the morning

Joseph woke up late with his left shoulder already stiff.

The warehouse sat dim even at midmorning. No power. Streetlight was gone, so the only light came through the high windows and the hole Elena had put in the plaster. Dust floated in it. The broken door hung on one hinge and let in a thin draft.

He went downstairs in his shorts and walked the collection first.

Halie was still on the bed where he had left her, legs neat, face blank. Down in the gallery the theater line had not moved. Ariel still looked at the floor. Lisa still scowled. Anna still wore that nothing expression. Spencer was still standing there like an idiot. The family pile from last night hadn't been touched. He set Tara back on her heels, she wobbled. He fixed Jessie’s arms around her waist and laid Sofia across the ground, flat.

Then he went to the two who had wrecked his place.

Maya and Elena stood at attention in the window light, hips almost touching, smiles still locked on from last night. Dried sweat on Maya’s skin. Elena’s bat and the crowbar on the crate beside them.

Joseph looked past them at the damage.

The front door was finished. The top hinge had ripped out of the frame and the wood around it was splintered white. One window near the entrance had a crack from the slam. The banister on the stairs was a jagged stump. The wall behind where he had been standing last night had a brick-sized hole and a spray of plaster on the floor. No lights. No fridge. No nothing.

He sighed.

“This is going to be expensive.”

He started with Maya because she was closer.

He stood in front of her, squeezed both breasts, and watched the smile stay put. No flinch. No sound. He turned her around, bent her at the waist with her hands still at her sides, and used her like that, one palm on the small of her back, looking at the broken door the whole time. When he finished he left her bent for a minute, then stood her at attention again and wiped her chin from cum on her big sister's ass.

Elena next.

Heavier. Broader. The smile looked wrong on her. He liked that. He put her on her knees first and used her mouth, fingers in the short hair, shoulder complaining every time he shifted his weight. She took it the same way the rest of them took it. Nothing in the eyes. Nothing in the face except the grin he had given her. He pulled out, turned her, and took her from behind against the crate, the bat and crowbar rattling when her hips hit the wood.

“You two did this,” he said, not looking for an answer. “Door. Wall. Rail. Power. My arm.”

He brought the family over after that.

He stood Tara, Jessie, and Sofia in a short row facing the sisters, still naked, still unaware of what was happening to them. The wobbled. Then he put Maya and Elena back at attention in front of them they wobbled too and used Maya again while he talked to the quiet.

“They came here for you. That’s what they get to look at.”

Maya’s smile did not change. Elena’s did not change. Tara did not blink. Sofia’s ponytail hung where he had left it. Jessie still wore the shocked face he had given her yesterday. None of them were aware.

He went back and forth between the sisters until his shoulder started to throb in a way he could not ignore. He sat on a crate afterward, breathing, looking at the hole in the wall.

Last stop was outside.

The breaker box hung open like a punched mouth. The cover was bent in. The switch assembly inside was cracked and black at the edges. It did not look like a wrench job. It looked like someone very strong had finished the work with a bat.

He glanced back through the broken door at Elena, still smiling at attention next to her sister.

“Yeah. That tracks.”

His left shoulder was already bruising purple down into the bicep. Lifting his arm made his teeth hurt. The door alone would cost. The window. The rail. An electrician for the box. Days without power and it was gonna be pricey to fix this.

He needed a doctor. He'll need a job to help pay for this stuff.

Joseph walked back inside and looked at the rest of the silent warehouse.

“I’ll figure it out,” he told them. “But first, I need to get my arm checked out.”