Hide and Shriek Read online

  So when he had a really bad day, when customers sent back their fish, when the boss chomped on him a little too hard, he didn’t have to tell me. I knew. He’d bring home a six-pack of malt liquor, and between that and the look on his face, I knew the story of the day. I could even predict the future. Me getting cursed at, shouted at, told outright I was a worthless little piece of shit. That sort of thing.

  But nothing physical. He wasn’t like that.

  I always made sure my little brother, Luke, was out of the way though. I called him my little brother because he was a year younger than me, but he was actually quite a bit bigger than me. He was fifteen and walked around most of the time looking like someone had just told him some bad news. That might have been because there had been a lot of bad news in our lives. I kept thinking that someday our luck was going to change.

  Luke loved to watch old martial-arts movies with a headset on. And he studied books and instruction videos he’d signed out of the library, closing the door to our bedroom to practice whenever he could. He wanted to be a professional wrestler or mixed martial arts fighter when he grew up, even though I didn’t think he had an aggressive bone in his body. I’d never seen him in a fight. He’d been picked on plenty, but I’d never seen him stand up for himself.

  Like I said, we were a family that had had a lot of bad luck.

  “Our luck ain’t gonna change, Jake,” my father always said. “Nothing is gonna change. No way, no how.”

  That was after malt-liquor bottle number one. I’d just nod and try to keep my mouth shut. I used to try to change the subject. But that hardly ever worked.

  “I’m sick and tired of smelling like fried fish,” he would say. “No woman wants to be with a man who smells like old deep-fried seafood all the time.”

  I understood he missed the company of a woman. There was my mother once. A long while back. But she left after Luke was born. She claimed that living with us was a dead end. “I’m gonna find myself some opportunity,” she said. And left. At least, that’s what I remember. There was probably more to it than that.

  My older brother, Cole, was in jail and had a couple more years to go. Everyone had expected him to get busted for selling drugs. But that isn’t what happened. He was involved in a robbery of a gas station. How stupid is that? I was so angry at my brother for doing that. And I stayed angry at him. I refused to talk to him when my father called him up on the phone each month.

  As my dad got a little more drunk, he would remind me of my destiny: “None of you boys are gonna turn out to be any better off than me. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that.”

  It was always the same. Sometimes the words came out a little different, but after he said something along those lines, my dad would grit his teeth and then look like he was about to hit me. Funny—he never did though.

  I tried not to take it personally. I figured he had to unload on someone. I was usually the one nearby.

  Afterward he would shake his head and look like he was going to cry. But he never did that either.

  “I’m sorry, Jake,” he said each time. “I truly am. Will you forgive me?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  I always said yes.

