Drake's mind wouldn't shut off. It was in overdrive, like it normally was late at night. The vivid, glow-in-the-dark digits of his clock told him it was half three, and it was by this light that he drew.
He was by no means a fine artist. On the paper, the lines he sketched were bold and graphic, but they came out like he wanted them to. They looked like his dreams. At least, the ones he had when he actually managed to sleep.
As soon as Drake finished his work, he found the lighter wedged under his mattress and flicked it open. The tiny flame neared the scrap of paper, blackening its edges, curling them, until the sketch fell from Drake's hand as charred, grey wisps. A metal waste bin sat next to his bed, collecting the ashes.
The flame lingered, luring in a moth from the open window. Its wings fluttered dangerously close to the yellow flicker, and Drake inched it closer to give the moth what it wanted. Those wings caught alight. The moth turned into a little bud of fire as it too dropped into the waste bin.
Then the light was extinguished.
Even at the age of nine, Drake had a…curiosity for things like the moth. What had it gone through? He had once burnt his palm with steam accidentally and that crisp, raw pain hadn't been pleasant. Had the moth felt something similar? Had it felt? Clearly it must have done.
Sighing into the darkness, Drake gave up on sleeping and rolled off his mattress. He had heard his parents open a bottle of wine at eleven. He had heard his mother climb the stairs to bed at one. Still, he was infuriatingly awake.
He padded downstairs. The bluish light from the TV bounced off the walls, creating a silhouette of the banister.
Drake heard shouting.
On the sofa, he could see his dad, glassy eyed from the drink in his hand. On the screen, he saw a woman screaming and searching through a pit of needles.
"What's this?" Drake asked his dad. He had crossed the living room and was falling onto the sofa.
"It's Saw II, son," his dad told him. "The sequel to that one you saw the other week."
"The one that happened in a bathroom?" Drake yawned, even though his mind was still ticking.
"Yeah," his dad shared that yawn. "Don't tell your mother I let you see this one, either."
"Sure."
That night, Drake fell asleep with pained cries in his ears and a bloody river running through his dreams. He woke up in his bed, tucked in, blonde hair pushed back from his face. He would always remember that.
It was the last time he saw his dad.
Like normal when his dad was stressed, he went straight from work to the pub and didn't come home until very late. Only this time, he didn't come home. Drake didn't notice this until he woke up the next morning. He found his mother crying by the phone.
"That was the police," she choked out when he asked. "It's…your dad."
Frowning, Drake didn't understand his mother as she sobbed. Had his dad committed a crime? For some reason, he wasn't all that shocked. The only surprise for him was that his dad had been caught.
Through much spluttering and weeping, his mother told him that his dad had been involved in a fight. He had been rushed to hospital and died less than two hours ago from his injuries.
That was the first time Drake felt the big, black hole inside him. He didn't know if it had always been there or not, but at his mother's words, it was torn wide open. The rest of winter passed by in a haze. He was told to go to school. He was told to see the grief councillor. All he really wanted to do was crawl into that big, black hole and never emerge again.
Sometimes he would hear his mother screaming at night, crying and wailing. He screamed too, but they would never scream together and they pretended not to hear each other.
During the nights when he couldn't sleep, Drake still padded downstairs, but there was no comforting light from the TV. Instead he stood in darkness. He thought about how he needed someone who had good taste in films and stopped his mother crying and brought in the money.
Drake couldn't see in the dark, so it was almost possible to imagine his dad was there.
He turned on the TV, liking that blue glow on his face. He pulled out the first horror film he had ever seen and put it on. At four in the morning, Rachael Merwin came into the living room to find Drake with his eyes glued to Saw. She had been woken by the volume.
"Why the hell are you watching this?" the shock in his mother's voice made him smile.
"Feel like it," Drake told her.
"I didn't even know we owned it."
They owned them all, but Drake's dad had hidden the discs in cases labelled Finding Nemo and suchlike. He didn't tell his mother that. She tried to turn off the TV, but he had the remote, so he kept switching it back on. Eventually she returned upstairs, nearly in tears.
Watching horror films late at night became a habit for him. Fighting other kids at school also became a habit. The headmistress tried to contact his mother about it, but she was staying out of touch with life. It was perhaps the one thing she still had in common with her son.
"Why do you do it, the fighting?" his grief councillor asked him once. His mother may not have heard about it, but somehow this councillor had. She reminded Drake of his mother, with her brunette curls and long eyelashes. These days, though, his mother looked more like a car wreck than a person. The woman in front of him, who had asked him to call her Diane, was nearly pretty.
"Do you have many friends at school?" Diane tried a different angle.
"Not really," said Drake. Before his father's death, most kids had been wary around him. He hadn't appreciated that to start with, but when a girl tried to talk to him, he had appreciated it even less. She had said that he was going to be fine, and he had snapped and hit her. He remembered blood, her crying out in pain, and then there was that tiny flicker of relief. Early the next day, her older brother had approached him and started a scrap. That was how the fights had begun. Drake would lose them frequently, but he didn't care. Every time he threw a fist, he forgot about the big, black hole inside him.
He tried to explain this to Diane, but his words weren't very good. Judgement shimmered in her dark eyes. She recommended other ways to let out his anger, but none of them worked. Not like fighting did. Drake gave up on councillors after that.
Things got worse for him. The big, black hole only went away for a short amount of time, and then it came back. Usually it was a little bigger, which started a vicious spiral. When there weren't kids from school to hit, he took to finding animals. Class pets were stolen repeatedly, never to be seen again. The fish in his kitchen tank were poisoned with bleach.
Rachael Merwin didn't bother to replace them.
As her son descended into a bleak world, she felt herself healing, in a slow and strange way. Drake knew she had been given a better job. He knew she spent a lot of her money on nights out and presents for herself. One time she told him they were getting a conservatory, but she had long since stopped paying attention to what he did. He kindly repaid the favour.
On a particularly hard and miserable day in spring, his birthday, Drake was walking home after a fight at school. They now took place behind the cafeteria, because so far the teachers hadn't discovered them there. A bruise was smarting just beneath his eye, and he was livid. His veins sung with anger, the hole inside him reappearing like it always did.
