Stone's Cage

by Rebecca Ryan

  "Maybe I have sleep apnea." That doesn’t even sound like the joke I want it to be.

  "There's something else going on with you. What is it?"

  I shake my head again and tighten the sheet around my stomach.

  Her eyes are wide and the pulse in her neck throbs. "You scared the shit out of me."

  I lean forward just as she kneels again to rub my back.

  "I know a nightmare when I see one."

  Shrugging, I grab my T-shirt from the chair and wipe my face. "I'm fine. It happens sometimes."

  "Sometimes? This is two for two." Pausing, she takes my head in her hands and looks me right in the eye. "Carson Stone, my daddy told me many times that if you tell your dream, if you say it out loud, it will blow away."

  She scoots to her knees so she's taller than me, and then leans forward and I catch that elusive note to her—cinnamon. As she kisses me fully on the lips she lays one hand on my shoulder, and the other reaches behind my head and then slides down the side of my neck to my chest. Under her hand, my chest flinches while my heart tries to find its beat and I grab her, folding her into my arms.

  How do I tell her about this old, familiar, horrible nightmare? The same old, new terror. I'd have to tell Lily about Cassie, my sister, this person I love. In the dream, I'm nine or ten and on this black glossy floor by myself, crying. Cassie and I are separated by a white, opaque wall. It looks like it's made of sheer glass and it can shatter, and I know this. If it breaks, one or both of us will be cut. I can't get to Cassie. I can sort of see her, and then I can't. But I can hear her crying.

  I'm just a little boy, though, and I start to cry too. And then a man steps in wearing a flannel shirt, a hoodie, and workpants, and he's holding a giant hammer. I know he's going to break it so we can be together, but I'm scared. And he takes the hammer, and he breaks it, glass shatters, and I finally see my sister.

  She's lying there on the floor, bleeding everywhere. The glass is broken all over her. She starts to disappear, not shrink though. It's just as if someone's put her in a huge slingshot and she's being drawn backwards, away from me.

  I scream at the man with the hammer. Why did he do that, why did he kill her and then he pulls back the hood . . . and it's me.

  "Tell me what's wrong," Lily says again, stroking my hair.

  I shake my head. "It's just a bad dream. What was I doing?" I ask, not really wanting to know.

  "You looked like you were drowning." Her hand is smooth on my face. "What's wrong. What's wrong sweetie?" She slips a slender arm under mine and I catch my breath.

  For just a moment a part of me shuts down. The part that keeps a wall jacked high. "It's a nightmare I have about my sister."

  She's silent. And then, "Go on," she says, turning off the light, and we both lay back down, as she wedges herself right next to me. She pulls the cover up to our chins.

  I want to kiss her. It's easier to talk in the dark.

  "You want the long version or the short one."

  I feel her take my hand. "I want the real one."

  My eyes sting hot with tears and I hope to hell she doesn't hear them in my voice. Deciding to cut right to the chase, I launch without any preamble.

  "My sister and I were in foster care basically our whole lives. My parents were both drug addicts." I feel her shift under the blanket. "My dad was the one who used to pack my little backpack full of money and send me off to people's houses when I was a kid."

  Silence. I clear my throat. "He OD'd and died and my mom—she ended up in prison. She's still there."

  "For what?"

  "She murdered her supplier. Self-defense. He pulled a gun. She had a knife."

  I have to tell her this. Lily has to know. Lily has to know what my background is. She has to understand who I am. "Anyway, we ended up in foster care. My mom worked hard to keep us together in the system. And we were together until we weren't." My voice trails off, and I think I'm done.

  "Not good enough," Lily says and touches my cheek. "Keep talking."

  "I got nothing to say."

  "I want to know what happened to you, Carson Stone."

  There's something about the way she says my first and last name that kills me a little every time. It's like sugar coming from her.

  "You sure you want all this?"

  My answer is a swift kiss, invisible in the dark, her breath on my face, her lips softly pressed to mine, her breasts brushing against me, and then she's gone again, just lying next to me, holding my hand.

