KAT
Blood Debts
The rage doesn't hit until three AM, twelve hours after Cletus slithered back to Bowling Green with his tail between his legs. I wake from dreams of being fourteen and terrified, Homer's voice echoing through memory as he declares me abomination, unnatural, wrong. But this time, instead of fear, I feel fury so pure it makes my bones ache.
Dave sleeps beside me, one hand protective over my belly where our sons tumble restlessly. They feel it too—their mother's shift from victim to predator. Baby B delivers a particularly vicious kick to my ribs, and I take it as encouragement.
I slip from bed carefully, navigating the minefield of pregnancy physics. At five and a half months with triplets, every movement requires calculation. The bathroom light makes me squint, and the w
