I fall asleep that night but don't get any rest, even though I'm next to Rory. She doesn't know that bringing Ray up has made me have nightmares all night. The dreams have a common theme; I'm trying to run away and I can't outsmart Ray. He's everywhere I run. He gets to my hiding places even before I do, like he's inside my head.

Once I tried to run away in real life, and that becomes one of my dreams too. I was eleven years old. It was only a couple of months before they took me. By then my soul was only partially attached to my body, like a loose tooth. But most of me had broken off in fragments over the years. I felt myself dying. Not physically. It was worse than physical death. At least when you die physically, you die with your soul. But my soul was dying at a far faster rate than my body.

A couple years before this, I saw on a crime TV show that sometimes abused kids' minds break apart, creating a bunch of different people that take over randomly. You can't control what the others do, and the "real" you is locked away deep inside and one of the others might eventually take over for good, essentially killing the real you. It's called Multiple Personalities. I worried about that happening to me because I could feel myself breaking apart. Not like I lost consciousness or something, but I could leave my body whenever I wanted to, and as I got older I realized that wasn't supposed to happen. I didn't know any other kids that could do it. I knew I was a freak.

I thought if I, the real me, had any hope of surviving intact I had to get out of my life. If I had succeeded with my escape plan, who knows where I'd be now. Not sleeping next to Rory, that's for sure. I guess it's good that I didn't make it, but it didn't seem that way at the time.

I packed up all my clothes and stuffed them into my school backpack. It was December, that weird week between Christmas and New Years when no one knows what the hell they're doing. I made it about two miles before Ray caught up to me at a Burger King down the street. He was absolutely silent on the drive home, and so was I. There was a mutual understanding that I was going to pay for what I did. I didn't bother pleading or crying or apologizing. Those things never worked. I thought he might kill me, but I didn't feel sad about it. As far as I knew death was like being asleep without dreams, and that was okay. I wouldn't feel anything anymore, and that thought is a relief when all you feel is fear. Fear is exhausting, and I was so very tired.

There was a thin layer of crunchy ice on the grass. It was cold, but Ray wouldn't let me go inside the house. We were in the backyard where no one could see us. I'm not sure anyone was in the house. If they were, they probably wouldn't have noticed anyway and definitely wouldn't have intervened to save me. A few of the druggies were cool. They'd bring me toys and joke around with me and stuff, but I knew they wouldn't save me either. Everyone feared Ray too much.

"Take off your clothes," Ray told me, his breath puffing in the freezing night air.

I did what he said.

"Everything."

I took off my underwear.

"Shoes too."

I took off my shoes.

The ice burned my bare feet, and I stood on one leg, switching feet when the pain became unbearable. My teeth were chattering so hard I thought they would break like candy. Ray went into the house, but I didn't follow because I knew he wanted me to stay there freezing to death. It wasn't a bad punishment as far as things went. I was pretty relieved.

But it wasn't over. It never was.

Ray came back out dragging the electrical cord. And then he reached down and picked up the garden hose. He presented both to me.

"Which one?" he asked.

I didn't know what the hose was for, but I figured he'd hit me with it. It was much fatter than the cord and also had that metal thing at the end, and that made me nervous, so I pointed at the cord. Better the devil you know after all.

Ray walked back to the house where he had gotten the hose, but instead of dropping it he turned the rusted, squeaky faucet. It took a long time for the water to come out, and before it did this long strip of ice shot out of the metal tip of the hose. I knew then that I had made a bad choice. Ray dragged the running hose through the fragile icy grass as he walked over to me. I had my skinny arms wrapped around myself, shaking with fear and the first whispers of hypothermia.

"You fucked up bad, Austin. Now I get to have some fun with you. You know, if you just acted right I would leave you alone," he said.

That wasn't true, because I tried very hard to "act right" and Ray still found reasons to torture me. I didn't call him a liar though. It would only be worse if I did.

"But you're just too stupid to figure that out, huh?" Ray said with a cold smile.

I didn't know if I was supposed to answer that or not, so I just shrugged.

