Random Knigghts by Dennitra Lomax (crime books to read TXT) 📖

more than five minutes, yet I had no idea where we’d gotten to.
“You want to leave, don’t you? This was lame.”
He started to turn and leave, but I grabbed his hand.
“Liam chill,” I laughed, “I don’t want to leave. This place is so, amazing.”
His voice was smoother now, “You think so?”
I looked into his eyes as he looked into mine, and we smiled euphorically.
“Absolutely.”
We sat underneath the large oak. The humidity in the air was overwhelming yet the grass was cool, so I ran my fingers through it as I took in the scenery. The large oak was by far the tallest tree, but there were other trees that attempted to be just as tall. They all leaned and swayed awkwardly away from the oak, casting it out. The way the other trees leaned made you focus only on the oak, on it’s thick bark, and many branches. I wondered if the oak minded that the other trees wanted to be no where near it. I bet the rest of the trees would run if they could but, considering they were rooted into the soil, that was kind of impossible. I could empathize with the oak. The way we were both out-casts. Only, the oak was beautiful and I…
“So…”
Liam’s voice got my attention, as he intended, and I looked at him. I wondered why he would interrupt the serenity, then I remembered I had a lot of questions to ask him.
“Oh, right.”
He laughed, as did I, and I gathered my thoughts once again.
“Okay um, let’s cover the basics first. How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Hmm.”
So he was older than me by a year. Nice. I couldn’t help but smile at my thoughts, and he noticed.
His shy smile, spread across his lips, “What?”
“Nothing,” I giggled, “Your older than me.”
He furrowed his brows before he spoke, “Well I can’t be older than you by much, I mean, we’re both Juniors.”
“Yeah, your only older than me by a year.”
“Well that’s a relief,” he said, as he wiped his forehead with his hand and flicked imaginary sweat from it. We smiled.
“Okay, so what brought you to Farrell, Texas?”
“Well, my mom grew tired of the ‘fast life’ in New York, and since this place was the only other place she knew, she didn’t hesitate to come back.”
“So, you didn’t want to leave New York? I don’t blame you.”
I laughed and thought about how beautiful New York must be. How if I were there, I wouldn’t want to leave either.
“I didn’t want to leave but, then again, I did. It was beautiful there, so bright, and busy all hours of the day. There was always something to do. Somewhere to be. But I still wanted to leave.”
He paused, I waited for him to continue but he didn’t. I would’ve left it alone, but I was too curious to.
“Why? Why did you want to leave?”
My question was more like a plead. A whispered plead.
“My unhappiness had nothing to do with the place itself, I was unhappy with, my household.”
The way he chose his words, danced around them, intrigued me. He was answering my question, without actually answering it, and I wondered why he would do that. My mind told me to leave it alone. If he didn’t want to tell me then I shouldn’t push him to, but my heart screamed to know more. It seems lately, I’ve been listening to my heart and, following my emotions rather than my mind and probably better judgment. My heart won this time as well.
“Did that have anything to do with your father?”
Once my sentence was complete, I wished I hadn’t listened to my heart. Liam’s face held pain, his hands clenched into fists and, the pain was replaced with anger. He didn’t look at me when he spoke.
“Good guess.”
His statement, meant to be humorous, didn’t ease either of us. But, I followed his lead anyway.
“Yeah, I’m pretty intuitive.”
I laughed nervously. Think of something to change the subject, I thought to myself. I bit at my bottom lip, a nervous tick, as I racked my brain for different topics.
“No your not,” he laughed, “I’m sure my reaction to your question aided in your assumption.”
He looked back to me, finally, and the anger that once masked his face had gone.
“Yeah, it did.” I thought about each word before speaking them. “Why did you react the way you did? You looked, angry.”
“Why did you look nauseous when you were speaking about your dad?”
So he’d noticed, but just didn’t said anything. I wish he hadn’t asked me this, I could feel my stomach churning and I unwillingly grasped at it. Liam’s eyes were on me, I felt them burning my face, so I looked at him as well. His emerald eyes were full of guilt. Liam leaned towards me, this movement ended the churning in my stomach but began the frantic pounding of my heart and uneven breathing. He rested his forehead on mine. I could smell his sweet, warm breath. His hands moved to mine, still clutched to my stomach from before, and intertwined our fingers.
“I’m sorry, Ally. I was trying to show you that I don’t like talking about my father, just as you don’t. I ended up hurting you, and that was not my intention at all.”
It took a moment to control my breathing, before speaking. Liam’s face was still inches from mine and it was hard to focus on anything but his lips, and the sweet aroma of his breath.
“It’s okay, Liam. I shouldn’t have tried to force you to tell me your story, when I wasn’t exactly eager to tell you mine.”
I genuinely felt bad, but still curious. His reaction, anger, had triggered something within myself. Our reactions to questions about our fathers was odd, but we recognized each others pain now. Liam’s animosity toward his father meant something, as the nausea toward my father meant something as well. I made up my mind. I would tell Liam why the thought of David made my stomach churn, and my mouth fill with saliva.
“Ally?”
Although he whispered my name, it still made me jump. Thinking of David always left me jumpy and paranoid.
“Yeah?”
I tried to shake off the paranoia and focus on him. He released my hands and removed his forehead from mine. His body hadn’t moved an inch, but I could see his face clearly now.
“Um, I wanna to tell you why I acted the way I did, when you asked me about my father.” He whispered.