Before he reached his house, he passed by one that belonged to an elderly couple. A puppy of theirs was in the garden. It yapped as it ran over to him, wide, pathetic eyes staring into his.
Drake looked through the house's front window. Its owners were in the kitchen, both their backs to him. They wouldn't miss their pet. They had several others just like it.
Picking up the animal by the scruff of its neck, Drake took it home with him. He knew his mother would be out, because she had been excited about something that was happening this afternoon. It hadn't concerned him turning ten, so he hadn't cared.
In his kitchen, Drake dropped his schoolbag on the floor and the puppy on a work surface. It paced back and forth, tongue lolling.
Drake slammed the tabletop in front of the puppy. It whined and jumped away, trying to drop to the ground. To stop it, Drake knocked it over and it fell into the sink. Its frenzied legs were kicking the air in panic.
Drake grinned.
Wondering what it would feel like to do so, he reached down and closed his fingers around the puppy's neck. It squirmed and struggled beneath his grip, its pain and fear at his fingertips. He could feel its pulse racing through its fragile neck. The puppy passed out.
A moment later, Drake released it. The puppy's pulse had still been going, so it was alive. All he would have to do is wait for it to wake up. Then he could start all over again.
Unless he thought of something better.
He remembered watching Gremlins when he was younger, seeing one explode in the microwave. Did that actually happen? Would a puppy do the same?
While it was still asleep, Drake scooped it up and shoved it in the microwave oven. The door clicked shut. He programmed the time for an hour. Although he doubted the puppy would take that long to cook, he didn't want it to stop too soon.
The puppy came back round.
Drake waited for it to stand, then pressed the 'start' button.
It didn't take long at all. Pawing at the window, the puppy danced against the rotating glass plate. The creature was trapped, and Drake felt his blood become tainted with savage glee. He wouldn't push the 'stop' button. There wasn't a 'stop' button for all the emotions that went through him, every single day.
Blood began to run from the puppy's mouth, from its nose and ears. Its eyes changed colour, cooking in their sockets. Something terrible was going on inside its body, and Drake didn't stop grinning as the young animal suffered and cried for mercy. He had the power to save it, but that power went unused.
Eventually, the puppy collapsed, simply lying on the glass plate as it went round and round. The only noise now was the whir of the microwave oven.
Drake had been hoping it would explode like the Gremlin, but it didn't. Maybe if he left it a little longer, or if he used a higher power setting.
But then the front door rattled.
Drake hit the 'stop' button. The microwave dinged open.
There were bags rustling in the hallway, the sound of his mother laughing. Was she with someone? Had she been shopping? He started panicking when he heard footsteps on the carpet.
They weren't his mother's.
Drake turned as a girl stepped into the kitchen. She was a head taller than him with straight, auburn hair and a sweetheart-shaped face. For want of a less obvious word, Drake thought she was beautiful.
"Fucking hell," said the girl. She had seen the bloody mess in the microwave behind him.
Drake heard more bags being moved through the door, more laughter.
"Jesus, don't let them see that," the girl strode past him and snatched the glass plate with the puppy on. "Clean the window," she ordered, going to the backdoor and sliding it open.
Drake jumped to it straight away, grabbing kitchen roll and Fairy liquid, scrubbing at the bloodstains. The strange new girl did the same with the plate when she came back in, shutting the glass door behind her. Drake figured she must be about seventeen.
"Where did you put the puppy?" he asked as he grabbed all the sodden tissues and shoved them in the trash.
"In the bin outside," the pretty girl told him. "It's going to stink to high heaven, but it'll get collected tomorrow."
Drake wrinkled his nose, knowing the inside of the microwave had smelt like dead dog. Now it smelt like Fairy and, with its plate returned, nothing had happened.
"Who are you?" Drake frowned at the girl. His mother had just shut the front door, and he could hear someone else in the hallway beside her.
"I'm Nina," said the girl. "Nina Nelson. My dad and I are moving in with you. Hey, is that a bruise?"
"What?" snapped Drake. He didn't understand. How could this Nina be moving in?
"You don't…Rachael hasn't told you?" then Nina was the one who didn't understand.
"Drake!" his mother called from the hallway. She came through into the kitchen, oblivious that her son had just killed a puppy. "There's something I've been meaning to tell you."
"People are moving in with us?" he suggested hotly.
"No, more than that!" Rachael was grinning as she crouched down before him. She stuck her left hand in front of his scowling face. "Look! I'm getting married."
"Married? What?" Drake looked from her to Nina, and then to the man walking in from the hallway. He had floppy red hair and a smile that reminded Drake of a shark.
"Hey there, son," the strange man said to him. Drake's scowl deepened. "It's nice to finally meet you."
Rachael went over and kissed the man, and when she did so Drake's insides turned to ash. It was all too much.
"I'll see you at dinner," he said to his mother, like he normally did when she came in from work. Then he took the stairs to his room, ignoring the multitude of bags that blocked the front door. Some were suitcases, some were bin liners.
Drake lay on his bed for a long while, staring at the frosted pattern on his ceiling. A single tear escaped. What was happening? Wasn't his mother still married to his dad? It had only been six months. How long had she known the stranger downstairs?
There was a quiet knock on his door.
He didn't answer it.
The door opened by itself, Nina invading the small space of his room.
"What do you want?" he glowered at the ceiling.
"I'm sorry Rachael didn't tell you about us," she said softly.
Drake didn't reply. He had heard so many apologies since his dad's death, none of them genuine. He had become immune to it all.
Shifting his ankles, Nina sat on the end of his bed. She rested his feet delicately in her lap.
"Those look…interesting," she commented. Drake glanced from her to the sketches of his that she was looking at. With one hand, he knocked them from his bedside table and into the waste bin.
"I forgot to burn them," he muttered.
"You're a messed up little thing, aren't you?" she said. He fought the urge to kick her. When he thought about it, though, 'messed up' felt like a far better description for him than what Diane wrote. Violent. Sadistic. Other words that held little meaning.
