Free Nothing to Lose by Alex Flinn Page A

Walker’s.
    He continued. “Why don’t you like me? You’re such a crybaby. You get all whiny about a few everyday arguments.”
    Rolling the ant corpse between my fingers, then dropping my hand to my side. I looked at Walker, and the just-being-friendly expression on his face. I wanted to blow him away.
    “You think you have it so bad here?” He swept his hand across the kitchen, taking in the dark wood cabinets, the top-of-the-line appliances. “You don’t know what bad is. I grew up in a shack. Two rooms, and my daddy owned both of them. He used to set his shotgun sights on my mama when she cleaned house, made sure she did it right. Couple times he even pulled the trigger, came this close to blowing her brains out.” Walker held two fingers up, touching one another. “Think we went crying to the authorities? They’d have laughed their asses off. We helped her clean the mess. That’s just the normal way things are.”
    The normal way things are. I stared at Walker, wondering if this was a warning of things to come. Wondering if he had a gun, if he’d use it. I looked down.
    “I want us to get along, Michael. I’m not a bad guy.”
    “Sure.”
    “You didn’t answer my question. Again.”
    “What was it?”
    “You got a girl?”
    I shrugged. Before Walker, I had girlfriends. I had a life. Now my life was avoiding Walker and his bad moods, nursing dreams about leaving home, which I could not do. Staying from some bizarre idea of protecting my mother, which I could not do either. Mom and I had been close before. Friends more than parent and child, but close. Since Walker, though, I’d found myself hating her almost more than I hated him. Because he wasn’t my parent and she was. Because she didn’t understand what it was like to watch. Because sometimes my escape fantasies were so twisted I even scared myself.
    “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah.”
    Walker smiled and drew a bill from his wallet. “Take her out someplace. On me.”
    The bill was new. So sleek and crisp I thought it might cut me, and I didn’t want to take it, like some grateful beggar, taking his handout. But I did. A ten, cheap bastard. Still, I folded it in half, pocketed it, and started toward the door.
    “Thanks,” I said.
    “No problem.”
    I opened the door, still feeling the ant corpse on my hand, the bill in my pocket, and hearing Walker’s words.
    “Your mom and I could use some time together.”
    I walked through the darkness to my room.

THIS YEAR
     
    “You showed up,” Angela says Thursday morning when I walk into her office.
    “Yeah, I’m a little surprised I did.”
    “I’m not. You seemed like a smart kid.”
    “Coming here means I’m smart?”
    “Knowing when you need help means you’re smart. Also, your choice of attorney was brilliant.” She leans her chin on tented fingers. “So now, tell me why you’re here.”
    I glance out the window. I can see the Rickenbacker Causeway bridge, and if I followed it, I could almost find Walker’s house. I look back at Angela.
    “I’ve been thinking about my mother a lot,” I say. “All the time, really. I want to know if there’s anything I can do … to help her. Maybe talk to her attorney or the police. Can I do that without giving myself away? I don’t want to go to a foster home.”
    “You probably couldn’t.”
    Her words are like a door, slamming shut. I remember what she said about leaving the carnival, about not running. But I’m not sure I’m willing to give it up yet. I won’t give it up for nothing, that’s for sure.
    “Will it help my mother if I talk to them?” I ask.
    “That would depend what you have to say.”
    I pull a newspaper clipping out of my pocket, one I swiped from the library yesterday. It’s just like all the others, calling my mother a trophy wife and a gold digger, making it sound like she married Walker for his money, then bashed his brains in to get her hands on it. The idea of my mother bashing anyone’s brains in is