Chapter Four – Careful What You Wish For

My fingers, sticky with blood, stayed pressed against the gash on my right side, and though pain radiated with each step I took, I barely registered it. Compared to the sick twist in my stomach and the cold dread curling up my spine, the wound felt like background noise.

I had come expecting confrontation. I’d imagined catching my father in a lie, cornering him, demanding answers he’d been dodging for months. I hadn’t imagined this. I hadn’t imagined torture.

Crouched behind a stack of rusted barrels, I crept forward inch by inch, the soles of my Converse moving as quietly as possible across the stained concrete. The floor was slick in places, with oil or water or worse. My breath came shallow, barely enough to fill my lungs, and my chest ached from the effort of staying quiet. The scent of old metal, mildew, and something coppery coated the air. I didn’t want to imagine how long the floor had been soaked in blood.

My side pulsed with each heartbeat, the warmth of blood soaking through my shirt and jacket. I knew I was bleeding too much, but there was nothing I could do about it. Not yet. Not while my father was still ahead. Still in danger.

I reached the last corner and pressed myself against the wall, body trembling. I couldn’t hear his voice anymore, but I could feel the tension in the air—like the building itself was holding its breath. I pushed forward and finally saw him.

My father was on his knees in the center of the factory floor, slumped forward like he no longer had the strength to hold himself upright. His shirt was torn, soaked in blood, and his hands rested limply against the floor, trembling. His head hung low, as if he couldn’t lift it, and his knees were raw and wet from the concrete beneath him.

Across from him, seated like some bored king presiding over a failing servant, was a man I didn’t recognize—older, dressed in a dark suit, his silver cane glinting as he tilted it lazily in his grip. His expression was unreadable. Detached. The kind of calm that made my skin crawl.

That man didn’t speak. He didn’t have to to dominate the room.

The way he nudged my father’s shoulder with the tip of his cane, like he was nothing more than trash, made my stomach turn. I bit down a cry and shifted slightly for a better look—then my foot knocked against something soft. It twitched.

My heart lurched as I realized too late what I’d disturbed.

The shadows exploded with motion.

A rat lunged from the darkness—then another. I barely had time to react before the first one sank its teeth deep into the side of my foot, right through the thin canvas of my sneaker. I jolted, trying to pull back, but a second one scurried up, sinking its fangs into my Achilles.

A third bit down near my ankle, sharp and fast, tearing through skin like tissue.

I slapped my hand against my mouth to stop the scream building in my throat.

Kicking wildly, I flung them off, but the damage was done. My foot throbbed, fire spreading from every bite, blood soaking into my sock. I collapsed back into the shadows, chest heaving silently, every nerve screaming.

My foot pulsed with pain. I tasted blood from biting too hard on my tongue.

For a moment, everything was still.

Then one of the rats—bless its tiny, terrible heart—darted out from my hiding place and into the open, skittering across the light-streaked concrete.

Every head turned.

Eyes followed it. For one horrible second, I thought they’d look past it and see me crouched behind the barrels. But they didn’t. Their attention shifted back to the scene, as if a rat in the shadows was the most normal thing in the world. I guess for them it was.

I didn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. My entire body stayed locked in place, heart pounding, until the silence resumed.

The man with the cane still hadn’t said a word. His presence seeped into the space like poison into water—silent, colorless, fatal. My father whimpered softly as another tap of the cane hit his shoulder, and still, the man didn’t blink.

I didn’t know what my father had done. I didn’t know what he owed or how deep he’d gotten in with these people. But I knew—watching the blood drip from his nose, seeing the bruises blooming across his jaw—that this wasn’t a misunderstanding. This was punishment. Calculated, controlled and cruel.

My hands curled into fists, nails biting into my palms. Guilt surged in my throat, thick and choking.

How long had this been going on? How could I not have seen it?

There had been signs—nights when he came home late, reeking of sweat and whiskey, eyes hollow. Days when his hands trembled as he drank his coffee. Times when he’d flinched at sudden noises or gotten short with me. I had noticed. I’d even worried. But I’d done nothing. Said nothing.

I should have followed him sooner, should have demanded answers when the lies started piling up. I should have known.

Tears welled up, but I blinked them back. Crying wouldn’t help. Screaming wouldn’t change this. I scanned the room instead, desperate for something—anything—that might turn the odds.

My phone was useless. The police didn’t patrol this part of town. Not unless they were paid to look the other way.

I had no weapon. My fists were worthless. My bow was sitting in the corner of my bedroom at home, uselessly waiting for practice.

I considered distractions. Making a noise or throwing something. But what if it made things worse? What if they killed him before turning to the new problem?

What did I have that could make them stop?

What did I have that they’d possibly want?

Nothing. That was the truth. No leverage. No plan. No power.

My father was begging—brokenly, repeatedly—but every time he tried to speak out of turn, the man with the cane would cut him off with another blow.

Every tap of that cane felt like the tolling of a clock winding down.

And then—I saw him.

One of the men standing behind the seated figure stepped forward slightly, half in shadow. He didn’t wear a vest now, just a white shirt rolled to the elbows, the ink on his arms clear beneath the lights.

It was the man from earlier.

The one who’d smirked at me. Flirted with me. Warned me.

But now his face was different. He hadn’t shown much emotion before either, but there had always been a glint of mischief, a flicker of humor behind his eyes. Now, his expression was stone-cold—hard and unreadable, just as dangerous as the man seated across from him. He was nearly unrecognizable.

And in that moment, as realization curdled in my gut, one thought rose above the others, slicing through the horror and the pain:

This is why they say to be careful what you wish for.