The wardrobe door muffled the shouting, but Biscuit could still make out every filthy word rising up through his bedroom floor. His heart battered against his ribs.
"Give us the machine!" That was the boss, his voice thick with menace.
"Go fuck yourself." Da. Of course.
The crunch of knuckles on flesh carried up through the floorboards. Da grunted but didn't yield. Typical. The stubborn git would rather eat lead than lose face — even now, with Mam's frightened whimpers threading through the din below.
Biscuit's nails dug into his palms. Useless, that's what he was. Cowering in the dark like a runt while his mam and da got worked over by those wankers. Some hard lad he'd turned out to be.
A slap rang out, sharp as a whip-crack, followed by Mam's choked sob. Biscuit squeezed his eyes shut, hating the hot tears sliding down his cheeks. Christ, he wanted to storm down there and knock that bastard's teeth in. Batter him till he was spitting blood and begging. His fingers curled, itching for something to hold.
"Where's the machine?" the boss roared.
"Piss off," Da spat.
There was a scuffle then — a chair going over, a woman's snarl — and Biscuit knew, somehow, that it was Mam.
"Let go, you sodding bastard!"
He pressed his ear to the door. She'd gone for the gun. He could hear it in the boss's voice, the shock curdling into rage.
"You mad cow — get off —"
A thud. A cry. They were grappling, feet scraping, breath tearing. Then the dull crack of skull on bone, and Mam's cry of pain — but she didn't let go. Biscuit could hear her still fighting, still —
A single gunshot split the house open.
Biscuit's blood turned to ice water. His eyes flew open in the dark.
Mam's scream knifed through him — a torn, animal sound he'd never heard from her, not once in his life. Then her voice, thick and disbelieving: "Oh Christ. Oh Christ, no—"
"Shut it! Shut your bloody gob!" The boss, ragged now, panicked.
Biscuit clapped a hand over his mouth, fighting the urge to be sick. This couldn't be happening. Not Mam. Please, God, not Mam.
His legs moved before his brain caught up. He spilled out of the wardrobe, out of his bedroom, and stumbled across the landing to his parents' room on autopilot. His shaking hands groped through the bedside-table drawer until they closed around the familiar grip of Da's pistol. The weight of it was almost a comfort. Like an old friend.
He eased back into the hall and crept toward the landing on legs gone to jelly, the muzzle leading the way. The gun felt like it weighed a ton.
From below came shouts and crashes — the henchmen ransacking the house, tearing it apart for that bloody machine. Vultures picking over a carcass.
At the top of the stairs he sank to his knees and peered through the railings. His gut clenched.
Mam lay sprawled on the carpet in a spreading pool of red, hands pressed to her belly, crimson seeping between her fingers, her face twisted around a scream she no longer had the breath for. And Da — Christ. His head lolled at a sick angle, blood stringing from his split lips as the ringleader crouched over him.
"I'll ask one more time, mate. The machine. Where?"
Da spat a mouthful of blood onto the man's shoes. "Get... fucked."
The boss raised his gun. "Wrong answer."
Biscuit's finger tightened on the trigger, the metal biting into his skin. One shot. Just one shot and he could —
Glass shattered outside. Gunfire, harsh and flat. Guttural shouts fading into gurgles. Da's men, dropping one after another in the front garden. The gang was cleaning house.
And still Da wouldn't budge. Even with a gun to his head, staring death square in the face, the miserable sod refused to break.
Some distant part of Biscuit almost admired him for it. The rest wanted to scream at him. For letting it come to this. For not thinking of Mam. Or of him.
Mam's broken sobs tore at him as he huddled there, frozen, hating his own spineless guts. Some protector he was.
Two-tone sirens then, wailing in the distance, swelling louder by the second. The boss's head snapped up. "Shit. Time's up, lads — we're gone!"
He jammed the gun against Da's forehead. "Last chance, Davies. The machine or your brains. Choose."
Da laughed — a wet, wheezing sound. "Stupid git... it's over. Filth's nearly here. Just go. Save your own skin."
"Not without that machine! I'll burn this whole bleeding place down if I have to—"
Biscuit stood, knuckles white on the gun. "OI! GET AWAY FROM HIM, YOU TWAT!"
The man whirled. His lip curled into a sneer as he took in the shaking teenager at the top of the stairs, the wavering pistol.
"Well, well. The little prince finally found his bollocks, eh?" He nodded at the gun. "Run on back to bed, son. Before you do summat you'll regret."
Red crept into the edges of Biscuit's vision. "I said get BACK!"
Da's head lolled toward the stairs, his eyes struggling to focus. "Biscuit... don't. Just go, lad. Please..."
But Biscuit barely heard him over the blood roaring in his ears. His finger squeezed —
BLAM.
The shot went wide, punching a hole in the plaster a foot from the boss's head. The man barked a laugh.
"Pathetic. Here's how it's done, son."