Chapter Six

“He called me every name you could think of. Nothing I did was good enough to please him.”
Liam’s hands balled into fists once again, but his face was pained instead of angry. He looked hurt, and his hurt pained me. I wanted to ease his pain, somehow, but all I could do was rest my hand on one of his still, balled fists.
“My mom was always the peace maker when he and I got into it, which was all of the time. She never let us get close enough to hit each other, that annoyed me.”
He laughed at the memory, before continuing.
“She always took my side, and that angered my dad. Even though he treated me like crap, he treated my mom like a queen. He always showed her the utmost respect. When we’d get into our arguments, my mom would get in the middle of us, set her hands on our chests, and say ‘enough.’ My dad would back off immediately, me, not so much. I heard them one night, talking about me.
My mom said, ‘Why are you so hard on him, Jim?’
My dad replied, ‘That boy is useless, Maggie. He can’t do anything right!’”
Liam continued his story, changing his voice accordingly.
“‘Oh, that is bull and you know it! He’s a very talented boy, but you’re too damn ignorant to appreciate any of it. I’m done having this conversation, ease up on him. Or else.’”
Liam’s interpretation of his mother and fathers voice ended, and only his remained.
“He did ease up on me, sort of. He just didn’t speak his mind as much. He replaced his words with expressions and grunts. That still annoyed my mom but, she allowed it, it didn’t really bother me all that much. I thought the worst was over. He wasn’t yelling at me everyday like he used to, and we barely ever fought. Until, one day after school. I was upset because my Spanish teacher had given me an F. That teacher was such a jerk. I got an F solely because of participation, which was total crap because I participated every class. I’m rambling,”
Liam looked at me and we both laughed, he was rambling, but I was engaged into his story either way.
“but overall, that F prevented me from playing football, and we had a huge game coming up. Scouts were expected to be there, and I was really amped about that. There I go again,”
He smiled, then continued.
“I walked in the house and he was standing in the living room, waiting for me. I went into the kitchen to get something to drink, and he just rushed behind me. I whirled around, ready to swing on him, out of habit. But I saw his face. He looked, crazy. He was so enraged, and I gotta admit, the look in his eyes startled me. He just stood in front of me, and we looked at each other. I looked at him with confusion, and he looked at me with what I assumed was disgust or anger, or both. We stood, looking at each other like that for a few seconds before he spoke.
‘What did you do?!’”
Liam’s voice was that of his fathers.
“‘What are you talking about?”
I was glad Liam left out the he said-then I said vocabulary. He thought it easier to change his voice, and it was easier to follow this way.
“‘You got removed from playing this Friday? What did you do, boy?’
I hated it when he called me boy, so my anger escalated effortlessly after that.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about! I didn’t do anything!’
I moved to the side to go around him, but he mocked my movements, and I glowered at him.
‘Oh, I don’t know what I’m talking about? I think I do, ya lousy sack of shit! You’ve done it this time!’
He charged me so quickly, I didn’t even know what happened. His hands were around my throat, and before I knew it, I was gasping for air. I tried to fight him off, but his grasp was unbreakable. I hit him a couple of times, one in the nose and another in the neck, but his hold didn’t budge. I felt my body go limp and knew I’d succumb to the unconsciousness that awaited me any second, at least, I hoped for unconsciousness.”
It was then I realized, Liam’s father really tried to kill him! What kind of person, no, what kind of father would try to kill their child?
“All I was able to do was look at him, watch him choke me to death. His eyes never left mine. He saw the plead in them, and I saw nothing in his. Everything started to go blurry, and my eyelids got heavier and heavier. I thought I heard a slamming sound, but I wasn’t sure about anything at that moment. Now