His new home, an abandoned trailer, sat a few feet away from the lane, with the added feature of feral cats living underneath the RV. The felines’ fights and shrieks during the nights brought up memories from his childhood of stifled cries while hiding in dark closets with his mother, praying her latest boyfriend wouldn’t find them— and her screams when he did. He didn’t remember the men’s names. She’d exchanged them often, and they were all the same. How well he remembered his mother’s sobs and pleading. One of her men ordered Matt to be a man and watch the torture of his mother or endure a beating with a metal pipe. As he grew older, he’d learned to steal to survive. Another of his mother’s boyfriends showed him how to hack into online accounts. His computer talents increased, but when he stole another person’s life and lived it, that was his finest moment. The pop of the bonfire snapped Matt out of his reverie. He swiped up a handful of twigs and fed them to the blaze.
