In the midst of the chaos, the front door creaked open again and everyone paused.
Madam Margaret and her revenge crew thought it was Archer.
Armin knew it was his dad.
For a fleeting second, a wave of relief washed over him; he was glad his dad had finally woken up and was going to save him from being torched alive by the angry mob.
Zach staggered outside, reeking of stale liquor and cigarettes.
He squinted his bloodshot eyes at Madam Margaret, then down at her tight grip on Armin’s robe, and then back up at the woman’s furious face.
“What do you want?” He asked sluggishly, swaying precariously on his feet.
“My girl, Ivy,” Margaret snapped, her tone dripping with venom.
“She’s not here.” Zach turned on his heel to go right back into the safety of the house.
For a moment, Armin couldn’t believe how incredibly stupid and detached his father was acting.
The man didn’t care to ask any important questions, nor did he seem to notice or care that his own son was sprawled on the dirty ground in tears.
Zach stopped dead in his tracks and faced the angry woman.
“Armin?” he asked, his voice laced with genuine doubt.
“Archer!” Margaret thundered, slamming her heel against the porch.
“Well, he’s not in there, is he?” Zach asked no one in particular.
He spun back around, spreading his hands out carelessly as if the whole situation was just a minor inconvenience.
“Oh well.
There’s someone who can replace him right here, and I’m going with him,” the woman bargained coldly, her grip tightening on the fabric of Armin’s robe.
“He stays with me until Archer walks back through my doors.”
“No!” Armin whispered in terror, his face turning pale under the moonlight.
He knew absolutely nothing about this.
Why would they want him instead?
Armin looked up at his father in a desperate, silent plea.
His tear-filled eyes begged the man to be a parent, to protect him, to save him from this nightmare.
“This one?” His father pointed a careless, trembling finger at Armin’s head.
“This one has a debt to clear.
You can’t just take him,” his stupid dad said flatly, his tone devoid of any protective instinct.
Armin turned his head sharply back to the woman’s face, expecting her to drop her hands and return to her den in disappointment.
But the conversation took a horrifying turn.
“How much?” Margaret asked.
Armin whimpered in shock like a wounded dog left on the side of the road.
The woman only eyed him viciously before returning her face to Zach.
Armin knew exactly what was happening now; he wasn’t as oblivious as his father was acting.
This woman was trying to buy him like a piece of property.
But surely, she was bound to lose this negotiation.
His father loved his family.
He had loved their mother, and he loved his boys dearly.
He would never do anything to harm them—
“Three thousand dollars, I think.
Right, Armin?
Right,” Zach asked and answered the question himself, nodding slowly.
Armin cursed out loud.
He whipped his head around to be absolutely sure the monster standing behind him was truly his dad.
This was the kind, devoted dad who had held his hand and taught him how to cross a busy road, how to mow a lawn, and how to style his own hair.
This was the dad who had taken him to the garage to become a mechanic because he believed his son would grow up to own his own shop one day.
His dad…
his dad was selling him out for cash.
Armin broke down into heavy, ragged tears that choked his throat.
His dad was merely joking.
He had to be.
It was just a new, twisted kind of dad joke at its worst.
“Dad?” He called out, his voice refusing to come out clearly through his heavy sobbing.
“Who’s paying?” his dad asked, not sparing his son a single glance.
“Dad!” Armin cried again, desperately grabbing the fabric of his dad’s trousers with trembling hands.
But his father violently snatched his leg away, kicking Armin square in the chest back toward the woman.
The crying boy fell forward, his left forearm scraping harshly against the concrete pillar that had grown rough and jagged over time.
A bright red bruise kissed the skin immediately, oozing blood.
He hissed in pain, spinning around to face the Madam.
“He’s drunk!
He doesn’t mean it, don’t listen to him!” Armin rushed out, his speech breathless and desperate.
“Archer will be home soon.
I will talk to him, I’ll ask him what happened!
We will come to you ourselves.
We can find a solution together!”
He was utterly terrified.
He hated that place—that den of prostitutes and broken promises.
He could never understand why Archer was so in love with it.
It was a local Sodom and Gomorrah.
He was not following this old witch there.
No, he wouldn’t.
What would she even do with him over there?
What did she need an omega mechanic for?
Was she really going to kill him just like Ivy?
“I’m not going!
You can take him instead!
It’s his son after all!” Armin bargained desperately, pointing a shaking finger at his father.
“Who’s paying?” his father’s voice echoed again, lacking any shred of parental empathy.
Armin shook his head wildly, trying to claw the woman’s iron grip off his collar.
“Go to hell!” he spat, as loudly as his naturally sweet, melodic voice could manage.
“Shut up,” the woman warned, her eyes turning ice-cold, her lips curling upward in fury.
She signaled the man standing next to her.
The guard pulled out a thick stack of cash, counted out several heavy bales, and flung them straight into Zach’s face.
The green bills scattered across the front porch like dead leaves in autumn.
“Nice doing business with you,” she snarled.
She abruptly released her hand from Armin’s collar, turned around, and walked back the way she came.
The angry crowd followed her like a pack of obedient wolves hunting in the dark.
Armin looked around, completely disoriented and breathless.
Why had she just given his father all that money and made such a chaotic scene, only to leave him behind on the porch?
By the way, what was left of the family debt was only twelve hundred dollars, not three thousand.
Still crouched on the cold ground, Armin turned his eyes toward his father, silently demanding an explanation.
But Zach ignored him, dropping to his knees to greedily snatch up the scattered dollar bills from the dirt.
Betrayed by his dad, furious at Madam Margaret, and pissed off at the twin brother who was supposed to be his protector, Armin hissed bitterly.
The sheer exhaustion of how horribly his night had turned out began to weigh heavily on his small shoulders.
He forced his aching body up from the floor.
Where was Archer anyway?
Did he really kill someone tonight?
Pfft, bluff, Armin scoffed internally, trying desperately to find comfort in denial.
Archer would never commit murder.
Sure, he loses his temper and hits a few guys every now and then, but he wouldn’t kill anyone.
And certainly not a woman.
He loves women too much to kill them.
What really happened at that brothel today?
And who taught that old, haggard witch that she could just corner innocent people like this?
Scratch that—she looked old, true, but she was put together and undeniably beautiful in a terrifying way.
Still, who taught her that a person could be persecuted for someone else’s crime?
And those idiots following her like ducklings behind a mother duck—didn’t they have an ounce of common sense to pass down to her?
“One of these days,” Armin hissed loudly into the empty, chilling night air, his confidence suddenly surging now that the terrifying crowd was safely gone.
He stretched his neck out, peeping left, then right, and then left again to ensure the coast was clear.
“One of these days, I will barge right into that den and teach that woman a serious lesson.
And then, maybe, just maybe then, will she finally know why they call me Armin.
Armin the champion.
Armin the lion.
Armin the—”
The sharp, violent slam of the front door jolted him right out of his self-reverence.
His dad was done picking up the money.
Zach had gone back inside and shut him out in the cold.
Lost in his own defensive rant, Armin had completely forgotten his father was even there.
“Dad?” Armin called out, reaching a hesitant hand toward the old doorknob.
He wanted to know if his dad actually meant what he had just done, or if it was all some elaborate trick he didn’t understand—like his dad acting like a conman or a magician to pull money out of an angry mob.
But as his fingers brushed the cold, unyielding metal of the knob, something heavy and solid struck him violently against the back of his head.
A blinding white pain exploded behind his eyelids.
He saw three shining stars flash in the sudden darkness of his mind, his knees buckled beneath him, and the world went completely black.