HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1)

by Lexie Ray

  “I’m not in trouble anymore,” I said, wincing at the medicine’s sting. “I escaped.”

  Jeff and Brenda exchanged a look.

  “I’m not going to put the soup back on,” Brenda said.

  “You’re not going to help this poor soul?” Jeff asked, peering at her.

  “Yes, but at home,” Brenda said. She looked at me, her brown eyes deadly serious. “Do you swear that you’re not in trouble? Is anyone coming after you?”

  “I swear,” I said. “No one is coming.”

  “I’m asking because I think we should take you into our home,” Brenda said. “God brought you here. We were just getting ready to leave, but he directed you to our doorstep. That has to mean something.”

  “Are you an addict?” Jeff asked me. “You can’t bring anything dangerous into our home. We have two daughters.”

  “I don’t use,” I said. “I never have.”

  “Our home is a place for healing and love,” Brenda said. “You have to leave whatever life you had before this at the door.”

  “That’s all I want to do,” I said, tears running down my face. “That’s all I want, to leave my life, to start new.”

  “Then I think we have a place for you,” Jeff said. “What’s your name?”

  “It’s Jasmine.”

  I fell asleep in the car on the road, thinking about Cocoa. That was one thing I regretted about leaving Mama’s nightclub like that. Cocoa was going to go into that horrible room after the club closed and find it empty. My roommate had always been kind to me.

  “We’re here,” Jeff announced.

  I opened my eyes to see a quaint two-story home in a well-lit neighborhood. It looked like what I’d always imagined a home should.

  Jeff helped me from the back seat, my injuries inhibiting my ability to move on my own.

  Brenda opened the door and was met by a girl who looked to be about my age.

  “Thanks for staying so late, Hailey,” Brenda said, handing the girl some money. “See you next week.”

  “That’s the babysitter,” Jeff explained, letting me lean heavily on him as we walked up the sidewalk.

  Hailey passed us, but not before giving me a horrified look. I knew my face was frightful, but that wasn’t even the worst of my wounds.

  The inside of the house was clean and homey. There were toys and dolls everywhere, children’s crayon scribbles framed on the walls like fine art. The couch in the sitting room sagged in the middle, the television was dusty. People actually lived in this house, something that warmed my soul. Jack’s house had been soulless, a clean place to display pristine collections of furniture.

  Brenda approached us from a back hallway.

  “The girls are fast asleep,” she said. “Come sit down in the kitchen. I can fix you up something to eat and we can talk about what’s going to happen.”

  I eased painfully into a kitchen chair that Jeff pulled out for me as Brenda turned on the stove and threw several ingredients into a pan.

  “How does stir fry sound?” she asked over her shoulder.

  After my ordeal tonight, I didn’t think I’d have an appetite. But something about freedom and renewed hope in my future made me ravenous.

  “That sounds amazing,” I said. “Thank you.”

  Jeff set the coffeemaker and it started percolating, filling the kitchen with a delicious smell. He set a glass of orange juice in front of me for the meantime.

  “What happened to you?” he asked, sitting at the table and resting his chin on his fist.

  I shook my head. If they knew what I was, what I had been, they’d toss me out on the street.

  “I can’t talk about it,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m just not comfortable.”

  “I understand,” Jeff said. He was quiet for a moment. “Are you seriously injured? There’s a clinic, not far from here, that won’t ask you very many questions. They definitely won’t call the police. Should I take you right now? They’re open all night.”

  I shook my head again. I didn’t want anyone to know what had happened to me.

  “I’ll heal now, I know I will,” I said. “I just needed to be away from that situation.”

  “Was someone abusing you?” Brenda asked from the stove.

  Someone? Tracy caused these wounds, Don Costa arranged it, Mama pimped me out to dozens of men, Jack nearly killed me, and my mother abandoned me in favor of the bottle. I couldn’t count how many abusers I’d had.

  “It’s over now,” I said finally. “I don’t want you all to think less of me by knowing what happened.”

