Beautiful Survivors

by C. M. Stunich

  My lips curve into a sharp smile as I struggle to sit up, leaning my head back against the seat behind me. I should probably stop grinning like an asshole, but I can't help it. I did it—and I got away with it.

  The officers climb into their car and radio into the station, but I'm not listening. Instead, I stare out the window and fantasize about all the wild shit I'm going to do when I get out of Purgatory.

  After a few minutes, I close my eyes and when I open them back up, we're pulling up to the curb in front of a two story shithole made of bricks with a droopy gray porch.

  “The hell is this?” I ask, feeling a small shiver of panic race through me. I hid my shit well, but if I can't get to it then that's a problem. Although … this place might have bars on the windows, but it looks like a fucking daycare center compared to Purgatory.

  “The juvenile detention center's full,” the lady cop in the passenger seat says, opening her door up. “Looks like this is your lucky day, Mr. Finnegan.”

  “Must be if I get to settle into this shithole tonight,” I say as I climb out and flash a naughty grin at her. The cop doesn't so much as smile at me. Huh. Too bad for her. Guess even my charms aren't enough to break through all of that stuffy police procedural bullshit. “Do I, uh, at least get the cuffs off?” I ask, lifting up my zip tied hands and examining the dilapidated old house in front of me.

  Breaking out of this nightmare, piece of frigging cake.

  Now all I have to do is figure out how to deal with this goddamn ankle bracelet.

  “Try to be on your best behavior,” the lady cop's telling me as she snips my hands free and watches as I shake them out and crack my knuckles, my eyes never straying from the old building. Already, I'm scheming, making plans, running through scenarios. What can I say? I'm a thief; it's what I do. “Clearly you weren't listening to the judge, but this is it for you, last chance. You screw this place up and you're not going back to juvie.”

  I glance over at the woman and let another slow burning grin stretch across my features.

  “Gotcha. Next time I'm off to the big house, huh? Guess I'll have to be extra careful then, won't I?”

  I head up the steps, following behind the manhandling dude cop, and pause just as the front door opens ahead of us.

  “Hitch Finnegan?” the old broad in the muumuu says, examining her clipboard. Like, Jesus, who the hell uses a fucking clipboard nowadays? Get a goddamn iPad for shit's sake. “I can take him from here, thank you,” she tells the officers with a small sniff, turning and heading inside without waiting to see if I'll follow. Pretty ballsy, huh?

  “You heard the woman,” I say, shouldering past the disgruntled male cop and then slamming the door in his face. What's he going to do about it? It's not a crime to be an asshole.

  I follow the old lady through a dusty, dilapidated foyer and past a shabby living room and dining room area, heading for a set of stairs that looks like it belongs in the Addam's Family household. I mean, seriously? This place looks like it was designed for the Crypt Keeper or something.

  Oh well.

  You won't find me complaining.

  This dump … it's gonna have low-key security at worst. None at best. I could break out of this place in my sleep.

  Now all I gotta do is figure out where exactly I am and how to get back to my buried treasure.

  Because once I get my hands on that, for the first time in my life … I'll be fucking free.

  Scratch what I said about low-key security. I swear, the old broad in charge of this place must have eyes in the back of her damn head. I've already been busted three times trying to have a goddamn cigarette. At least in Purgatory, I could always find someplace to grab a smoke.

  With a sigh, I lean back in my new bunk and close my eyes, listening to the sound of the front door opening and closing, a cluster of voices making their way inside the house.

  Looks like my fellow inmates are back from school.

  Keeping my eyes closed, I let my mouth curl into a mischievous little smile and wait. Best let them come to me. It's always good to set boundaries right off the bat.

  Footsteps pound up the stairs, and I crack my lids to see a kid in a jean jacket storm into the room and slam the door behind him. He looks like he's about three seconds away from having a panic attack.