  "I got into a shitload of trouble when I was eleven. I robbed a convenience store with two older members and the guy, the casher, had a heart attack."

  "Oh God."

  "He didn't die. But he came close to it. I got into all kinds of trouble. I got kicked out of the foster care and put into juvie for the fourth time, and that was it. Now I was in juvie. And my sister and I were separated, and no matter what my mom did, we could never get back together again."

  For a long time, I watch the lights from outside shift determined shadows across the room every time a car passes by. Finally, she says, "Stone, I am so sorry."

  "My sister's six years older than me. "

  "Did she try to get you back?"

  "When she emancipated, they said she was too young to manage me. She couldn't get to me. By then, we were living in different states. She had no money. I never saw her again."

  Then comes the question I dreaded, the reason I didn’t want to have this discussion. "Can you see her now?"

  "No. There's no way. She's not gonna want to see me."

  "How do you know that?"

  "I just know."

  Lily drops my hand and slides it across my chest, laying her head on my shoulder. It seems like the most natural thing in the world to have her here, next to me, as I spill my guts. "She's a respectable person with a normal job. And she doesn't know she's got a cage fighting brother. No." I keep shaking my head.

  "What does she do?"

  I sigh. "According to my mom, Cassie's an elementary school teacher, working with disadvantaged youth. She took our background and used it for good. I just keep fighting."

  "I still don’t see why you don’t contact her."

  "Which one do you think is the better person? The better role model?" I feel her stiffen slightly with my question. I've framed it in such a way that there's only one answer: my sister.

  There is no other way to answer, except, somehow, Lily does. "This is not about dichotomies. Love and family is not about right and wrong."

  Dichotomies. Another one of those words again.

  "I do send her money. Every time I get a payout, she gets some." I don’t add "most of it."

  I can hear the question forming in Lily's mind…why? I can’t tell her the real reason.

  "She must want to meet you then. She knows you care about her."

  I shake my head. The last thing I want is for my sister to feel she owes me anything. "Cassie has no idea where the money comes from or who sends it. It has to be that way. I'm the reason we couldn't live together. I'm the reason she lost her family."

  Lily goes on. "This is not about one person, right, one person, wrong. You're both examples. Look what you've done for me. You have honor and integrity and you live in a world where there's very little of each. You're an amazing role model. You should feel good about the things you've done."

  I shake my head. "You have no idea of the shit storm I've left. Of what I've really done." I hold up a hand. "I don't even want to talk about it, and I'll never tell you, so don’t ask."

  "I won't have to. One day, you just will," she says and leans over and gives me a kiss on the cheek.

  She's dead wrong. I will never tell her what I've done. And I'll never tell her what I do.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lily

  Carson Stone is an enigma.

  Which means basically, he's a mystery wrapped in a mystery. I cannot forget this guy. He wants to help me. He basically puts his life on the line
for me, to save me from being raped. He takes me in, feeds me, makes me feel incredibly sexy and so, so loved. And then says that he's a terrible person. I don't understand it. I don't see it.

  Before he left for work, he jammed a piece of foil as a book mark in the middle of West with the Night, which he read while I took another shower. When I came out of the bathroom, he was still leaning against the island countertop, book in hand.

  The moment Stone closed the door, I stood there in the center of the room, holding Tig in my arms, waiting to feel alone. I think it's because Sam's loss is so profound, and left such a hole in my heart, that any time someone is absent it feels overwhelming.

  But this didn't. It is as if I am carrying Stone with me, like he's never gone, he's always around me.

  Now, I sit on the sofa and contemplate next steps as Tig curls up in a ball and watches me lazily. In a few minutes he loses the battle and his little eyes close. I lean over and kiss him once.

  As far as Shreves is concerned, I'm with the Hooks. Now I've got to gather some facts. That means going back to the bar. Going back to the very place Stone saved me from.