  “We would never,” Jeff said. “You’re a victim here.”

  Brenda served up the stir fry on three plates as Jeff got some coffee. We fell into the meal. The vegetables mixed in with the rice were crisp and delicious. Eating this food made me feel clean, like everything was going to be better now. Jeff and Brenda could never harm me like I’d been hurt at Mama’s.

  “I want you to feel free to stay here as long as you want,” Brenda said after we’d cleaned our plates. “Use this opportunity to heal, to recover, to get back on your feet.”

  I wasn’t sure that I had ever been “on my feet.”

  “Thank you,” I said anyway. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if I hadn’t found you.”

  “It’s the strangest thing,” Jeff remarked. “We only volunteer at that shelter once a week. It’s our way of keeping our life in perspective. We had a big spill in the kitchen that took longer than usual to clean up, so that’s why we were there late tonight. Otherwise, it would’ve been already closed by the time you found it.”

  “It was divine intervention,” Brenda added. “I think God made me drop that entire pot of soup.”

  “It went everywhere,” Jeff said, laughing. “The Johnsons work tomorrow. I bet the floor will still be sticky.

  “Vegetable soup,” Brenda explained. “I’m sure we didn’t find all of it.”

  The coffee was delicious, warming my soul, but it didn’t do anything for my utter exhaustion. I tried to follow Jeff and Brenda’s conversation, but my head kept dipping down, my eyes closing of their own volition.

  “Let me show you where you’ll be sleeping,” Jeff said. “I’m sure you’re tired.”

  He helped me down the hallway. “This is the girls’ room,” he explained, pointing at a closed door, “and this is mine and Brenda’s room. You’re in here, the guest room.”

  He flicked on the light and I could’ve wept. The room was simple, but clean and comfortable. Everything was decorated in a shade of pale blue, and a basket of seashells brightened the top of a chest of drawers.

  “You have your own bathroom in here,” he said, helping me sit on the bed. “You can find towels and toiletries in there.”

  “We keep clean clothes in the drawers,” Brenda said, popping her head in the room. “We’ve had a few people stay here before you. There are plenty of different sizes of things—you should be able to find something that will fit.”

  “I really appreciate this,” I said. “You don’t know how much. You’ve saved my life.”

  “God saved your life,” Brenda said. “He only used us as tools to help.”

  As they left and shut the door behind me, I slowly removed my nightclub uniform. Shuffling to the bathroom, I stuffed it in the trash. Goodbye, Jazz. I never wanted to think about that period of my life again.

  I opened the chest of drawers and was able to find a tank top and some cotton shorts that didn’t swallow me whole.

  I sat on the bed to rest for a moment—each movement took a special amount of effort—and I fell asleep before even realizing it.

  * * * *

  For a long time, I couldn’t get out of the bed. Brenda told me that I slept for a solid 36 hours at first. When I woke up, all I felt was hunger.

  Brenda and Jeff understood, they told me. My body—and spirit—needed rest to heal.

  Brenda brought me my meals on a tray. I always ate as much as I could before set
ting it on the bedside table. When I awoke, it was always gone.

  A week went by like this. I slipped in and out of slumber, leaving the bed only to shower and use the bathroom. Gradually, my body began to loosen up again. The bloody wounds stitched themselves together, adding to my collection of scars. The cigar burns took the longest to heal. I could only hope that the blemishes would someday fade.

  One day, I decided to try to leave the room. I felt stronger than I had been, and every step didn’t hurt like it used to.

  The hallway was empty, the bedroom doors closed, so I followed the sounds coming from the kitchen. Brenda and Jeff were seated at the kitchen table having breakfast with two girls with blonde hair that spread around their heads like halos.

  “Look who’s up and about,” Jeff exclaimed, beaming at me. He started clapping with no trace of sarcasm. I laughed as Brenda and the girls joined in.

  “How are you feeling?” Brenda asked.

  “So much better,” I said, “thank you.”

