by Celia Aaron
“No, you’re being smart.” I turned to her and swiped a lock of her soft, dark hair from her forehead. “Keep it that way.”
She nodded got onto her tiptoes to brush her lips against mine.
I grabbed her upper arms and pressed her against the wall, then deepened our kiss. Her slight taste of cinnamon tingled along my tongue as I slid it inside her mouth. She’d said I was a good kisser, and it took every bit of willpower I had not to howl to the rooftops. After all, that moment under the tree was the first time I’d ever kissed a girl. A real kiss, not a kindergarten peck. Angel had changed me on a molecular level somehow, turned on an engine that I’d thought was already humming. It wasn’t. Now I knew the difference between thinking a girl was attractive and wanting to pin a girl—no, not ‘a girl’, just Angel—beneath me and fuck her ragged.
When she ran her fingers through my hair, I grabbed her waist and pulled her body tight to mine. I kissed her the only way I knew how to do anything—rough and with everything I had. I didn’t want this moment to end. But it had to. When I finally pulled away for air, I was more than a little pleased to see the dazed look in her eyes and the flush in her cheeks. I wanted to do it all over again.
“You’re too much,” she breathed and placed her palms against my chest. She blinked. “I don’t even know your last name.”
“You know I think Radiohead is overrated and Justin Bieber is a twat. You know I don’t like tomatoes but I love red sauce. I know you like boy bands and hate olives.” I kissed her on the nose. “We’re practically best friends at this point. Why do you need a name?”
“You’re such a liar.” She smiled, the radiant one that stopped my breath. “There’s so much more to you that it might take me months just to get through the first layer.”
“You up to the challenge?” I dug my fingertips into the soft skin of her hips.
“I guess you’ll have to wait and see.” She batted her lashes.
God, this girl was going to kill me.
A shadow crossed her eyes, and she glanced up the stairs. “I better go before we get busted.”
“Fine.” I stepped back reluctantly.
She wrapped her little pillowcase around her fist and tucked the whole thing close to her body. “I guess I’ll see you around.”
“You’ll see me tomorrow.” I licked my lips as she climbed the stairs, her heart-shaped ass a wonder to behold.
“You’ll have to catch me first.”
I pushed open the outer door as she reached the landing. “Try and run fast. Otherwise, it’ll be way too easy for me.”
She flipped me off, and somehow even that was cute on her. I wanted to nibble at the finger and work my way over the rest of her body. Yep, my engine was definitely revving, humming to a single note of ‘Angel.’
“It’s Raven.” I called as quietly as I could. “And my brother is Peter. If you ever need me, just ask around for the Raven brothers. Someone will know how to find me.”
“Of course it’s Raven.” Her whisper barely made it to me.
“Tomorrow.” I’d never been more serious about anything in my life. I would see her tomorrow, and the next day, and every day after that if she’d let me.
“We’ll see.” She pushed her key into the door lock at the top of the stairs and gave me one last look. Her face was bathed in shadow, her silhouette in stark relief from a bare bulb on the landing behind her.
I didn’t want to leave, didn’t want her to open that door, or to watch it close. But I needed to know she was home safe before I could function again.
She gave a little wave, then turned the key and the handle. The door opened, and she disappeared inside. The finality of the click and the flick of the lock chilled me despite the summer heat. You’ll see her tomorrow, I reminded myself.
Letting the outer door close and then checking it to make sure it locked, I turned and walked to the Mercedes.
“Hey, asshole.”
I spun toward the voice, my fists up. “Oh, fuck.” My eyes rolled before I could help myself. “What do you want, prick?”
Nate Franco, a kid about my age, stood in the shadows of a door with a red light above the stoop. He was a mouthy brat whose ass I’d kicked on more than one occasion, but none of that stopped him from running his yap. Hell, I don’t think anything short of a bullet to the brain could stop that.
He slapped down a skateboard and rode over to me slowly, the wheels having a hard time navigating the cracked sidewalk. “I was just over near your house.” He grinned, his gangly limbs still caught in puberty. “Was putting it to old lady Grimes since her man is on the night shift.”
I shook my head. “Jeez, shithead. She’s like, fifty.”
He shrugged as he rolled to a stop. “Pussy is pussy.”
“Get to the point.”
“I heard a shit-storm at your place. Peter and your new pops were going a few rounds. I could hear yelling, and I don’t think Peter was winning. Things got pretty—hey!”
I’d pushed past him and was running toward my foster home.
“You’re welcome, jizzbucket!” Nate called after me, but I was already gone.
The old son-of-a-bitch Gerald wouldn’t be able to escape me this time. If he hurt my brother, I would kill the old man with my bare hands.
7
Angel
The moment I turned the lock over, I sensed something was off. The air was charged like it had a new life, not the coughing, broken down one of my father. Someone else was here.
I skirted around the kitchen table and caught the sound of low voices in the living room. A parade of goosebumps rushed down my arms as I stepped carefully in the hallway, avoiding the third squeaky board on the right and the fifth one four steps to the right.
“—deposited into your account once I take delivery.” A stranger’s voice, one with a slight accent. Spanish maybe.