"Have you been fighting?" Nina tapped under her eye meaningfully.
"Yeah."
"If someone swings at you, use the same hand they are to block them with your knuckles. Catching them in the wrist throws them off. Then they're usually open for a good kicking."
"You've been in fights?"
"I've had my fair share. You're eleven, right?" Nina asked curiously.
"Ten," Drake corrected her. "I'm ten today."
His voice broke then, but he screwed his eyes shut and tried to swallow the tears. There was a pulling at his wrist, and then Nina was making him sit upright and wrapping her arms around him. Still struggling, a few of his tears soaked into her t-shirt. She smelt like flowers and vanilla. Peeking out from under her sleeve, Drake saw a jewelled bracelet.
"What happened to your dad?" Nina was saying. "Did you know him?"
"Yes," snapped Drake. "He died last October."
"October?" the surprise in Nina's voice was evident. "As in, six months ago?"
"Yeah, six months," mumbled Drake. He had heard Diane say a year to eighteen months was a normal grieving period. His mother must've been nuts.
"Shit, that's fast," said Nina. "She only met my dad at New Year. Listen, Drake, you can't tell him about this. Rachael said she had a son, but she's never mentioned your dad. We assumed… Just don't tell him about this, alright?"
"Why not?"
"Just promise me."
"Fine. Will it stop them getting married?"
"No. What my dad wants, he usually gets," Nina breathed in to say more, but someone hammered on the door.
"I brought your bags up, sweetheart," Nina's dad called from outside. Then there came the sound of him going downstairs.
Sliding towards the door, Nina went to pick up her stuff from outside her new room. To Drake, it had always been the guestroom, for whenever his grandfather came round. The bags Nina held were the bin liners Drake had seen earlier.
"You can't stop them getting married, kid," she whispered back to him.
Drake didn't want to hear it, so he shut his door. He could feel a change coming on in his life and he wasn't ready for it, not yet, not when he was so used to being curled up in his big, black hole.
The change smacked him in the face. Sunny weeks passed by, weeks that Rachael started to act like part of a family again. The only problem was, her eyes still skimmed over Drake. Other than that, she seemed happier, livelier, friendlier.
That was what Drake first thought.
Sometimes, when he was watching TV with Nina, he would hear an argument upstairs. A loud, angry argument.
"Want to go for a walk, kid?" Nina asked him then. "There's a new ice cream place in town."
"Sure," said Drake uncertainly. He grabbed his shoes and she grabbed her money, and together they slipped out the front door. Expertly, Nina shut it without a sound.
Nina always did that if they heard an argument. She always had an excuse, like the ice cream place. It was obvious she was avoiding her dad and Rachael, but Drake didn't care. Whenever they went out, they talked about stuff. Fights, for example, or the latest thriller, or even a rock band Nina liked.
"Did you win that one with Jesse?" Nina recalled him mentioning a potential fight.
"Yeah, of course," snorted Drake. "He has a girl's name."
"Just remember who taught you how to fight," Nina said to him.
She had a point. At times when neither of their parents was around, she had shown him stuff, like what to do if he was in a headlock or being kicked on the ground. Since then, he had become the most ruthless kid in school.
They entered the ice cream parlour, the floors black and white and the walls mint green. Nina bought them two cookie dough sundaes and sat them down next to the window.
"Behind the cafeteria is still a safe place," Drake told her. "And no one goes crying to the teachers."
"Be careful, kid," Nina warned. "If my dad finds out about this stuff, he won't be happy. Rachael might pretend not to notice, but he'll give you hell."
"Is that why you hid the puppy?" he asked.
"Yeah."
What Drake appreciated the most, though, was the fact she didn't ask him why. Had his mother realized, or had Diane heard about it, they would've asked why, Drake? Why did you kill that puppy? To which the reply was so jumbled and so deeply buried, he couldn't be bothered to explain.
When he and Nina returned from the ice cream parlour, they found their parents in the kitchen. Perfectly calm.
"Do you still want a conservatory?" Nina's dad was wondering. "I know a guy who can get it done. Planning permission and all might take a while, and it depends on the weather, but we'll see."
"Oh, Andre!" Rachael exclaimed, flapping her hands gleefully. "I just love you!"
Drake rolled his eyes. When had his mother turned into this ridiculous, excitable girl? The two adults gazed happily at each other, causing his stomach to shrink.
Whatever had happened upstairs, it wasn't in the room now.
The wedding, planned for late August, approached him with the same speed as a car destined to crash. All too soon he was being dragged out to cake tasters and dress fittings and suit fittings.
"Why does it matter?" Drake muttered to his future stepsister, as they waited on the stairs for their parents. Nina wasn't too happy either. He knew she had wanted to spend the weekend at her friend's house. "Why won't any suit do?"
"Because your mum wants the best, son," Andre appeared at his shoulder, having overheard. His smile was white and brittle. "So that's what I'm going to give her."
Rachael practically skipped out of the door, forgetting he had also promised a conservatory which was being slow to arrive.
Flashing Drake a warning look, Nina left after his mother. He followed suit.
The only advantage to that day was that Drake got to see Nina in a dress. He knew it was strange to think about his stepsister in that way, but when she twirled around in shimmering taffeta, he couldn't help but notice things. Even if he was ten. Besides, he didn't have to tell anyone what he thought.
"Aquamarine was definitely the best choice," the saleswoman said. "It compliments your hair perfectly."
It really did.
"That just won't work, though," Rachael pointed at Nina's bracelet. It was a chain of silver and rubies.
"I'll take it off on the big day," Nina promised her.
"Do you want a hand getting out of the dress?" the saleswoman asked Nina.
"No, no," Drake's stepsister insisted. "I managed to put it on by myself."
Nina didn't wear the dress again until the actual wedding, when she took off her ruby bracelet as promised.
All through the day, Drake hated. He hated the ceremony and the vows and the reception. Yet he was forced to endure it all. Worse still, Nina had asked Rachael if she could invite a couple of friends, so she barely glanced at him once.
But Drake understood that, funnily enough. He knew she was seventeen, and that being seen around a ten-year-old wouldn't do her much good. Even though his tie matched the colour of her dress.
