Dead, Sweet Boy (Book One - Dead, Sweet Series)

by Susan MacQuoid

  Bobby pulled out a chair at the table that held all my belongings. I was embarrassed to go near him, because I knew I reeked of beer, sweat and tears.

  “Thank you,” I said, barely loud enough for anyone to hear. The whole mess was so devastating. These people didn’t know anything about me except for what the cops and the doctor might have written down. I was never questioned or read my rights.

  A stack of papers were set in front of me, along with a pen. Apparently I was expected to read through everything and sign. Nobody cared about what I had been through. By then it was obvious that the doctor had missed something, and I must have had some sort of brain injury.

  There were probably about a dozen different pieces of paper for me to read, but it might as well have been a mountain. The first paper didn’t make sense, as hard as I tried. It was all about choices. That I understood the choices I was going to make. When I was about to just go ahead and sign it, so I could go somewhere and lay down, Miss. Day put her hand on my shoulder, and said, “That’s right dear, hurry up and sign the papers, and this nightmare will be over.”

  I gasped and pushed my chair back from the table. “You don’t understand. I’ve been in an accident. It was a bad one. I can’t sign papers. How am I supposed to read them?”

  “I’ll read them to you,” she offered, and although her smile seemed perfectly sweet, I reminded myself that I was a prisoner at this place against my rights and my will.

  “I want to call my parents.”

  “Your parents have signed off on you Sunny. Phone calls are earned here. If you just sign these papers, life will be easier for all of us.”

  “No, I never got to see my parents and my friends.”

  The back door crashed open, and then slammed. Standing at the entrance to the large dining room was the most beautiful male specimen I had ever seen in my life. I’m not exaggerating when I say that he looked like a rock and roll cowboy or something. My body stopped breathing to take him in without gasping, but when his tongue flicked the silver hoop in the corner of his bottom lip, electricity shot through my body. I shivered. My reaction was out of my control.

  “Who do we have here?” his smile was so perfect and white. I could look at his face and there wasn’t any pain. No colors, just a sort of grayish clear ripple in the air around him. It was a relief to look at him, even though I could feel the blush rush through my veins and land on my cheeks.

  He picked up the papers the police had given to Miss Day. “It looks like you weren’t going to tell me about this one,” he said to the guy with the extremely bright white and gold around him. “You’ve been very busy trying to keep things from me again. You two are playing with fire. Aren’t you?”

  “It’s very late. We didn’t want to wake you.”

  “Sunny? Your name is Sunny?”

  My head shook up and down to answer. It hurt, but I wasn’t sure that I could speak. Not to this being. When I realized he was reading about me, and whatever was said about me without getting my side, I wanted to curl up and die. He couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me, and he was so gorgeous.

  “It’s late. She can do paperwork in the morning,” he said. It was strange, when he reached for the stack of paperwork in front of me, because Miss Day snatched the pile away so quickly. I wished I could look at her face, and the face of the other guy, Bobby.

  “Obviously you were trying to pull a new trick on me, my friends. Tsk, tsk. You should know better than that. Apparently she didn’t fall into line at the sight of you Bobby. It appears her choices have become vague. My court now. My ball.”

  “What are you talking about? What’s going on?” I wasn’t sure what I was hearing, or even if I might have been hallucinating.

  “I’m Clay Sunny. Do you like horses?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. What kind of question was that? I didn’t know where the hell I was or what was going to happen to me, and hunk guy wanted to know if I liked horses. “I think I need to lie down. I was in an accident.”

  “What? A gal who doesn’t know if she likes horses? Well I’m going to teach you everything you need to know. About horses.”

  “Great.” My head was splitting, and the thought of messing with very large and stinky animals didn’t excite me at all.

  Miss Day stepped closer, with all of her colors and latched on to my arm. “Follow me Sunny.” She sounded disappointed. “You will sleep alone tonight so you don’t wake the others. It’s 3:00am and we get up at 6:00am sharp.”

  She led me to a very small room off the kitchen that had its own very small bathroom with a shower stall. “Leave your things packed. In the morning you’ll move to a dorm. Take a shower, and wash that stink off of yourself. Get some sleep, and just in case you get an idea about leaving? The property here stretches as far as you can see. The Sheriff in these parts knows that any strange girls belong here. You will be brought back, if the animals don’t get you first. You are a hard headed one. Believe me; trying to escape now will only do us all harm.”

  I wanted to ask where I was and why I had to be there. What in the hell was she talking about? Miss Day walked out of the room before I could form any questions with my mouth. With only three hours before I had to get up, I went straight to the shower. The hot water was like gold as it washed the confusion of the night from my body. I almost forgot about the wound on my face, when I was washing my hair with the generic shampoo in the stall. I assumed it would be wise not to get it wet and washed around it.

  The bed was a cot and the pillow was flatter than a pancake. I didn’t care. If I could just close my eyes, maybe my head would settle down. The pills seemed to help some, but even in the dark, the throbbing was overwhelming.

