“That looks gross.”
I lifted my head at the sound of Gray’s familiar voice and smiled up at him, my not-so-yummy lunch forgotten for a minute. Just the sight of him was enough to make almost anything better. He was my best friend, and I loved him just as much as I did my brother.
“Hi,” I greeted him and scooted over on the bench seat to make room for him.
It was a pretty day, so we got to eat outside, which always made me happy because Gray would come eat with me. The middle school was just across the yard from my elementary school, so he always snuck over to be with me.
He sat and pulled his own lunch out, which was almost the exact same as mine, only his cookie wasn’t broken because he didn’t have an apple. He pulled it out first and broke it in half. Giving me a piece, he stuffed the other in his mouth and then opened his bottle of water.
“I’ll pack lunches tomorrow,” he promised after he had swallowed his half of the cookie. “I promise it won’t be this crap.”
I set my piece of cookie on my napkin Jace had actually remembered to pack, and opened my chips. Plain chips weren’t my favorite, but I was hungry and I would rather eat them than the mushy sandwich.
Gray picked his sandwich up and made a face as a glop of jelly fell onto the table. After grumbling something under his breath, he took a bite of the sandwich but quickly spit it out on the ground behind him. “I think your brother is trying to poison me, caterpillar.”
I laughed, but he wasn’t kidding. Jace and Gray couldn’t get along to save their lives. They argued and fought every day. Alicia even had to break them up sometimes because they wouldn’t stop. It made me sad that my two favorite people couldn’t be friends. But Jace wouldn’t actually try to poison him. He knew I would be mad if he did.
For the next ten minutes, we ate without talking much. Other kids were laughing and playing while they should have been eating, but none of them came over to us. I was sure that the boys in my grade were scared of Gray, and the girls were always too tongue tied to talk to him, so they stayed away. Even when he had a grumpy face on, he was still the handsomest boy I had ever seen.
When we were done, he picked our trash up and tossed it into the trash can a few feet away. Sitting back down beside me, I saw he was grumpy. “I can’t walk you home today, Kassa. I have detention. Mr. Peabody is making me stay after school.”
Disappointment made my tummy hurt, but I didn’t let him see that. Usually when something upset me, it upset him, and I didn’t like it when he was upset. I saw him all the time, at home and at school even though we hadn’t been in the same building for the last two years. Still, I liked walking home with him. He made sure the dog at the corner of our street didn’t come out of the yard to bother or chase me, and he held my hand the entire four blocks from the school to our house. That was my favorite part of all.
“What happened?” I asked instead.
“The guy who sits in front of me was running his mouth, so I shut him up.” He shrugged like it was nothing, like it happened all the time.
It did. Gray was always getting into fights—not just with Jace, either. If someone made him mad, he punched first and didn’t care about the consequences. If he was only getting detention, that meant he hadn’t had to go to the office. Whenever that happened, he got sent home, and I always found Alicia crying in her room.
“I can wait for you,” I offered. He was going to be in a bad mood when he got out of detention, but if I was there, he wouldn’t be grumpy for long. I could make him smile. Or laugh. I liked it when he laughed.
“No, little caterpillar. You go home and start on your homework.” He put an arm around me, giving me a tight hug, and then stood. “Be careful. Don’t talk to strangers.”
“Okay,” I promised in a small voice. “See you later, Gray.”
“Later, Kas.”
My teacher was calling for all of us to line up so we could go back inside, but I just sat there for a minute, watching him walk away. His head was down, his shoulders drooping. He was mad at himself again, and like always, my heart felt funny as I watched him leave. I had this crazy strong feeling to run after him and give him a hug.
“Gray,” I cried and jumped to my feet to run after him.
He turned to face me, concern on his handsome face. I threw my arms around him and hugged him as hard as I could. For a second, he stood there stiff as a board, but then he relaxed and hugged me back. I closed my eyes in pleasure when he kissed the top of my head.
