Cuts Like An Angel by Mason Sabre, Lucian Bane Page B

arm and raced up the stairs to his room, the sanctuary he had claimed when he was old enough. He reached up to the ledge above his door and took down his key. He unlocked his hide out and went in, shutting out the world of his mother. This was his place. The place she couldn’t touch. She had tried. God, she tried so many times. 
    He’d moved out when he was sixteen. Moved into one of those places that advertised new starts for kids. He’d got himself a job, too, but she’d ruined that. Taken it from him. Overdosing herself and passing out in her own vomit. She wasn’t safe to be left alone.
    So he’d packed his things back up, things being two plastic bags of clothes and a pair of trainers. He’d taken them home, but he had not been the same boy who had left. He would not settle for having nothing. He made his own life and his own things. His room was his place. Decorated how he wanted it. Shelves lined with books. A desk filled with papers … his scribblings, his writings, the things that came from his mind in those darkest of moments. A testament to the man inside who would not be beaten and hidden any longer.
    He stacked his things, his journals and his papers into a pile, swiping away the pens to one side to leave himself a space on his desk. He put the shoes there, holding the box with his hands at either side. Never put shoes on a table. It’s bad luck.
    He let go of the box, leaving it there and ignoring the niggle inside his chest, the words yelling at him inside his mind. You’ll be sorry. But could his luck be worse?
    For the rest of the day, William set about cleaning the room at the front of the house. It was as good a place as any to start. When he was done, a long row of black bags lined the hallway, threatening to topple over. Thirty-six of them in total. She had so much shit ... so many things. William swiped the back of his hand across his forehead and took a long hard gulp from his water bottle. The muscles in his arms and shoulders ached from the day’s work. His eyes stung from the dust and his nose had long since blocked up, but he didn’t care.
    He stood and smiled at his accomplishment. It was just one room. One room of nothing but these bags, these were the symbol of getting rid of her. Soon she’d be gone for good.
    The front lounge was done, vacuumed and dusted. He unearthed the deep red three-piece suite his mother had bought but never allowed them to use. He found an old coffee table, its middle bowed with the burden of boxes, but he’d cleaned and shined it and now it sat in the middle of the room. He took down the picture of his grandfather, dusty and old, memories he didn’t remember. A small boy in the picture, the boy, the one who thought the world was good. Now, this was William’s room, too.
    No, this was Josh’s room.
    He went into the kitchen and pulled out an instant meal from the cupboard. He readied a pot of the dehydrated noodles that were supposed to taste like curry. His mother’s specialty. The sour gravy she’d slurp down herself, wearing it like decorations on her clothes. But he wasn’t going into the fridge Not yet. What monstrosities would be germinating in there from all this time?
    He would face that tomorrow.
    He ate his snack in the kitchen, standing at the counter as he read last month’s newspaper. When he was done, he rinsed his fork under the tap and put it in the drainer, throwing his pot into the trash. Dirty dishes stacked up on the side, food still encrusted on them. Mould grew on the bread that was still sitting on the counter
    William eyed the month-old grease in the sink. Closing his eyes a moment, he plunged his hand into the rotting waste of his mother’s last meals and yanked the plug. The water let out with a loud slurping as he fought his throat trying to retch the junk he’d just eaten.
    In the bathroom, he turned the shower taps on, letting the spray heat and fill the room with steam. He leaned on the sink and faced the mirror,