me that!” Mitch shouts, his face twisted in anger. He takes the rest of the paper from me, brushing past me to get to the oven range. “Get the fuck out of here and take more orders. Looking at your face is pissing me off.”

Swallowing a lump in my throat at his abuse, I turn to leave … but not before my eyes land on the knife once again. I stare at it for longer than I should and my mystery voice comes back. It’s practically purring with excitement, and I have to suppress a shudder. Though I’m not sure if it’s a good shudder or not.

“I know you want to,” the voice says, sounding as smooth as silk. “ I can help you. You know what to do.”

That’s where my mysterious voice is wrong. I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know where the voice is coming from to know what to do. It’s driving me crazy that I don’t know, and I thought for a while there I was crazy. My stomach rolls as I think about how insane the voice made me feel.

I went to a psychiatrist a few years back and told them I was hearing voices. The doctor seemed bored at first, until I told him the voice only came about when someone was inflicting some form of abuse on me. Even though I shouldn’t have, I told him the voice would tell me to hurt or kill those people to stop them from hurting me. It wasn’t until I was committed and held in a psychiatric unit for possible schizophrenia, being pumped full of meds and monitored for a week, that I knew I should not have told him anything. Even then, the voice didn’t go away.

Instead, the voice told me to pretend that I was getting better. It told me exactly what to tell the doctors so I could be released. Through my voice’s guidance, I told the doctors I was under a lot of stress and blamed an imaginary voice for my own thoughts. It took days, but I finally convinced them I wasn’t a danger to anyone, that they were just the thoughts of an exhausted man.

Since that happened three years ago, I haven’t told a soul I hear someone in my head that tells me to maim or kill people.

Who would I tell? I don’t have any friends. My family, that only consists of my dad, is shit. It’s just me and my mystery man in my head.

After pushing away the desire to open Mitch’s throat—is it even my thought or is it my mystery voice’s suggestion?—I go back out to the main floor and make my rounds through the tables of the Gray Wolf Diner, named after Mitch’s last name and his love for wolves, I guess. A few people give me dry looks when I approach their table to ask how everything is, not happy that I interrupted their meals. They don’t complain, thank God. Mitch would really have my ass if I got complaints.

I would have been fired by now if there was anyone else willing to take Mitch’s shit. Shortly after I was hired and had learned my basic duties, the guy training me quit on the spot because Mitch had yelled in his face one too many times. I’m used to it, though. I’m used to being hit and yelled at and spit on and disrespected in general. So anything Mitch dishes out, I can take. As long as he pays me so I can save up and move out, I’ll be his punching bag. I’m not sure when that will be, but I’m hopeful it’ll be soon. I can’t take much more of living in my shitty trailer.

My home life is no better than my work life. I’m twenty-five and still living with my dad, who has made my life a living hell for as long as I can remember. My dad, Jack, is an alcoholic abuser that beats me regularly. It’s gotten to the point that I anticipate it, and I’m surprised when he doesn’t. My mom, Lily, took off years ago, not wanting to get her ass beat day in and day out. It hurts, because she was a good mother, trying to shield me from the abuse my dad inflicted on me, but she up and left. I wonder if she tried to take me with her or just packed her bags and didn’t look back. Though I should, I harbor her no ill will. Wherever she is, I hope she’s happy.

Sighing, I finish the rest of my shift with no more incidents, steering clear of Mitch as I place orders just on the table beside him instead of handing them over personally. The guy training me told me about Mitch’s personal policy not to hang slips in the window. One day, one floated onto the grill and stuck to a burger he’d just finished. I forgot this during my second week working, and a slip dropped on the grill, barely missing a cheesesteak. It was the first time he slapped me in the back of the head for my fuck up. Since I didn’t quit or retaliate, the abuse got worse.

I step into the changing room to clock out, almost bumping into another employee. The server that clocks in after me gives me a curious look, like she wants to say something, but she doesn’t. She simply walks past me to start her shift. Mitch probably told her not to talk to me or she sees how badly I’m treated and doesn’t want to be caught in the crosshairs. No matter. I don’t have friends and don’t know how to make them, so it’s just as well that she keeps her mouth shut. It seems like I don’t have anyone.

