I flailed around and began screaming under the crushing weight of whatever was on top of me.

The thing was removed and I was face to face with Harv. His eyes were cascading waterfalls down his cheeks as he slowly lowered his gun with limp limbs. In the corner of my eye, I could see Al’s slumped body. His eyes growing opaque and gray, a large pool of blood pouring out of the back of his black jacket. I assessed what had happened as Harv cried

Cried seems a bit of an understatement. He bawled. He bawled over the shock and fear. He bawled over his innocence and loss. He bawled about shooting his brother and saving an innocent girl who calls pockets ‘table baskets.’

Without hesitation, I hugged the man with such power that I didn't even know I had in me. “It’s okay,” I whispered. Or I whispered something like it. I really hope I had said something else. After all, it wasn't okay.

He was alone now.

Harv and I seemed able to only say the obvious and useless. “He was going to kill you…”

I merely nodded and looked again at the boy’s tear-stained face. I recognized the looks of a boy just coming into adulthood. He was around Ivan’s age.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s find you a place to sleep for the night.”

~

“And you could have died! From this kid” the woman wailed as she thrust her hand into Harv’s direction where he stood shyly along the wall, “or whatever other psychopaths there are out there! Or HELL! Animals could have got to you! And no one would have known!”

Mother screamed at me as she had been doing for the past hour. I kept my attention on the way her fiery hair whipped around her with every nod of her head or quick motion with her hands. I noticed the wall behind her and amused myself by concocting pictures and creatures in the filth that was plastered on the drywall. Anything to ignore the incessant squawking.

After a while, I searched with my foot behind me to see if the pack I brought in was still slouched against the wall by the doorway. It was. Using my peripherals, I checked if Harv was still wearing his. I bit back a chuckle when I found that he was. He had been wearing it since we got in. He had refused to even leave my side. I originally thought it was so he could discover what was to become of him, but with the plenty of glances he sent in my direction, I put together that it was that he was concerned for me.

He was a nice guy.

“Then! You didn't even take care of the pigs like we told you to, so you can go gallivanting on one of your insane adventures!! If I or your father had done even half of what you’ve done when we were younger-”

She was interrupted as my father stepped forward and pulled her back, holding up a hand to gesture for her to stop. He nodded his head behind him to the crib in the back of the room where Ed had been screaming. Only to be silenced by the occasional fit of coughing. With each coughing fit, his phlegm seemed to build up and his cries sounded more and more like he was drowning.

My thoughts were dragged back to reality as my father took a step closer to me. His breath smelled rancid and his crooked nose tilted down like a tyrant examining an infidel.

In a way, that was exactly what was happening. That man was certainly a tyrant, and he most definitely saw me as no more value than the scum on the bottom of his boots.

“You worried your mother,” he said low and with a voice that leashed back an evil intensity. His eyes were dark and a scar cut over his tanned forehead.

I resisted the urge to swallow and reveal my fear. I straightened as tall as I could in front of him and projected my voice to make it resonate in the small, dingy room. “I was getting-”

“Did I ask you what you were getting?” This time it was even harder not to pitch back the saliva that was building in my mouth. Somehow his whispers were more terrifying than my mother’s ear-piercing shrieks.

I shook my head and stared back at the ground. I saw Harv’s feet swiveling back and forth on their heel as his discomfort grew.

“Look at me.” I brought my head back up and the smell of his breath made me want to shrivel up. “I am not proud of what you have done. We told you numerous times not to go out there. I thought I was clear on that the last time.”

“You we-”

He clamped a hand over my mouth and held tightly. “I did not say you could speak!” he screamed at me and tears sprung to my eyes. He was scaring me no matter how much I tried to convince myself that it was okay. Ed had started screaming louder. “On top of it all,” he squeezed harder around my mouth causing my teeth to dig into my cheeks. It stung, but I held the tears back. “You brought another mouth to feed. Even after I killed the young pig out there that you were supposed to kill, we barely have enough food to feed the five of us.” His voice was wavering between quiet viciousness and a bellowing ferocity. My father sneered and I saw a lightbulb go off in his head. “So guess who won’t be eating for a week?” He jerked his hand away, ripping forwards so my lip cut against the white horses in my mouth, any deeper and I would have bled.

“A week?!” My voice came out more of a squeak then I had meant it to. “I won't live that-”

A hand slapped roughly across my face, delivering the back of it into my cheek. I fell to the floor and my beanie fell off. I lay there, blinking back the shock and refusing to rub the sore spot on my face.

“I did not allow you to talk back!!” I was snatched up by my tangled mess of hair as a fist jabbed into my stomach and threw me back down onto the ground. I saw Harv’s feet and a hand move towards me before my father turned to look at him. Harv froze in his tracks, terrified to move further for my sake.

My father tilted his head in a grotesque way. I could no longer see his face, but I knew it would be more nightmarish than my mother’s attempt at happiness.

“The girl just volunteered her food to you, kid. For a whole week! That’s more than what I’d get in my first settlement. Say thank you to the young lady.”

Harv’s blue eyes stared at me in concern and fear. He muttered some quick thanks and looked at me with eyes as wide as saucers. Not quite fear anymore but shock.

I considered again how kind he was to worry for me.

Others would have called him weak, but I knew better.

He cared. Something that the people in this world no longer knew how to do.

My father nodded. “We’ll get along nicely.” He then moved towards the doorway, jostling Harv around unnecessarily.

My mother curled Ed tighter into her bosom and shook her head at me. “You’re lucky your friend is here. He wouldn't have been so easy on you otherwise.” She then trotted after the father of her children without a second look back. Ed fell into another coughing fit and I listened to the sound of spit hit against cloth and my mother giving a groan of annoyance.

Harv then knelt onto the ground beside me and wiped tears off my cheeks as he helped me into a sitting position. I wasn’t even aware I was crying until then. Despite it all, I started to laugh. “Good thing I barely ate today. We don't want it smelling like puke.” I gave a smile to lighten the mood.

Harv merely frowned and gave a drawn-out sigh. “Does this happen often?”

I was shocked by the question. It seemed out of nowhere. I contemplated telling him that it was normally worse, but in the end, all I did was nod.

“We’re leaving then. I can't just let you be abused after killing my brother to save you.” His bright eyes could be surprisingly serious. Then he gave a warm smile. “On the way back, you were humming. Seems like you like to do that. Plus, it’s kinda sweet. Reminds me of when I was a kid. Mind humming me a tune before you manage to get the strength to leave the cold floor?”

This man never ceased to amaze me. I smiled back and began to hum a short melody I heard long before. One that reminded me of runaway pirates and the frothy sea.