Sapphire Scars: Volume Three

by A. P. Moraez

  He started to head toward the bathroom.

  “I’ll wait.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  Eric shrugged as he shuffled through his backpack again.

  Alright, then.

  When he stepped back into the room, Eric was sitting on the foot of his bed, fidgeting, eyes fixed on him. “You have a guitar,” he said, cunning dark eyes gleaming with sudden excitement.

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you play?”

  Ash snorted. “Yeah.”

  “Really play or you’re just one of those guys who know one or two songs to impress chicks?”

  “Really play. And I’m not the kind of guy who’d want to impress chicks.”

  Eric’s piercing gaze remained the same for just a second, before his eyes widened and he let out a, “Oh.” Then he cleared his throat and let his eyes fall to his feet. “Alright.”

  They fell silent for a few moments, while Ash made his bed, following the younger guy’s example.

  “Ash?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m cool with it, but maybe you shouldn’t go around telling it. Some of the other kids here are kinda assholes.”

  Ash smiled. “I’m sure I can handle them.”

  Eric shrugged. “It’s your head.”

  Ash checked himself in the wardrobe’s mirror. He would surely feel ridiculous going downstairs in pajamas, but that’d have to be it for now.

  “The guitar all you got? No clothes?”

  Ash’s eyes landed on the case next to his nightstand. His heart skipped a beat when he thought of the picture he’d hidden inside the instrument.

  “Yeah,” he murmured, turning back to the boy. “She’s all I have.” There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. “Ready?”

  Eric jumped from the bed. “Let’s go.”

  AS NATE HAD pointed out, they were all boys and they were all like him. He shouldn’t be judging people without actually knowing them, but they were clearly like him. His time on the streets had taught him to recognize the signs, and they were all here. How Vincent, the silver-haired Asian boy smiled and talked with everyone, all smiles and laughter, but his eyes were empty. How William ate his toast and eggs like they’d for sure be his last meal. How Gabriel and Matthew, the two oldest guys in the house, talked in hushed tones, shoulders hunched forward, as if they were trying to pass by unnoticed.

  “Dammit!” the small voice to his side hissed.

  It was Noah, the youngest boy in the house. Ash supposed he was around eleven, give or take a year. He was desperately trying to mop the tablecloth where he’d spilled a little bit of coffee. His hand was red where it had burned his skin.

  Ash grabbed a napkin and started to help him. “Hey, you okay?”

  The boy glanced nervously up at him and nodded. “Just burned my hand.”

  “You should go wash it,” he encouraged, squeezing the little guy’s shoulder. “It will make it better.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” Noah gave him a hesitant smile, eyes as empty as all the others, as he got up and headed for the kitchen.

  Ash watched him for a moment, before turning back around for his food. Unintentionally, his eyes connected to Leo’s, who seated at the head of the table. The man had been reading his newspaper, but now his angelic face and cold eyes studied Ash with a curious expression.

  Ash avoided his eyes, for some reason uncomfortable with the way the man was looking at him.

  Just a few minutes ago, he’d introduced Ash to all the other kids. They all seemed nice enough. At least none of them made fun of him for being the only one in pajamas. But for Gabriel and Matthew, who were both wearing suits — much like Leo and Nate — all the other kids were clad in the same white shirt, beige pants and dark-brown leather shoes as Eric. They all had backpacks hanging from their chairs, clearly ready to head out to school.

  It all got Ash thinking maybe Leo was the nice guy he’d tried to make Ash believe he was yesterday. Damn, all these kids looked healthy and well cared for, if one ignored how all of them looked broken. But there was just something there in the way the guy looked at them that seemed off. Maybe it was just his jadedness trying to see things that weren’t there, but if there was one thing he’d learned recently, it was not to ignore his instincts. He’d keep an eye open around the man.

  The food was good, though. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen so much of it and eaten so well. Ash was just finishing his cup of orange juice when Nate got up from the seat right across from him.