  “Everything okay down there?” I ask, and I swear to Christ, he jumps high enough to hit his head on the sagging tiles of the drop ceiling. Since most of them are stained with what's probably some sort of infectious black mold or whatever, I feel sorry for the guy.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he asks me, voice slightly shaky, hands curled into fists by his side. The way he's staring at me, I can see there are about a thousand other things going on his life that he'd rather worry about. I don't factor very high. Part of me wants to put this kid in his place, show him that I really am somebody to worry about. But eh, I won't be hanging around here very long anyway.

  “Your worst nightmare,” I tell him with all due seriousness. And then I just laugh because, come on, look at the expression on the guy's face. “Name's Hitch. I'm not here to make friends, so feel free to ignore me to your heart's content.”

  The guy looks at me with eyes like lightning, like he wishes he could strike me down with a single dead-eyed glare. Too bad I'm made of much tougher stuff.

  “Maybe I'll just have to take you up on that offer?” he retorts, sweeping dark hair from his face and reaching for the handle of the door. As soon as he opens it … I lose all the fucking breath in my lungs.

  Who. The. Hell. Is that?

  I sit up suddenly and slam my head on the drooping ceiling, cursing under my breath as I blink at the girl standing in the doorway. The way she slouches against the doorjamb, her white blonde hair shoved up underneath an old baseball cap, gives the distinct impression of I don't give a fuck. And I give a serious amount of fucks for girls without any.

  The blonde with the ice blue eyes looks like she could kick ass and take names with her arms tied behind her back. But her face? Shit. Her eyes are huge and blue and goddamn beautiful, and her mouth is full and ripe and shiny. The second I see her, I know I'm going to introduce myself without all the snark and sarcasm. This is somebody I actually might want to know.

  “What the hell is your problem?” the girl asks Jean Jacket Guy, putting her hands on her hips, the ones draped with slouchy faded jeans that hang low enough that I can see the top band of a pair of men's boxer briefs.

  Oh yes.

  A pretty girl who wears boys' underwear. I am so in.

  “Problem?” the guy retorts and then pauses, glancing over his shoulder like he's just realized I'm still sitting there. The girl doesn't bother to follow the direction of his gaze, keeping her attention locked on the guy's face. “What do you think my problem is, Merit?” he whispers, and then he's stepping forward and closing the door behind him, blocking my view of the girl.

  Merit.

  Now why the hell does that name sound so familiar?

  “There's a new guy bunking in our room,” Nash says a few hours after our hushed argument in the hallway outside his bedroom door. Guess that explains why he didn't want to continue our conversation in his room. “Seems like a complete and total asshole to me,” he adds, sitting on the rock that serves as our marker for the buried cigarettes. We smoked the last of the pack last time we were out here, but Gunner got his coworker to grab us some more.

  Thank god because I could really use a smoke right about now.

  “What's his name?” I ask as Maddox lights me up and I try not to make eye contact with him. I feel like the moment I do, he'll know. Even if he can't see as well as he used to, he'll sense it. He's gotten more perceptive like that recently, as if his sixth sense is making up for the loss of his eyesight.

  “Dunno,” Nash says, still refusing to look me in the eyes. It's been two days since we fucked behind the mausoleum and he won't even meet my gaze. Instead, he's been flitting around like a shadow, quiet and sullen. I g
uess my asking him to keep quiet about the whole thing was a waste; surely Gunner and Maddox will figure us out eventually. I mean, if Nash is going to keep acting like a weirdo, the whole fucking world is going to find out. “I don't think he gave it to me.”

  “Sure he did,” a voice says from the brush behind us.

  I whip around just in time to see a boy with dual colored hair pop out of the bushes.

  As soon as I see him, I know he's gonna be trouble.

  “Did you fucking follow us out here?” I snap, immediately going on the defensive. Part of my cranky mood has to do with Nash and the rest … I've got goose bumps just looking at this guy and I don't like it.

  I whip the cigarette out of my mouth with two fingers and frown as the guy meanders toward us, flicking his tongue across his lower lip. It's pierced, his tongue. Somehow, that only makes me feel more uncomfortable around this guy.

  “Hitch Finnegan,” he says casually, mussing up his blonde and black hair and pausing far too close to me for comfort. His smile is like an electric fence, warning me to stay away for fear of getting shocked. He's all slick and put together, this guy.

