End Of The Line
Chapter 21: Black Crow
Thomas Hewitt X AFAB!OC
Warnings: Language, Violence
Word Count 2K+
Luda had kept her mouth shut for days, days that felt like decades. She hadn't dared challenge Hoyt when she awoke to Ronnie's screams. She knew better than to interfere, even when it pertained to her sweet Thomas, but she had reached her limit. Hoyt didn't seem to have any intention of releasing them, at least not for the foreseeable future and she couldn't help but fear the worst, especially when it had been so silent. She hadn't heard a sound from them since that night. She felt responsible, she had been the one to encourage their escape and in doing so, damned them to their imprisonment. There wasn't much she could do, she knew that, she only had her words and she wasn't confident those would do any good either. She'd have to be stern and Hoyt made that difficult. He was a near perfect imitation of his father, hardened, cold and unmovable. She feared him in that sense. He had never hit her, but she always got the impression she was one wrong move away from punishment, just as it was with her old lover. However, now was not the time for weakness. It was not only her son's life at stake, it was an innocent's. Her grandchild would die down there along with them if she didn't do something.
She heard the front door slam and her breath hitched. That old familiar dread from years before filled her chest and her words abandoned her mind. She scrambled to gather her thoughts once more as he strode into the room and set his hat down on the table. She watched him apprehensively as he pulled a chair back and collapsed into it to work on the lace of his boots. She took a deep breath in an attempt to slow her steadily increasing pulse, that's when he looked up at her from under his heavy brow.
"What are you lookin' at?" He muttered as he continued to unravel the string.
Luda's jaw clenched at his grisly tone. She tried to recall when she had let her authority slip, or if she ever truly had any over him at all. From the time he could speak, he made her uneasy, perhaps that's what had led them there. Sure, she was his 'mama', but he had not one ounce of respect for her, if she was being honest. That's why she stood there with her heart pounding to the point of discomfort in her chest and sweat in the palms of her hands.
"You can't keep them down there, Hoyt," Luda said just loud enough for him to hear.
He let out that sinister chuckle of his as he tossed one of his boots to the side, "They're still down there, ain't they? Reckon that means I can."
His hands moved to the other shoe and he didn't bother acknowledging her as he spoke. Luda's fists began to clench at his indifference to her words. It irritated her more than it usually did that day. Her eyes narrowed and her jaw tightened further as words bubbled up to leave her mouth without thought.
"Where did I go wrong with you, Charlie?"
His grip tightened around the lace before his hands froze. His body tensed as his eyes shifted under his brow to find her. His indifference had been replaced with all the contempt he kept just below his surface.
"The hell you just call me?" He muttered as he held her firm under his cruel gaze.
"Your name," Luda spat back through her tightly grit teeth.
He was silent for a moment as he waited for her to back down, but for the first time in years, she didn't. Her gaze was just as unmoving as his, though hiding her fear of him proved more difficult than she had expected. He looked more like his father than she'd ever noticed before.
"That ain't my name," Hoyt said sinisterly, "not no more."
He kicked his other boot off and pushed himself out of the chair. Luda took her opportunity to breathe once he had finally looked away from her. Part of her screamed for her to submit and drop it, but somewhere inside she found resilience and she wasn't going to let it go to waste.
"That ain't what I asked you," she said quickly, just before that whimpering voice within her won.
He stopped in his tracks. His wicked grin pulled at his lips as he cocked his head to the side in agitation.
"I think that's somethin' you oughta ask yourself, mama," he said as he listened to the sound of her frightened breath whistling through her nose.
Frightened he thought to himself, fear. Ronnie's words clawed their way out of the back of his mind with a vengeance. They brought with them rage, unlike any he'd ever felt to think she'd be smirking at the knowledge that she had been entirely right. He could feel his mother's eyes watching him with apprehension, fearful of whatever his next move would be. He felt himself shaking internally as heat built up in his hands. He was buzzing with anger, a finger hovering over the trigger of a loaded gun, contemplating, but dying to shoot.
