Awaken

Here's the finished, revised version of the Waken story I posted a few weeks ago.

She turns over in her sleep, and the sound of it wakes me from my halfsleep. How long had I been out? I check my watch; half an hour. Thirty minutes longer than I should've been gone. I rub my sleepy eyes with my left hand, the right still around the rifle in my lap. I glance up at her sleeping, sprawled on the bed. She was like the porcelain angel from the top of a Christmas tree; pristine. She moved slightly. A low moan just under her breath. Bad dreams. She whispers for her papa. An inaudible sigh from deep in my chest. She's safe for now, that I could take solace in.
The door knocks.
I rise from the chair and creep over to the door. Gun in my hands, I take a quick look through the peephole. I see three men in dark suits I don't know. I answer the door. A bullet bursts outside just slower than sound. I hear one of the men hit the hallway floor. I don't hear him scream, so he's either dead or unconscious. Most likely dead; I've done this before, I have good aim. The other men give me an answer of their own, and dozens of bullets perforate my living room; the walls, the floor. They grope around sightless with their guns, but cannot find me.
In the seconds it takes me to get back to the bedroom, she's already awake. Without a word she hops on my back and we are out the window, out of reach.

"Fuck!"

I just banged my fucking shin with an open drawer. Why doesn't anybody close this shit?

Right, because I'm all on my goddamn own. First my wife, then my daughter.

That son of a bitch.

I open the cabinet. Fuck. Thought there was another bottle of whiskey in there. Wait, I might've put it in the fridge. I head to the kitchen.

Running a business is hard fucking work, you know that? I've gotta deal with a bunch of crazy shit day in day out workin' way the fuck harder than anybody else, and everyone who works for me thinks I'm such a jerk because I've got all the money in the world but they don't have any goddamn idea how much I give to make this shit run. Papers business people meetings dayin dayout always always. I work seven days a week and get five hours of sleep on a good night. Let alone how little time I get to spend with my kid. Shit, my wife left me because I work too fuckin' hard, can you imagine?

Not in the fridge either. Goddammit. Wait, maybe... Yes! The freezer! I remember now I put it in there an hour ago so it'd be nice and chilly right now. And that's why I'm the boss, because I'm a smart guy like that. I sit on the couch and crack open the bottle; don't you dare judge me, I have had one rough fucking week.

The worst part about work? Fucked if I know, most of it's terrible. Oh wait, I do know. It's the goddamn employees. Now, most of 'em are alright, but then you get the occasional completely fucking crazy person. Like the guy who quit two days ago. Lucky, I thought to myself. I didn't have to fire him. Fell asleep in my office that night; too tired to go home. So it wasn't until the next day that I'd realized he had kidnapped my daughter.

That son of a bitch.

He always seemed a little fucked in the head. I might've done something to set him off, and he took her as revenge maybe. More likely he's just some sick fuck who kidnaps little girls. Probably molesting her right now. Yeah, he seemed like a goddamned sex offender. Fuck!

So I called the police, and they said they'd be on it in no time. Came to my house, asked a bunch of stupid questions. Told me they'd call if they found anything. Knew they'd be useless. So I'd called a friend of mine who knew some people. Sent some hitmen out to kill this sick son a bitch, give him what he deserved, and get my daughter back.

I throw the empty bottle down. It thuds against the carpet. Fuck... I hold my head in my hands and cry for the first time in years.

"Mister, are you okay?"

"Yeah," he groans, "of course."
He's lying. Grownups are always lying. Thinking I don't notice. "I still love your father, we're just spending some time apart," "I don't drink all the time," "no matter what we still love you." They think I don't understand things because I'm just a kid, and I guess they're right. I don't understand why mommy married daddy in the first place. I don't understand why daddy drinks that terrible stuff all the time. I don't understand why they had me at all when they clearly have so many better things to do.
So when this man I hadn't met before came along and said he'd "help me escape," I went with him. He looked like a nice man, and he wasn't any more of a stranger than the men mommy kept bringing home. So I played along.
I always played along.
Like I played along now. "Okay, good." It's easy not to sound worried; I'm not worried. I'm not scared. The blood drenching his shirt doesn't bother me. I don't want to go home. I don't want to be here either. It never matters, though. I've never had a choice.
I'm just a kid.
That's all, just a stupid kid. Too stupid to know what I want, so grownups get to choose for me. Where I am, what I'm doing, none of it my choice. But I do know what I want. I want to be away from all these stupid screwed-up grownups. I want to do the things I choose to do. But it never matters what I want and so I try not to want it very much.
The police are all around us. Some of them tackle the man. He tries to wrestle them off, but he can't do anything. For a moment, I feel sorry for him. I know what it feels like to be helpless. But he is here only because he chose to be here. I am here because he chose for me to be here. Because papa chose to stay at work all night. Because mommy left me with papa so she could do whatever it is she does.
A policeman picks me up and carries me to his car. I let him. "It's going to be okay," he tells me. No, I think, it's not.