“You know you have me,” my stranger says in a seductive voice. One that sends an unexpected shiver down my spine. “You could have more, you know. You know what to do, Everest.”

I grunt in irritation as I put on my backpack and start my walk the few miles home. The voice is wrong again. I truly don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do. I don’t know what to do besides be lonely with him talking in my head. It’s not like he’ll magically appear to save me from the hell that is my life, so I need to get used to life alone.

The trailer park we live in is nothing fancy, but it’s all I can afford. My dad doesn’t work, hasn’t had a job since I can remember and made me start paying rent at sixteen when I got my first job. If it weren’t for me working my ass off, we’d be homeless. I’m not sure how we survived before I started working.

When I was eighteen, I tried to move out and make my own way in a tiny studio apartment on the other side of town. It was small, cramped and smelled faintly of mold, but it was all I could afford after I saved for almost a year, and it was mine.

After only a week there, my dad tracked me down and literally dragged me back home. My trash bag filled with clothes was strewn all over the ground as I tried not to stumble after him. The grip he had on my hair was unrelenting, my scalp smarting for days after, a few bald patches in the middle that I had a hard time covering. In the ordeal, I lost most of my clothes. I had to save up for months just to go to the second hand store to replace some of them.

Seven years later, I’m stuck in the same place, doing the same thing, hoping for a way out. I’ll have to be more careful this time and leave the state, not just the trailer park. That’ll take time and money. If only I had someone out of state that could help me.

“I can help you, baby.”

“ No, you can’t!” I shout, knowing I sound crazy, but I’m frustrated. It’s the first time I answered the voice aloud, not just replying back in my head. But the exclamation burst from my chest because they’re words I so desperately want to hear from someone real , not my own imagination.

“The fuck you yelling about now, boy?” my dad asks, weaving on the porch as he drinks from his can of beer. He’s probably working on his second case if his weaving is any indication. “That’s why you got locked up in that looney bin last time. Talking to yourself like a fucking idiot. Embarrassing me around town.”

Curling my shoulders up to my ears, I drop my eyes and ease past him. “I wasn’t talking to anybody.”

“Crazy fuck,” he spews, his foul breath wafting over me. “Get in there and get dinner started. I’m fucking hungry.”

I keep the irritation out of my voice as I answer, “Yes, sir.”

“Where the hell have you been? You were supposed to be back home hours ago.” My dad staggers behind me, knocking into walls as he follows me into the kitchen.

I drop my bag by the refrigerator and turn to him. “I had to work, Dad.” Something you don’t do . I’m surprised it’s my voice that sounds in my skull and not that off my mystery man. I don’t remember a day in my life that my father has worked. Hell, I’m not sure he even wants to get a job now that I’m on my feet at the diner for hours on end for shit pay and even worse tips.

As I look at him, I wonder how he even got my mom in the first place. From what I remember of her, she was really pretty, short with wavy brown hair, brown eyes and a kind smile. I look a lot like her, besides the pretty part. She didn’t do it often—who would when they got abused so often—but when she smiled she was the most beautiful woman in the world. I wonder if she still has the same beautiful smile now that she’s not burdened with me and my father.

My dad, on the other hand, has always looked like a sloppy piece of shit. He’s tall and lanky but has a beer gut that he’ll never be able to get rid of. It tumbles over his pants and hangs loosely, sticking out from under all of his shirts. Most of his teeth are rotting out of their head, and he looks twenty years older than he is. In short, the alcohol and his hard life show on his face and body. He had to have been a looker when he snagged my mom and brainwashed her to stay later, because how he looks now would scare anyone away. That, or he had a drastic personality change.

After washing my hands, I pull out the roast I had set to thaw and season it. While the oven is preheating, I chop some potatoes and carrots, lining them in the pan so we can have some sort of vegetables. Dad won’t eat any, but I like them. Once the oven is heated, I set the timer and slide the roast inside. Sure that everything is taken care of, I retrieve my backpack and go to my room, praying Dad doesn’t follow me to attack me from behind. He has a bad habit of doing that, just because he’s bigger than me and because he can.