  Titles in the Series

  orca soundings

  Another Miserable Love Song

  Brooke Carter

  B Negative

  Vicki Grant

  Back

  Norah McClintock

  Bang

  Norah McClintock

  Battle of the Bands

  K.L. Denman

  Big Guy

  Robin Stevenson

  Bike Thief

  Rita Feutl

  Blue Moon

  Marilyn Halvorson

  Breaking Point

  Lesley Choyce

  Breathing Fire

  Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang

  Breathless

  Pam Withers

  Bull Rider

  Marilyn Halvorson

  Bull’s Eye

  Sarah N. Harvey

  Caged

  Norah McClintock

  Cellular

  Ellen Schwartz

  Charmed

  Carrie Mac

  Chill

  Colin Frizzell

  Comeback

  Vicki Grant

  Coming Clean

  Jeff Ross

  Crash

  Lesley Choyce

  Crush

  Carrie Mac

  Cuts Like a Knife

  Darlene Ryan

  Damage

  Robin Stevenson

  A Dark Truth

  Jeff Ross

  The Darwin

  Expedition

  Diane Tullson

  Dead-End Job

  Vicki Grant

  Deadly

  Sarah N. Harvey

  Dead Run

  Sean Rodman

  Death Wind

  William Bell

  Desert Slam

  Steven Barwin

  Down

  Norah McClintock

  Enough

  Mary Jennifer Payne

  Exit Point

  Laura Langston

  Exposure

  Patricia Murdoch

  Fallout

  Nikki Tate

  Fastback Beach

  Shirlee Smith Matheson

  Final Crossing

  Sean Rodman

  Firewall

  Sean Rodman

  First Time

  Meg Tilly

  Foolproof

  Diane Tullson

  Grind

  Eric Walters

  Hannah’s Touch

  Laura Langston

  Heavy Freight

  Sigmund Brouwer

  The Hemingway Tradition

  Kristin Butcher

  Hit Squad

  James Heneghan

  Homecoming

  Diane Dakers

  Home Invasion

  Monique Polak

  House Party

  Eric Walters

  I.D.

  Vicki Grant

  Identify

  Lesley Choyce

  Impact

  James C. Dekker

  Impossible

  Jocelyn Shipley

  Infiltration

  Sean Rodman

  In Plain Sight

  Laura Langston

  In the Woods

  Robin Stevenson

  Jacked

  Carrie Mac

  Juice

  Eric Walters

  Kicked Out

  Beth Goobie

  Knifepoint

  Alex Van Tol

  Kryptonite

  Lesley Choyce

  Last Ride

  Laura Langston

  Learning Seventeen

  Brooke Carter

  Learning to Fly

  Paul Yee

  Lockdown

  Diane Tullson

  Masked

  Norah McClintock

  Middle Row

  Sylvia Olsen

  My Side

  Norah McClintock

  My Time as Caz Hazard

  Tanya Lloyd Kyi

  Night Terrors

  Sean Rodman

  No More Pranks

  Monique Polak

  No Problem

  Dayle Campbell Gaetz

  Off the Grid

  Lesley Choyce

  One More Step

  Sheree Fitch

  One Way

  Norah McClintock

  Outback

  Robin Stevenson

  Overdrive

  Eric Walters

  Pain & Wastings

  Carrie Mac

  Picture This

  Norah McClintock

  Pinch Me

  Gabrielle Prendergast

  Plastic

  Sarah N. Harvey

  Rat

  Lesley Choyce

  Reaction

  Lesley Choyce

  Redline

  Alex Van Tol

  Refuge Cove<
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  Lesley Choyce

  Responsible

  Darlene Ryan

  Riley Park

  Diane Tullson

  Riot Act

  Diane Tullson

  River Traffic

  Martha Brack Martin

  Rock Star

  Adrian Chamberlain

  Running the Risk

  Lesley Choyce

  Saving Grace

  Darlene Ryan

  Scam

  Lesley Choyce

  Scum

  James C. Dekker

  Sea Change

  Diane Tullson

  Shallow Grave

  Alex Van Tol

  Shark

  Jeff Ross

  Shattered

  Sarah N. Harvey

  Skylark

  Sara Cassidy

  Sleight of Hand

  Natasha Deen

  Snitch

  Norah McClintock

  Something Girl

  Beth Goobie

  Spiral

  K.L. Denman

  Sticks and Stones

  Beth Goobie

  Stuffed

  Eric Walters

  Tagged

  Eric Walters

  Tap Out

  Sean Rodman

  Tell

  Norah McClintock

  The Way Back

  Carrie Mac

  Thunderbowl

  Lesley Choyce

  Tough Trails

  Irene Morck

  Triggered

  Vicki Grant

  The Trouble with

  Liberty

  Kristin Butcher

  Truth

  Tanya Lloyd Kyi

  Under Threat

  Robin Stevenson

  Up North

  Jeff Ross

  Viral

  Alex Van Tol

  Wave Warrior

  Lesley Choyce

  The Way Back

  Carrie Mac

  Who Owns Kelly

  Paddik?

  Beth Goobie

  Yellow Line

  Sylvia Olsen

  Zee’s Way

  Kristin Butcher

  orca soundings

  For more information on all the books in the Orca Soundings series, please visit

  orcabook.com.