Take and Give

by Amanda G. Stevens

  Lee climbed into the truck. Turned the key. Didn’t look back, all the way down the driveway. The truck bounced in a hole or two down the dirt road, and her stomach tensed. She had to drive smoothly.

  Violet sat with her chin propped in her hand, facing the passenger window, maybe to allow Lee space, or maybe pondering Austin Delvecchio’s reappearance in her life. If he tried to intimidate her in any way, he’d regret it.

  Lee drove south. She merged onto I-75 before she remembered what she had wanted to say. Sam, you will always be my family.

  15

  The truck had been stopped for seconds, still running, when the tailgate lowered and fell the last few inches with a thunk. Cool air rushed into the bed of the truck, and Austin drank in the freshness after the stale, metallic taste of the last two hours.

  “How is he?” Lee whispered.

  “Are we past Toledo?” Austin drew his legs under him to crawl forward, his hair grazing the low cap.

  “Austin.”

  “He might be asleep. He hasn’t said anything in a while.”

  Brenner had spoken five words since they left, four of them “no” when shifts in his breathing prompted Austin to ask if he should get Lee to stop driving. He’d also once said “yeah” when Austin asked if he was sure about the “no.”

  Lee leaned in, shadowing her face from the glow of the taillights. “Marcus?”

  A cough answered her first, then a quiet rasp. “I’m okay.”

  “We’re at a rest stop about forty miles south of Toledo. It’s almost four o’clock. We should be safe here for several hours.”

  “Nothing suspicious so far?” Austin said.

  “No.” Lee shimmied over the tailgate and into the bed. Austin pulled his knees to his chest to give her room. Her hand ran along the edge of the mattress with a soft sound. “Marcus, I need to take your pulse.”

  Her breath caught quietly a moment later.

  “What?” Austin said.

  “His fever is spiking.”

  She rummaged in the dark, and then an LED light clicked on, bright enough to illuminate every corner of the tight space and make all of them squint. Lee pulled a leather laptop case into her lap and drew out stethoscope and thermometer. Brenner shivered when she unzipped his hoodie. He wasn’t wearing anything under it. Austin’s breath snagged at the sight of the bruises, at Brenner’s ribs visible through the discolored skin.

  No belief system could possibly be worth this.

  Lee listened to him breathe, took his temperature, and repacked the items into the bag.

  “Is he okay?” Like she’ll tell you.

  “One-oh-two-point-six.”

  When she was a toddler, Olivia once had a fever of 105-point-something, so that couldn’t be too bad. Or he had no idea what he was talking about, because Lee’s frown might be … fear.

  “Join Violet in the cab,” she said.

  Austin nodded, and his mouth dried.

  “When she protests, tell her I apologize.”

  Lee knew everything. “If you want to sleep back here for a while, I could keep driving.”

  “No.”

  She didn’t even trust him to take them to their destination.

  “Not because it’s you offering.” He must have scowled more fiercely than he thought. Lee glanced at Brenner and lowered her voice. “He needs a rest from the constant motion.”

  Of course he did, and if they could freeze time, they could give him a week to heal up. In the real world, even an hour was too long. They’d barely crossed the state line. But arguing would be fruitless, maybe detrimental. This woman had blinders where Brenner was concerned, and Austin still had a long way to go in earning her trust. He scooted out of the bed and dropped his feet to the blacktop.

  Lee had parked under a floodlight. Not the smartest place. Maybe she considered it hiding in plain sight, but this was a rest stop. No one would find it abnormal for travelers to sleep in deliberate shadow. About a hundred yards away, at the north end of the parking lot, a brown brick Visitor’s Center squatted alongside an even lower building with an arrow pointing inside: Public Restrooms. Austin poked his head into the truck and turned off the ignition.

  Violet stared at him from across the cab, and he hoped he only imagined the way she seemed to shrink against the passenger door.

  She tugged on the door handle. “Uh, we’re not sleeping in here at the same time.”