  “Well, I’m heading out.” He shifted his chair forward into place and smiled. “Y’all have a good day.”

  Nate turned to Gabriel and Matthew. “You two ready?”

  Both men got up, nodding.

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  The trio had just taken a few steps before Leo interrupted them. “Don’t forget to… check on the thing I asked you last night. It has to be done by early tonight.”

  Nate’s shoulders tensed and he risked a look at the rest of the table. And there it was again: that prickly apprehension telling Ash something was off here.

  “Of course, dad. It will be done.”

  And with that, they were gone.

  “You too, kids. Time to go,” Leo said, eyes on his newspaper. “The car should be waiting already.”

  Some of them grunted their disapproval, especially Noah, who’d just come back from washing his burned hand. When Eric, William, and Vincent got up, he snatched a piece of toast and followed them.

  “What about him?” Eric asked Leo when he was already a few feet away, eyes on Ash.

  Leo gave his roommate a little smile. “We didn’t have time yet to discuss Ash’s education. Actually…” He turned to Ash. “Have you finish school, by any chance, Ash?”

  “No. There was still three months to go when I… left. I didn’t take my SATs.” He’d actually taken them and reached out to several Universities. But there was no way he’d get a hand on his test results or any response letter now that he’d… now that he’d cut all ties with his past. He’d have to take the test again.

  “Okay,” Leo said with a nod. “I’ll think of something.

  “For now, you kids go on. You know it’s rude to be late.”

  “Yeah. Have a nice day, sir.”

  “It’s Leo!”

  Eric smiled and left, tugging Noah along with him.

  It all seemed so normal and cozy and… domestic, so far. But then why Ash’s spine was all tingly with dread every time he looked at Leo’s daughter’s ceramic eyes? Why was there that voice in the back of his head warning him to grab his guitar and take off while there was still time?

  Why did his stomach drop every time Leo’s eyes fixated on him from across the room, exactly as they were now?

  IT WAS NIGHT and they’d just had dinner. Ash was feeling slightly bloated after going a whole day eating more food and better food than he’d had in a month. Damn, he could bet he’d eaten more today than what he’d been eating in a whole week living on the streets. But it was a good bloated. A bloated that made him sigh in contentment and made him wanna play guitar.

  That’s exactly what he was doing, sitting on his bed under the open windows, as Eric scribbled away on his notebook. It was clear the boy was trying hard to concentrate, so Ash was keeping it to a light, low strumming of fingers. Just loud enough so he could hear the melody he’d been working on without breaking Eric’s focus.

  “Motherfucker,” Eric exhaled, exasperated, at some point. He scrubbed his eyes and rolled to his back, away from his homework. Ash was learning he had a mouth on him. “Equations my ass! What is the point of this shit?”

  Ash snorted out a laugh, still playing. “I suppose it’s good for you. Teaches you balance. That life isn’t fair. You gain on one side; you lose on the other.”

  Eric gave him a disgusted look. “Poetic, aren’t we?”

  Ash laughed. “How old are you, anyway? Twelve? What grade are you?”

  “I�
�m gonna be fourteen in a couple months and I’m in eighth grade, thank you very much.”

  “Alright,” Ash chuckled out, afraid to further offend his brand-new roommate. “Was just trying to lighten things.”

  “The only thing these things are lighting is my brain. On fire.”

  Ash grinned down at his notes and shook his head. A moment later, Eric let out a frustrated sigh. “I need a break and I need mints.”

  “You need what now?”

  “Mints,” Eric repeated as he knelt beside his bed. A few seconds later, he was standing in front of Ash with a big packet of white candy. He shrugged. “They help me unwind. Want some?”

  sin

  the past…

  THE TWO NEXT months passed in a blur. Leo hadn’t seen the point in enrolling Ash in school with the other boys, since he’d left with only three months to finish it, so he’d just hired a teacher for private lessons. She was a cool lady that reminded Ash a little bit of Ms. Baker, just a bit younger. He enjoyed the lessons, even though it was mainly exercises and revisions so he could keep his memory fresh to take his SATs when August came around.

