by Logan Fox
I don’t even bother asking where they’re going—my security clearance is a big fat zero right now. Everything—even what time lunch is supposed to be ready by—is apparently on a need to know basis.
“Bye,” I mutter, more to myself than anyone else.
My mother pauses, turning to face me as Wayne moves past her and into the entrance hall. “We’ll be back by three,” she says, her mouth in a grim line. “Make sure you cook that properly.”
I curl up my lips in what could be taken for a grin—if you’re half-blind. Her eyes narrow, and she takes a step toward me as if she wants to escalate this into a fistfight.
I don’t think I’ll get over what she told me in the pool house, even though it was illuminating as fuck. It explains so much about my childhood that I should be on my hands and knees thanking her for finally revealing why she hates me so much.
“Get a move on, Diana,” Wayne calls out. “He charges by the minute.”
Her lips quirk at this, but she’s far from pleased. A lawyer?
I realize I’m full out grinning when my mother glares at me before pivoting on her high heels and click-clacking out the door.
Could it be?
Is she filing for divorce?
My shoulders sag.
No, it wouldn’t be that simple. She’s got her claws deep into Mr. Bale.
“Whatchya doing?” Emma asks.
Again.
“Same thing as the last time you asked,” I say through my teeth.
“Making stir fry?”
“You got it.”
“I don’t like carrots.”
“Then don’t eat them.” I glance at her over my shoulder, about to point out that she can just push them out of the way when she’s dishing up, and then I spot a dark shape leaning against the kitchen wall.
“What do you want?” I snap, turning my back on Josiah as he pushes away from the wall with his hip and comes closer.
“To gloat,” he says through a smug laugh. “Mmm-mmm. Smells good.”
“Fuck off.” My eyes glue to the scissors in my hand.
I could stab this through his stomach and claim it was an accident.
They wouldn’t believe me, of course. I mean, I’m an arsonist. Nothing precludes me from escalating to murder in the same week, right?
“So, there’s this party next week Friday,” Josiah says, sounding exactly how I’d imagine the serpent sounded when he was tempting Eve in the garden of Eden. “Wanna go get fucked up?”
His voice is inches away from my ear.
Everything goes white.
I’m distantly aware of my body twisting. My arm flying out. Air flowing like frozen silk over my skin.
There’s a thunk. It travels through my arm and embeds itself in my shoulder socket.
The wickedly sharp tip of those blades hovers an inch from Josiah’s face.
Emma yells, but that’s happening outside the bubble of suppressed violence enclosing Josiah and me.
His jaw tics, eyes narrowing to slits.
The tendons in my arm cord.
“Let go.” I have to push the words through my teeth.
“So you can stab me? Not a chance, darling.”
“Stop calling me that.”
Josiah twists my hand. The scissors clatters to the floor by our feet as I gasp in pain. Then, still gripping my wrist, he pinches my jaw between thumb and forefinger, forcing my head up.
“You’re such a beauty.” Venom coats his words and lends fierce lights to his eyes as he glares down at me. “Anyone would be lucky to call you their darling.”
A sour taste slips into my mouth. It’s too close to what Mom said. Too close to those revelations I wish I’d never heard; wish I could forget.
I lift my knee, but he twists away before I make contact. My hoody slips down my shoulders and gathers in the crook of my elbows.
The light in his eyes becomes predatory.
I’m only wearing a vest beneath the hoody. I’d been in my room the whole day anyway—no need to dress up. But as soon as Josiah shoves his hand up my shirt, I wish I’d taken the time to put on a bra. It could have been another layer of defense, a barrier he’d have to get past.
Instead, my nipple hardens the instant he slides his palm over my breast. “Yeah, fight me,” he drawls, and then laughs. “Guys like it when you do that, don’t they?”
I tear my wrist free and fumble behind me for something to hurt him with. I’m distantly aware that Emma’s sobbing, but Josiah’s smug fucking face is all that matters.