  “Lee said his fever’s up. She wants to watch him. And she’s sorry you have to put up with me in the meantime.”

  Violet’s hand fell into her lap. She rubbed her thumb over her wrist, and something was missing. Her charm bracelet. She’d obsessed over that thing before.

  Austin climbed into the cab and shut the door, and there they were, he and Violet, breathing the same air, nothing between them but an arm’s length and the gear shift. The cab smelled like strawberries, but manufactured—a plug-in scent hidden under the seat or somewhere.

  Violet leaned back into the headrest and shut her eyes. “Fine, I’ll sleep in here. But we’re not going to talk.”

  He should respect that, and he did. Would. In a minute. “I have one thing to say, and then—”

  “It doesn’t matter, whatever it is.”

  “When I—when I hit you.”

  Violet’s eyes shot open. “Seriously, that’s your topic?”

  He willed his voice to be steady, in control. “You need to understand.”

  “It’s the cop thing, right? You can’t take no for an answer, not even from a girl who wants to keep her clothes on.”

  He ducked his head, but she could probably see the heat flushing up the back of his neck before reaching his face. This is how she sees me.

  “The whole thing was so stupid.” Violet turned toward the window, and it fogged with her breath. “I was so stupid. ‘Come on, Austin, please have sex with me,’ and you all, ‘Not yet,’ and I really don’t understand that part, actually. If you’ll hit a girl for saying no, why—?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Um, I had a fat lip for a day.”

  He ground the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. He forced himself to meet her gaze. “I didn’t hit you for saying no.”

  Her eyes widened, and her eyebrows arched, and she might as well have spoken aloud: Right, sure you didn’t.

  “Violet, I …” His hands needed his guitar. Without it, they fidgeted in his lap until he rubbed his gritty eyes.

  Violet crossed her arms and leaned on an angle, into the corner of the door and the seat. “Fine, whatever, say it.”

  “I wasn’t hitting you. In my head, I mean. I’d never hit you.” Good, his voice was strengthening, and he didn’t have to force it now, because this was truth Violet needed to hear. “I would never hit you. You’re—you’re—”

  Kind. Sweet. Beautiful. Strong. And you glow, Violet. With, I don’t know, life or something.

  He breathed in and let it out. “You don’t deserve to be hit, by any guy at any time for any reason.”

  Violet drew up her knees, heels of her shoes propped on the edge of the seat, and encircled them with her arms.

  “That’s all,” Austin said.

  “Okay.”

  Silence stole in. A long sigh poured out, one he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He’d said it, and she’d listened, and she seemed to believe him. He tried to tilt his head back, the headrest supporting his neck, but … ow. That wasn’t going to be comfortable in three minutes, much less three hours or however long they were here. If they were going to sit motionless, he might as well sleep.

  “Who was it, then?” Violet said.

  “What?”

  “Whoever you were punching. In your mind, I mean.”

  A rock fell onto his chest. “I wasn’t … it wasn’t anyone.”

  She s
tretched out her legs under the dashboard and closed her eyes.

  “Violet?”

  “Like I said, we’re not talking.”

  “I—”

  “There’s no point, Austin. You can’t stop lying.”

  His right fingers twitched for guitar strings, for the reassuring universality of the chords. He stared out the driver’s window. A semitruck pulled into the rest stop and parked on the other side of the lot. The tall gray-bearded driver climbed down and beelined for the restroom. Austin closed his eyes and pulled on the green coat of calm, of safety. Breathe in, out. Now, talk about it.

  “My dad,” Austin said.

  Violet’s eyes popped open. She sat forward, legs pulling closer to the seat. “I reminded you of your dad? I’m five-foot-five and, uh, a girl.”

  “Sometimes my reactions don’t make sense. I’ve done a little Internet research on the topic, and I seem to be pretty typical.”

  “The topic?”

  Maybe this would all be easy, if he’d ever spoken about it before. “Um … abuse. Child abuse.”