  On his second week there, Ash had approached Leo about finding him a job. Leo had readily dismissed the idea, though, saying Ash had better focus on his studies first. There’s plenty of time to work later, he’d flashed with the brightest smile. Then he winked and rushed upstairs to his office and Ash stood there in the middle of the entrance hall, not knowing what to do with himself.

  It was frustrating, on one hand, because he felt bad about living in such a nice place and not contributing, even though he knew money wasn’t a problem for someone like Leo. On the other hand, it gave him time to heal from… everything, and to play guitar. He’d tinkered with loads of melodies through the last few months; the worthier of which were now written down on a black notebook he’d asked from Nate on his first week there.

  Little by little, he was gaining back the weight he’d lost living on the streets; gaining a little bit of his humanity back. But nothing was quite enough to erase the bad. That’s why he wrote and played so much: to cope. More than ever, music had been his only shield against the ugliness of the world.

  That was the good part.

  The bad part was that he could barely have one single night of sleep without being attacked by the freaking nightmares that had started once he stepped into Tompas. It was always the same: he’d be dreaming about something completely average, when in the blink of an eye everything would go to hell and he’d be swallowed by so much blue it choked him. Sometimes it was just shapes and feelings that clenched his lungs and tore his heart in two, and in those times he’d wake up shaking, sweating, and crying, trying his best to muffle the sound so that Eric wouldn’t wake up. Other times… not so much. The most recent nightmare had him running from sapphire shadows that chased him in a forest made of sapphire trees — with double-headed corpses hanging from them.

  The only remedy against them was to play even more. And to eat mints with Eric. Strangely enough, they’d created the weird ritual. Every day, after dinner, they’d go up to their room where Eric would focus on his homework while Ash played, then they’d choose something on TV and spend hours and hours watching and talking and eating some mints. They weren’t magical, of course, but for some reason they helped him relax a bit before bed.

  Sadly, none of it was enough to completely settle him, though. Besides the nightmares, there was the troubling reality that screamed to him that something was just off. It was in the way Nate and Leo talked to each other sometimes, as if in code. In the way Gabriel and Matthew seemed to drift apart from all the others, acting pretty much the same as the other men. It was in Natasha’s near constant silence and total absence from the home life when she wasn’t eating her meals.

  For around three weeks, Ash had tried to write it off as neurosis. He was clearly too jaded from the events that led him to flee from Biscuits, plus everything that happened to him before Nate found him. He’d tell himself he just needed more time to heal; more time to start trusting people again. And it’d been working; it really had — up to that night around a month ago.

  He’d just woken up from yet another nightmare. It’d been pouring outside and, for a second, still slow from sleep, he’d thought the light visible through the heavy curtain before the windows at his side was merely lightning. But then it hadn’t moved. And it kept not moving. Intrigued, Ash had kneeled on the bed and nudged the curtains apart a little bit.

  Three black cars had been there, under the heavy downpour. It seemed they’d just gotten there, for he got to see the few stragglers rushing toward the front doors of the mansion, suitcases over their heads. Most of them men, but one or two women, too. Despite knowing Leo was an important person, it intrigued him. Why would someone schedule a meeting at half-past midnight? Why not do it in the morning or afternoon or any other damned time that wasn’t half-past midnight?

  It isn’t your business, Ash had thought to himself right before letting the curtains fall and getting back to sleep.

  He told no one about the incident, too afraid Leo or Nate would hear about him spreading stories he knew nothing about, but it didn’t leave him alone. The idea of someone meeting with important, rich people at the dead of the night was just too disturbing — and curious.

  On the days that followed, however, he got busy with the private lessons and nightly TV sessions with Eric, so he just stopped obsessing about it.

  Until it happened again.