“When you taking delivery?” my father wheezed.
“As soon as possible.”
“Fine by me.”
I froze and stared into the living room. The faint glow from the small, cracked lamp next to the couch revealed my father in his usual spot and another man standing just inside. He was tall and broad, his hair dark and his face a mystery in the low light.
“When do you expect her home?”
“That little bitch keeps her own hours.” My father coughed, the reedy sound promising death. “So no telling. But you can have her as soon as you catch her.”
Take delivery. My mind finally caught up with what I was seeing and hearing. Was it me? Were they talking about me? I shook my head, answering myself. They couldn’t be. I was a person, not a piece of merchandise. But my dad had just said “her.” Stunned, I pressed my palm to the wall to steady myself.
“She won’t go easily.” My father chuckled. “So I’d be prepared if I were you.”
“You needn’t worry about me.” The man crossed his arms over his chest, the back of his suit coat straining. “This will go smoothly.”
“I don’t care what it takes as long as that money’s in my account.” My father reached over and grabbed his oxygen mask, taking a deep breath.
His nonchalant words were a rusty knife in my gut. I knew he didn’t love me, didn’t want me around. But this sort of betrayal—even from someone I despised as much as him—hit so hard that my eyes watered. He doesn’t love me at all. At least my mother had ditched me outright, not tried to sell me to some goon in a fancy suit. I blinked back the tears. There was no way I was going anywhere with this asshole, and I had no place here anymore. Running was my only option.
Everything sharpened into hyper-focus as I glanced toward my room. It was where I kept my meager stash of money. But there was no way I could make it past the living room without being seen. I’d have to ditch it, take what I had in the pillowcase, and run. The man shifted and turned his head toward the hallway. My breath stopped altogether.
He stood that way for a moment, his head cocked toward me, then returned
his gaze to my father.
I had to go. I didn’t know where, but away from here was a good start. Gingerly, I stepped backward and avoided the creaky boards once again. The floor was even and familiar, but I felt like I was on a high wire with no net, each step one wobble away from doom. When I cleared the hallway and backed into the kitchen, I turned and cut around the table.
A buzzing sound glued me to that spot, but it was coming from the living room, not me.
“Yeah?” The stranger’s voice. “When? Here?” His voice dripped with menace. “You should have called earlier, puto.”
I forced myself to move and reach for the door. Flipping the lock in slow motion caused beads of sweat to pop along my upper lip. But I got it done without a sound and grasped the door handle. Out. I was almost out. And then I could disappear into the night like I’d done so many times.
The knob gave easily despite my clammy palm, and I pulled the door open bit by bit. Once I had enough room to slip out, I squeezed through and quietly closed the door behind me. I finally took in a breath and let it out, then headed for the stairs, dropping down as silently as a cat. One more door to go. I silently wished David was still here, fists at the ready, but he wasn’t lingering in the doorway. I was on my own.
Creeping down the last few steps, I hit the ground floor and hurried to the outer door. I turned the rusty handle, the creak like nails on a chalkboard and pulled it open. The early evening heat hit me full in the face, and I stepped outside.
I turned to run.
A hand fell on my shoulder, hard as an axe, and yanked me backwards. My scream was cut off by a fleshy palm, and the sudden pressure at my throat sent me into a panic. I fought, throwing elbows and trying to stomp on his feet. But he was so much bigger, dragging me back into the dark stairwell, the pressure on my neck increasing as he cut off my air completely. My struggle died, my eyes beginning to lose focus. I kicked one more time.
Someone appeared in front of me. The man from my apartment. The one taking delivery. “Easy with her. A dead girl does me no good.” He dragged his knuckles down my cheek as everything went dark.
8
David
Five Years Later
“Who’d have thought my brother would be out early for good behavior?” Peter leaned against a black Mercedes just outside the correctional facility’s gates.
“Keep your nose clean.” An officer tapped the side of his nostril as he unlocked the final door that led to my freedom.
“Fuck off.” I pushed past him and strode out onto the hot pavement, the sun reflecting up at me in angry waves.
Peter opened his arms. I accepted his embrace, though I didn’t return it. Touching people wasn’t my thing—unless I was doing it out of anger or for money. But that was only to give pain, nothing else. Comfort wasn’t something I could offer to anyone, not even my own blood.
“Want to get a steak and celebrate?”
“Take me to the apartment so I can change, then I want to go to the boss.” I slid into the passenger seat, the jeans and shirt Peter had provided me with so different from the orange pajamas I’d been wearing for the past few years. Tried as an adult, sentenced to ten years for aggravated assault, and buried in Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility all before I turned eighteen.
“You sure you don’t want to hit up a titty bar or maybe—”
“No. I want to get to work. That’s all.” I stared straight ahead as the smooth engine revved and we put the prison in our rear view.
“How did Rudy take you leaving?”
I shrugged. “Probably happy to have the cell to himself.”
“Give you any parting advice?”
I shook my head. I’d already said more words in the past few minutes than I had in the last year in the joint.
“Okay then.” Peter wanted to say more, he always did. But he was wise enough to shut up at that moment.