After only a few seconds, I lifted my head to look up at him. “Love you, Gray,” I told him, and then I ran over to my teacher, who was glaring at me for not having listened to her.
***
After school, I put all of my homework in my backpack and left with all my other classmates. Outside, some got on buses and some got in their parents’ cars. I was lucky that I lived close and got to walk home. Some of the bus-riding kids didn’t get home until an hour later because they had to stop at the high school to pick up the older kids before the driver would drop them off at home.
I glanced over at the middle school, hoping that Gray would be waiting for me after all, but there was no sign of him. Sometimes Jace would walk with us, but he had baseball practice after school.
With a heavy sigh, I turned in the direction of home.
“Kassa, wait up,” someone called, and I cautiously turned to see who it was.
When I spotted Gray’s friend Sin, I let out a relieved breath and smiled up at him. “Hi.”
He didn’t smile back. Sin didn’t ever smile. At least, I had never seen him do it. He looked mad all the time, but Gray said that it was just because he had ADHD. I thought maybe it was something else, but I still liked Sin, even though he looked so grumpy all the time. He was nice to me, and he was a good friend to Gray.
“Gray asked me to walk you home,” he told me.
My heart became just as mushy as my sandwich from lunch had been. Even though he couldn’t be there with me, Gray had still made sure I was okay.
Sin was quiet as we walked to my house. He had his backpack slung over one shoulder, and it, like his clothes, was worn but clean. His mom and dad didn’t have a lot of money, but they were really nice. His mom was always making cookies, and he would bring them over when he came to our house.
At the corner of our street, I stiffened, my gaze going to the yard where the mean dog lived. The people who lived there never tied him up or put him on a leash, but they let him out every afternoon around the same time we walked home. He was a big dog with black fur and a brown face and stomach. Gray said that he was a mutt, because he wasn’t a full-blooded Rottweiler. All I knew was that he scared me.
The dog never bothered me if Gray was with me, but if he wasn’t, the dog would run out of the yard, snarling and barking, with drool making his mouth all foamy. He would chase me all the way home, snapping its teeth at me if I didn’t run fast enough and he got too close.
One time, I had tried to throw a rock at him to scare him, not to hurt him, but the owners had seen and yelled mean things at me. They called Alicia that night, but she didn’t get mad at me. Alicia had said words I didn’t think she knew because they were so bad and told them that, if the dog ever bit me, she was going to make sure they didn’t ever see the light of day again—whatever that meant.
The growling sound coming from behind the hedges close to the house told me the dog was out, and I moved closer to Sin.
He glanced down at me. “What’s wrong?”
“That dog is mean to me,” I admitted, keeping my gaze on the hedges.
“I don’t see anything,” he grumbled, but he stopped, following my gaze.
I heard the growl again and jumped behind Sin, a small whimper escaping my clenched lips. He sighed but didn’t yell at me for being a baby. Instead, he took my hand, just like Gray always did, and we started walking again.
Before we got completely past the yard, though, I heard the dog start barking. I tightened my hold on hi
s hand, but he stopped and turned to face the mutt now charging toward us. Keeping his eyes on the dog, he pushed me back a few steps, keeping himself between me and the dog. He pulled his backpack off and held it in front of him just as the dog jumped, its teeth sinking into the worn material and tearing it open.
Books fell onto the sidewalk, and the dog pulled back, the backpack still in his mouth, growling and slobbering as he shook his head like he was going to kill us.
He jumped again, and I screamed just as he bit into Sin’s arm. Sin yelled out in pain, blood already running down his hand and dripping off his fingers onto the ground.
“Kassa, run home!” Sin commanded, trying to shake the dog off, but the dog was using him as a chew toy.
I didn’t know how running home would help. Alicia would still be at work, and my brother was at baseball practice. I bit my lip, scared but knowing I needed to help him.
I pulled my backpack off like he had. I had three heavy books in there and a big binder full of all of my homework papers. I grasped one shoulder strap in my hands and swung it at the dog, hitting him in the side with all of my might. He yelped like I had just stabbed him but let Sin go. I swung it again, hitting the dog in his face. He yelped again and ran back into the yard, his tail between his legs.