But there’s nothing behind me. Nothing I can use to defend myself.
I twist and surge away, heading for the wooden block of chef’s knives a few feet away.
Josiah grabs my vest in his fist. There’s a loud rip. Cool air washes over my skin.
I let out a muted scream of rage as I struggle to get out of his grip. My hoody falls to the floor. When I spin around to punch out at him, he rushes into me and pins me against the kitchen counter.
Light flashes over his teeth as he snarls at me. With another hard tug, my vest tears in two and falls on the floor. I try to cover myself with my hands, but he knocks my arms aside with pathetic ease.
“Jo, no! No!” a tiny hand appears and grabs hold of Josiah’s bunching arm.
He blinks, seeming to come back to himself with effort.
That’s when I see the dark shape looming in the kitchen entrance.
Josiah’s father.
I slap my arms over my chest, a sob wrenching free as bright hot humiliation envelops me.
“Is this what you two get up to when we’re gone?”
Josiah steps back, lifts his hands. I take a chance and drop to all fours, snatching my hoody from the floor. My fingers are shaking so hard, it’s almost impossible for me to get my arms into the sleeves.
I shoot to my feet the same instant Mr. Bale backhands Josiah.
It’s as if that sound silences everything in the world for just a moment.
Emma rushes at her dad and hugs his waist, burrowing her head into his stomach. “No, no, no!”
Wayne shoves her away so hard, she falls onto her butt.
I scramble over to her, zipping up my hoody on the way, and hug her to my chest when she bursts into tears.
If my legs hadn’t been rubber, I’d have taken her out of the room.
Instead, I just scoot away until my back thumps into the island, trapping us both.
Morbid fascination keeps my eyes wide and glued on the scene that plays out a few feet away, but I press Emma’s face into my breasts, making sure she doesn’t see a thing.
Josiah curls back an arm, but he doesn’t get a chance to land a blow.
His father grabs the front of his sweater, lifts Josiah, and tosses him to the other side of the room.
There’s a loud clickety-clack to the side. It stops abruptly, and a moment later, my mother’s sickly-sweet perfume hits my nose.
“Wayne?” Her voice is hushed with shock. “What are you…?”
Mr. Bale ignores her. His fingers curl into a fist as he walks over to where Josiah’s scrambling up from the floor.
His son straightens, clutching the rim of the granite countertop behind him as he faces his father.
Josiah sticks out his jaw, eyes blazing above the dark red mark forming on the side of his face. “Do it,” he mutters. “Do it, you fucking pussy.”
My heart’s galloping in my chest like a wild horse hell-bent on destruction.
Click-clack.
“Wayne, no.”
Click-clack.
Mom appears on the edge of my view, her arm held out.
“There’s a better way.”
I blink dry, stinging eyes and turn to stare at my mother.
A better way to do what?
What?
With a growl that sounds more animal than human, Wayne drops his arm to his side. He steps back, and Josiah steps forward, both his hands clenched.
Is it my turn to get Josi
ah to stop?
But I guess he realizes there’s no way he can beat his dad. Wayne stands inches taller than him, and he’s wider in the shoulders and waist too. The odds are piled against Josiah.
“You’re right,” Mr. Bale says. He swipes a hand over his forehead, rearranging the lock of dark hair flopping loose. Then he spins and looks straight at me.
I cower under that fierce glare. I even press Emma harder against myself as if I could protect her against him.
Wayne ducks, grabs the shoulder of my hoody, and hauls me to my feet. Fabric burns my midriff before exposing my tummy to the room.
“You disgust me,” he says, glaring first at me, then at Josiah. “Both of you.”
Specks of color mottle Josiah’s skin. His mouth is a hard, trembling line, the whites of his knuckles shining through his skin. “The feeling is mutual,” he says.
Wayne tenses, but instead of giving Josiah another backhand, he smooths down the front of his button-up shirt with big, steady hands.
“That all you got?”