  I hate him instantly.

  “Well, Hitch,” I say sharply, taking over as leader of the group the way I've done since we were kids, “what the hell do you want?”

  “Could I maybe bum a cigarette?” he asks, slouching down to a nearby rock and lounging on it like it was made for him. The whole scene just pisses me off. This kid in the white hoodie is sitting there smiling like we're old friends. And that really bothers me because in this place, friendship is earned. It's better than fucking family. Family is a genetic lotto, a blood related tree that doesn't mind shedding its limbs when one becomes inconvenient. But friends? Those are the family members that you choose.

  I've chosen mine. And this kid? He's not one of them.

  “I found a few hidden around the house,” he continues, gesturing back at Hell with a loose, lazy hand. I notice that on the back of it, there's a tattoo. How the hell did he find someone willing to ink an underage kid? I wonder, grudgingly admitting that the design—a crescent moon bound by clouds and stars—is pretty goddamn good. It doesn't look anything like the scratcher tats some of the kids around here have—the ones done with ballpoint pens and needles, like prison tats or something. “Tried to smoke 'em, but that old lady is boss at what she does. She confiscated all three.”

  Hitch leans back on the rock and yawns, stretching his arms above his head and flashing a line of tight, flat belly beneath his baggy white hoodie. Although I'm positive I've never seen this guy around before, there's something about him that feels familiar.

  “So you thought you'd just stalk us and blackmail a smoke while you're out here?” Maddox snarls, taking up a position behind me. I cross my arms over my chest and hope like hell we look intimidating. It's always the newbies that try to start shit when they show up in Hell for the first time.

  “I'm not blackmailing anybody,” Hitch says, putting his palms flat on the rock behind him and leaning back, his gold-brown eyes catching the dying afternoon light. They're the same color as the chewy caramels that Gunner brings home from the grocery store, the ones wrapped in wax paper and sealed with a tiny gold sticker. I hate that I can make that connection, between something so familiar and safe and someone so foreign. “I just want to smoke a cigarette. Come on, take some pity on the new guy? I had court today.”

  Hitch lifts the leg of his black jeans and flashes us a black band on his leg, a red light blinking slowly through the darkness. It's an ankle monitor. I glance back at Maddox who's squinting through the shadows to try and see what we're all gaping at.

  “Ankle bracelet,” I whisper and his beautiful brown eyes narrow.

  “What the hell did you do?” he asks as I smoke my cigarette and keep my attention on Hitch. The longer I stare at him, the more certain I am that I know him from somewhere.

  “Breaking and entering,” he says with a slight shrug of his shoulders. “I was supposed to go back to Purgatory, but I guess they're all full up on fuck-ups and delinquents at the moment.” He flashes a wolfish grin my direction, one that's so full of shit I almost choke on my next inhale. “So, can I have a smoke or what?”

  I yank the pack from my pocket and toss it his direction.

  “Ever been to Hell before?” I ask, nodding my chin in the direction of the house.

  “Not that I can recall,” Hitch says, withdrawing a cigarette from the pack and rising to his feet. Without even asking, he slips it between his lips, steps close and presses the end of his smoke to the burning orange embers of mine.

  We're so close we could kiss.

  “Thanks for the monkey fuck,” Hitch says with a slow, exaggerated wink, stepping back and slipping the smoke from his lips. His exhale is just as much of a show, a careful breath of smoke that teases across the fullness of his lips.

  “You got your cigarette, now screw off,” Nash says from behind me, his voice this tumultuous roil of emotion. I refuse to acknowledge it at the moment. I just … can't right now. I've been sore for two days, each movement a reminder of what happened behind the mausoleum. When I close my eyes, I can feel Nash's body on top of mine, his cock sheathed between my thighs, his hands pinning my wrists to the dirt.

  Somehow, I feel like fucking him was both a blessing and a curse.

  I got what I wanted out of the experience—it felt good, Nash is obsessed, he's definitely not paying attention to Clea anymore. But I also figured out that sex with him is not the be-all, end-all to our problems.

  I glance to my left, into the fading shadows of evening and smoke my cigarette.