He levelled his gun at Da's temple and fired. Point blank.
Da's head snapped sideways in a mist of red, and all the air rushed out of Biscuit's lungs like a gut punch. He couldn't scream. The world tilted as his father slumped, boneless, to the floor.
Car doors slammed outside. Running feet. Voices.
"Move it, lads! GO!"
The ringleader bolted for the back of the house, his crew on his heels, and a fresh burst of gunfire swallowed their exit — but Biscuit barely registered any of it. His eyes were glued to the ruin of his father's head, numb shock settling over him like a shroud.
Then they were gone. It was over.
And he was alone, with nothing but the cooling bodies of his mam and da for company.
Biscuit stood frozen at the top of the stairs, the gun dangling from his fingers. His mind was white noise. This couldn't be real. Mam, lying there, gone still now, her eyes fixed on nothing. Da, half his head just... gone. A nightmare, that's all this was. Had to be. Any second he'd wake and —
A floorboard creaked below him.
Biscuit spun, heart slamming, and raised the gun.
A man stood in the hallway at the foot of the stairs. A stranger in a rumpled suit, pistol drawn but held low, his other hand spread open at his side.
Biscuit's arms trembled, his finger twitching on the trigger. "Who — who the hell are you?"
"Easy, lad." The man's voice was soft, careful. "Why don't you put that down, and we can talk. Yeah?"
It was him. He'd brought the others. He was one of them — had to be. Well, sod that. Sod him and the rest.
"You stay back!" Biscuit snarled, tears and snot streaming down his face. "I'll shoot, I swear it!"
"Whoa — easy, easy." The man froze, palm out. "It's over now, son. It's over. Just put down the—"
"Shut up!" The pistol wavered as great hitching sobs wracked Biscuit's chest. "You're lying! You're one of them! I saw you!"
"No, lad. I promise you, you've got it wrong. I only want to—"
Biscuit squeezed the trigger.
The shot took the man high in the right shoulder and spun him into the doorframe. His gun clattered to the floor.
Biscuit kept squeezing.
Click. Click. Click.
No more bullets. All gone.
Just like Mam and Da.
Just like everything.
The gun tumbled from Biscuit's numb fingers and clattered down two steps. His knees buckled and he folded in on himself like a crushed tin can.
"Jesus..." The man pushed off the doorframe, one hand clamped to his shoulder, the other reaching up the stairs toward the boy. "Lad. Lad, listen — let me help y—"
A wet, rasping cough cut him off. He staggered. Scarlet welled thick and fast between his fingers — too fast — and he slid down the wall to the floor.
Biscuit stared, uncomprehending, as the blood spread beneath the stranger, seeping into the cracks between the floorboards.
"I didn't..." he whimpered, shaking his head. "I said get back. I said GET BACK..."
The man slumped sideways and went still, his breath coming in shallow, wet rasps.
Outside: voices shouting, car doors slamming. Heavy boots thudded up the front steps.
They were coming. Coming for him. To make him pay.
Biscuit hugged his knees to his chest, broken sobs wracking his thin frame as it all crashed over him in merciless waves. Tears and mucus streaked his face, and he made no move to wipe them.
Let them come. Let them do their worst.
What did it matter now?
Nothing mattered.
Not anymore.
Rough hands seized him under the arms and dragged him upright. Biscuit hung limp in their grasp, a marionette with its strings cut.
"Jesus Christ," someone muttered.
"Is that the Davies boy?" Another voice, thick with disbelief.
"Bloody hell — McHugh's hit. He's breathing. Someone get an ambulance up here, now!"
Cold metal snicked around Biscuit's wrists. The cuffs bit into his skin, but he barely felt it. Everything was distant, muted, like he was sinking underwater.
They walked him out into the icy night air, the cold chafing his wet cheeks. Blue light strobed across the old brick of his childhood home. Beyond the cordon, neighbours clustered in dressing gowns and coats, craning for a glimpse of the carnage.
Look at 'em gawking, a nasty little voice hissed in his head. Greedy vultures. Can't wait for a taste of it, can they? Summat to natter about over the fence.
Poor little Biscuit Davies. A criminal before his voice broke. Like father, like son, eh? Bad blood will out.
They put him in the back of a police van, and the doors slammed with a grim finality. The engine growled, and they lurched forward.
Biscuit slumped against the cold metal wall, exhaustion settling over him like a leaden shroud. His eyes burned, but no more tears came. He was hollow — scraped raw and empty.
Nothing left. Nothing but the guilt, gnawing at his guts like a starving rat.
He squeezed his eyes shut and curled in on himself. If only he could wake up. Open his eyes and be back in his own bed, Mam singing in the kitchen below.
Just a dream. Just a horrible dream.
But the van's tyres thudded over a pothole, jolting him. The cuffs chafed. The stink of blood and cordite clung to his clothes.
Real. All of it.
And this was his life now.