I was just a shell surviving with revenge simmering in my gut for over a year. I couldn’t let go of the fact someone had used me. Jane had taken any emotion I had once felt and shoved it back in my face without a care for me—wrecking me and my trust for the rest of my life.
Revenge.
It was why I convinced Vick that the Jepson’s home should be our next hit. They had nothing I needed or wanted, other than the things I’d left behind, but just the idea of taking from them the way they had taken from me was enough to bring a grin to my face.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” Vick asked as she took the back stairs one at a time.
“Yep,” I said with no doubts. “There should be a key under the mat.”
If the key was still there, then they were total dumbasses. They knew I knew the key was there. They also knew I was a delinquent—a delinquent they had wronged. One who would be coming back for revenge once the hurt ebbed and anger took its place again.
Vick bent over, pulled up the black mat, and snatched the silver key that opened the back door.
“I’ll be damned.” She giggled. “It’s like they want to have their shit stolen.”
She pushed the key into the door and unlocked it. A smirk tugged on the side of my mouth when she turned the knob, and the door popped open. I went in first, unarming the alarm with the same code the dumbasses didn’t think to change. Once it was off, Vick followed me inside and closed the door.
“Is there anything in particular you want from these assholes?”
She knew the rage I housed inside me. I’d told her the complete story one night while we lay in bed in the pitch black and listened to a winter storm blow outside our tin covered home.
“Take anything and everything you can. Jewelry. Money. Anything that might hurt them.”
“And what about you? What are you taking?”
I chuckled, enjoying the sting of the cold air on my cheeks. “I’m getting my shit if it’s still here, and then I’m filling my bag with anything and everything I can.”
And I meant it.
I didn’t matter what it was. I just didn’t want them to have it. They could fuck with me so easily—use me and toss me away like I was nothing.
They had a surprise coming.
I took the stairs straight to my old room and pushed the door open, ready to see if they had thrown my things away.
They hadn’t.
They’d stripped the room completely of me, but in the corner, a box full of my things sat, ready to be taken to Goodwill. I knew that since someone had scrawled the word donate along the side.
Snatching up the box, I sat on the bed and pulled back a piece of the cardboard. There on top was a picture I’d secretly kept of Deloris and a few of the kids from the group home.
My eyes itched with tears I refused to shed.
Life had tilted on its axis, leaving me to grab onto anything to keep from floating away, but looking down at the picture of the only person in the world who had ever loved me, I knew one thing.
I had the one thing I’d spent my entire life looking for, and I didn’t even realize it until it was gone.
A family.
Love.
Deloris.
I missed Deloris, and as I smoothed my finger over the aging picture, I even found myself missing a few of the kids from the home. But I couldn’t let it rock me. I had to stay the course. I had to stay focused with my mind on the matters at hand.
Matters like food, shelter, and warmth since winter was on its way back to town and about to take its toll on New York. Matters like staying alive and keeping Vick’s shit together.
She was a wild one, no doubt about that, and obviously had a problem taking things that didn’t belong to her. I did the same, but it was different. Vick stole wallets and cash; Vick stole jewelry when we didn’t need to pawn. Hell, she would have stolen candy from a baby if I had let her, but after some time together, I helped her control her klepto ways.
Until today.
I’d given her free reign over the Jepson’s house, hoping she would take anything that might leave a lasting mark on their lives.
“What the fuck are you doing, Sebastian?” Vick asked from the door, her arms full of expensive goods—things I’d used when I lived in their house. Things I knew would piss Darrell off when he realized they were gone.
Good.
“Getting my things. You ready? Or you want to take more?”
She laughed, obviously enjoying herself.
“Fuck it. Let’s take more.”
We left the Jepson’s house with two backpacks full, a box full, and our pockets full. And when we left Sal’s pawn shop later that afternoon, we had enough money to actually go to a restaurant and sit down for a nice meal.
I only wished I could be a fly on the wall when Darrell and Jane came home and realized I’d taken all their valuables. To see the utter shock and devastation of knowing their things were gone. Things they could never get back—mementos of their lives.
I laughed to myself as I stuffed a piece of steak in my mouth.
“What’s so funny?” Vick asked as she chewed at her own medium-rare beef.
“Nothing. I just hope my baby batter was worth all their expensive shit.”
She laughed. “Doubt it.”
Later, as we lay in our beds separated by the blankets we had stolen, we laughed with our bellies full of good food.
“Jessica Rabbit? Should I know who that is?” Vick asked as I explained my cartoon obsession.
I sat up on my elbow and faced the blanket as if she could see me from the other side.
“You’re not fucking serious?”
She laughed. “Yes! It’s not like I sit around watching TV all the time, Sebastian. I mean, I couldn’t tell you the last time I watched a movie.”
I plopped back on my pillows in shock.
I thought I’d had a hard upbringing, but at least I had the colorful fun of cartoons to get me through. Apparently, Vick had even less than I did.