Mostly Drake sat alone, near the glamorous buffet, and watched relatives dance through his field of vision.
When Nina's two friends disappeared to find the bathroom, she eventually glided over to him. And then past him. This was a disappointment until she took the chair to his right and handed him a glass of white wine. It had come from the buffet.
"Try this," Nina told him. He tried it. The wine left a warm, soothing trail through his insides. It tasted bitter.
"It's not that good," said Drake, but he took another sip anyway.
"Give it a minute," smiled Nina. Then she saw her friends returning. As she stood from the table, Drake realized the hate he was feeling had eased a little. Over the past few months, he also realized there hadn't been any incidents like the one with the puppy. The black hole was still lingering inside him, but it was smaller.
The second Nina left him, his granddad, the man he was named after, took her seat.
"She's too old for you anyway," the old man sighed, voice gravelly.
"Seriously, Grandpa?" Drake rolled his eyes. "She's my stepsister."
He took a mouthful of wine then, and that was when the older Drake noticed what he was drinking.
"I take it that isn't grape juice she gave you?" he raised a misshapen eyebrow. Younger Drake didn't reply. "Typical. She's corrupting you."
"I don't need to be…corrupted," Drake told his grandfather.
"True," said Drake senior, his voice turning dark. "We all are, to some extent. Say, how well do you know that Andre character?"
"I don't."
"How long has Rachael known him?"
"Since New Year." Drake didn't bother to explain how she hadn't told him.
"That's bloody quick," sniffed his grandfather.
"Huh."
The two Drakes watched as the newly wedded couple spun each other across the dance floor. They were all smiles and happiness in public, but if Drake junior narrowed his eyes, he thought he saw something more sinister underneath. Why hadhis mother married this man? Was it the money? He had known things were tight before, whereas now the ceiling was raining lilies.
"Apparently Andre's inherited a small fortune recently," Drake's grandfather said. "And Rachael's new job is down to him."
"He's a highway patrol officer," frowned Drake.
"And she does the paperwork side of it. Administration or accountancy or something."
"Whatever. She seems happy."
"Nothing lasts forever."
The Drakes were right. Rachael was happy, unlike when she had been alone and grieving, but it was a happiness that was soon to die.
In the aftermath of the wedding, things were alright. As the year grew darker, however, Drake heard more and more yelling between his mother and stepfather. Especially at night. There was the slamming of doors and even, once, shattering glass. But he never saw the arguments. Rachael's eyes sunk and grew wearier, but whenever Andre walked into the room, there was a smile on her face and a kiss waiting. Andre too would smile and kiss and make a promise for her, and then they were all fine somehow.
Nina never spoke to Drake about it, so he never raised a question. She seemed so oblivious to the situation, he thought for a while she didn't know.
But that changed the afternoon he came home from school early. Their parents were at work. He had told Nina he would be in detention, but at the last second he decided not to be bothered and skipped it. As he climbed the stairs to his room, the bathroom door swung open. Nina stepped out wrapped in steam and a white towel. At first, the fact she was only wearing a towel and her bracelet was stuck in his head, but then he saw the bruises.
They were all over her legs, stretching up higher than he could see. Purple and blue. Green and brown.
"Shit, Drake," Nina ran across the landing to her room, slamming the door behind her. After dropping his schoolbag in his bedroom, Drake sat outside that door and waited. He could hear her blow-drying her hair, searching through her wardrobe. Still he sat.
She opened the door to find him staring up at her. She was wearing jeans and a Halestorm t-shirt.
"What's up with your legs?" Drake asked. He noticed then how she only wore jeans or suchlike, and how she had adamantly refused help when trying on the floor-length dress. She had spent a while hiding this.
"They're hurt, kid, didn't you see that?" she nearly snapped, staring down at him.
"How did they get hurt?" he said, but he swallowed. He feared he knew the answer. Nina's eyes were downcast.
"My dad," she admitted, voice tiny. She lifted her shirt's hem, just a little, to reveal a bigger patchwork of bruises.
"How long?"
"I…I'm not sure. A long time," she gestured for him to come into her room, so he picked himself off the carpet and sat on her bed.
"Do they hurt? Don't you want him to stop?"
"Of course they hurt! Enough with the stupid questions. If I could stop him, I would've by now," tears were welling up in her lovely blue eyes.
"But you taught me how to fight," Drake scowled. "Can't you fight?"
"You don't fight Dad," Nina shook her head, tears dribbling down her cheeks. "You don't fight him, ever. What you've been doing is best, Drake, keeping out of his way. Don't set him off. Once it starts, he doesn't stop. Just avoid him." She knelt down in front of him. "Please don't let him know you know."
"I'll try," he said. Nina hid her face in her duvet and cried. Uncertainly, Drake stretched out a hand and touched her hair. Its fiery colour spread anger into his veins. He wanted to hurt Andre. He wanted to make that man suffer everything Nina had suffered, over and over and over again. But he knew he couldn't. Andre was over twice his size.
"I hear him arguing with my mother," Drake said. "Does he…"
"It's likely," Nina murmured. "But you won't see it. He's good at making sure we can hide it."
"I hear them, but I never hear…you."
"I've given up making a noise."
The anger inside Drake doubled and redoubled, until in the end he just had to hurt something. He ran from the room, searching for anything, but he couldn't find so much as a spider. Eventually, he resorted to finding a glass and throwing it at the wall. It didn't shatter like it would in a movie, it just cracked and fell into several large pieces on the floor.
Nina came downstairs and cleaned it up.
"What happened to your mum, Nina?" asked Drake.
"She got out."
"She left you?"
"Yes. No," Nina sighed. "We tried to run together, but it was me who gave away where we were going. He found us and…it made things worse. So much worse. God, I don't even blame her for escaping when she could. Eventually, when he realized I had nowhere to run without her, things became bearable. I figured what pissed him off and tried to avoid it."
"Why couldn't your mum get the police, come back for you?"
