Nemesis by Brendan Reichs

I swore to myself I wouldn’t die that day.

Up and down.

Come at me, you bastard. Sweaty-palmed as I gripped a battered Louisville Slugger, eyes glued to my bedroom door.

He was already inside the trailer—early this time, as the first slanting rays of sunshine began peeking over the mountains. While Mom was still away at work. I’d heard the front stoop creak, and instantly knew who had come.

That I was trapped.

Right here. In my own home.

Another unpleasant first.

I wasn’t scared. Not of him. Of this. That’s just not how it worked anymore.

But my anger simmered near the edge of control. A floorboard groaned.

I took a calming breath. Narrowed my focus to audible noises beyond the door, a flimsy piece of sliding metal that couldn’t stop a toddler. All that separated me from a monster who’d come to snatch my life away.

Silence stretched, then another muffled step. I tensed, prepping for battle.

There’s no sneaking quietly across my crappy, not-so-mobile home, a fact I’d established many times during my sixteen years of life. I knew exactly where he was standing. How his weight was aligned. What the man was seeing as he peered across our shabby single-wide, eyes glued to the only other place I could be.

So why the delay?

I thought furiously, cycling through possibilities. Was he waiting me out? Could he possibly believe I didn’t know he was there? The first shot exploded through the door. High and left, but I panicked just the same.

A gun this time.

I dropped into a crouch, options rapidly dwindling.

The window.

I darted toward a grimy, dirt-streaked square of glass overlooking my single bed.

Too quick. I never sensed the trap.

The second bullet punched through the closet, slicing into my right shoulder and spinning me like a top. I gasped in pain. Fell against the bedside table.

The third shot tore into my chest.

My legs faltered. I tumbled to the floor, struggling to breathe, blood bubbling on my lips as I stared up at the drab fluorescent lights on the ceiling. Pain tinged everything red.

He’d been waiting for me to flee. I’d accommodated him.

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Nemesis by Brendan Reichs