Josiah blinks hard and then narrows his eyes. A frown creases the skin between his dark eyebrows.
“Because I’d suggest you keep something juicy for the therapist.” Wayne takes his phone from his pocket, and ducks his head as his thumb moves over the screen.
Josiah shakes his head, frown deepening.
Wayne puts the phone to his ear. “You’ll each get your own therapist at Happy Mountain.” Wayne smiles, first at Josiah, and then at me.
Happy Mountain? It sounds like a mental institute.
His gaze flashes over me, and I cover myself despite the fact that my hoody is straight again.
“Oh, don’t worry. You’re gonna love it there, Candy Cane.” He lifts his chin, his smile warming. “They’ve got horses.”
Part Two
Now
“From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.” ~ Socrates
Chapter Twenty
Candy
I collapse onto the bottom bed with a groan. Haley clambers up the ladder and perches on the top bunk, her legs kicking out as she continues typing on her phone. Heck, for all I know, she didn’t miss a beat while she was climbing up.
“They’re grooming us for a job on a farm or something, aren’t they?” I mutter into my pillow.
“Hard work builds character,” Haley says.
“Oh my God, they’ve converted you, haven’t they? You’re part of their cult, aren’t you?”
“Pfft.” Haley puts down her phone and hangs over the side of the bed, staring at me upside down. “You’re still up for our rendezvous tonight, right?” She eyes me suspiciously. “Say it.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I push onto my elbows, sinking my chin to my chest to take the tension out of my shoulders and lower back.
Water pails are damn heavy. This place’s tuition is so expensive, why in the hell can’t they afford proper plumbing? I guess turning a tap to fill up the water troughs for their free-range dairy cows isn’t back-breaking enough.
“I swear I’m gonna look like a bodybuilder in a few months,” I tell Haley as she scrambles back onto her bed to retrieve her phone.
“That’s why all the guys in this place are so ripped,” Haley says through a laugh before disappearing into our shared bathroom.
A moment later, Winona steps into our room.
“Good afternoon,” she says cheerily as her gaze sweeps over the room.
That smiling face belies the bitch beneath. She may look all sweet and shit, but if you don’t make your bed before school? Oh, sweet Jesus, you’d better be prepared for the hell she’ll rain down on you.
Apparently, she doesn’t find anything out of place. Her smile crystallizes with disappointment. “Well, time to start supper.”
I face-plant my pillow with a groan. I’m still considered fresh meat around here, so I get lopped with an unfair number of chores. Cooking, dishes, cleaning out the bathroom.
Yuck.
At least, in a normal prison, I’d be able to make toilet hooch. Here, I just have to clean up other people’s shit stains.
I shudder at the thought and drag myself up. I probably look like a zombie as I force legs numb from exertion over to the lodge’s kitchen. Eight girls live in Prairie lodge, four to a room. Winona and Patrick—please, call me Patty—are our den mom and den dad. They make sure we do our chores, finish our homework, and get to school on time.
They can also dole out punishment as they see fit. And, since they’re both trained therapists, this means we get a shit ton of time-outs and stints in dreaded solo.
More than any sane person can bear, in fact.
Don’t get me started on their therapy sessions.
Dee, one of my lodge sisters, is already in the kitchen chopping away at onions. She arrived a week before I did, and she lords that over me like it actually matters. From what Haley tells me, she was sent here because she couldn’t keep it in her pants. Not exactly a sin I’d consider worthy of this level of punishment. Then again, I’m not the daughter of a state’s official who’s running for senator this year.
“You’re late,” Dee says, sniffing loudly as she wipes the back of her hand over her cheek.
“I had water duty.” She knows how long that takes—we alternate our chores. Tonight, it’s her turn to clean the bathrooms after everyone’s done shitting, shaving, and shampooing.
Seriously, yuck.
Suddenly, I’m not hungry anymore.