  Brenda hopped up and got my plate from the microwave, setting it down at the table.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” she said, smiling.

  The little girls watched as I sat down and started eating.

  “You were asleep for a long time,” the oldest one said soberly.

  “You’re right,” I said, after I swallowed a mouthful of scrambled eggs. “I was very sleepy.”

  “Were you very sick?” the younger girl asked.

  I nodded. “Yes, very sick. But I’m much better now.”

  “Girls, this is Jasmine,” Jeff said. “She’s going to be staying with us for a while.”

  “I’m Ruby,” the oldest one said.

  “And my name’s Maggie,” the younger one chimed in, smiling and sticking her tongue out through her missing front teeth. “I like your name. Jasminnie.”

  “Her name’s not Jasminnie,” Ruby said.

  “Jasminnie,” Maggie tried again. “Minnie.”

  “That’s good enough,” I said, laughing.

  And Minnie I became.

  Happiness was my new normal.

  I loved helping Brenda out around the house and she seemed to appreciate my expertise. I didn’t want to tell her that I’d learned attention to detail from my dead mother’s psychotic boyfriend. But every room shone. I even dusted the television.

  Ruby and Maggie were constant sources of joy. Ruby was very serious, but she was the older sister. She had to be serious. She had to know everything.

  Maggie was a delight. She followed me constantly, asking questions in rapid-fire format. Whatever I was doing, she wanted to be doing. This included chores, watching television, and even studying. Maggie was in kindergarten. She liked to “study” her alphabet and numbers while I studied for my high school diploma.

  In time, I had opened up a little more to my kind hosts. I never told them the entire truth because I didn’t want to scare them. But they did know my mother had died and that I’d dropped out of high school. The figured out on their own that I had been homeless, living on the streets for a time. Jeff expressed confusion over why they hadn’t seen me in the shelter before. I also didn’t tell them that I hated shelters—that I had been beyond desperation when I staggered in that night.

  Jeff had given me some study materials so that I could obtain my GED. Getting it would be something that would help me for the rest of my life, he said. I understood that I wouldn’t be able to get a job without it. However, it was just a little difficult to get back in the swing of grammar and algebra after all that had happened. Sweet little Maggie was the one who encouraged me the most, sitting down next to me with a placemat printed with the alphabet while I pored over the scientific method.

  “I hypothesize that you will pass the GED test, Minnie,” she said after I explained the basic gist of what I was studying.

  “In a few days, we will know the results and conclude whether you are right,” I responded, tickling her.

  After I passed the GED, Jeff and Brenda threw me a small party, complete with pizza and ice cream and everything I loved. I didn’t mind that the only attendees were the people who had taken me into their lives.

  Brenda started bringing home employment circulars that I would peruse with a highlighter in hand, circling all the positions I thought I might be good at. I steered clear of waitress positions, never explaining why.

  I got my driver’s license, I registered to vote, and I volunteered every week at the homeless shelter with Jeff and Brenda. I thought it was good to remind myself where I never wanted to end up again.

  Christmas passed—the first Christmas that I’d received presents since before my mother and I moved in with Jack. Brenda and Jeff bought me a new coat. Ruby and Maggie pooled their allowance money to give me a necklace with a heart charm on it.

  The family accepted Minnie, and I became a part of them. On nights when Jeff and Brenda would go out on dates, I happily watched over the girls. I even learned how to cook, and Brenda and I would trade off days for preparing dinner. I sometimes read to the girls before they went to bed.

  I was part of a family, and they accepted me. I couldn’t wish for anything better.

  Yes, everything was going perfectly until the day I got sick.

  Chapter Five

  It began one night after I’d tried out a new recipe for dinner. It was a hearty stew made out of sweet potatoes, apples, and pork—perfect for the last cold days of winter. Spring had to be coming soon, so I wanted to try the dish before it was out of season. I felt fine eating it, but had to rush to the bathroom with diarrhea afterward. I was scared to death that I’d undercooked the pork—even though it was exceedingly tender and fell apart in my mouth—but no one else seemed affected.