  Two weeks ago, the fancy people dressed in suits and carrying suitcases parked their fancy black cars in front of the mansion again. Like the first time, the headlights woke him up. This time, though, it hadn’t been raining and Ash managed to get a good look at them.

  All austere-looking and serious. Some even looked mean, like people that had paid the price to get to be having secret meetings after midnight in a mansion.

  Again, fear prickled his spine and he couldn’t help thinking something was just off here. But then why had no one mentioned it? Why had no one — not even Eric — talked about it with him? Maybe he was indeed imagining things. Making things up to make up for his own boredom. Or maybe… maybe the others had noticed the suited people coming and going in weird hours, but they were just as scared as him to talk about it.

  The endless circle of doubt followed him around like a shroud. Several times he’d thought about just going to Leo and outright asking what was up, but then… something inside of him would tell him it’d be extremely foolish of him to do such a thing. So, he didn’t do anything. Truth be told, Leo was starting to occasionally creep him out too. It seemed like the man was always there; always… observing. During breakfast, Ash would be talking to Eric or some of the other boys; laughing, even, when he’d look up and unintentionally look at the man, and he’d be looking right back. Cold, pale eyes studying him and making him shiver.

  There was even a handful of times when he’d caught Leo watching him play in the gardens, after a lesson, when he thought Ash wasn’t looking. It was just downright creepy. But they’d promised him. They’d promised him this was a safe place for kids like him and, if he wanted, he could leave at any time. All the other kids seemed well-treated and content, if not happy or lively. So he’d stayed.

  But it was always there, the memories of the strangers in the night and Leo’s not-so-subtle fixation on him, and such thoughts kept him up at night more than he’d like to admit.

  Like now, for instance.

  For the last hour or so he’d been restless, wide awake and staring at the bedroom ceiling. It was past one in the morning and the whole world was dead — but him, of course.

  He wanted… something. To get out and do something that would exhaust him enough to help him fall asleep. Playing wasn’t an option. Not with Eric sound asleep. Besides, how would he write music down on his notebook without turning on the lights? Impossible.

  The idea of going out for a walk had him standing up and getting out of bed ev
en before it had completely formed in his mind. He hesitated right before he touched the door handle, but then shrugged and opened it as silently as he could. No one had told him the property was off-limits at night. The official bed-time was ten o’clock, sure, but surely no one would crucify him for taking a half-hour walk through the gardens. He wouldn’t bother anyone.

  The thought propelled him through the dead-silent house, and through the tomb-like darkness he tip-toed, until he was opening the front doors and stepping outside.

  It was a dark, cloudy night. Almost no moonlight to see by. Even better for walking around unnoticed.

  Ash double-checked his surroundings, just to make sure no one had spotted him, then exhaled and shook off his fear; and then he was walking.

  One foot in front of the other until he reached the first hedges that sprouted throughout this part of the absurdly big garden. It was as good a spot as any to start his excursion. He could follow their labyrinth-like zig-zag and that would lead him to the sculpted trees that came after the stone benches.

  When the word labyrinth crossed his mind, fresh pain stopped him in his tracks. He locked his jaw so tight he feared to break it; squeezed his eyes shut so tight he might as well have super-glued them. Memories he just wanted to forget assailed him, but he tightened his fists until they were shaking; until the painful flashes were gone.

  After calming himself, he kept on his way to the resting spot ahead; the stone benches. He was almost there when the voices reached him.

  “The pink book isn’t meant for underage kids, Vincent. You know that.”

  “It’s just a few weeks ‘til I’m eighteen. What’s the big deal?”

  “It’s too risky,” Leo admonished. “If that’s what you want, why don’t you wait? A few more weeks, and you’re in.”

  “I need the money, Lazarus.”

  They fell silent and Ash, hot with curiosity, took careful steps forward until he was hidden behind the last of the hedges. He was taller than them, but just by a few inches, so he bent his knees a little and risked peeking around the leaves.