"What did you plan to do? Run away? Where, Austin? Where would you go? Who would take you in? Who would want you?"

I didn't answer again. He lifted the hose and pressed his thumb against the nozzle so the freezing water hit me right in the face with a force that knocked me on my ass. I gasped for air, but there seemed to be no oxygen. There was just cold. Freezing cold. A cold so brutal it choked me. While I was on the ground, he lifted the electrical cord and it came whistling down and made contact with my chest. It sliced my flesh like a hot knife.

"Your own mother wanted to throw you in the trash. Jesus Christ, Austin! You should fucking thank me! But do you? Nope!"

He sprayed me with the hose again, and I instinctively held my arms over my face as the water gushed out, and he used the cord to whip me on the places I couldn't protect because I didn't have enough hands and arms.

"You know what's wrong with you, Austin? You're sneaky. You're a sneaky little bastard. Always trying to fuck me over. I can't stand sneaky-ass bitches like you! You know what I do to sneaky-ass bitches who try to fuck me over?"

Water. Cord. Water. Cord. My hair turned to icicles.

"You know how many bodies are in Lake Hefner? Do you know how many I put there? You'll find out."

I was shaking my head desperately, thinking about Lake Hefner's red water, red like blood from the Oklahoma clay.

Again, Ray sprayed me and whipped me in succession, making sure I couldn't protect myself from either. The relentless flow of water went up my nose and into my mouth until I felt like was I drowning. And as soon as I could get a breath he would whip some exposed piece of my flesh, making me scream.

"And the saddest part is, you never get away with being sneaky! Your astounding lack of intelligence makes it impossible for you to win, and you know that. But because you're retarded, you still keep trying. It's like watching a two-legged dog hopping around! Sad. Amusing, but just sad. I wanna put you out of your misery sometimes."

I could see my own blood on the ice when Ray moved and the light above the back door flooded my eyes. He had stopped beating me so I thought it was over, that it was time for me to stand up, but he shot that hose at me each time I tried, laughing at my feeble attempts.

"Okay, I'm done. I promise. Stand up," he said at one point, and I got onto my hands and knees.

Right as I put one foot on the ground to pull myself to a standing position he sprayed me again, laughing cruelly.

"Okay, for real this time. I'm done. Stand up," he said.

I tried. He sprayed me again, knocking me off balance. He laughed and laughed.

"You're so fucking stupid!" he said, shaking his head.

I collapsed with exhaustion, and at that moment when I was at my weakest, when I thought it was over for me, that's when this  force shot through my whole body. It was so powerful and so hot it actually made me gasp. It hurt. It was like I'd been pierced with a fiery arrow. And I realized the force was rage. It pummeled me. It eclipsed everything, even my fear.

I tried again to stand. Ray sprayed me. I fell. I tried again. He sprayed me. I tried again. Again, again, again, I don't know how many times. The rage made me keep going until I was on my feet, dripping and shivering, but on my feet.

Ray looked surprised for a second, but then he looked angry. I didn't care because I felt like I had defeated him for the first time in my whole life, and I must have smiled because he punched me in the face with his fist. It knocked me out cold.

Rory is shaking me awake. I open my eyes and see her face above mine. It's dark in the room. Still night.

"You okay?" she asks.

"Yeah," I say. 

"I think you were having a nightmare," she says.

I take a deep breath. At least I've managed to avoid having a panic attack this time. Rory will think I'm such a freak if that happens here. I have the opportunity to play dumb, and I do.

"I don't remember what I was dreaming about," I say, trying to look confused.

Rory's eyes search my face, and I'm pretty sure she knows I'm lying, and I feel like shit.

"Are you sure you're okay?" she asks.

Rory started doing this thing a few days ago. She'll reach forward and gently smooth my hair back, because it's longer than usual and always messy, and man that drives me crazy. I close my eyes and allow myself to get lost in the sensation of her soft fingers in my hair. My lips find hers and we kiss for a long time. Then she rests her head on my chest so I can hold her.

"I'm fine now," I whisper, I lie.