I pull a Ziplock bag hunk of meat from the fridge and slap it down on the granite countertop. Happy Mountain goddamn Youth Center can’t afford running water to their stables, but they sure didn’t hold back when they kitted out their lodges.
Come to think about it, this place wouldn’t make a bad holiday destination…if you gunned down all the staff members first and washed their blood from the walls, of course.
My meat cleaver slams into the hunk of lamb with a pleasing thud. They call it lamb, so you forget that you’re eating a sheep.
I can’t forget. I was there when Patrick slaughtered it.
Dee’s movements catch my eye, and I glance up at her with raised eyebrows. “What?”
“Tonight’s still happening, right?” She keeps her eyes down, her lips barely moving.
I roll mine, and thump away with the cleaver again. I imagine it’s Josiah’s neck, and I’m slowly but surely severing it from the rest of his body. The damn psycho gave me food poisoning last week. Does he have any idea how awful it is to clean other people’s piss and shit when you can barely stop retching?
“Candy.” Dee stops chopping.
“Yes,” I hiss. “Now shut up.”
“What are you two conspiring about?” Winona asks as she struts into the room with a smile large enough to split her face in half. “No secret ingredients tonight, okay?”
I almost snort, but I manage to stop myself. Winona can’t be older than say thirty, thirty-five, but she acts as if she’s already fifty. She thinks she’s being ‘cool’ or witty or some shit, but she all but cracks us up with her unintended innuendos.
“Course not,” I manage in a tight voice, just as Dee says, “Just following the recipe.”
Winona huffs a little and then leaves again. With so much child labor around, the lodge’s parents don’t have to lift a finger.
When I glance up, Dee’s scowling after Winona like she wants to light her on fire and dance around the flames.
Honestly, I’m ready to hand her the match.
Chapter Twenty-One
Josiah
“Hey, Brian?”
Mustang Lodge’s handler looks up from the book he’s reading and gives me one of his absent smiles. “What can I do for you, son?”
Supper was an hour ago. I should be in the den studying, or upstairs getting ready for bed. Here, everyone’s a fucking kid again. I’d have preferred speaking to Angela, but she’s still off sick.
This can’t wait.
“I need a favor,” I sa
y, resisting the urge to stay as far away from the guy as possible, and instead perching on the edge of the sofa beside him.
His chin moves back as he studies me with a suppressed smile. “Sure thing, slugger.”
Ye fucking gods.
He takes this whole ‘den dad’ thing way too fucking seriously.
“I know I fucked up today, and I’m sorry.” Not. “But I really need to make a call.”
“A phone call?” the imbecile parrots.
I nod, not looking at him in case he sees the contempt in my eyes. “It’s my sister. I really need to speak to her.”
“Candace?”
“My real sister.”
“That’s…” Brian breaks off, humming for a moment. “Emma, right?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s got that…condition, right?”
Condition?
I glare so hard at the wall opposite me, I’m surprised the framed photo of last year’s Happy Mountain sack race doesn’t spontaneously combust. Who the fuck Photoshopped that picture so that everyone in it is smiling? That guy deserves a fucking medal.
“She’s mentally disabled,” I correct, and damn fucking casually, if I do say so myself.
My hands are in fists—when did that happen?—and it’s almost impossible to smooth them out over my thighs.
“Hey, sure.” Brian sits forward and claps his hand on my shoulder. “Family is crucial, Josiah. Now, do you think you could do something brave and maybe speak to your father too?”
I almost don’t catch the snort that wants to shoot out my nose. Instead, I make a fucking show of looking all thoughtful and shit. I even grip my chin and start nodding.
The dip shit eats it up with a fucking ladle.
“Josiah?”
“Maybe—” I inhale audibly, but it’s more to keep my anger tamed than anything else. “Maybe next time. I don’t think…I don’t think I’m ready yet.”
“I’m proud of you. You know that, right?” His hand slides off my shoulder a millisecond before I would have grabbed it, twisted, and broke all his fucking fingers.
“So can I…?”