"And risk falling back into her old life? No. No, I wouldn't have risked it. That aside, my dad's got lifelong friends in the police, some of which don't like my mum. Her story might not have been believed. They might've said she got the injuries elsewhere." Nina's face was desperate as she finished dumping the glass in the bin. "Drake, please don't tell him I told you."
"I'm not going to," Drake promised her.
From then on, Drake felt a strange tension whenever he shared a room with Andre. He thought that Andre felt it too. Now that he knew, he didn't feel safe. He hadn't felt entirely safe before, but detaching himself from reality had put a barrier between him and his fear. Now he got scared whenever he heard the fights at night, or even when he heard nothing at all. Was Nina suffering in that silence? The thought angered him more than the idea of his own mother being hit.
By God, he despised his stepfather.
One night, he heard a commotion just outside his bedroom door. And then there was the sound of someone tumbling violently down the stairs. Drake was out of his room before he could think. At the sound of his door opening, Nina came onto the landing too.
"Oh, Rachael!" Andre was running down the stairs to where Drake's mother lay. Drake thought she was dead. Joining him at the banister, Nina stared down with him into the hallway. Andre cradled Rachael's head like any caring partner.
Minutes passed, and then Rachael opened her dark eyes.
"Don't worry, I'll take you to Emergency," Andre said. "You might have a concussion. We just need to get you in the car."
"I'm coming too," Drake then said, grabbing his coat and throwing it over his pyjamas. Nina did the same. In truth, Drake wanted to make sure Andre actually took his mother to the ER. He was naïve to think he could stop the man if he was planning otherwise, but he was still going.
With only Rachael's mumblings to lift the quiet, the four of them climbed into the car. It was dark and silent until they reached their destination, which was then the complete opposite. A nurse saw to Drake's mother within the hour, asking her what had happened.
"I…" Rachael's forehead creased. "I slipped and fell. Down the stairs."
Her confusion caused the nurse to look at Andre and then Nina.
"She's had a bit to drink," Andre said to the nurse.
"Yeah," Nina then broke in. "I saw her stumble and miss the banister."
Drake said nothing. His eyes were locked on his stepfather's hands, the hands that had given Nina her bruises. There was no doubt they had pushed his mother down the stairs in the heat of their argument. Looking up, Drake realized Andre was staring at him. He glanced away fearfully. His whole body was trembling.
His stepfather knew he knew.
"If you feel any nausea or dizziness, you come back here straight away, alright?" the nurse said as she finished her examination.
"Alright," Drake's mother nodded.
In silence, the four of them found their way back home and into bed. Drake was scared stiff that Andre would come to 'chat' with him about what had happened, only to be relieved when he didn't. He wasted a whole six hours in fear, though, and he hated his stepfather for having such control over that without even trying.
It was like walking on eggshells from that point on. One small thing could trip the unease, and then Drake would be stuck in inescapable hell.
Never had he been so grateful to go to school. That was where his stepfather couldn't touch him. That was where he could release all his hate and anxiety.
On other kids.
It was the middle of March when Drake crossed the line. Playing it back in his head, he could see so clearly how one event had linked to another. In the moment, all he had thought about was how he felt. Nothing afterwards mattered. He had thought he would get away with it.
On the playground at lunch, there had been bickering. One kid had mentioned a 'your mum' joke, which were becoming quite popular, and Drake had flown off the handle. The fight that had followed was brutal and it was brought to the attention of the headmistress. She phoned Drake's parents, Drake's stepdad, and when he had arrived home from work that evening, there was no escaping him.
"I heard you got into a fight, son," Andre called, hanging up his jacket. Drake was in the living room, curled up on the sofa. "Your mum was very upset when I phoned her about it this afternoon." He heard his stepfather scuffing across the carpet behind him, walking into his line of sight. "Do you like fighting?"
Drake didn't respond. Andre was looming over him, but then he crouched down and stared him right in the eyes. "I asked you a question."
"I guess," Drake half-whispered.
The hand that slapped him round the face was quick and heavy. It left an invisible mark that stung.
"Your mum was in tears," Andre told him.
"I'm sorry," said Drake without meaning. There was another hand against his cheek for lying.
"Like hell you are," his stepfather growled.
That was when the pain truly started. Drake tried to defend himself, to use what Nina had taught him, but it was no use. Andre was bigger and stronger and fighting back only made him hit harder. Drake had never felt pain like it. It forced out cries for help he didn't want anyone to hear.
The stairs creaked as footsteps came thundering down them. Flying into the room, Nina started shouting.
"No! Dad! Please, not him!"
All of sudden, there was a pause in the beating. A sweet relief. Through blurry vision, Drake saw Nina taking the blows for him. That brought another sort of pain, one that tore through him and twisted his emotions into something unrecognizable. He didn't know when it would end, but the only thing he could do was watch. Powerless and afraid. If he uttered a noise, Andre would turn his attention back to him, and when Nina protested, she was treated worse.
The only thing that saved them was the sound of a car outside.
Andre's onslaught stopped.
He stared out of the net curtains, breathless, as Rachael's car reversed onto the driveway.
"Go to your rooms, both of you," he barked at Drake and Nina. "Do it now, or I swear to God I'll-"
The two of them were running before he could finish his threat. Nina had Drake's hand, pulling him up the stairs even though his injured legs wanted to give out. In the false safety of his stepsister's room, Drake collapsed on a bed that smelt like flowers and vanilla.
"You're going to be alright, Drake," Nina was telling him through his silent sobs. Her face was still pretty as it hovered before his. Andre hadn't touched it. Just their legs and their bodies, but that was enough. That was too much.
Life became hard to bear. Nina hadn't been lying when she said her dad didn't stop. Drake was subject to never knowing when his stepfather would greet him with a fake smile or a beating. Threats stopped him from telling his mother, stopped him from telling anyone. Nina's fear had long since infected him, erasing all hope for his chance to escape.
Once he came downstairs at night, only to find Rachael and Andre having a hissed fight in the kitchen.
"You knew I didn't want you to do that," his stepfather was saying. "But you fucking did it anyway!"
