Eleven

It was fucking stupid.

All of this was because of his Dad. All of this was because of a man he despised more than anything else in the world. Apparently, he owed a debt, a debt that was supposed to be paid in blood rather than money. Basically, the men who had him now were ones who wanted Terry Milkovich dead at any cost. Which was a shame. . . for them.

He supposed he should have known that what had happened would come back and bite him in the ass. Nobody cared about Terry Milkovich, but they cared about stuff he'd done, they wanted revenge. He wasn't really surprised about that part, he'd decided a long time ago that he didn't actually want to know about the shit his Dad was capable of.

"He's already dead," he bit out through the ache in his jaw.

And of course they batted him around a bit to see whether that would make him change his answer, but it didn't and it never would. He didn't have any other answer to give. He told them that, but he probably didn't look all that convincing tied to a chair in the middle of a room, that and his wrists fucking hurt.

"We would have heard if he was dead," the idiot Mickey had punched was obviously the muscle of the operation.

Mickey snorted, "Yeah, because I was going to fucking tell someone, wasn't I?"

The guy, he didn't even know what any of their names were, he didn't particularly care to find out either, smirked, "Well how about you share then, before we see if pliers will help loosen up your tongue."

Mickey pulled a face, but he didn't really know if that was from the threat or from the fact that he was going to actually have to confess now. And who could back him up? Nobody. The only person who'd been there was now dead, Mandy. He wondered if this was why she'd done herself in, these guys poking around for information.

She could have fucking warned him!

-000-

Mickey didn't even really know how it all started. He didn't know how his Dad found out, all he knew was that one minute he was sleeping and the next he was flying through the air and colliding hard with the back of the sofa.

He didn't know if he heard Mandy scream or if that was just the ringing in his ears as his breath rushed out of his lungs. His Dad threw him around a bit more, bouncing his son off of walls, furniture, anything really. And Mickey didn't fight it, because he knew it wouldn't be any use. He didn't have anything left to fight for now anyway; he'd let that all slip through his fingers as easily as smoke would. He'd let the one thing he could have fought for, should have fought for run off with dreams of joining the fucking army.

So Mickey just lay there, hardly resisting as his Dad tried to choke the life out of him, both with the hands around his throat and the weight bearing down on his chest. He could have sworn he felt his ribs creaking in protest.

"I'm not having a faggot as a son," he snarled at him and he died with that statement hanging in the air.

Terry Milkovich died when his daughter pulled the trigger that sent his brains splattering everywhere. Terry Milkovich died when his only daughter chose her faggot brother over her homophobic father. Afterwards, Mickey thought maybe a part of Mandy died then as well, she'd always been the sweet one out of them all, she'd never really hurt anybody, she was tough, but she was too soft for murder.

Weirdly though, Mickey's first thought wasn't any concern for his sister, it was that that should teach the bastard for leaving guns just lying around. Not that you could teach the dead anything, but he still found himself smirking as he forced aside the body that had slumped against him, freeing himself from the hands that had gone slack around his throat.

It had taken a whole minute before Mandy realised quite what she'd done and started screaming.