  There's a lot of yelling and screaming at Jimmi's. I see other girls looking like strung out heroin addicts: wrinkled, twitchy, sallow skinned, eyes darting like someone is holding a flame to them. Some short guy in a mesh shirt offers me a line of coke. I say, "Fuck off man. Did a line already." I don't know if that's even possible but then he offers me "Jellys," which I also decline.

  Wriggling my way between three different guys, all of them huge, I try to order something at the bar. Someone shoves another guy from behind and he nudges into me and I land on one of the guys, a big Italian twenty-something with black hair and tattooed sleeves on both arms. In my periphery, like a shark, sits Shreves in a corner booth. I take a big breath as I right myself.

  "Fuck off," I say loudly to the guy who tries to grope me as I right myself.

  That gets Shreve's attention. He nods and I walk over, jut my jaw out and level a gaze at him. He knows who killed Sam, is what I'm telling myself to make certain my legs don’t give out.

  Shreves grins, a horrible expression that splits that lower lip in half where someone sliced it long ago, and waves me to his booth. Gold outlines several teeth and he smells astringently sour, like body odor and moth balls.

  As I gingerly slip beside him in the booth, he asks, "He made you one of us, bitch. How many times he take you? Pussy sore?"

  I start to deflect the question when Juice shows up and slides in on the other side of me, pinning me between the two of them. With a toothpick between his lips, skinny boy starts to reach for my chest, and I slap him. Hard.

  "Not touching this."

  Juice sits back and laughs, his head swiveling, and I can tell he's jacked up on something. Twitching and grinning, he turns to Shreves for permission.

  "Come on, let me have a turn with some suga'."

  "Get out, Juice."

  "What the fuck?"

  Shreves just gives him a look and the guy shrugs, unfolds himself from the booth, disappearing in the smoky crowd as it stretches and absorbs him like an organism. Now, Shreves looks at me, very coolly, his black eyes glittering like obsidian.

  "The only ones who get to fuck you up is me. Me and Stone."

  Something about Stone's name coming out of Shreves's mouth made me want to gag.

  Shreves stretches back and leans his head against the wall. Those eyes narrow. "Why did he show up for you?"

  I can’t think and I look away.

  "You vice? You cop? They recruit babies now?" Again, there is that horrible, raspy laugh.

  I tug at my jeans, swallow again, trying to keep the bile from coming up. "He came for me 'cause I asked some questions."

  Saying nothing, Shreve waves another woman over, a girl in shorts so high the pockets spread dirty white against her thighs like two pale tongues. Her thin arms look like bird wings. She passes a lit blunt to him.

  "I asked about a kid that got caught in crossfire."

  This catches his attention and the tip of the blunt never makes it to his lips.

  I plunge ahead. "That student, Sam something. The one from NYU. Crossfire. Must happen a lot."

  Just then yelling breaks out by the staircase going up to the bar. Juice and a few other lieutenants break through the crowd and with an arm twist and some more authoritative shouting, the room returns to a more reasonable decibel level.

  "It does. Babies shouldn't be out on the street." Now he takes a drag on the blunt and when he exhales is smells like skunk. He speaks slowly. "There was two that month. Sam Watson. Yeah. And Monica Knight two weeks before that."

  My chest tightens up and it's hard to breathe. "Monica Knight?"

  "Fuck," says Shreve and then checks his phone. "I gotta go to work." He pushes his massive bulk from the table. I'm feeling desperate. I'm so close.

  "What about Sam Watson?"

  "Why do you care?

  When I say nothing, he grins.

  "Tell Stone I expect great things from him tonight."

  I feel myself blanch. "Tonight?"

  "The fight," he says, as if this explains everything.

  When I'm back out on the street, the skinny guy, Juice holds me back a moment, shoving his runty hips in my direction as I hit the top stair and launch myself on to the cracked sidewalk. He steps in my way so I have to reroute around him.

  "Hey bitch, you better lay off of Shreves, man."

  "Get outta my way, asshole." The swear words are not coming any easier. I hitch my jacket tight around me and try to move past him, but he blocks my exit.