"Andre, you can't just tell me-"
Andre had hit Drake's mother so hard in the stomach, she had keeled over, hanging on to the fridge to keep her face off the floor. Her lips turned blue as she struggled to breathe. She saw Drake.
Frightened, he ran back upstairs as silently as he could, pleading with luck that his stepfather hadn't known he was there. He had. Later that night, Drake was punished for witnessing something he shouldn't have. He adopted Nina's tactic of staying silent.
How normal life could run parallel to his torture, Drake's mind couldn't comprehend. Why did his mother stay with this man? This kind of misery was second only to losing his real dad. Things descended even further into hell as the months wore on.
The gates to true despair opened on a particularly fine and sunny day. Drake turned down his road to find his stepfather home from work early. Pangs of fear resonated through his body, but then he saw Andre chatting to their neighbours. Hopefully, he could slip through the open door almost unnoticed. His stepfather's good mood might just save him.
"I see you've got something going on out back," Drake's neighbour said.
"Yeah, my wife's been after a conservatory. We've just had a two foot trench dug outside our backdoor," Andre told him.
"Well, we're off for a long weekend's holiday," the other man grinned. "Our kid's at his Nan's. That's something the wife's been after for a while."
Unseen, Drake slipped upstairs to find Nina home as well. He could tell she had been out with friends, because the smell of her perfume and hair straighteners lingered on the landing.
"Hey," he called to her. "You alright?" It was a stupid question. No one in the Merwin-Nelson household was alright, but he needed to ask anyway.
"Yeah," Nina smiled at him. "Come here." He did as she wanted, Nina licking her thumb and then brushing his chin with it. "You had pen on your face."
Drake sensed things with his stepfather might be fine that evening, maybe even normal. Not that he knew what normal was anymore. Andre's mood deteriorated, however, as the sun fell from the sky. In the kitchen, Nina made them all chicken curry, but when they ate it, Drake's mother wasn't present. She came home at midnight, the lines on her face drawn.
"Where the hell have you been?" Andre's tone made Drake wince. He glanced at Nina, who he had helped dry the dishes. Both of them wanted to flee to their rooms, away from the fight that would ensue, but their parents were blocking the hallway. Drake stared at the glass backdoor. His stepsister shook her head. It was probably locked, and outside was a chaotic building site.
"I knew you were against the idea, but I've been negotiating with Martin about those concrete lintels. I really think we need them out back," Rachael explained her absence. "He might give us an offer-"
"I told you I had the money for this thing sorted," snapped Andre. "Why don't you listen to me, woman?"
Rachael was getting flustered and aggressive, something that Drake knew would end badly. She stormed into the room they were in, throwing her keys on the side. While their parents' argument heated up, Drake and Nina kept waiting for their chance to run. Andre stood in the doorway to the hall.
It didn't take long for the fight to escalate into something violent. But still the exit was blocked. There was a gap between Andre and the door, but it was too close. Drake and Nina would be noticed if they tried to get upstairs.
Drake's stepfather was hitting, his mother was crying. He was frozen in the kitchen with Nina beside him.
Andre moved away from the door, into the room, and Rachael tried to avoid him. Nina and Drake danced around the breakfast bar, the door finally within their grasp.
Just as he reached the threshold, he saw his stepfather go for the kitchen knife.
"No!" he yelled, grabbing the man's attention. There was a horrid smile on Andre's face as he raised the knife, knowing Drake was watching. Drake ran at him, seizing his wrist. It was strong and felt like iron, but he resisted it. Andre pulled away and the gleaming blade turned on his stepson. Just as it neared Drake's skin, he felt a pair of hands on his waist, yanking him away roughly.
Someone else took the strike.
There was a pained cry and blood stained the tiles, leaking from the knife wound at an alarming rate. Andre's hand was red, the kitchen knife was red.
Nina's shirt was soaked red.
"Nina!" Drake cried, kneeling beside her, trying to staunch the blood flow. It was no use. Her arteries spat out the stuff like it was poison. "Fucking hell, Nina!"
His stepsister's blue eyes managed to focus on him, just briefly, before her soul evaporated. Drake's own soul broke in two. The sound that left his chest couldn't be described as a scream or a cry. It silenced his mother's choked sobs.
With eyes burning from tears, Drake's disfigured face turned towards his stepfather. All the anger had left Andre. He looked from his stepson, to his wife, to the dead girl he had just murdered.
"Help me hide the body, or I'll kill the pair of you too."
Forced to suppress his anguish and rage, Drake was ordered to go out back and dig deeper into the trench. Four feet deeper. Five, if he could manage, just in case. The moonlight was clear, illuminating his work as his spade hit soil and moved it, again and again. Shadows moved, telling the passage of time, but still Drake was made to work. His muscles burned.
When the hole was deep enough, his weeping mother carried Nina's limp body and dropped it into the ground. Her face was kind of pretty, even in death. She fell awkwardly into her stony pit, and then Drake and Rachael were made to cover her up again.
The last thing Drake saw of her was the ruby bracelet, glittering in the starlight.
Nina's grave looked just like its surroundings. Everything was a freshly dug mess. But in his mind, Drake could see its outline.
Andre didn't let him or his mother rest. As soon as they had dropped their spades, he wanted them to clean every drop of blood from the kitchen. He stood over them as they worked, drowning in silent tears, sloshing cold water over the tiles.
The tiles were black and white, like the ice cream parlour Nina had taken Drake back to. It had been his eleventh birthday three months ago. He owed her so much. Every blow she had taken for him, every smile she had given him. The black hole inside him had been plugged with aquamarine taffeta, but now it was raw and gaping, threatening to consume him. Wouldn't it be easier to just give in?
"This is what's going to happen," Andre then told them sternly. His own eyes were rimmed with pink, but Drake couldn't find any other sign of remorse. "Tomorrow evening, we're going to report her missing. Rachael, I want you to go upstairs and take some of her things. Listen to me," Drake's mother had begun sobbing once more, but Andre took her face in his red hands. He forced her to look him in the eye. "This is going to get better, honey, I promise. This will all just get better if you do what I say." She nodded feebly.