  It was sweet to finally close my eyes. My thoughts were too wild to relax, so I tried to think about my river. My imagination took me to the cement dock in my back yard where my little boat was waiting. I started to row up stream, to avoid any bad thoughts, but I didn’t have the strength to compete with the current. The thoughts I chose to relax myself took on a life of their own. No matter how I tried to change them, my little boat went with the current of the river, taking me to the place I didn’t want to ever think about again. Linda’s house.

  I saw it, the way it was the night I did what I did. Everything felt the same as it did that night. There I was, crouched in the bushes with my gasoline, waiting for Linda’s mom to leave. Only this time I saw the dog. It didn’t want Linda to leave. Oh my goodness, it was a beautiful and happy dog. Some sort of red and white Sheppard, without a tail.

  My thoughts were so strong, that when I tried to stop them, they got angrier and almost mocked me. I swear, in those dark thoughts, I turned and smiled at myself as I headed to the house to pour the gas on the porch.

  The gas lit with an explosion, more powerful than the fire I witnessed before. The poor dog started barking and crying as the flames took over the whole house. The scream in my belly wouldn’t come out as I tried to order myself to save the dog. It was too late.

  Just before the house crumbled, the dog jumped up to look at me through a window. Its eyes were red with anger and its growl showed its dangerous teeth.

  A gasp came from the body outside of my thoughts. My body. The thoughts were gone and I could open my eyes. I could still hear the dog, it was growling at me. My face was covered with sweat and I was shaking. When I moved to get up from the cot, the growl got louder, closer. And then I saw it, in all its wild colors, with those red eyes, moving closer to my bed. Carefully, I lay back down as still as I could, while the dog put its paws on the side of the cot and reached its face only inches from mine.

  This was real. I could smell its breath and feel the heat coming from its mouth. If I moved even an inch, I was sure it would go for my throat. Tears streamed down my face, burning the wound under the gauze, and soaking the pillow under my head.

  Eventually the dog backed off just enough so it wasn’t on the cot or in my face, but it didn’t take
its crazy eyes off of me. If I breathed a little too hard it growled. If I relaxed even a muscle, it growled.

  My keepers obviously didn’t think the expansive property or the dark, were enough to hold me there. Whatever the place was, it was dangerous and as I realized how dangerous it was, I knew there was nothing I could do about it. These people were crazy to put a mad dog in with me, and who knew what other extremes they might go to.

  The dog backed off completely when a girl my age opened the door to wake me. She said that breakfast was in fifteen minutes and if I was late, I would have to do extra work. Thankfully, the dog left the room with her.

  The water from the sink in the bathroom felt like heaven as I washed the fear and sweat from my face and neck. My hair was a mess. Without a blow dryer or straightening iron, I had no choice but to wet it and let it do what it wanted. Apparently, long and wavy hair turns to ringlets when you layer it and don’t have the ability to blow dry it. I had no idea how curly my hair was, because I had always kept it long and all the same length.

  When I looked at myself in the mirror, I knew I was on the edge of something. I didn’t look well. The edge of sanity maybe. The edge of health, life or death – I didn’t know. There didn’t look to be a drop of inner strength left in me. The kind that brings you through things. The kind that helps you stand against whatever you have to come up against in life.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I’m Still Standing

  You could never know what it’s like

  Your blood like winter freezes just like ice

  And there’s a cold lonely light that shines from you

  You’ll wind up like the wreck you hide behind that mask you use

  (Elton John’s, Too Low For Zero)

  With breakfast, I was given a couple more of the pills the doctor prescribed. My appetite wasn’t present with the flow of colors at the table. At least a dozen girls sat chatting and eating at that table, and my head was sick with pain. I ignored any questions that were directed at me, because I couldn’t see the faces, and honestly, I was too tired to care.

  Two of the girls were charged with helping me bring my stuff up to a room I would share with them. Just the thought of having roommates made me miss Claudia terribly. At first the two girls were being overly sweet, and if I hadn’t been in a situation like that before, I might have fallen for it. I knew better. They just wanted the scoop on me. Experience made me well aware that I was on the bottom of the totem pole in this new hell. The new girl was always the most vulnerable. These weren’t average teen girls. They were troubled like me.

  “They let you have a phone?” one of them complained.

  I could make out that they had dumped all of my stuff on the bed. I guessed it was my bed. “Get away from my stuff,” I ordered.

  “Your shit minus the cell phone. It’s against the rules. If we can’t have one, neither can you.”

  “It doesn’t work,” I said, hoping as she opened it that it wouldn’t light up. Thankfully it didn’t work, no matter how many times she tried to turn it on. But I cringed when she tossed it into a waste can.

  One of them reached for Rick’s sunglasses, but I was able to snatch them away before she could. I put them on, to make sure they were safe, and when I did, I could see. The colors were still there and they still had an effect on my eyes, but Rick’s wonderful sunglasses muted the colors just enough for me to see.

  “You’re a freak,” the girl with the blonde ponytail said. She was a big girl, in all ways.

