Pieces

by G. Benson

  He was bleeding from where the wood had split his cheek.

  “Mattie?”

  He blinked twice, before focusing on her, just barely. His big brown eyes were vaguely cloudy. She could barely see the injured one, the swelling was so bad. The pupils, if she squinted, looked different sizes. That couldn’t be good.

  “Hi,” Mattie said.

  Carmen swallowed, a lump in her throat so big she thought she might choke on it. “Hey.”

  “What happened?”

  Carmen looked up. Now both Rae and Jia stood behind the couch, both hovering.

  “Shit, your eye.” Rae was staring at her as if the harder she looked, the faster Carmen would give her information.

  Her pulse was pounding; everything hurt. God, Ollie’s face. The look in her eyes. Carmen couldn’t think about that right now.

  Jia rounded the sofa and sat next to Mattie, cupping his cheeks, her eyes searching his face while he blinked up at her slowly. “Carmen, who did this?”

  What had happened? It was already a blur in her mind.

  “Five guys, one of them the guy that tried to mug Dex and me way back. They came into the bar, kicked the customers out, then tried to have a go at Dex and I—”

  Jia’s head whipped around, and Carmen shook her head. “No, no, Dex is fine,” she finished. “We took them out, but Ollie and Mattie were both there. Mattie tried to help; he got hit by a plank of wood. Ollie called the damn cops, so Mattie and I had to run. Dex stayed behind to clear it up.”

  “Ollie?”

  Carmen looked up sharply. Sara was there. Where had she come from?

  “Is she okay?”

  Carmen nodded tightly before she turned back to Jia. “Is Mattie okay?”

  Jia’s thumb brushed over his cheekbone. Gently, she pulled back his eyelids. “He needs a doctor.”

  “Fuck.”

  It was Rae that swore, but it may as well have been Carmen.

  “Get him to a doctor, then,” Sara snapped. “He needs it.”

  Carmen gnawed at her bottom lip, one hand still on Mattie and the other wrapped around her own ribs. She bounced a little, her behind resting on her heels. It hurt, but the movement helped her focus. A minor. With another minor. Off the street with an injury. They’d call social services. He’d get taken away again.

  Jia was still staring at Mattie. “It might not be serious, but I’m not a doctor. And I think any of our medical contacts would just say to take him to the ER. We can’t mess around with head injuries.” She finally looked to Carmen. “Did he pass out? Vomit? Say anything that didn’t make sense?”

  Carmen shook her head, everything spinning around her except for her brother, small and dazed in front of her. If she lifted her hand off him, she thought he’d disappear, sucked into the nightmare this evening had become. “No. None of that, but he’s gotten more and more out of it.”

  Mattie turned to her, blinking heavily. As if on cue, he lurched and vomited over the edge of the couch, the splash of it hitting Carmen’s pants. Pitching forward, she helped him stay sitting as he heaved, her hand rubbing circles on his back. A cloth appeared in front of her, and she plucked it up, wiping Mattie’s face.

  “That’s it.” Carmen stood. “I have to get him to the ER.”

  Jia stood too. Carmen bent and heaved Mattie up, not caring if he threw up again all over her back. He flopped against her.

  A full-grown man had hit her brother in the head with a plank of wood.

  “How?” Carmen asked, turning to Jia. How did she get him there? How did she deal with this? Everything was bigger than it ever had been, rearing over her: too heavy, too large. Someone needed to tell her what to do. Her throat was tight. She needed someone, for once, to do something for her.

  “Ambulance… No.” Jia shook her head. “Follow me.”

  Although she felt as if she were going to snap open and fall apart right there, Carmen did as she was told. Her ribs still ached—burned, really. Her face hurt. Mattie was like a sack of bricks in her arms as she took unsteady steps after Jia. She stopped in the doorway to Jia’s office and watched as Jia slipped a brick out of the wall and pulled out a wad of cash.

  “Take a taxi. This is for emergencies.”

