Warnings: Child abuse, accidental posting of a chapter on the same day that it's set on, haha.
Lyle Lawliet yawned, stretching in his bed. He shivered a little as a chill ran through his room. Mummy must have left the door open again last night, so he slipped out of bed, wrapping his blanket around his shoulders like a warm cape, and padded out into the living room.
Sure enough, the door was swinging wide open, tapping against the wall; so Lyle reached a small hand up to close it before looking around the dirty apartment. Mummy was passed out on the couch, and the TV was gone. Lyle wasn't sure if she'd sold it, or if someone had snatched it in the night, but either way he didn't look forward to the moment she realized it was gone. He frowned, continuing through the apartment into their tiny kitchen.
An open box of leftover pizza was on the counter. Not as sweet as Lyle would have liked, but it would make an easier breakfast than dragging the Lucky Charms out of the cupboard, so the boy pulled a chair from the table so he could reach the greasy food.
He slid two slices onto a paper plate, and started back towards his bedroom. Maybe Sherlock Holmes could help him keep his mind off the unpleasant taste of tomato sauce and pepperoni. He paused at his door when he heard a shifting coming from the couch, followed by a low moan. Biting his lip, he hurried the rest of the way into his room, closing the door as quietly as he could, and hurried to curl up on the floor at the foot of his bed with the blanket pulled over his head.
Lyle sat in the darkness for a few seconds, hoping Mummy would just go back to sleep, or leave the house. Either would be fine with him as long as she just left him alone, and he quietly bit into his breakfast.
The couch squeaked loudly, and footsteps crossed the floor. "Lyle? Where's the damn TV?"
Lyle slid his pizza under the bed, wriggling after it. It was so dusty under there. The footsteps came closer to his door, and he quickly tugged his blanket under the bed as well. At the sound of his door opening, he squeezed his eyes shut, hoping maybe if he didn't look at her it would somehow calm her. "Lyle, you rotten little bastard! Answer me!" He curled into a ball, trying not to breath in the dust. The dust had betrayed him before, and it was likely to again. "Lyyyyle. Mummy's caaalling you!" She's trying to sound sweet now. This won't end well, he thought, curling his arms tighter around his legs.
The footsteps crossed his floor, going into the small bathroom across the room. "Are you in here?" With her that far, maybe he could slip out from under the bed without her noticing. The boy shifted a bit. It was worth a shot. He could get out, escape the house, and be free of her for the rest of his life. He shifted again, sliding towards the edge of the bed, and sucked in a lungful of dust. He immediately stopped, trying to hold in the coughs that had taken such a sudden residence in his throat, but they escaped, loud and painful, shaking his small frame and alerting the monster in the bathroom to his presence.
Quick footfalls were followed by a hand reaching under the bed, grabbing tight to a skinny wrist and pulling hard. "There you are, you little shit," his mother snarled, dragging Lyle from his small haven. "I had to sell the TV last night, and do you know why?" He was silent, staring at his feet. "Answer me!" A hand slapped him hard across the face, and he lifted his eyes, shaking his head. "I sold it because you are so fucking expensive!" The hand returned, turning his other cheek red and stinging across a still-healing bruise under his eye. "I need to feed you, I need to clothe you, I need to keep a roof over your damn head! And does your bastard father do anything to help? No! He just runs off to Jamaica with some 19-year-old whore! And it's your fault, do you understand me?" He was thrown across the room, back slamming into the wall.
Lyle looked up in terror as his mum crossed the room in a few large steps, and she grabbed his hair, pulling him to his feet. "You took my figure, you scared him into a commitment he wasn't ready to keep, you kept him up at night for a year and a half, you attracted the attention of the sluts at the park, and you scared the shit out of him when you quoted bloody Shakespeare at your second birthday party!" She slammed his head against the wall, shrieking in fury. "What kind of fucking toddler quotes Shakespeare?" she screamed, throwing him against the ground. Breathing heavily, she stared down at her child for a moment. "I need a drink." Footsteps crossed the floor, leaving his room, leaving the apartment, and going to the bar down the street where she was on a first-name basis with the bartender and could get free drinks for blow jobs. She took Lyle with her, once, and he doesn't care to remember it, even if he was still too young to understand just what his mother was using him for or what was happening in the bartender's lap.
After nearly a half hour of lying on the floor, Lyle pushed himself up. He crawled across his room to retrieve his pizza from under the bed, and pulled a notebook and pencil from his small bookshelf. He opened it to a page towards the middle, already filled with plans written shakily due to the poor motor skills of a four-year-old, and began to write.
~*~*~
When Julie Lawliet comes stumbling home that evening, having spent the entire day drinking and fucking, she doesn't expect a lone roller skate to be just inside the door. She doesn't expect to step on that skate, or to fall from it and slam her head into the doorknob. From there, she doesn't expect to shakily stand back up, and slip on the laundry detergent that's been poured across the wood of the living room floor. She doesn't expect to slam forwards, crashing face-first into the nails that have been pried from bedroom floorboards and scattered just past the detergent. She doesn't expect to rise, screeching in pain, and stumble into the bathroom for the first-aid kit. She doesn't expect to trip over the string that's been stretched across the doorway, or to fall into the full bathtub. She doesn't expect the toaster to be in the bathroom, plugged in and set to drop into that same bathtub moments after the string in the doorway is pulled. She doesn't expect dying of electrocution, bleeding from her face and the back of her head, to be so painful. She doesn't expect any of what comes to her that evening.
A small, pale shadow, lurking in the bedroom doorway, expects all of it, and slips out the door she left open again into the night.