Writing Prompt: It was an ugly laugh.

Fifteen Minutes on those timers and off we go.

Huh, darker this week as well as earlier.

Tuesday, May 6^th: It was an ugly laugh.

It was an ugly laugh.  Harsh and cruel, grating and filled with mocking and derision.  Harry stood in the face of it, waiting for Martin to finish.  Martin slowly quieted and made a show of wiping non-existent tears of mirth from his eyes.

“You think you can survive on your own?” Martin said.  “Go ahead, leave and see how you fare in the big bad world.”

Harry nodded.  He wanted to respond but knew any comment he made would sound petulant.  He was hoping to have a calm conversation but now, he was so worked up he feared his voice would squeak with nerves and add more fuel to Martin’s mockery.  Harry simply turned away and walked towards the front door.

“And don’t think you’ll be welcome back,” Martin called after him, unable to let it lie, needing to have his words echo through Harry’s brain as he left.  “Once you leave, you are gone.”

Harry made it to the door, opened it and let himself out.  He closed the door behind him and walked towards the stairs.  He was halfway down when the door above opened again and his step-father leaned out. 

“We’ll be changing the locks this afternoon,” Martin said.  “You have until three.”

The door was then slammed, the ultimatum given.  Harry could hear the bolt being thrown.  He knew that if he were to make it back before three and show up before the locks were changed he would have to beg, plead and worse, agree to remain under Martin’s control. Martin wanted him to work with the rest of the family in the family business.  Harry wasn’t entirely sure what the business was called on paper, but it was illegal and dealt with a little bit of everything, most of it involved stolen goods and money laundering.  Occasionally they found people places to stay where no one would look for them for a while.

As harry was good with numbers and computers he was certain his corner of Martin’s kingdom would deal with moving money around and some sort of cyber crime.  He had never looked too hard at it as he didn’t plan to stay and didn’t want to know anything when he left.    

Harry had been planning on leaving for a while.  Had in fact moved anything he wanted to take with him out of his room in the apartment to a rented room across town.  He suspected that when he did leave he would be leaving quickly and taking only what he was wearing at the time. 

‘Which is what happened.’ Harry shrugged as he reached the street and left the apartment building behind.  He strongly suspected that despite the three pm deadline, Martin was even now turning his room over looking for anything of value.  Harry smiled tightly, pleased to be able to disappoint Martin in one more way. 

Harry had been working since the age of twelve, told that anything he wanted beyond food and a roof over his head was his to get however he could.  He quickly realized anything left in the apartment would be fair game for the others to take. He had from that point on lived more out of the apartment than in it.