  Jia shoved some bills into the pocket of Carmen’s pants.

  “Jia…” Carmen licked her lips, staring at her. “What do I tell them?”

  Her lips pressed together as she seemed to think, her eyes on Carmen’s cheek. She met Carmen’s gaze. “There’s no real way out of this. They’ll have to know.”

  “Jia…”

  “We’ll deal with it when it happens, Carmen.”

  As she clutched Mattie closer, her forearms holding him under his bony bottom, Carmen wondered if she could carry him again. But she had to. “Okay.”

  “Do you want me to come?”

  That offer, right then, meant everything. But Carmen shook her head; a prickling in her eyes made her blink and look away. “No. It’s better for everything here if you don’t.”

  And Carmen turned, almost running into Rae and Sara. She pushed past them. She needed a taxi, a hospital.

  Rae walked up from behind her and held the door open.

  “Carmen!”

  Carmen paused. Sara was watching her, her face unreadable. “Ollie’s fine, right?”

  “She was when I saw her.”

  Guilt leaving her sick, Carmen walked down the alley. She went as fast as she could, waving down a taxi when she reached a road busy enough.

  “The closest hospital.” The woman up front looked at her through the rearview mirror, then turned all the way around in her seat, her gaze sweeping over them both. What did she see when she looked at them? A Hispanic teen clutching a little black boy, both looking beat-up. She pulled Mattie closer, protectiveness searing through her.

  “Is he okay?”

  Her voice was kind, and Carmen thought she may cry. “I don’t know.”

  The woman gave a nod and pulled into traffic.

  “Mattie?”

  He groaned and shook his head.

  “Mattie!”

  She didn’t shout, but his head lolled, and he looked up at her.

  “What?” There was a slur to his voice.

  Ice froze her stomach. “Stay awake.”

  He made a grumbling sound, his eyelashes fluttering against his cheek.

  “What happened?” The driver’s eyes were on her again through the mirror.

  Carmen stared back. “It was…fast. We were mugged on our way home from school.”

  She didn’t believe her. Carmen could see it. But she said, “Okay.”

  They didn’t speak anymore. By the time they pulled up at the hospital, Carmen had spent the entire drive trying to keep Mattie awake, with fear pricking at her every limb. The driver jumped out, pulled the door open, and helped Carmen stand and get Mattie back into her arms.

  When Carmen tried to give her the cash, she pushed her hand away. “Take care of him.”

  Throat tight, Carmen blinked. “Thank you.” And she turned and walked inside.

  Ollie’s fingers were trembling.

  Her room wasn’t big enough.

  The conversation she’d had with the cops was a blur, the memory of Dex explaining an accident away vague in the back of her mind.

  What wasn’t vague was the look on Carmen’s face when Ollie had said she’d called the cops. Because why wouldn’t she do that when a group of five men came in and started a fight? When one had hit Carmen’s back with a piece of pipe and Carmen had cried out in pain so loudly it had made Ollie cringe? When that tiny boy who was apparently Carmen’s brother had been hit in the face?

  Who wouldn’t call the cops?

  Maybe she wouldn’
t have done it if she’d known the situation. If she’d known Carmen was a runaway. That her brother was one. He looked so young—Ollie was no judge of kids and ages; she had no experience with them. But he was small and skinny, even when he’d stood puffed out in front of Carmen like he thought he could protect her.

  Even when he’d ducked a hit and swung like he knew what he was doing.

  Like Carmen had.

  And Dex. They all knew how to fight.

  If she’d known that, that Carmen was hiding her younger brother, that they could hold their own, maybe she wouldn’t have called the cops. Then she wouldn’t have had to see such a look of anger and betrayal flash over Carmen’s eyes. Directed at Ollie. If Carmen had damn well trusted her, maybe Ollie would have done things differently.

  She clenched her fists, and her nails bit into her palm.

  Who even was Carmen? What did Ollie know? She knew what she’d seen flashes of, accidentally, of foster care and mentions of some minor charges. But what did she know of her life?

