Helpless

Seth set his notebook safely in the passenger seat of the car parked by the street. In the back seat was stuffed fox squirrel he had killed one of the times his father had taken him hunting, just three days before he'd died. In the trunk was the hunting rifle of his father's that he had used to kill the fox squirrel. His mother worked the night shift on Thursdays. She wouldn't be home until long after the place had burned to the ground--hopefully burned to the ground. His stepfather was passed out on the basement couch: just where Seth wanted him.
The basement walls were freshly painted, and David was smoking. He had fallen asleep with the cigarette between the fingers of a hand hanging over the arm off the chair. All Seth had had to do was spill a bit of nail polish remover in the small space beside the chair and the wall.
Now he had to go to the store to get matches.
When he got back, everything was the same as before. He lit the match and dropped it into the nail polish before sneaking up the basement stairs. The basement door always stuck when it was hot.
He left his car keys in the kitchen and walked out of the house.
He walked down the road, his headphones blasting Metallica in his ears. He waved and smiled when his neighbor, Mrs. Kaborowski, drove by, but didn't stop walking, even though she started to roll down the window. She wan't supposed to be home then either. He supposed she had just returned to get something she'd forgotten.
He sat in the library for an hour. The librarian had asked him five minutes after his arrival to please turn down his music, so he had simply turned it off, but left the headphones in in an attempt to stop anybody who might possibly want to talk to him from approaching. He had Edgar Allan Poe open on the table in front of him, but he skimmed the lines without taking anything in. He'd read it all before, anyways.
He turned the music on again when he began the trek back to his burning house. The phone died halfway there. He had planned for it to die a little bit closer to the house, but as long as it was dead, it was okay.
He smelled the smoke before he saw the fire. As he got closer, he broke into a run.
Mrs. Kaborowski was standing outside, bawling on the phone. He hadn't accounted for her in his plans, but it would be okay.
Hopefully.
He ran up, almost to Mrs. Kaborowski, but not quite. He stared up at the house, flames billowing through the windows like the fires of Hell.
Then he heard the screaming.
"Mom!" His voice sounded foreign, even to his own years. He sounded like a frightened child, not like a nearly-grown man who'd just committed arson and murder--a double murder.
He tried to run towards the house, but Mrs. Kaborowski grabbed him and pulled him back.
"Mom!" He continued screaming. He was crying, but he didn't notice. Not that he would have cared if he had.
Mrs. Kaborowski pulled him to her. "It's going to be okay, babe. The fire department's on their way." She tried to sound reassuring, but didn't quite succeed.
Fire department or no, his mother had stopped screaming. She was either dead, or about to be dead. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, refusing to stop and refusing to leave, no matter how hard Mrs. Kaborowski pulled or how sternly she commanded him to get back.
What had he done?
A darkened figure came around the side of the house, and, for a moment, Seth had thought it to be his mother.
It was David.
There was a back door in the basement. And Seth had forgotten it.
All those years of fantasizing what it would be like to be with his mother, happy, all those years pleading with her to leave David, all those years, all those scars, all those plans. All gone down the drain, because his mother had come home early and he'd forgotten to lock the outside basement door.
David ran over, playing the part of a concerned parent. He was practically hacking up a lung, he had soot on his face, his hair was singed, and there were burns all over him. "Seth! Thank God. Where's your mother?" He demanded.
The world spun, and then it was dark.

Seth woke up on a hideous green couch. It was Mrs. Kaborowski's hideous green couch.
He sat up quickly. "Mom--"
Mr. Kaborowski looked up from a newspaper. "Son..." He began, but didn't say anything more.
Mrs. Kaborowski took a seat beside him on the couch. She smoothed his hair back from his sweating face, and if he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine she was his mother.
"My mother?" He asked, holding his breath. He prayed it was a nightmare.
"I'm sorry, baby. Your mother didn't make it."
He started bawling like a little kid, and he couldn't stop, not even when the Kaborowski's daughter came in.
They had been friends, once upon a time. When they were younger. When he'd had friends. They hadn't spoken in at lease three years, but now she ran down the stairs and practically pushed her mother out of the way in her rush.
"Seth, I'm so sorry." Lyla said, choking up before she'd even started speaking. She flung her arms around him, and her mother got up off the couch and stood over them.
"Where's David?" He finally asked, looking up at Mrs. Kaborowski. "Is he dead too?"
"He's in the hospital in critical condition. Do you feel up to going down there?"
He shook his head.
"I... I made coffee. Does anybody want some?"
"Yes please." He said quietly.
He missed the days when he'd come over here after school. Mrs. Kaborowski would pick them both up, and they would come back here and eat chocolate chip cookies and drink milk and watch Barney and oh how he wanted those days to be back. He wanted to rewind to when his father was alive, when he had been allowed to come over here for chocolate chip cookies and milk and Barney, before his mother had married that dickhead, before he had killed his mother.
He could tell the Kaborowskis. If they knew, they wouldn't make him live with David after it was over. They would tell whoever was in charge of kids with dickhead stepdads, and he wouldn't have to live with him.
But he kept his mouth shut.
He stayed with the Kaborowskis until David was out of the hospital. He went to see him whenever Mrs. Kaborowski did, and he kept his mouth shut. He always kept his mouth shut.
His mother had always kept her mouth shut.
She had been promising she would leave David for over two years now, but any time she tried, he made his threats. When the dim-wit had finally learned that threatening her didn't work, he threatened Seth. Whenever she threatened to leave, he kept his hands to himself. He would bring her flowers, and pay for Seth's gas. He would be nice. His mother fell for the game every time, and then the beating started again, even worse than before for both of them.

The first thing David did when he was released from the hospital was go to the Kaborowski's. He knocked, and Seth was unfortunate enough to answer the door.
"D-David." He stammered, debating slamming the door on him. He decided that that would only piss him off, and that was the last thing he needed.
"Now, is that the way to greet your father?" David asked with what others thought to be a playful smile, but Seth knew to be the smile of the oncoming storm. He didn't look to be upset in the least that his wife had just died a painful death.
Seth stammered incoherently, starting to close the door.
"I know it was you, you little shit. And I won't hesitate to tell what I know. So play nice, son." David said under his breath.
Seth stepped forward and hugged him.

He didn't tell the Kaborowskis.
In fact, he didn't tell anybody anything. He decided it would be best if he quit talking altogether.
The fire had been blamed on the cigarette, but if he did anything again, it would draw attention.
If he couldn't stop the suffering that way, he would stop it another way. All he had done was create more suffering.
David was worse now that his mother wasn't here to try to keep him at bay, but now he deserved it. He deserved worse.
He could have lived with the guilt if David had died. But it was his mother he had killed. He hadn't meant to, but he had killed her just the same, and he couldn't live with that.
So he wrote a note to Lyla, the closest thing he had to a friend, and he took his father's rifle.