“Soon,” I promised. “We need electricity, and we need to buy a TV and a DVD player.”
Again, she laughed.
“Sure. We’ll just hook it up in the den and relax in our leather recliners,” she joked.
“I’m being serious, Vick. We won’t always live like this. It will get better.”
She didn’t respond, and I knew it was because she didn’t believe me. Nothing had ever been great in our lives. We couldn’t expect it to get better when it was only bound to get worse.
But I had determination. And if I had to lie, cheat, and steal to get somewhere in this life, then so be it. Honesty was always best, but honestly, I was hanging on the edge of everything. I wanted a real life. One that didn’t consist of a tin building without electricity and no idea where my next meal would come from.
Soon, I promised myself before turning on my side and drifting off to sleep.
EIGHTEEN
DETERMINATION WAS APPARENTLY MY GAME. After that night, I stalked local businesses for the items we would need to get electricity at our place.
A generator.
Extension cords.
The works.
I wasn’t usually one to steal things I didn’t need—always putting wants behind the necessities—but this was different. Everyone should experience the joys of entertainment in their life because without those things, you are only surviving.
I wanted to live.
Also, we had nearly frozen to death the winter before. Even wrapped in all the blankets we could find while burning anything we could in a large burn barrel we had snagged.
That wasn’t going to happen again. We wouldn’t survive. If it was the last thing I did, I’d find us a way to generate some heat. My fingers and toes depended on it.
So after casing a few places, I convinced a local kid to help me steal a generator from a Chinese restaurant around the corner from our place for the last ten bucks I had in my pocket from pawning Jane’s grandmo
ther’s ring.
He was an obvious tweaker—his eyes wide and red and his hands shaking for his next fix—and I knew he would do anything for his next hit.
It worked out.
I had the manpower I needed to drag that heavy son of a bitch home, and he had enough money in his pocket to get his high that night.
“Holy shit!” Vick exclaimed when I turned on a light for the first time. “This is amazing!”
I laughed as she turned a lamp I had snagged on and off with a wide grin on her face.
Electricity.
Light.
Such a normal thing to have and this girl was flipping out because she wouldn’t have to use candles anymore. We would have to make sure we had plenty of gasoline to keep the thing running, but that was fine by me. We only needed light at night, and we only needed heat on occasion.
A source of heat was next on my list.
I had cleaned the area around the building we made a home and checked to make sure the place was secure. I didn’t want to wake in the middle of the night to find some crazy fuck standing over me. If we had found shelter in the building, I was positive someone else would try to at some point, and we needed to protect ourselves.
Thankfully, we hadn’t had that problem yet, but I wanted to make sure to cover all our bases.
Burning the brush I’d cleared to get heat was no longer an option since it was gone, but I knew I would come up with something. If I could steal a generator, stealing a heater should be cake.
“I can’t believe you did this, Sebastian,” Vick whispered with emotion in her eyes.
I looked away since emotion wasn’t something we ever showed. She was hard as stone, and so was I. We didn’t need to go getting soft now, not when things were slowly looking up.
“Well, there’s more to come. I promised things would get better, and I always keep my promises.”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to keep that promise.
A week later, we celebrated Vick’s birthday the weekend before the actual day. We dined and dashed at a seafood restaurant since she was determined to try lobster, and then we managed a few cheap bottles of vodka and drank and laughed on the corner under Graffiti Bridge.
Street kids left their stories there, marking their madness with spray paint and sadness under a broken, unused bridge on the edge of the city. Vibrant colors swirled as pictures depicting life, love, and sorrow played out around us. Names in thick unique fonts stood out, naming those who had been in the same predicament as us—homeless, alone, and taking on New York City.
“We need to leave our mark on this place,” she slurred, lying back on the dirty concrete and staring up at the artwork plastered on every available surface.
“Next time, we’ll bring paint.”
“Yeah, you can draw your Jessica Rabbit everywhere.” She laughed.
I snorted. “Yep. Except I draw for shit.”
She turned on her side, facing me with a smile. “Is Sebastian actually admitting that he sucks at something? No fucking way.”
I pushed at her shoulder, rolling my eyes, and took a swig from my bottle. The burning liquid somehow warmed me from the inside out.
“I’m great at everything I do.” I chuckled.
“Yeah, right.”
Silence moved over us as we stared at the cracking concrete above us.
“Sebastian?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s your last name?”
I knew my last name, but for some reason, it had never held any meaning to me since I had no family to hold that name with me.
I wasn’t even sure how I had gotten the name or where it had come from. And at that moment, as her question bounced around my brain, hitting all the receptors and triggering terrible memories of my life, I knew I had to drop Stephens.
One day, I would make my own name. Something that belonged to me and only me. A name that matched me as a person and the life I had led since I had no family name to claim.
“I don’t have a last name,” I muttered, swallowing more of the burning liquid.
She sighed.