  I had to beg off reading to Ruby and Maggie that night. My entire body ached and sudden waves of exhaustion dragged me to the bed. I thought perhaps that if it wasn’t the pork, I was overdoing things—too much too fast. Life had gotten so much better so quickly that maybe my tortured body was having a hard time adjusting.

  Try again in the morning, I told myself. My eyelids felt weighted down as I let them fall shut in my bed.

  I didn't wake up the next day until 1 p.m., and that was only because of my body hurting so badly. What was wrong with me?

  "The flu, I think," Brenda said grimly, studying a beeping thermometer. "You have a fever of 101."

  "Is that bad?" I groaned, barely able to get the words out. I felt like somebody had left a dumbbell on my head. I'd always been a healthy child—being bedridden was a foreign idea to me.

  "Wanna come watch a movie, Minnie?" Maggie asked from the open doorway. "That always makes me feel better when I'm sick."

  "No thanks, sweetie," I said. "Maybe later, though."

  "Have you puked yet?" she asked eagerly.

  "Don't be disgusting, Maggie," Brenda scolded as I laughed laboriously. Food was the last thing on my mind, proving that I really was sick.

  "Better stay away," I warned in a pseudo-serious voice. "I might puke on you."

  The little girl ran squealing from the room as I made fake gagging noises. Brenda laughed with a small amount of horror.

  "You're good with her, you know," she said. "You're good with both of them, but what you have with the little one is special."

  That made me feel good even through my suffering.

  "Thanks," I said.

  "You ever think about how many kids you want?" Brenda asked, dabbing my forehead with a damp washcloth.

  "Kids?" I croaked. "I'd like some one day, but not until I have everything figured out."

  "Everything figured out?" Brenda repeated, laughing. "You let me know when that happens. Minnie, I don't have everything figured out, and I've got twenty years on you."

  I shook my head. "You and Jeff totally seem like you know what to do in any situation. It's like you have an instruction book stashed somewhere that you study every night before you go to bed. Then, when you wake up and things start happening, y
ou know exactly what to do."

  Brenda hadn't stopped laughing. "My only instruction book is the Bible," she said, chortling. "Other than that, it's experience, plain and simple. Experience and communication."

  Brenda took the washcloth off my forehead and flipped it to the cool side.

  "You're a smart girl, Minnie," she said. "You're making amazing decisions right now. One day, everything will fall into place without you even realizing it. You'll just open your eyes and think, 'this is where I was meant to be.'"

  I smiled and tried to respond, but a fit of wet, wretched coughing stole my voice. Brenda watched me struggle for air, her face a picture of concern.

  "I really don't like that cough," Brenda said as I forced some water down my ravaged throat.

  "It's not my favorite, either," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

  "Whatever this is, we're going to address it early," Brenda said, clapping her hands once. "Don't worry about changing out of you pajamas. I'm going to take you to the clinic."

  As soon as Hailey, the babysitter, arrived, Brenda and I took off. Usually, I would've loved the opportunity to log miles behind the wheel, but I didn't even ask. Simply shuffling to the car was all I could really do.

  The doctor listened to my heart, took my temperature, and looked at my throat and ears.

  “You’re running a fever,” he murmured, almost to himself.

  “Isn’t there a bug going around?” Brenda asked. She’d accompanied me to the examination room.

  The doctor laughed shortly. “Believe me, there’s always some bug going around.”

  He turned around and pulled a needle and several vials from a drawer, along with a tourniquet.

  “Let’s take some blood and figure out which bug this is,” he said.

  I squeezed my eyes shut as he tied the tourniquet around my arm and cleaned the inside of my elbow with a cotton swab. Brenda held my other hand as the needle pierced my skin. I couldn’t bear to look at the blood leaving my body. It gave me too many bad memories.

  “All done,” the doctor announced. “Hold this gauze to your arm and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  The door shut behind him and I finally opened my eyes. Brenda was watching me sympathetically.