Nearly crawling, Rachael and Drake went into Nina's room while Andre remained downstairs, washing his hands. It hurt Drake to go through his stepsister's things, stuffing random items of clothing into bags. They had to make it look like she had run away.
"We have to tell the cops," Drake said to his mother, voice thick and hushed. "When he calls them tomorrow, we have to say something."
Rachael could only shake her head pathetically, clutching at Nina's Halestorm t-shirt. As she used it to wipe the tears from her face, anger stabbed at Drake. He snatched it away from her.
"Mum, please, we have to."
"He'll kill us," she snivelled.
"We can run," Drake told her.
"No, no, he'll find us. Didn't Nina tell you her story?" Rachael sniffed. Drake didn't have time to be surprised at Nina confessing in his mother. He heard a creak at the foot of the stairs.
"Please, Mum, please. For me?" he whispered.
Staring at the desperation on her son's face, something was plucked inside Rachael.
"Alright," she promised, deathly quiet.
Andre took the bin bags they had stuffed and dumped them in the outdoor bin. The truck would come the next morning and dispose of them.
Drake didn't sleep at all that night. After the mess had been cleaned up, a deadly calm had settled over his stepfather. Drake didn't know what would happen, how things were going to play out from here. All he knew was that he wasn't in control.
The next day, Andre pretended like it hadn't happened. He kissed Rachael on the cheek when she came down, looking like a zombie, and said one of his friends would be over to work on the conservatory. It was as though Nina was just sleeping in upstairs and he would see her at dinner. Rachael was happy to go along with it, so long as it kept her husband happy.
Drake was in the hallway, about to leave for school, when his stepfather's hand fell on his shoulder. He froze.
"If you say a word, to anyone," Andre whispered savagely. "You're going to be lying next to her."
Swallowing, Drake nodded, and then waited for Andre to go to work. He nearly ran to school.
Like he had planned, Drake's stepfather called the cops late that evening, near midnight. Almost a whole twenty-four hours since Nina had been stabbed.
The police came over and took down the story Andre had fabricated. They observed her half-empty room when he pointed it out to them.
"Do you know of a place she's likely to go?" one officer asked Rachael.
The woman looked from the policeman, to her son, her lips twitching open. She had done her make-up to hide her ashen face. Drake waited. She's six feet under in the garden, the words were on the tip of his tongue. Look, we can show you. All his mother would have to do was speak out against her husband, and Drake would be the second witness.
"Uh, I think she has a grandmother in West Virginia," Rachael sniffed. "Andre's mum doesn't have a phone, or a computer, so we haven't been able to contact her. They could've made arrangements through letters or something."
The policeman scribbled this down, each scratch of his pen cutting deeper into Drake. He clenched his teeth.
"Can you think of a reason why?" the cop was talking to him. "Was there a fight?"
At this point, Andre stepped into the room. Again, his eyes were glassy and his expression was worried, but Drake saw through it all. He had been fake from the beginning.
"Do you think you can find her, Paul?" Drake's stepfather asked his friend.
"We'll see, mate. I'm just talking to your stepson at the moment."
Yes, there was a fight.
"There was an argument," Drake heard himself saying. "She said she wanted her own place, or something. Like a house."
His lie came out the way his stepfather had ordered it to.
Officers came and went over the next few days, trying to find a lead. Builders came and went too. Standing at the backdoor, Drake watched as they filled up the trench with concrete. He watched it set, hiding Nina's body.
Posters decorated the lampposts, pictures of his stepsister, asking if anyone knew where she was. It was almost like when Drake had killed the puppy. Its owners had sent out fliers, but he hadn't cared about seeing its photo strewn around. Now he cared.
Nina's devastated friends were spoken to. Her grandmother sent a letter saying she hadn't heard from her since Christmas. All the while, Drake and Rachael stayed silent.
Drake hated his mother. He hated the way she had lied to him, and to the police. He hated the way she had come home late and pissed off his stepfather. Was that really why Nina had died? He hated Andre for being such a sick, manipulative creep who had somehow convinced his mother he was the best she could do.
Most of all, he hated himself. With each brick that the conservatory grew by, he felt his hope being chipped away. No one was ever going to know the truth. Because he was too scared.
As the officers started to disappear, Rachael became more irritating and Andre grew more violent. When Drake heard the arguments, he would cry and scream soundlessly into his pillow, wracked with guilt and loathing. If his stepfather came for him, he no longer cared, because that kind of pain was just absorbed by the big, black hole that had eaten him alive.
When he managed to sleep, he would dream. When he dreamt, he sketched. Often Nina would appear out of his subconscious, but his hands never did her face justice. He would burn them all until his waste bin was full of ash. In the darkness, he would sit under his duvet and watch horror films on his phone. He would've gone downstairs, but he was afraid that Andre would find him and get angry.
After his first beating, Drake hadn't fought in school anymore. But that didn't stop him stealing pets. It didn't stop him hurting them.
One day, while Drake was standing in the conservatory he hated, he saw the neighbour's cat prowling through his garden. It had stared at him with amber eyes. He had gone to the kitchen to get it some chicken.
As the black cat ate, he petted it ears, so soft like Nina's hair. Then he wrapped his hands around the cat's throat. It was annoyed at first, but when he started pushing at its windpipe it tried to claw and kick and then he was twisting. He could feel it struggling against his strength, failing, suffering. There came the sound of sinew and cartilage snapping, and then the black cat went limp. Drake didn't feel relief, not like last time, but he still enjoyed it. He had power at his fingertips.
The dead cat was thrown in the outside bin.
Life was getting worse and Drake couldn't bear it without Nina. Andre would find him sitting in the kitchen, exactly where she had died, and known what he was thinking.
There were deaths threats, there was pain, and Drake's mouth was kept shut. Fear glued his teeth together.
A month disappeared from the calendar. A month that Drake spent suffering and spreading that suffering onto anything he could find. On one particular day, when Rachael was home making dinner and Andre was still at work, Drake had wandered past their bedroom. The door was open. On his stepfather's bedside table, he saw a gun. It had belonged to his real dad.
The first thing he felt was fear. He hadn't known his stepfather now owned it. Why was it there? Why was it out? The only thought running through Drake's head was that Andre could use it on him.
