Mom, Run! I’m a Killer!

Ever since I was little, I knew my mom didn't want me. My dad, though, kept telling me that she loved me, but some complicated stuff was keeping her away. He said that once I grew up, I needed to find her and claim my place in her life. I always figured he was just making things up so I wouldn't grow up resentful of the motherly love I never had. Then the debt piled up. Dad was scrolling through TikTok, looking for any way to drum up sympathy online, when he suddenly let out a wild yell. "Scrappy! Look, it’s your mom! Pack your stuff, we’re going to find her!" I stared at the screen. The woman in the video was stunning, effortlessly poised, and dripping in old-money elegance. A cold pit formed in my stomach. My mom was a wealthy socialite from New York City? How could someone like her ever be connected to a holler like ours? Even with the doubts screaming in my head, I packed my worn-out duffel bag and boarded the bus to Manhattan with my dad. Chapter 1 As the bus jolted its way out of the mountains, I stared out the window, taking in every single detail. This was my very first time laying eyes on the world beyond those peaks. Beside me, my dad began his endless, grating drone. "Scrappy, you need to thank your stars I let you live," he muttered. "Anyone else would've shoved a useless mouth like you down a coal shaft years ago. I'm a saint for taking you to New York to wring child support out of that mom who dumped you." I stared down at my lap, my knuckles turning white as I gripped the hem of my faded shirt. I knew the truth. Dad didn't care about me; he just saw me as a golden ticket. I had overheard him boasting to one of the neighbors over cheap whiskey in our living room just a few weeks back. "Once Scrappy's rich mom pops back into the picture, I'm squeezing at least a million bucks out of her. Not a penny less! Once I get that cash, I'll pay off my gambling debts, find a quiet girl from the boonies for my boy and lock her up in the house to pump out grandkids. Keep the family line going! “Don't worry, the kid's been raised under my thumb. He does all the heavy chores and follows orders like a good little dog." I stole a glance at my dad, who had finally drifted off to sleep, and let out a bitter, silent laugh. He didn't know me at all. I was never obedient. My real education hadn't come from him, but from the broken, traumatized woman living next door, the one who spent her days staring at nothing and laughing to herself. The rest of the town dismissed her as insane. I knew better. Whenever no one was watching, she would hunt down discarded books and secretly pass them to me. She taught me how to read, how to spell, and what it actually meant to be a decent human being. She promised me that out beyond the ridge, there were laws, and there was justice. She told me a real man shouldn’t grow up to be a monster who beat women. Last winter, she begged me to help her escape. I stole my dad's sleeping pills and laced the meat with them to knock out the guard dog watching her. She still didn't make it past those endless, suffocating ridges. The day they dragged her back, they beat her to death right on the dirt yard. Her blood soaked deep into the frozen earth. Thinking back, only two people had ever made it out of that town alive: me, and my mom. So many women were trapped in that hellhole. Besides the woman living next door, there was Aunt Rachel, who was forced to sleep in the barn. She was the one who taught me how to put on a mask to survive among those predators. She used to stroke my hair, her eyes filled with raw pity. "Scrappy, you're smart. You catch on fast. Don't you ever turn into your father." It was only over the last few days that I realized where that intelligence came from. My mom was brilliant, and I had inherited her brain. I turned my head to look at my dad again. His mouth hung open as he snored, his ugly face was slack and grotesque. The dark urge surged up in my chest all over again. It was the sudden, violent temptation to pull the packet of rat poison out of my backpack and force it straight down his throat. Just a pinch. That was all it would take to make him foam at the mouth and convulse to death, just like the huge black rat that tried to steal grain behind our yard. My hand reached deep into my backpack until my fingertips brushed the cold paper wrapping. In the end, I pulled my hand back. Not out of fear. I just needed to see my mom one last time. Men like my dad and me, creatures spawned from the gutter, belonged in hell. However, that beautiful girl who had been held captive in our holler a few days ago deserved to live. I had to save her. The journey stretched on for hours until the bus finally ground to a halt at the city terminal. Dad jolted awake, rubbing his crusty eyes, and shoved me out toward the platform. He took in the bustling crowd and neon glow surrounding us, then suddenly turned to me with a crooked grin. "Well, Scrappy, look at all these flashy lights and big city sights. What do you think?" Chapter 2 At that exact second, I shrank my shoulders back, putting on my best helpless, clueless act. I shook my head violently, forcing my voice to tremble. "Dad, I'm scared. The buildings here are way too tall. They make my head spin. I wanna go back home and tend to the animals." Dad stared at me for a few solid seconds. Then his mouth cracked into a wide, satisfied grin, flashing a row of yellowed, tobacco-stained teeth. "That's my boy," he said, "There's no place like home. You keep this in mind. We're only in New York to bleed your mom dry for every cent she's got. "Once we get that cash, we're going back to build a massive house and have the prettiest local girl to marry you. "After that, nobody back home will ever dare call you a bastard without a mother to raise him." With that, he pulled out his phone and lazily opened TikTok, clicking straight into a pinned profile. On the screen, a woman stood at a podium in a sharp, tailored blazer, speaking with effortless authority. Confident. Brilliant. Radiant. She was living in a world