He started to turn back towards her and the way her breath hitched once more didn't go unnoticed. She couldn't hide it from him, her furrowed brow twitched over her widened eyes as if she was on the verge of tears just at the sight of him. He studied that expression for a long while, the silence between them fueling a fire no one in that house would be able to extinguish once it caught.
"There's where you went wrong," he whispered to her.
Luda forced herself to swallow her discomfort enough to form words as she shifted her weight from one leg to the other, though the movement felt unnatural, forced, "What's that supposed to mean?"
He laughed at the way her voice cracked, but ultimately let the sound die out again before he answered, "I ain't ever seen you look at him the way you're lookin' at me."
"I don't," Luda started weakly, but Hoyt was quick to stop her.
"That deformed bastard I got locked in your basement, that's your son, huh?" He said harshly, which forced her mouth to snap shut, "but I ain't."
He let those words hang for a moment. The part of him named Charlie waited with hopes she'd rebuke the claim, but Hoyt knew better. He knew not to let it hurt when her mouth opened only to close again and leave him with an inaudible confirmation. His head started to nod as her's shook.
"You are," she said under her breath.
He could taste her dishonesty in the air between them and he let it fester deep within as if it hadn't already been for years. What used to cause pain had become a source of strength for Hoyt. It was another cold layer around his hardened heart, more coal to feed that wicked fire within. It justified each and every vile thing he was born to do.
"You think I buy that? You think I believe you ever looked at me any other way than how you are now?"
He took a step forward and observed how quickly she stepped back, "I ain't ever seen you flinch for him either," he said under his breath, "you think I don't see what you're doin'?"
Luda felt that resilience she'd found before steadily losing it's breath as he came closer to smother it in his cold gaze. His eyes were darker than ever, she could see whatever sanity he may have had coming apart at the seams. He became more unhinged with each word he spat out at her.
"I know what it looks like, I've seen you do it before," he said with that cold laugh, "I saw it when you brought that dirty, mewlin' excuse of a boy through that front door. Nobody in their right mind woulda brought that thing home, but you? You were just lookin' for anything to fill the hole daddy left you with, the one I couldn't fix. You needed to replace me, 'cause the whiskey wudn't doin' the trick, was it? It didn't do a damn thing to wash away my face, daddy's face, but Tommy did. He helped you forget me, even if you couldn't get rid of me, even though I was right there, your own flesh and blood, you forgot me. You never had trouble lookin' at him, did you? Never hesitated, not once, to call him your son, to love him, to make him feel wanted. That all came natural, but no, not me. I was the deformed one, wudn't I? I was the one you couldn't stand to look at from the moment I came outta you and you've been lookin' for a goddamn replacement ever since."
"That's not true," Luda said with wet eyes and a shaken voice.
"Liar," Hoyt screamed, "then why not me, huh? I wudn't a thought in your mind when that bitch walked in here, was I? You ain't never talked about marryin' me off, have you? It was always Tommy, you want Tommy to give you your precious grand babies. It didn't occur to you anyone would want me, 'cause you sure as shit didn't. I wudn't good enough to get the girl, wudn't good enough to carry on the family name and I wudn't good enough for you. No, but that child, that bastard that ain't even your blood, it's good enough, idn't it? Don't matter how ugly it may be, how useless it is, it won't have to do a goddamn thing for you to call it yours. Just like her, just like Tommy. My greatest sin was bein' your blood. In your eyes I was damned before I was even born and I've been payin' for it ever since. Oh, but that ain't true, either, huh?"
Luda pressed herself against the wooden walls and lowered her head, "Its not," she sobbed as he towered over her.
"It is," Hoyt whispered as he pressed his forehead hard against her's, hard enough to hurt, "stop lyin', mama. Just confess."
She squeezed her eyes shut to let tears fall to her feet as she shook her head adamantly, but he only pressed harder. He exhaled and let out an aggravated growl at the end of his breath. His fist found the wall beside her head and she jumped.
"Say it now," he said under his breath.
"I don't know what you want, Charlie," Luda sobbed before his fist slammed into the wall once more.