  Violet’s lips parted, her eyes widened, and then she sat there like that, open to his stupid revelation, waiting for … what, details? What Dad used to do? How it felt? Like he’d tell her any of that crap. He’d look weak, and she might start to pity him, and … no.

  “Austin, your dad didn’t … didn’t do things to you, did he?”

  Things? … Oh. “Nah, nothing like that.”

  “So he hit you? But I didn’t hit you. What did I do that made you think—?”

  “Really, it’s not important. It was a long time ago, and I’m fine now.” His voice didn’t wobble, although his heart felt like it was going to pound out of his chest.

  “Still, I should know what I did, so I don’t do it again.”

  So you don’t have reason to give me a fat lip again, she was thinking. He hid his face in his hands, and it was too hot, flushed. Or maybe his hands were cold.

  “Austin.”

  Violet’s voice was soft, and he wanted to brush against that softness, let it hold him for a minute. Let her hold him, and hold her back. But he’d lost the right to do that, and besides, at the moment he couldn’t lift his head.

  “Austin, listen. I’m not saying I’m scared of you. I just don’t want to do something that would … I don’t know, hurt you.”

  “You didn’t hurt me,” he said into his hands. I’m not breakable, dang it.

  “Okay. Well, if you don’t want me to know, then I get that. It’s personal stuff, and I’m not really—we’re not really—anything, anymore.”

  He lowered his hands and rested his forehead on the steering wheel. Another deep breath, then one more, and then he sat up and met her eyes. At least she wasn’t crying. And her face wasn’t all pinched with sorrow for his tragic childhood, or any of that melodrama. Maybe it would be all right for her to know. Not everything, of course, but a little more.

  “You pushed me. I get, um, too defensive sometimes, when people are physically aggressive. But I could still see you and deal with it. Then I lost my footing, do you remember?”

  She nodded.

  “And I bumped my head on the wall?”

  “Yeah, but not very hard.”

  “No, but it was …” He sighed. “Um … my … my dad …”

  Violet inched closer to him on the seat. Her hand didn’t take his, but she rested it on the gear shift. Closer. Close enough.

  “One of his things was, he’d pick me up and throw me. Not far, not like—you know, a football pass or something—just a few feet. Usually into a wall.”

  “How old were you?” she whispered.

  “When it started? Six. The year my sister was born. I mean, he’d slap me and all before that, but when she came it got …” His throat closed up. Violet waited for him. “Anyway, bumping my head into walls is apparently something to avoid in the future.”

  The silence wasn’t cold anymore, and Austin let his heart rate slow back to normal over the next few minutes. Violet withdrew her hand back into her lap and rubbed her thumb over her wrist, slowly at first the way he’d seen her do it before, then faster.

  “Like I said before, I’m fine now.” He ventured half a smile.

  She didn’t return it. “You probably don’t want me to say I’m sorry, do you.”

  “It’s not really necessary.”

  “Then, I guess, thanks for telling me. Even though you didn’t want to.”

  He nodded. They huddled against their respective doors, and Austin imagined his body sinking down on a mattress, swathed in sheets and blankets, with a pillow under his head. He probably wouldn’t sleep a minute….

  Tap-tap-tap.

  He jolted up from his slump against the driver’s door and swiveled to face the window. Lee stood there, tense lines drawn between her eyebrows, probably a headache. Across the cab, Violet slept on.

  Austin cracked open the door. “Yeah?”

  “We have to find a hotel.”

  “Lee.” No words could encapsulate the danger of what she’d just said.

  “I understand, but Marcus is—” She stepped backward from the open door and stood with her hands behind her back, a soldier at ease. Her voice evened. “I can’t control his fever.”

  “And you’ll be able to in a hotel room?”

  “I’ll be able to bathe him. And he needs to be indoors, in a regulated temperature.”

  “We should get farther south first.”

  “Austin, we can’t.”