  “Come on, you haven't even introduced yourselves to me. Don't I deserve names at the very least?”

  “Deserve?” Nash asks, and I whip my head around to find him rising to his feet. But Gunner's already got it, putting a hand on his chest and keeping him from started something stupid with the new kid. “You don't deserve shit. Leave us the hell alone, okay?”

  “Nash,” I start, and for the first time since he was inside of me, our eyes meet.

  My heart thunders in my chest and I find it suddenly hard to breathe.

  “Nash Golden,” I continue, clearing my throat and gesturing in his direction. It feels easier to introduce him to the new guy than think about the fact that we just screwed, that neither of us is a virgin anymore, that things have been so weird since that I wish we'd never done it. “This is Gunner Colvin, Maddox Bright, and me,” I take a drag on my cigarette, “I'm Merit Burden.”

  “Merit Burden,” Hitch says, leaning back and looking up at the stars with a slick, smooth smile on his face. “Now that's a name just rife with meaning.”

  “I've heard all the jokes already,” I say with a raised brow, thinking back on years of stupid shit, taunts like Burden's a burden! and all that. They didn't affect me then, and I'll be damned if I let this guy, Hitch, affect me now. “You can save 'em for a different audience.”

  “Merit,” he continues, glancing sidelong at me. In his gaze, I can read a clear and obvious invitation. He's interested in me. Fan-fucking-tastic.

  I tug my baseball cap lower on my head and leave my lips in a frown.

  “I feel like I've heard that name before,” Hitch continues, blowing smoke rings up at the sky. Impressive. Only, I don't give a shit. I have enough to worry about with me and the boys, with Jenna-Marie, with the sex I never should have had.

  “Doubtful,” I tell him, watching as he pushes up the sleeves to his sweater. As he does, I catch a circular scar near his elbow and feel a jolt of recognition whisper through me. No way. No fucking way.

  My cigarette tumbles from my lips and I take a sudden step back, slamming into Maddox.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, but I can't seem to take my eyes off the scar on Hitch's arm. As soon as he sees me looking, he shoves his sleeves back down, some of that slick, careful coolness melting away in an instant.

  “Where did you get that?” I ask, em
otions twisting and tangling together inside of me until I feel like I might just trip on them. They're laying everywhere, these messy knots of heartache and memory and uncertainty.

  “Does it matter?” Hitch asks, raising both his dark brows and trying to smile his way through this. But I saw it. I remember. I know.

  “A gas stovetop,” I say, tracing the spiral shape in the air between us. “When you were trying to make a little girl some hot chocolate.” I swallow hard and twist my baseball cap around so that it's pointing backward. “Are you … Oh my god, you're fucking Finny?!” I whisper, and watch as all the color in Hitch's face drains away.

  “Merry?” he asks, rising to his feet and looking at me like he's seen a ghost.

  Holy. Shit.

  The boy I've been looking for for years … is standing right in front of me.

  And I have no goddamn clue what I'm supposed to do about that.

  “There's no way that guy's Finny,” Nash says, slumping into the faded green recliner next to the boarded up fireplace. For years, that was one of my spots, sitting on his lap and cuddling up to him. Now, I'm scared to get within ten feet of the guy.

  First, I was lamenting because puberty had kicked in and our once easy companionship was starting to get weird. Then, I screw the guy and now I'm scared to get close to him?

  I just stare at Nash for a moment before marching over and parking myself right on his lap. I'm done with this. I'm leaving the day after tomorrow, and I refuse to do it with all this weirdness stuffed between us. Besides, if we don't sort this out soon, Gunner and Maddox are going to figure it out and then the whole thing will just go to hell. I'd rather die than lose these guys—I'm dead serious about that.

  “That's Finny,” I say firmly, even though I'm not sure how to feel about this new development. I haven't seen the kid since we were eight years old and I was adopted for the last time. By the time my new family gave up on me—to be fair, I didn't make things easy for them—I came back to the home to find one of my foster brothers was missing. Nash, Maddox, and Gunner were all there but the kid we'd lived with for almost three years was nowhere to be seen.