  Carmen’s mother was dead, like Ollie’s. She knew nothing of Carmen’s father. She’d not even known she had a brother. All these months Ollie had thought Carmen had been in school, in a house. But instead, she was living on the streets.

  Her stomach was burning. Ollie felt betrayed, and anger flashed in her gut at the betrayal that had been on Carmen’s face. How could she be betrayed when all Ollie had ever done was given her everything she could?

  Berated and angry and confused and…damn it. Worried.

  Mattie had been hit hard. So had Carmen. She had turned, holding her brother and looking too small to do so, and ran, and Ollie had absolutely no way of finding out if she was okay. If that boy was okay.

  The last thing she’d seen was Carmen’s brother’s eyes, the same shape as Carmen’s, the color darker, as they stared at her, dazed.

  When someone knocked at her window, Ollie jumped, her hand landing on her chest. Her heart pumped against it, thumping, as she looked up and squinted. Sara was staring at her.

  Swallowing, Ollie took a deep breath. She wanted to scream, to cry, to throw something. She wanted to ignore Sara so she could be alone with the maelstrom in her chest. At the same time, she wanted to let Sara wrap her arms around her while Ollie let out a sob.

  More than anything, she wanted her mom to be alive. She wanted her to be here so Ollie could stumble to the living room and fall against her, all cool hands and the brush of lips against her forehead.

  Ollie stood and opened the window.

  Sara stared up at her. “Hey.”

  “Hi.” Ollie’s voice was raw, emotion stripping it clean. “Why are you at the window?”

  “It’s late. I thought your dad might not let me in.”

  “He’s at some work dinner, a conference thing. Come on.”

  Sara clambered in, Ollie helping her through. “Are you okay?” Sara asked.

  Ollie clenched her jaw and shook her head. If she did it hard enough, could she shake off the weight in her chest, shake it away so she could know what she really felt about Carmen?

  “What happened?” Sara asked.

  Why was she asking? Ollie narrowed her eyes. “How do you know something did?”

  Sara blinked and then bit her lip, looking away, looking down, anywhere but at Ollie. “No reason.”

  “You can’t lie for shit.”

  Sara looked back at her. “I saw Carmen. And Mattie. I know something happened. I know you were there.”

  Ollie froze. “What—how did you see her?”

  Sara stared at her, her lips parted and moving like she wanted to say something. But there was nothing but silence.

  “Wait.” Ollie froze. “Did you know about Mattie?”

  Rae. Carmen had said Rae had been helping her. And Rae and Sara were…something. “Sara, did you know?”

  “I only found out the other week, by accident. I—”

  “You knew? For weeks? You knew she was hiding all this?” That betrayal was back, thick in her veins and thundering through her body, to sink into her muscles, her bones. It layered every part of her.

  “Ollie, listen. Please.” Sara’s hands came up as though she was about to grab her, but then she seemed to think better of it. “I only just found out, and I told her she had to tell you soon or I would. That it wasn’t fair. I just… I’ve been there, you know?” Her eyes were pleading. “I didn’t want to let you down, but I know how scared she must be.”

  Breathing hard through her nose, Ollie tried to calm down. She tried to slow that slamming pulse that spread this feeling deeper inside her. “Sara.” Her voice cracked. “You tell me everything.”

  Unshed tears were in Sara’s eyes, and she shook her head. “I do, I still do. But this wasn’t mine, Ollie. Can you understand that? It wasn’t mine. It was deeper than that. This is serious. She’s a runaway with a kid brother.”

  Ollie hiccupped, and finally, Sara stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her. Ollie’s forehead dug into her shoulder.

  “Ollie,” Sara murmured, her hand running up and down her back. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Is she okay?” Ollie’s voice was muffled, her face still buried in Sara’s neck.

  “She seemed it when I saw her, a bit beat-up. But Mattie…”

  Ollie pulled back and looked at her. “What?”

  “They think he has a concussion. Maybe more.”