  "Shreves has your back now. You'll owe him," he breathes in my face and his breath is overwhelming, like gasoline.

  "I don't need protection," I duck to the left.

  "Oh, cause Stony fucked you? All the girls feel that way about Stone."

  As soon as Juice sees I've glanced at him, he wiggles his fingers like a little girl and touches his narrow chest. "Stone loves me." He grins. "He'll throw you to the wolves and Shreves will be the one to pick you up."

  I say nothing and feint to the right and make an escape.

  "You come to the fight tonight and you'll see Stone fuck it up."

  At this I turn around. "And why should he throw a fight?"

  "'Cause he sends money to some bitch he knocked up."

  I try to act like I might believe him. I swallow hard a third time, and this was going to be really hard, but I've gotten so good at lying. I couldn't help myself. "Do you know who shot Sam?"

  For the first time, Juice looks blank.

  I continue. "Two years ago. A college kid, Sam Watson. Caught in crossfire."

  He lights a cigarette. "Why the fuck do you care?"

  "He raped my cousin. So good riddance to fucking bad rubbish." I said the words fast, as if I couldn’t hold them in my mouth long enough. Forgive me, forgive me.

  "No shit. Well that's karma."

  Something about skinny Juice saying "karma" makes me want to laugh, but I know it's just nerves.

  "What's so funny?"

  "I don't know. I just think it's funny that you said karma." I pause and then with a hand on hip ask again. "So who did it? Hooks or Wyrms?"

  "You're a fledgling, so you don't get to ask those questions," he says taking a long pull on the cigarette.

  "I'm new but I'm not new. I got skin in the game here. Who shot him? I want to go thank that motherfucker that did it." Again, those words came out in a rush. I have to steel myself, make myself say these things. It was the means justifying the ends. "They had no idea the trash they took out."

  He blows smoke away from me now that he thinks we're friends. "Hey, he was sure painted a pretty boy in the newspapers. That other one, Monica, was a fucking hooker. But him. He seemed clean. Funny the cops didn’t think so. He was a fucking pretty boy."

  "Yeah, he was anything but pretty boy," I say. "Believe me." He wasn't a pretty boy at all. He was a beautiful man, I want
to scream at this asshole but instead, I turn to walk away. Bile heats the back of my throat. My brother. My poor brother. I'm afraid my face will give me away.

  "You should probably talk to Shreves about it," he says. "Shreves knows who did him."

  I rub my nose with a sleeve, turning around to face Juice one more time. "How can you be sure?"

  "Because only two were packing that night on that corner. There were four of our guys on the street and the other two had knives. It was supposed to be an ambush."

  "Why?"

  "Punk kid called, made threats on Twitter. Said he'd made bank on Shreves. So, we were gonna take him down. Slice him, but he was with two other kids, all packing. And that Sam got in the way."

  "So it was Wyrms?" I know I am on the edge of finding out. My heart lurches.

  "Shit. I said I gotta go. Talk to Shreves," he says again. "No, it was Hooks. I told you, Shreves always has your back," and he says this as though he's exposing the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Stone

  "Why do you throw fights?"

  I'd just stepped out of the shower from work and had wrapped the towel around my waist. Wiping water from my face, I walk past Lily in the hall and step into the kitchen to make a protein shake.

  "Just answer me. Do you? Do you throw fights just for the money? Juice says you throw fights and you get paid a lot."

  The hardness in my voice is a measure of the secrets I need to keep. "What do you know about anything?"

  "Well, I know you're not supposed to throw a fight. Isn't that against the rules?"

  Lily stands there, touched by tragedy but so innocent of the world that has led her here. She's beautiful, sweet, kind, and calmly pets Tig as she puts me through hell.

  Cramming some nearly slimy spinach into the blender with a cup of yogurt, I start scooping out an avocado and toss this in as well. "Listen, you don't know anything about any rolls. You didn't know about the dice. You don't know about anything on the street. You waltz in here. And then you start to, you know, judge me because I throw fights. I told you I did."