Avoiding the creakier floorboards, Drake crossed through the room and seized the Smith & Wesson. It was loaded. It felt comfortable in his hand.
He thumbed the safety. On and off. Safe and lethal. A small smile curled his lips.
Drake shoved the gun into the waistband of his jeans, hiding it with his shirt. Then he went out into the front garden and waited for Andre to return.
On the other side of the white picket fence, the neighbour's kid was playing on his lawn.
"Hey, Drake," the kid said. Drake didn't reply. He had never really liked the boy. "You haven't been behind the cafeteria for a while."
Fixing him with a cold stare, Drake turned to face the other boy. Holden, he thought his name was. Holden came nearer the fence.
"You guys can't fight, anyway," Drake told him. This insulted Holden, the dislike slapped onto his pudgy face.
"At least we don't fight girls," he spat.
"You might win more if you did, you little shit," smirked Drake.
"Yeah? I bet your sister ran away because you tried to fight her all the time!"
Drake saw red. He yanked out the handgun, thumbing the safety and remembering everything his real dad had taught him. When he was eight, he had been sneaked into a firing range for target practice with his dad's service pistol.
Now he was targeting Holden's leg.
The neighbour's kid had laughed at first, not thinking he was going to get shot.
Bang.
There was red blood gushing from his thigh, screams resonating from his mouth. They subsided as the gun's echo did, but that wasn't enough for Drake. He was grinning, he was aiming again. He wanted to hear another scream as Holden cried and begged and wet himself.
Before Drake could pull the trigger, he heard a panicked cry from his mother and then the gun was being snatched away from him. All hell broke loose, with Holden's mum shouting and his dad calling the ambulance. Drake remembered flashing blue lights and angry questions. He knew Andre was going to make him suffer for this, but with a grin stuck on his face, he felt it was worth it.
People didn't know what to do with Drake. He had confused them, scared them, and they were flapping around him while he sat there revelling in it all.
That was the first time he had heard the words Coates Academy.
Rachael looked it up online, and Andre was all too happy to ship his stepson away. It took a few short weeks to enrol him. He was being sent to California.
Drake didn't care. In fact, he was almost looking forward to it. He no longer had to be near the conservatory, or the mother that sickened him, or the stepfather that abused him. He could hurt as many kids as he wanted and he would get away with it, because Andre wasn't coming with him.
The only disadvantage was that he had to see a therapist every week.
The last thing he packed was his dad's collection of horror films. So what if Rachael thought he was taking Finding Nemo with him? She wasn't going to miss it.
Luckily, it was her that drove him all the way to Coates at the beginning of September. His stepfather had been particularly cruel to him since he had shot Holden.
"This is going to be a fresh start for you, Drake," his mother told him, while unloading his suitcase from the car. She was clueless.
"You know I was planning to shoot Andre, right?" he asked her, arms folded as she pulled out the suitcase's handle for him. Her face was shocked.
"Why would you do that?" she gasped.
"Because he murdered Nina," Drake hissed at her. Anxiously, his mother glanced around the parking lot, but it was empty.
"What happened was an accident, a terrible accident," Rachael shook her head. "And when he talked to me, he was so guilty, he begged me not to tell, so I just couldn't… I can't betray him."
"So you betrayed me instead."
"You've only seen the bad bits of him," his mother insisted. "He can be so sweet and caring. That's the man who swept me off my feet, the one who saved me. Andre can get a little angry at times, but the other man's in there, somewhere."
Wanting to vomit, Drake snatched up his suitcase and started dragging it across the tarmac.
"Aren't you going to say goodbye to me?" Rachael had the nerve to look hurt.
"Burn in hell, Rachael," he snarled at her.
Drake's mood lifted when he stepped through the doors to Coates, because that was the moment he became free. It was a Sunday, so he had been dropped off to the north of the grandiose campus, near the accommodation wing. It was kept a long way from the school building. Since he was late in enrolling, he got a room all to himself.
His mother had already sorted the paperwork, so after rejecting a potential tour guide it was just a case of unpacking for Monday. He was going to hate wearing the uniform.
Underneath his DVDs, Drake had folded up Nina's Halestorm t-shirt. It hurt to touch it, to remember her wearing it, but he still hadn't had the guts to throw it in the bin when he had taken it from Rachael.
It was kept at the bottom of his wardrobe.
Monday morning was interesting. He had skipped breakfast, but he couldn't avoid class, not when an older kid had hand delivered his timetable to him. Dressed in his new, red uniform, Drake prowled the corridors. They were lined with lockers and kids wandered past him continuously. A few peered at the new boy. The smiles he gave out made them scatter.
He felt like a lion stalking through a herd of antelope. This was his savannah. This was his heaven. Only Andre could control him, make him pay, so now anything he did was without consequence.
As he strolled towards his first class, something red and glittering caught his eye. It was a ruby bracelet, like the one Nina had, but another girl was wearing it. Maybe it was a fashionable designer thing, like Rachael sometimes talked about.
Drake approached the other kid. Although he couldn't see her face, he could see her wrist as she held onto her locker door.
"Hey," he said to the girl. "Who are you?"
The locker door was shut with a clang. The girl looked him up and down, smirking. She had dark hair like his mother's, but it fell straight so he cut her some slack. She was pretty, too, just not as pretty as Nina. No one could be, even though they were all trying.
"Diana," said the girl. Drake grinned. Now she was unforgiveable. "I'm Diana Ladris. Who are you?"
"I'm Drake Merwin."
Disclaimer: All of the Goneverse belongs to Michael Grant.
Author's Note: Saved this for the end because I wanted to jump straight in.
So. Drake's past. We're fed bits of it throughout the Gone novels, but I wanted to have a go at the challenge of piecing it together. How did I do? Please, I'm open to all comments and criticism, as this is only my interpretation. I'd love to hear from you.
Also, I know that there's some inconsistency re Drake's birthday in the books. Diana says it's April 12th while he mentions it being one month away during November. It really depends on who you're inclined to believe. ;)
Drop a review!