Emotions tried to well up inside me, the spring full to bursting. But I tamped it all down. Being out just meant living my life in a different sort of prison. One with rules and filled with certain guys you wanted to know, certain guys you wanted to avoid, and certain guys who had one-way tickets to the bone yard. I’d had plenty of experience with all of them on the inside, and I’d been happy to send more than my share to an early grave. Boss’s orders proved lucrative, as if being on the inside made me an even hotter commodity. No snitch was safe. Now that I was out, I was certain I’d be doing the same work, but it would be even easier.
“I missed you.” Peter’s voice was low, almost soft.
But the hard shell I’d built and perfected in my six by six cell didn’t have any cracks. His words bounced right off.
He continued anyway, “Not that visiting you wasn’t fun and all. I mean, the vending machines alone were pretty amazing. I didn’t even know Twinkies could get stale. But I much prefer having you out here.”
“It’s good to be out.” I chose the words he wanted to hear, the ones that a newly-free ex-con should say. I didn’t feel them—they were just sounds, but a quick glance at Peter told me they’d worked.
He nodded a little. “Back to the way it should be. Me and you tearing up this fucking town.” His growing smile reminded me of him as a boy. But, really, I didn’t see him as a grown man. Something about growing up with someone—you couldn’t see them age the same as you could everyone else. He’d always be my little brother, even though he was twenty years old and moving up at a rapid clip in the local organization. His brain for business had taken him far, and it didn’t hurt that the boss could count on me for any business he needed taken care of on the inside. Now that I was out? We’d rake in the cash and never have to worry about how we’d live ever again.
As we turned onto the highway that would take us into downtown Philly, he sobered a little, the smile fading. “I hate that you had to go through that. I wish—”
“Stop.” I crossed my arms over my chest. It was no easy feat. I’d spent quite a bit of my time adding to my already large frame. Before, I was a tank. Now, I was the fucking Army, Navy, and Air Force.
“It’s just that, I can’t help but feel like if I’d only been smarter about Gerald or stronger or stayed out of his way—”
“We’ve been over this a million times, man. What went down wasn’t your fault. It doesn’t matter how much you beat yourself up over it, I will never blame you. So you may as well knock that shit off. My only regret is that I didn’t kill that fucker when I had the chance. Him dying in the goddamn nursing home was a kick in the nuts. I hope he fucking suffered.”
He shrugged and let a few miles pass before saying, “I won’t tell anyone you’ve got a soft spot for me. Real tender and all.”
That finally got my lips to crack into the first real smile I’d had in five years. “You’re still a fucking dumbass, you know that?”
“There he is!” He grinned. “Glad to have you back.”
And, for the first time in a long time, I actually felt something. Faint, but it was there.
I said, “I’m glad to be back.” And I wasn’t even lying this time.
A long, hot shower was the answer to everything that had gone wrong in my world over the past five years. I lingered under the spray, the water so hot it scorched my skin. The tingles of pain reminded me I was alive, that I’d won, that I’d outlasted the circumstances that landed me behind bars in the first place.
I opened the prissy shampoo bottle and poured some onto my hand, then rubbed it through my short hair. The scent was just as prissy as the bottle, the vanilla almost overwhelming me. But there was something else in it, too. Something spicy, like cinnamon.
“Don’t do this.” I rinsed the shampoo out, but it was too late. My mind was already gone, thrown back to the last day I saw her. My Angel. A memory like that should have faded away in the ugly gray world of prison. But it didn’t. It kept me going. Even though she never responded to my letters or returned my phone calls. Even when her phone got disconnected and when Peter told
me she and her dad had left town right around the time I got pinched. I still thought of her every fucking day when I woke up in my cold cell. A girl I couldn’t forget, but one who let me go so easily. It didn’t matter. The memory of those moments beneath the oak tree, the feel of her against me, the mischief in her eyes—all of it gave me something to hold onto. And I gripped it tight, even when I realized I was clinging to her memory in spite of her, not because of her.
Where was my Angel now? Married with kids? Maybe traveling the world like she’d told me about? I’d used what thin connections I’d had to try and find her. But her trail went cold as soon as she and her father left town. All I had was the ghost of her, what bits of recollection I could scrape together and hold in my hands like shattered glass. And the pieces cut.
I shook my head, refusing to let any pain inside. Not for her, not for anyone. Rearing back, I slammed my fist into the white tile wall. To its credit, the marble only cracked a little. My knuckles split. The physical pain was what I needed to lock up any feels and crush them. I flexed my fist and let the hot water run over it, the stream beneath my feet going red and pink as the blood sluiced away. I could handle this sort of damage. And I lived to inflict it. This kind of pain made sense. I welcomed it.
“Everything okay in there?” Peter hovered outside the bathroom door.
“Fine.” I probably shouldn’t have been destroying the shower. It was far and away nicer than anything I’d ever had. Peter had taken the money we’d made over the past few years and been smart with it. This fancy apartment was part of the spoils. With views of the river and a prime location, I couldn’t imagine how much it cost, but I didn’t care. Peter deserved a better life than the one we’d had before. And I was ready to work to keep both of us living the high life. No more scraping by.