AUTHOR'S NOTE: Please be aware that this and the proceeding chapters contain instances of child abuse, bad language, and violence.

I was so distraught from what I had witnessed that after Hugo had pushed Alex – still weeping – down the stairs, I sprinted away from Addie and ran down to the basement, one of my favorite hiding places. Tears flooded my face. I couldn't understand what had happened, but I knew it was something awful and I wanted to disappear.

"Momma, momma..."

Of course, my douche bag mother didn't appear, but I did hear the faint footsteps of someone approaching me from behind my hiding hole in between two old shelves. I shuddered back in fear that Constance, or even worse, Hugo, had found me, but was rather surprised to hear the nasal, yet soothing voice of a woman, speaking gibberish about a baby.

"Where is my sweet boy?," she obsessively cooed. I retracted farther back and silenced my whimpers, but yet she still found me, as if I had a goddamn beacon on my head.

"My sweet boy, is that you? I've been looking for you. Where did you run off to?"

Almost instinctively, I walked toward her outstretched arms, completely mesmerized. She hugged me tightly, and I began to sob uncontrollably into her shoulder. She held me close, stoking my hair and whispering soothing words into my ear.

"My dear child, life is too short for so much sorrow," she said pulling me out of her embrace to wipe the tears from my ears. Like a dumbshit, I didn't even question who she was or why she was in our house. Talking to strangers was not the taboo thing it is today, and she just seemed so warm and caring, unlike any other adult in my life.

"Dear boy, dry your eyes. What is your name, sweetheart?"

"Ta, ta...te," I whimpered out between muffled cries.

"Now, Tate, what has you down here all by yourself in such a state?"

"I... I... saw something," tears threatening again. "My dad, he... he... he was hurting my sister," I stuttered, almost if I had dreamed what I saw. "I... I don't know... don't know what he was doing, but she... but she... she was crying." Exasperated breaths between each pause.

"Oh child, this house will make you see things, painful things. It will make you see darkness and only darkness. It will also make you believe that the darkness will swallow you up. But don't you fret. If you ever feel that darkness surrounding you, you just close your eyes and tell it to 'Go away!' And just like that it will disappear."

The woman pulled me in tightly again and vanished out of my arms at the sound of Addie running down the stairs with Hugo closing the gap, shirt half tucked in and fly down.

Addie crashed into me and held me in a firm grip as Hugo made a melodramatic pause before stepping down on the cold basement floor. His eyes were intense, scanning between Addie and I in the darkness, licking his lips, and removing his already half-undone belt – a threat looming as if the goddamn bastard had any right to punish anyone but himself.

"Now, I don't know exactly what you two little shits think you saw, but I suggest you forget real quick or else you won't be able to remember much of anything after I put you in a coma..."

Fearless and bold Addie screamed out, "I... I... saw you hurting Alex! Tate did not. What did you do to her?"

"Shut up, you fucking retard!"

"What did you do?"

"I said 'SHUT THE FUCK UP!'' Hugo grabbed Addie and pulled her away from me, pelting her with his belt over and over again, as she continued to ask what he did to "our"
sister.

Like the fucking coward I am, I sunk back farther into the shadows, horrified and trembling. Too paralyzed to cry. But suddenly, the nasally woman before was behind me, whispering in my ear, "Remember what I said, my sweet boy."

Walking forward toward Addie and Hugo with tears brimming, I closed my eyes and screamed at Hugo "Go away!" He stopped just long enough to scoff in surprise.

"What did you say to me, you little shit?"

I looked down at Addie now laying on the floor, sobbing hysterically. My fearless sister had been broken, and I wanted to make him pay.

"That's what I thought." Hugo began to raise his hand high in the air for the next lash, but I reached out and grabbed it, pulling it down with my whole body weight.

"I said, 'Go away!', my eyes locked with his as if we were in some god forsaken Jerry Springer showdown. Tears boiling behind my raw, red eyes and solemn, tear-stained face.

Hugo looked at me with those same eyes that he did when he realized just what I was, the Hellish product of him – the perverted, pedophile, rapist bastard, and Constance – the greedy, murderous, bitch. Yes, I was no doubt their son, and looking into his own eyes terrified him. In the raven reflection, he saw the pathetic, sick fuck he was. And although I was young, I secretly enjoyed the feeling of power it gave me – to bring him to his knees, to make him feel the pain he brought.

Amidst our slow motion stare down, Addie got up and ran to her room. With that the trance was broken between Hugo and I, and the fire and pure hatred in his eyes returned. Now, he wasn't just battling me, but also himself in child form.

One thrash, two, three, four, on and on... Continuing to scream "Go away!" while crying my eyes out.

I was almost unconscious by the time I heard my mother running down the stairs, shrieking Hugo's name. When she found him standing over me with blood on his shirt and his weapon of choice, all there was was silence and death stares. Then, just darkness.

After that, I kept even more to myself, afraid to be in the line of sight of Hugo. Although, he had made himself, pretty scarce as well, probably screwing the brains our of whatever he could find.

The basement, the woman, Nora, and her real son, Thaddeus became my refuge and only, albeit imaginary, friends, as somehow Addie became even more resilient, while I grew increasingly introverted. Thaddeus had streaks of meanness, almost like my mother and father, but I sympathized with him because I could understand how he felt.

He was unloved by his mother, Nora, who had favored me over him, and he was trapped to be by himself forever with no one to ever love him. Deep down, although he was a monster, a predator, he just wanted that – someone to either love him or end his abominable existence. And I could relate.

He, like me, was what his parents had made him.