“Yeah. Me either.”
Vick was my friend, and somehow, she was slowly becoming like family, but I wasn’t about to hold on to her. I had lost every person I had ever dared to love, and something told me the second I claimed a connection with Vick, I would lose her, too.
“This shit is depressing. Let’s do something fun,” she said, standing and throwing her bottle at the colorful concrete wall at her side.
The bottle exploded, shattering into bits of glass before falling to the ground.
I stood and brushed off my ripped jeans.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Something exciting.”
I could see the wheels working in her mind then I watched as her eyes went wide and she grinned.
“I got it,” she said, pulling on my hand and dragging me along with her. “I think it’s time I learn all about this Jessica Rabbit.”
I laughed. “Oh yeah, and how’s that going to happen?”
After emptying my bottle, I threw mine against the wall as we passed; it shattered like hers had before glittering to the ground.
“With a TV and a DVD player, of course.”
“And where are we going to get those?”
I had a feeling I knew the answer, but I asked anyway.
She turned and faced me, her smile growing evil and determined.
“The same way we get everything we have. We’re going to take them.”
NINETEEN
“BUT IT’S MY BIRTHDAY,” SHE WHINED. “Come on, Sebastian. I promise it will be okay.”
I dug my feet into the grass and pulled my arm away. I had no idea when I agreed to go along with stealing a big screen TV that she already had a house in mind.
“I’ve had my eye on this place for a while now. If I could live anywhere in the world, it would be in this house. They will have everything I want. I just know it.”
“Are you sure there are no alarms?” I asked as I stared up at the enormous house that loomed in front of us.
The place looked expensive, and expensive places always protected their shit. I had no doubt an alarm was in place, and if not, a big fucking dog was sure to be on the other side of the fence ready to take a bite out of our asses.
“No alarms. I used to sit across the street and watch the dad leave every morning. It’s like the perfect fucking family lives here.”
She began climbing the fence, and when she realized I wasn’t following, she turned and sighed. “Just trust me.”
“Darrell has a big screen. Let’s just go back to the Jepson’s and take his,” I said as I crept across the lawn toward the fence.
“Nope. I want this house.”
I stopped.
“It doesn’t matter which house it is as long as we get what we want,” I stated.
Something in my gut was telling me to turn around. A darkness shivered up my spine, telling me what we were doing was wrong. Usually, I was along for the ride, but this night was different.
Something wasn’t right.
“Come the fuck on, Sebastian,” Vick whispered as she disappeared over the side of the fence.
She was faster than I was, but she still had clumsy moments, which was why I never let her do jobs by herself. She thought she was a professional, and while she was good at stealing, she wasn’t very good at not getting caught. Several times, she had accidentally tripped the alarms.
I thought back to the first night I met her and how calm and cool she had been about breaking into the house. She seemed like a professional then. It was only after working together I noticed that she was carefree about it, never careful enough to cover her back and watch for traps.
I lifted myself over the fence and fell to my feet beside her.
“You’re getting slow.” She grinned over at me.
“Fuck you,” I said. “Let’s get this shit over with.”
We moved across the
perfectly manicured backyard toward the house Vick had her eyes on for the past few weeks. She said it was the house of her dreams. She wanted a home and family like the one inside.
We all had our dreams and envisioned the kind of life we would have if we hadn’t been given away, so I understood her obsession with the house. Even though I’d told her over and over again that I would pick the houses, I knew her birthday was soon. So like a dumbass, I went along with her plan.
“Okay, are you sure the people are out of town?” I asked.
“Yes. Now quit worrying. We’ll be in and out before you know it.”
I trusted Vick with my life. I had no reason to believe she would lie to me about anything.
“Fine, but still no lights. The neighbors around neighborhoods like this watch each other’s backs. Let’s just get in, get the shit, and get the fuck out.”
“I’m not an idiot, Sebastian. I’ve done this more than you have.”
The stolen credit card I used on the back door bent as I pressed it into the lock. Pulling on the knob, the door popped open.
“Like a pro,” Vick whispered with a smile.
She bumped her shoulder into mine playfully. That was the problem. She played too much in serious situations like this one.
I gave her the evil eye, telling her to shut the fuck up, and then moved stealthily through the house. Vick was on my heels as we moved through the place, looking for valuables along the way. The bottom floor was spotless, and we didn’t find much of anything.
“Come on,” Vick whispered, taking the stairs to the second floor.
I followed her into the master bedroom.
“Jackpot,” Vick whispered, tugging on my arm. “Help me get the TV.”
Nodding my head, I moved toward the wall with the TV, and we both lifted it from the stand and set it on the floor. It was at that moment, the bathroom door flew open, and a man in a pair of silk pajama pants stepped out. He was yawning with his eyes closed and scratching his head. Once his eyes opened, they landed on us. Vick and I both froze in the light coming from the bathroom.
Little Black Box Set (The Black Trilogy) Page 56