I sigh when I make it to my room without a punch to the back of my head and sit on my bed, the creaking of the bed springs loud in the close confines. I’ve been on my feet all day—even the discomfort of the bedsprings poking my ass don’t make me want to stand back up. I pull my shoes off and wiggle my toes, sighing almost in ecstasy for how good it feels not to be standing.

“I can take you away from all this. You know what to do.”

Before I can grumble again what the fuck to my mystery voice, my dad bursts into my room, leaning heavily on the door and swaying. It’s a miracle the flimsy frame holds up his weight. “Didn’t I tell you to get dinner started?”

Fuck, I knew the chances of a peaceful night were slim, but I was still hoping for a moment to chill.

Hustling to my feet, I press my back against the wall. If I remain sitting on the bed, he’ll just end up straddling my chest to yell in my face as he punches me, his foul breath making me want to vomit. “I did. It’s?—”

His fist lashes out quickly, catching me in the lip before I can finish my sentence. I didn’t even see him move. Despite how drunk my dad is, he has impeccable aim when he wants to put hands on me. “Did I ask for any of your back talk?” he roars as I hold my mouth, feeling blood drip down my chin. “Get your stupid ass in there and get that food on.”

“Dad, it’s on,” I whisper around already swelling lips. “It’s in the oven. I have to?—”

He moves faster than I would expect when he’s three sheets to the wind. Before I know it, he has a hand around my throat and with the other one, he punches me in the gut. He switches to my face and hits me there a few times for good measure. “Shut the fuck up!” His rancid breath makes my stomach roil, worse than the punch to the gut did. It’s all I can do to keep my meager lunch down. “You ungrateful little shit! I keep you clothed and fed and you have the nerve to back talk me! Do what the fuck I say before I have you out on your ass, boy!” He punches me once more in the face as a punctuation to his tirade.

When he lets go of my throat, I drop to the floor, trying to compose myself and keep the tears at bay. It would have been worse if he caught me crying. He once told me only soft men cry, saying that’s probably why I’m gay. Like that made any sense.

My dad staggers off, bumping into the door and breathing heavily. He wore himself out with that attack. Even though I know it won’t happen, I can’t help but hope he has a heart attack from the exertion.

All that shit he said is a lie. It’s me that keeps him fed and clothed and with a roof over our heads. He doesn’t do shit for me but make me miserable. And he’d never toss me out. If he wanted me gone, he would have left me alone when I moved out all those years ago. He wouldn’t survive without me.

I need to just say fuck it and go, consequences be damned.

But I don’t know how to leave. I hate to say it, but I’m afraid to try again. All I know is this life. I don’t know if I can get away—and stay away.

“Just ask for help, baby. I will come for you.”

I pull my lips in—wincing at my swollen bottom lip—reluctant to ask for anything. I already think I’m crazy. No need to compound it by asking an imaginary voice to help me escape my shitty life. All it’ll do is piss me off when I’m stuck here after finally giving in to the crazy.

No, I can get away on my own. I just have to work at it and keep my head down for just a bit longer. I’ll have the money I need and run far away—far enough away that my drunken father will have no way to reach me. It has to be further than across town. I didn’t think he’d peel his sloppy ass off his recliner to retrieve me from there and he did, staggering in the heat of a Georgia summer, his determination to get his personal maid back probably spurring him on.

Getting to my feet, I wipe the blood from my mouth and stumble into the kitchen, banging around pots and pans so my dad thinks I did what he said. He grunts when he turns to look at me from his favorite recliner—the one that has a permanent indent of his ass. He smirks when he sees the mess he made of my face, muttering, “Serves you right for not listening.”

I bite back a sob as I meet his eyes. Is this it for me? Is this all I have to look forward to? Being my father’s punching bag for the rest of my life? Fuck, I can’t stand that. I’d rather die.

“Just ask for help. I will come. I will take care of him for you. I will take care of all of them for you. All you have to do is ask.”

Yeah, wishful thinking.