I had never even dreamed of. The more I watched, the more awe washed over me. My mom was incredible. She was a renowned scholar, a top university professor in New York City. Compared to the reeking, sour-smelling monster sitting beside me, a man whose entire brain was consumed by basic breeding instincts, they were lightyears apart. Then I tapped open the comment section. A few brutal words sliced through the screen. [I heard Professor Lyra vanished for a whole year back in the day?] [Yeah, she was abducted while doing field research in the mountains. After she escaped back home, she dealt with severe trauma for years.] [It's devastating. If not for that ruined year, her life would've been completely flawless.] My chest caved in. My fingernails dug deep into my palms. The elders back in the holler always said my mom abandoned me when I was barely a year old. Which meant... If she hadn't stayed behind that extra year just to protect me, she would've escaped so much sooner, right? She was meant to fly so much higher, so much further than this. I was nothing but the physical proof of her nightmare, the living remnant of her disgrace. Dad had no idea what was running through my head. We travelled by train for a day and a night. As most of the passengers finished eating, Dad suddenly gave me a stern warning. "When we get there and you see your mom, you block her path,” he barked, “Cling to her arm and scream your head off! "You yell, 'Mom, why did you abandon me?' "Then I jump in, cause a massive scene, and drag the news crews into it! "This is New York, the place where high-society elites care about their reputation more than life itself. "Once we make enough noise, she'll pay whatever hush money we want just to keep her name clean!" His eyes gleamed with manic excitement as he laid out the plan. Suddenly, his expression hardened, shifting into a lethal sneer. "Scrappy, you listen to me. If you mess this up, or if you try to pull any fast ones on me... "The second we get back home, I'm showing you what real house rules feel like." A cold shudder violently ripped through my spine at the word rules. That was the backwoods’ way of dealing with traitors. They'd snap your arms and legs, throw you deep into the mountain woods for the coyotes, and tell everyone you slipped and fell off a ridge. Except for Aunt Rachel, who was still barely breathing in that barn, not a single person who tried to run ever survived with all their bones intact. I bit my lip, keeping my eyes glued to the floor. "Got it, Dad." Right on cue, the automated voice over the train speakers chimed to life. "Next stop: New York Penn Station." Chapter 3 The train door squeaked open, and Dad yanked me down the metal steps by my arm. He squinted against the bright city lights, grabbing any random passerby to bark questions about the location of Mom's university. Most people just covered their noses with a look of pure disgust and dodged us. Dad swore under his breath, stumbling along through the streets until we finally pieced together enough directions to reach the right part of the city. By the time we were standing right in front of the grand, sprawling campus, night had completely fallen and the heavy iron gates were locked tight. Dad spat a thick, gross wad of phlegm right onto the sidewalk. "Stupid place," he growled, "Why's everything gotta have so many damn rules?" A security guard stepped out of the booth, waving his arm to shoo us off. Dad forced a pathetic smile and tried to shuffle closer to hand him a cigarette, but the guard's cold, harsh glare forced him right back. It was totally clear we weren't getting inside. Dad reached into his pocket and fingered the wad of crumpled, dirty cash, the tiny bit of money he got from selling our old pickup truck just to afford the train tickets. He wasn't about to spend a single penny on a hotel room. In the end, we made a makeshift bed under an overpass just a few blocks from campus. Above our heads, the endless roar of rush-hour traffic rattled the concrete. Expensive cars zoomed past us, their headlights blurring together into a flowing river of white and gold. I huddled in the corner of the dark overpass, lying on top of a few dirty newspapers I had scavenged. The icy night wind snaked straight down my collar, making my body shudder. A few yards away, a father and son were walking by. The young boy wore a clean basketball jersey and hugged a shiny ball to his chest. He was riding high on his dad's shoulders, laughing like the sun itself. "Dad, I want that soda!" "Sure thing, buddy. Let's get it." "Dad, you gotta take me back to the court this weekend, okay?" "Whatever you want, kiddo. Anywhere you wanna go." The young father gently held onto his son's legs, his face beaming with absolute pride. I stared at them, frozen in place. So that was what fathers and sons were like out here beyond the hills. Boys were actually allowed to be treated like human beings instead of livestock, allowed to skip chores, and ride on their dads' shoulders without getting hit. My mom must have dreamed of raising me in a world like this, right? She was a brilliant scholar in New York. She should have had a gentle, refined husband and a bright, happy kid. She never should have been locked in a basement, forced to give birth to a mistake like me. "What the hell are you staring at? Pull your eyes back in your head!" Dad's bark shattered my thoughts. He caught the desperate envy burning in my eyes, a quick flash of pure rage crossing his face. He hesitated for a second, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled cigarette. After lighting it up, he tossed the crushed pack straight at my lap. "Go on, smoke," he muttered, "Don't you ever say I never gave you nothing. A real man smokes these." I didn't touch the pack. The harsh smell choked the air, making his nasty body odor ten times worse. Dad took a deep drag off the cheap filter, his face twisting into something grotesque behind the cloud of grey smoke. "You listen to me, Scrappy," he said. "The only reason we're sleeping under an overpass, freezing our