Skin Privilege by Karin Slaughter Read Free Book Online

that you could wrap around your index finger. Hank had caught her with it once and spanked the skin off her ass. Whether this was because Lena was messing with his stuff or because he wanted her to stay clean, she still did not know.
    She was leaning against the kitchen counter, gun still in her hand, when Hank finally stirred. Milky eyes looked up at her, but she could tell he couldn’t focus, couldn’t see, didn’t care. Drool slid out of his open mouth. He hadn’t put in his teeth, hadn’t bathed or combed his hair in what looked like weeks. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and she saw the tiny scars that needles had left so many years ago mingling with new punctures – ulcerous, gaping holes – where the drain cleaner or talcum powder or whatever the hell had been used to cut the shit he was putting into his veins had set up an infection.
    The gun raised up into the air. She felt outside herself, as if the weapon was not connected to her hand, as if it wasn’t her finger on the trigger, and her own voice saying, ‘Who the fuck was that man?’
    Hank’s mouth opened, and she saw the dark red gums where his teeth had been, teeth that had rotted in his mouth because the drugs had eaten him from the inside out.
    ‘Tell me!’ she demanded, shoving the Glock in his face.
    His tongue lolled outside his mouth as he struggled to speak. She had to use both hands to keep the gun steady, keep it from going off in her hands. Minutes passed, maybe hours. Lena didn’t know; she was incapable of keeping time, figuring out if she was in the present or somehow trapped in the past, back thirty years ago when she was just a scared kid wondering why her uncle’s grin was so wide when blood was streaming from his nose, his ears. She felt her skin prickling from the heat inside the house. The odor coming off Hank was unbearable. She remembered that smell from her childhood, knew he wouldn’t take care of himself, didn’t want to bathe because the layer of grime on his skin clogged his pores and helped hold in the drug longer.
    Lena forced her hands to put the gun down on the counter, keeping her back to him as she tried to stop the memories that came flooding back: Hank passed out in the yard, children’s services coming to the front door to take them away. Sibyl crying, Lena screaming. Even now, hot tears slid down her cheeks, and she was suddenly that little girl again, that helpless, powerless little girl whose only hope in life was a useless fucking junkie.
    She swung around, slapping him so hard that he fell into a heap on the floor.
    ‘Get up!’ she shouted, kicking him. ‘Get the fuck up!’
    He groaned, curling into a ball, and she was reminded that even in a weakened state, the body did what it could to protect itself. She wanted to pummel him with her fists. She wanted to beat his face until no one would recognize him. How many nights had she lain awake, crying her eyes out as she waited for him to finally come home? How many mornings had she found him facedown in his own vomit? How many strangers had stayed the night – nasty, vile men with their leering smiles and fat, prodding fingers – while Hank remained oblivious to anything but chasing his high?
    ‘Was that your dealer?’ Lena demanded, feeling a wave of nausea building in her stomach. ‘Was that your connection?’
    He whispered something, blood spraying in a fine mist on the filthy linoleum.
    ‘Who?’ she screamed, leaning over his curled body, wanting to hear his words, to get the dealer’s name. She would track him down, take him into the woods, and put a bullet in his skull. ‘Who was that man?’
    ‘He was…’ Hank wheezed.
    ‘Give me his name,’ Lena ordered, kneeling beside him, her fists clenched so tight that her fingernails were cutting into her palms. ‘Tell me who he is, you stupid fucker.’
    His head turned up, and she saw him struggling to focus. When his eyelids began to flutter closed, she grabbed his greasy yellow hair in her