"Charlie's dead, you buried him yourself, you know that," he said in an eerily calm voice, "now tell me why."
"I don't-"
"Tell me why you did that, tell me you hate me, tell me the goddamn truth," he finally yelled.
"I hate you," Luda screamed as she shoved him off of her.
The silence that followed her confession was deafening. Hoyt made no movement, instead he waited for her to continue. He wanted her to put that final nail in Charlie's coffin, he needed her to, because then what would he have to lose?
"I hate you," she repeated in a whisper, more to herself than anything.
She'd never even allowed herself to think it, but there it was, out in the open. The truth. The reason for everything that had befallen the Hewitts, the reason for the damnation of anyone that walked through that door. Hatred.
"I never wanted you," she continued with her eyes to the ground, "you were a punishment for the sin I committed in marryin' your father, for lovin' someone so vile, for not learnin' to hate him sooner. Oh, but I did learn, only it was too late. He figured it out, figured out that I was gonna leave and no one left him. Not without payin' a price and that was you. You were forced upon me, Hoyt. Conceived out of hatred to be hated, that was the idea and boy was it a good one on his part, wudn't it? Cause I've suffered ever since and I guess that's what he wanted."
She paused and gathered enough courage to look up at Hoyt. His eyes were no longer on her, instead they were at her feet, wide and vacant. For a moment, she pitied him.
"I tried, Hoyt. I really did, but from the moment you could walk, I saw it. You were born to be cruel and you never could be anything else, didn't seem to matter what I did. Tommy proved that. Maybe havin' to watch you destroy him was my punishment for hatin' you," she said with a sniffle.
His eyes didn't move. He let each word sink in deep, but before he could stop himself, one last plea escaped his mouth.
"What do I have to do?"
Luda considered his question carefully as she studied his unsettlingly still frame, "What are you askin' me?"
"What do I have to do to make you proud?"
Now she considered her own words. Part of her felt it would be foolish to trust that what she had just said had broken down his walls, if anything she imagined they'd only further his need to destroy. Then again, this was her one opportunity. He was asking her what she wanted. Perhaps he was desperate enough for acceptance to relent.
"Let them go, Hoyt," she whispered.
He quickly returned his focus to her and those eyes of his screamed danger. The chuckle he let out made Luda's blood run cold.
"Please," she begged.
"So I can watch you love another bastard while you orphan me again?"
"They'll die down there," Luda whispered.
"That's the idea," Hoyt spat before he strode to the front door.
It fell shut after him and Luda let her head fall as she released a pained sob. She almost let herself fall apart completely, until the door opened once more. She quickly lifted her head as Hoyt strode past her, an axe in his grip and her eyes went wide.
"What are you doin'?"
"Givin' you want you want," he muttered as he continued into the other room.
"No, Hoyt please, you don't have to do this," Luda pleaded as she hurried after him.
She stumbled over her feet, but managed to grab hold of his sleeve. She yanked his arm back only to be faced with the axe to her neck.
"Maybe I do," he whispered as his cold blue eyes bore into her's.
He pressed it's edge a little harder against her exposed skin until a small drop of blood trickled over the metal, "Maybe I should," he said as he watched it fall.
She tried to pull away, but he quickly grabbed the back of her head with his free hand to hold her still. As he watched her squeeze her eyes shut, he pictured it. In his mind's eye he saw himself swing that axe back to cut clean right through her. He wondered if it would give him relief, if desecrating the root of all of his problems would cure him. With that thought, he pressed just a little harder until Luda let out a pained hiss. His own hands began to shake with anticipation and his teeth bore down on each other so hard he expected them to shatter. But in reality, Hoyt didn't want to be cured, not in the slightest.
She felt him pull back and she braced herself for the blow, but it didn't befall her. Instead she heard the axe carve into the floorboards beside her. She opened her eyes as he pried it out only to slam it right back down. He repeated that action over and over until he had made a hole the size of a watermelon in the middle of the floor. Then he tossed the axe down beside him and wiped the sweat from his brow.
"There," he muttered as he observed his handiwork, "now you can feed 'em."
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