Timeless

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A/N - another long one 🫶🏾🫶🏾

TW: beginning is upsetting with themes of child abuse

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Ezekiel
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Aged 8, third person POV

Ezekiel was what everyone would deem a bookworm.

It was a known fact in the Delgado household, and one that his older brothers struggled to understand; how one could enjoy the mere task of sitting in silence with a book was beyond the three of them.

It was the same routine after school, every day without fail: the boys scattered to various places around the house whilst the youngest son took up residence in one of the three living rooms, oblivious to his surroundings as he indulged in yet another book.

Well, until their father returned home, that was.

The four boys had memorised every creak in the floorboards, could identify who was coming up the stairs even if they tiptoed- could probably detect Salvador's presence in their sleep. Which is exactly how Ezekiel knew he had about ten more minutes before he had to retreat to his bedroom and shove something in front of the door.

The heaviest thing you can push, Marco had told him and Elijah the day after their eighth birthday, when the man had been in a particularly bad mood, you don't come out of that room until I give you the all clear.

That was the same routine daily too: an hour or so to roam around the house before they were confined to the same space, terrified to even breathe the wrong way. Zeke lifted his gaze from the words in front of him, two things having become apparent in the past three seconds: the slam he'd just heard was, in fact, the front door...and Salvador was home early.

Closing his book with shaky hands he sat there unmoving, not even sure if he was breathing. Run to your room, Zeke, he said to himself- unsure as to why his body wouldn't let him move at this very moment.

"Why aren't you completing your homework?", the eight year old gulped, turning his head towards the doorway in the hopes that his father's voice was just made up in his head, "do you think these meaningless stories are going to benefit you one day?". He flinched when the book was torn out of his loose grasp, ripped in two right in front of his watery eyes- why couldn't he move?

"I was about to", Zeke's voice was timid, hesitant, the fear embedded within his tone something that Salvador didn't like.

At all.

"Are you going to cry?", the man taunted, clearly getting a rise out of intimidating an eight year old boy- his eight year old son, at that, "what have I told you, Ezekiel?". He was too close to his face now, so much so that his breath was fanning his face, and Zeke was certain that the man could hear his heart beating in the small gap between them.

He needed Marco, he thought, Marco always knew what to do.

"Boys don't cry", he repeated the mantra the man had beaten into them all on countless occasions, "we're not weak".