Breathing hard, I dropped my backpack on the ground and looked at Sin. He was bleeding badly, and his face was twisted in pain. I moved closer and saw that the bite marks were deep and angry-looking.
“Hey, kids, you okay?” A man with gray hair and kind eyes stopped his old, clunky truck beside us. When he saw the blood, he dialed 911 with his cellphone.
Within minutes, there were two police officers and an ambulance in front of the dog’s yard. The cops didn’t immediately go into the yard though. It was like they were waiting on something—or maybe someone. They weren’t happy though, passing back and forth in front of the driveway and talking on their cell phones.
We all knew that the dog’s owners were home. They had opened the door and let him inside before the cops had even gotten there. It made me mad that they hadn’t come to help Sin or even apologize that their dog had bitten him.
The dog catcher and Sin’s mom showed up as one of the paramedics was bandaging Sin’s arm.
“Oh, my God,” Mrs. Sinclair cried when she saw all the blood on the ground. Her face went white then gray, and she tried to hug her son. “Oh, my God. Tate, baby, are you okay?”
He blew out a breath like he was embarrassed, but I figured that it was because she had used his real name and not Sin, like he wanted everyone to call him.
“I’m fine, Ma. I’m not gonna die. Geesh.”
Mrs. Sinclair started sobbing when the paramedic said that they would have to take him in for stitches and a few shots.
“How many will he need?” I asked, even more scared for Sin now. I knew what stitches meant: needles—and they hurt.
“I’m not sure, sweetie. But, from the look of this bite, it will be quite a bit. He’s going to have a nice battle scar to show off though.”
“I can’t leave Kassa,” Sin grumbled when the paramedic said that they needed to go soon. “Gray will kill me if I just leave her.”
“It’s okay,” I told him, feeling guilty that he had gotten hurt because of me. “I’ll be fine. Gray won’t be mad. You saved me.”
He hadn’t even thought about his own safety; he had jumped in front of that dog to protect me.
“I’m not leaving you until Gray gets here,” he grumbled and glared at the paramedic and his mom. “It can wait. I’m not gonna die sitting here for a little longer.”
The screeching sound of tires coming to a sudden stop startled me. I looked out of the back of the ambulance, where the cops had put me and Sin, and saw Alicia jumping out of her car with a look on her face that had the cops rushing to get out of her way.
As soon as she saw me, her eyes filled with tears. “My baby,” she whispered and pulled me out of the ambulance and into her arms, hugging me so tight that it was hard to breathe. “Sweetheart, are you okay?”
I pressed my face into her chest, breathing in the sweet scent of her perfume. I loved that scent. It made me feel safe and loved. “I’m fine. Sin isn’t though.” I lifted my head to look back at him. “He saved me, Alicia. He’s a hero.”
She kissed me on top of my head and then moved over to where Sin was still sitting. “Hey there, buddy.” She and Mrs. Sinclair shared a look that was like they were talking without even moving their lips. Jace called it “mom telepathy” since it was like they could read each other’s minds.
Alicia turned her gaze back to Sin, and her chin trembled. “Thank you, Sin. You saved my baby girl today. You’re a brave kid.”
“Kassa helped me too,” he told her. “She hit the dog until he let me go then ran like a little pussy back into his yard. I saw the people who live there open the door and let him in. They don’t even care that he bit me.”
Her jaw clenched, and when she looked at the house where the dog lived, her eyes turned cold and kind of scary. “Oh, they’ll care when I get done with them. Just wait.”
THREE
Gray
I didn’t waste time once Mr. Peabody said I could leave. He hadn’t made me stay nearly as long as he had threatened when I had gotten in trouble during history class. He was just like most people in the world: full of hot air but no real conviction to back up what he said. The man was lazy, would have rather been at home, playing with his fifty cats than teaching kids all day. He came in every day with enough cat hair to make a blanket, and it made the girl in the front of the class sneeze so badly that we all wondered if her head was going to eventually explode.