  He tipped his shoulders back against the seat and pressed as hard as he could and took a deep breath. No reason to be angry with her. “Give me the keys. I’ll find a hotel.”

  16

  Less than an hour later, Austin had found them a room. And not just any room. He’d taken into account all the details Lee had meant to tell him. Ground floor, door to the outside rather than a hallway where they were more likely to be observed by other guests. And he went further, choosing the back side of the building, facing only a parking lot instead of the road. At six in the morning, with the sky washing gray and promising a cloudless sunrise, no one witnessed Austin carrying Marcus inside.

  Less than twelve hours with the Constabulary agent, and Lee had to admit Sam was right.

  After she unclothed Marcus’s shivering body down to his underwear, Austin lifted him into the tepid bath. His eyes lingered on the contusions covering Marcus’s torso.

  “Let me know if you need anything else, okay?” he said, and Lee nodded, words beyond her reach.

  The next two hours nearly wrung her out. Marcus’s fever climbed to 103.8 and stayed there, while she sponged water over his neck and arms and chest with one hand and wrapped the other around his wrist. His pulse was fast but strong. She kept him propped up with a pillow against his upper back. She squeezed out the sponge and wiped his face, and his eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. She spoke to him, but he didn’t seem to know she was there.

  Two hours into her ministration, she checked his temperature again—102.9. The coiled wire in her chest loosened, just a little. Half an hour later, it was 102.5, and the next time she sponged his face, he opened his eyes and whispered, “Lee.”

  In another fifteen minutes, he coughed and shifted to ease his ribs. “What’re you doing?”

  “You’ve been fighting a high fever.”

  “Where?”

  “A hotel room, outside Toledo. How do you feel?”

  “Cold.”

  She checked again. His temperature had fallen another whole degree. Lee lowered her head to rest on the edge of the tub. The throbbing in her temples, behind her eyes, eased at the cool pressure.

  “Lee.”

  “I’m fine,” she whispered.

  The water sloshed as he lifted a hand, dripped while he held it midair. Go ahead
, Marcus, it’s all right. She couldn’t say it. He would lower his hand, and this moment would pass.

  But no. His hand came to rest high on her back as she knelt, bowed over. Water seeped into her shirt, just below her neck. Perhaps he touched her because he was feverish and in pain, perhaps because he’d been resurrected, perhaps because he was unchangeably unable to see her struggle without trying to take the struggle onto himself. And perhaps for all those reasons, or for others, she didn’t shudder at the weight of his hand.

  Long minutes passed. They didn’t move. Then he coughed again, and Lee raised her head, and his hand slipped away and left a wet, cold mark on her back.

  “I think you’ll be better now,” she said. “If I help you, can you get out of the tub?”

  On the first try, she knew it was no good. She left the bathroom in search of her Constabulary ally, two words she’d never have predicted joining in her mind. She’d never thought of Sam as true Constabulary.

  She had walked through the room before without seeing it, trailing behind Austin with Marcus in his arms. It was a standard room—two queen beds, a TV, a small fridge and microwave. Violet had crashed on the bed near the door, not bothering to turn down the covers. Austin slept on the floor in their lone sleeping bag, leaving the other bed empty.

  Lee knelt beside his head. “Austin.”

  He jolted up, eyes darting around the room, then saw her and relaxed. “How’s he doing?”

  “He’s much better, ready to sleep.”

  By the time she finished speaking, Austin was on his feet, one hand scrubbing at his face, then his fine blond hair. Sleepiness lingered in his eyes, and he didn’t look any older than Violet at the moment. He entered the bathroom ahead of her. From inside came a slosh of water.

  “Hey,” Austin said, “I’m here to help. Sam sent me with you guys to help.”

  Lee pushed past him into the room. The pillow had fallen from behind Marcus into the tub, and he hunched forward, jaw clenched, breathing labored.

  “It’s all right, Marcus,” she said.

  “He’s an agent.”

  “I know. Sam says we can trust him.”