asses off, is because of that shameless bitch you call a mother! "If she wasn't so damn selfish, running away the first chance she got, would we be living like literal stray dogs right now? "If she had just stayed in the holler like a good wife and pumped out seven or eight kids for me, I would've treated her real nice. "Or hell, if she had just brought me out here to live the good life with her, our family would be rolling in cash by now!" Dad grew angrier with every word, acting like every single failure in his miserable life was Mom's fault. I kept my head down, nodding along obediently like a well-trained dog. "You're right, Dad. It's all Mom's fault." Inside, my stomach turned with deep disgust. Every single man back in that holler lived by leeching the life out of women. The neighbor's shiny new roof was paid for by marrying his eldest daughter off. Another guy got his new truck by pimping out his wife to the local bachelors. They acted like bloodthirsty parasites, draining women dry, then stomping on their broken bones and calling them worthless trash. My mom was a university professor. She belonged at a podium, shining under the spotlight. She never belonged to a piece of garbage like my dad, forced to breed in the dirt and suffer endless, inhuman torture! Right then, the sharp click of high heels tapping on the concrete cut through the air. Even through the deafening hum of passing traffic, my heart suddenly hammered against my ribs. I looked up automatically. My eyes cut through the hazy yellow glow of the streetlights, landing directly on the sidewalk across the avenue. Even though she was fifty feet away, even though I could only see her profile, I knew instantly. It was Mom. She was carrying a stack of files, walking side-by-side with a man in a tailored suit. The streetlight hit her face, and in that single moment, she looked so elegant, so completely out of my realm, that I felt a sharp pang of shame just looking at her. It was like she felt the weight of my gaze. Mom suddenly stopped in her tracks, turned her head, and looked straight toward our dark spot under the overpass. Our eyes met. Chapter 4 Mom’s bright smile froze on her face in an instant. Her pupils shrank into tight pinpricks, filled with pure, unadulterated terror and disbelief as if she were staring at a literal demon from hell. Did she recognize me? Or did she recognize the twisted shadow of the monster sitting right next to me? Before I could process what to do, Mom frantically grabbed the sleeve of the man beside her and spun around in panic. Her heels stumbled against the pavement as she practically ran for her life, abandoning all composure to duck into a narrow side alley. She looked like a terrified bird spooked by the loud snap of a gun. I pulled my gaze back, my whole body shaking uncontrollably. It was a wild mix of adrenaline and devastating heartbreak. Mom was right nearby. She was really here. She was alive. "What's wrong with you? What are you shaking for?" Dad noticed my sudden reaction and glared at me, suspicion creeping into his voice. He followed the direction of my eyes, but the sidewalk across the street was already empty. I bit down hard on the tip of my tongue, using the sharp flare of pain to force myself back into character. I hunched my shoulders, pulled my knees tight against my chest, and put on my usual pathetic, useless act. "Dad, I'm just cold," I whimpered, letting my voice crack like I was terrified out of my mind, "The wind under this bridge is so loud. It sounds like ghosts screaming. I'm scared." Dad bought it. He flicked his cigarette butt onto the concrete and crushed it beneath the heavy heel of his boot. "Useless piece of trash! You can't even handle a little breeze? Go to sleep! We gotta wake up early to corner that bitch tomorrow!" He swore under his breath, rolled over onto his side, and turned his back to me. I leaned back against the freezing concrete pillar, my heart hammering so hard in my throat I thought it might burst through my skin. My mind was entirely consumed by the terrified look on Mom's face from a few moments ago. Her smile tonight was so beautiful. Just like all the other women in this bustling city, she was confident, radiant, and full of life. She wasn't like the women locked back in the holler. Their eyes were perpetually cloudy, their expressions blank, their souls hollowed out into complete numbness. If Dad managed to drag her back to that place… No. Not a chance in hell. The thought of what I was being forced to do tomorrow made me close my eyes in absolute despair. By the next morning, I was crouching all alone near the main gate of the university. Students wearing expensive clothes kept darting curious, disgusted looks in my direction as they walked past. I wore a torn, oversized jacket, my faded jeans were covered in dried mud, and my hair was a matted mess. I looked like a total outcast. A walking joke. I didn't care about any of them. My eyes stayed glued to every single person entering the compound. Minutes ticked away, dragging into endless torture. The first bell rang out loud and clear. The crowd near the entrance thinned out until the heavy iron gates began to swing shut. My stomach sank inch by inch. Mom hadn't shown up. I couldn't just sit here and wait to die. Taking a sharp, ragged breath, I pushed myself up from the curb. I fixed my eyes on the security guard standing near the booth. He wore a dark blue uniform, a peaked cap, and a heavy nightstick strapped to his belt. Based on everything Aunt Rachel had ever taught me, he was the guy who represented authority and law. I lunged forward, sprinting straight toward him, and screamed at the top of my lungs like a total madman. "Arrest me! Hurry up and arrest me! "I killed someone!" The guard froze in place, his mouth dropping open. Just as I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing myself for whatever horror was coming next, a shaky, impossibly familiar voice called out from directly behind me. "Is that you?" I spun around. Mom. She was standing less than two feet away from me.