The only good thing about detention was that I had finished my homework. I went to my locker and put my stuff away before heading home. On the walk, I wondered if Kassa was doing her homework yet or not. She was smart, maybe smarter than any other kid in her grade, but she hated homework. I had told Sin to make sure she did it, but she could twist him around her finger almost as easily as she could me.
Two blocks into my walk home, I saw a bunch of flashing lights up ahead. Curiosity had me jogging so I could see what was going on. It wasn’t just cop cars, either, I noticed as I got closer, but an ambulance too. There were at least half a dozen vehicles blocking the road, making passing cars have to detour around that street. My stomach twisted when I realized which house the cops were in front of.
That damn dog’s house.
I hated that dog. He was aggressive toward Kassa, always trying to bite her if she was by herself. She hated walking by that house, and that was one of the reasons I had asked Sin to walk her home. Alicia had been feuding with the dog’s owners for the last few weeks over it, but so far, it had just been words thrown at each other. I knew my aunt though, and she was just one more incident away from having the dog forced into some kind of aggression class. It needed a freaking muzzle—that was my opinion, at least. But no one had asked for it.
With each step I took, my pace increased until I was sprinting toward the house. I stopped when I recognized Alicia’s car.
“Kassa!” Her name was out of my mouth before I even realized my lips were moving.
One of the cops stopped when he noticed me. After giving me a once-over, he nodded in the direction of the ambulance and then went back to what he was doing. Which was just standing there, watching the house.
My heart was pounding so hard that it echoed in my ears. My knees shook as I raced over to the ambulance. The first person I recognized was Alicia. She was standing with one foot on the ground and the other on the bumper, her face tight with anger and concern as she spoke quietly to someone inside.
Then I saw little legs covered in the same purple leggings I remembered Kassa wearing that morning. The knot in my gut tightened even more as I moved around the open door of the ambulance and saw Kassa just standing there, looking into the back of the emergency vehicle. Her beautiful little face was pale, her eyes worried, but
my heart gave a squeeze as relief filled me.
“Kassa.” My voice was low and rough, full of all the emotions I wanted to hide but never could with her.
At the sound of my voice, even as quiet as it had been, her head snapped up and her eyes brightened a little. She let go of Alicia’s hand and practically jumped over the few feet of space that separated us, her legs wrapping around my waist as she hugged my neck. She barely weighed anything at all, and I held on to the most special person in my life.
“What happened?” I demanded, not releasing her as I tried to figure out what was going on.
Kassa seemed fine, so why the hell was there an ambulance? And where was Sin?
Alicia bit her lip and looked into the back of the vehicle. I followed her gaze and saw Mrs. Sinclair sitting inside. My gut twisted all over again as I walked closer so I could see inside better.
My best friend was lying back on a gurney, with what I thought was an IV in his left arm. His right arm was wrapped in a thick bandage, but it didn’t seem to be helping keep whatever wound he had from bleeding. The bandage was soaked through with blood, his arm and his fingers swollen.
Alicia gave me a grim smile and finally spoke. “Sin saved Kassa from getting hurt but got bit in the process. He’s been waiting on you to get here before he will let the paramedics take him to the hospital for stitches.”
Sin’s eyes met mine, and I could see the pain my friend was in, but I couldn’t seem to figure out how to make my vocal cords work. My arms tightened around Kassa, trying to reassure myself that she was safe. But Sin, he wasn’t. He had gotten bit by the neighbor’s big dog. If the bandage on his arm was anything to go by, it wasn’t a little bite, either.
“Thank you,” I whispered, but he must have read my lips, because he only shrugged, his gaze going to Kassa, who was holding on to me for dear life.
“He’s here now, Tate. You have to go to the emergency room now,” Mrs. Sinclair told him.
Tainted Butterfly (Tainted Knights Book 2) Page 2