  “God, Sara…” Ollie swallowed. “He got hit so hard.” She had never seen anything like that. The violence everyone there had doled out.

  And Carmen in the middle of it, more than holding her own. The fierceness in her voice when she’d shouted for Ollie to take Mattie and leave. The shock had rooted Ollie to the ground, making it impossible to move as she watched a pipe go over Carmen’s back and watched Carmen shatter a guy’s nose. As she ducked two at once like she knew what she was doing. The way Ollie had finally snapped back to earth and reached for her brother, who Ollie figured Mattie was, but her hand had only managed to graze his shirt as he’d ducked into the fray.

  “He’ll be okay.” The doubt lacing Sara’s voice left Ollie cold.

  The room was full of sniffing, coughing, and the crying of babies. For a second, Carmen stood, blinking in the fluorescent light, Mattie’s face still against her neck. With shaking knees, she stepped forward to the desk that said Admissions. “Excuse me?”

  The man at the desk held up a finger, typing at the keyboard in front of him with the other hand. He didn’t look up.

  Carmen waited a few seconds. “Please, we need help.”

  The man finally glanced up. “Take a seat.”

  She flopped into the chair that was there, Mattie wrapped around her. He shifted slightly, the movement relieving her a little.

  “What’s happened?” His eyes were still on the screen in front of him.

  “It’s not for me. I’m fine. It’s my brother.”

  The man straightened, intently looking at Mattie. He’d clearly thought he was asleep. “What’s his name?”

  He watched her openly, his hands over the keyboard again. Did she lie? Would they know?

  “Mattie. Please, we were mugged. They hit him in the face with a two-by-four and—”

  The man stood up immediately, walking around the desk and squatting by the chair. “Mattie?” he asked.

  Mattie rolled his head a little to blink at him.

  “My name’s Viktor. Can I touch your face?”

  Mattie just stared at him, and Viktor reached forward, Carmen shifting so Mattie wasn’t so tight against her chest.

  He gently probed Mattie’s face with his fingers, then he pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and shone it in his eyes, all the while asking her questions. “Did he lose consciousness immediately?�
�

  “No.”

  “Has he since?”

  “No, but he’s really out of it, more and more. He may have fallen asleep not long after. In the taxi, I couldn’t really keep him awake.”

  “Mattie, follow my finger?” Viktor moved his hand like a cross, one finger held out. “Has he vomited?”

  “Once.”

  “Good job, Mattie.” From Viktor’s face, Carmen knew he was lying. “Okay, Mattie. How old are you.”

  A pause. “Nine.”

  Carmen nodded, relieved, and Viktor asked, “What day is it?”

  “Friday?”

  No, it wasn’t. That relief was gone like it hadn’t even appeared. Now Carmen wanted to throw up. He always knew what day it was. It was part of the educational stuff they did with Dex, a dash of normalcy.

  “Okay, and who is with you right now?”

  Mattie turned slowly and stared at her. Every hair stood on end when she noticed the eye was almost swollen shut now, a grotesque purple. Far worse than before.

  “Um…” He blinked at her, and Carmen couldn’t breathe. Ten long seconds passed, and his words were a little slurred like they would be when he was younger and tired. “Carmen. My sister.”

  Viktor looked at her, and she nodded.

  “All right. Great, buddy. Do you remember how you got here?”

  Mattie pushed back a little off her chest, looking around, blurry and lost. “My head really hurts.”

  “I bet it does, and we’re going to do something about that. But do you remember how you got here?”

  Mattie looked around again, his gaze going back to Carmen, then to Viktor. He shook his head then blanched. “My head really hurts.”

  “Okay.” Viktor looked to Carmen. “You’re just going to wait here a few short minutes. I want to get him through straightaway. Is there an adult I can call?”

  Carmen hated that question. She hated that it was always assumed someone older existed, someone more qualified than she was, for Mattie.

  Maybe there should be. If there was, he wouldn’t be here.