  “What did you do?” the other girl asked. She was very petite, with straight brown hair and the biggest brown eyes.

  “I might show you what I did, if you touch my things again.”

  It was the bigger girl who backed away. The other one sat herself on my clothes and looked me in the eyes, even though she couldn’t see them through the sunglasses. “You aren’t the only bad girl here,” she sneered.

  “I don’t give a shit,” I swore.

  The petite girl stood up and shoved me back on the bed, holding me down at the shoulders. “Get her glasses,” she ordered.

  That was it. I knew I had to fight. If they felt any weakness in me at all, I would be tortured for the duration. So I threw her off of me and shoved the fat one as soon as I could get to my feet.

  “Stop it!” a male voice yelled. It was the voice from the night before, whose face I couldn’t see. It was Bobby.

  “She started it,” they began to accuse.

  I turned to see his face, and what I saw made me sit myself back on the bed. What was it with this place and the gorgeous guys that worked here? How were these girls able to treat this guy like he was normal? There was nothing normal about the beauty that radiated under his bright colors. His skin was the most fascinating shade of tan, so creamy and even. And his eyes were so blue in contrast. The hair on his head was in locks of dark brown that waved and separated, making it even shinier.

  When my eyes met his, I felt a strange pull deep within myself. He was the kind of guy who could make you want to confess. My eyes dropped to the floor when he smiled. He had to know I was enchanted. With a house full of misfit girls under his charge on a daily basis, he had to be used to my reaction. I was too embarrassed to look at him again.

  At first he didn’t say anything. He just crossed his arms and stood in the doorway while the girls jumped into action, folding my jeans and putting them away. To my horror, there weren’t any tops in my luggage, but then I noticed that my roommates had matching t-shirts on. It was the uniform. A big rainbow stretch across their pink shirts and under the rainbow it said, ‘Rainbow Ranch.’

  Right away it struck a chord in me. This must have been my father’s doing again. And the place was probably some sort of Christian ranch that was supposed to save me. My mother most likely didn’t have a say in it. I had broken my probation and was in danger of doing some real time, so dad had me sent to hell as a last resort. I wanted to cry, but I knew I couldn’t. Not in front of these people. The funny thing was that my father was the last person you’d find in church. The theme must be attractive to the courts.

  Once again I heard the growl. The sound sent terror up and through my spine, causing me to jump to my feet. There it stood in the doorway, next to Bobby, watching me and growling. When I looked in its eyes, the growl got worse and it stepped through the doorway and in my direction. The other girls didn’t seem to care about the danger as it got closer, and then something happened that started me to consider my sanity. The petite girl walked right through the dog. I expected her to fall and be mauled by the beast, but instead, her legs passed right through the body of it. The dog turned and ran out of the room.

  “Sunny? Are you okay?” He was talking to me. Bobby wanted an answer but I was losing my mind. I tried to find some music, but there wasn’t any in my head and I knew somehow that the music was dead.

  “Sunny?”

  I nodded my head and looked back to the girls who were putting my things away. Just in time too, because the petite one slipped Rick’s mp3 player into her back pocket. When she reached for the earphones, I reached over and put my hand out, letting her know she had been caught. Her eyes darted in the direction of Bobby, and it was clear she was afraid. So I kept my mouth closed while she shielded herself behind the bigger girl to return my stuff.

  That was a point in my favor. If I had told on her, I would be a target for every girl to mess with. If I had let her get away with it, my stuff would be fair game. It was a game I had caught on to pretty quickly at the last place, mostly by watching the other girls.

  My first day at the ranch was excruciating. These people knew I was injured in an accident, but it didn’t matter to them. Along with about six other girls, excluding my roommates, I had to chop up the hard earth with a hoe, to start a new garden. The first passes of the earth were made with a tiller, but the clumps of grass it left behind were big and the ground was full of rocks. We had to chop up the clumps, and remove all the grass and stones. I don
’t think I had ever seen such a large garden ever. We weren’t allowed to talk while we worked, and lunch couldn’t have come soon enough.

  When we walked through the back door to the kitchen, after washing up outside, I was handed more pills. They knew I was in pain and it didn’t matter. The pills seemed to help my appetite though. I was starving, and didn’t pay much attention to the chatter between the girls. It was so hard to concentrate on anything, because I was so tired and disoriented. Nothing could quench my thirst, or my paranoia about the dog. My eyes kept checking, hoping I wouldn’t have anymore hallucinations. I had a feeling about that dog. It was after revenge.

  My body felt someone walk past me. When I looked, it was Clay. The cowboy. He took a seat with his plate at the end of the table, having a tremendous effect on my body when he smiled at me. My right hand went straight to the mop of curls on my head, and then down to the bandage on my cheek. Every vain cell in my body cringed. I was a mess, and he had to be a witness to probably the worst day I was having in the looks area of my life.

  My mouth was too full, making it hard to chew without exposing its contents. As soon as I could, I swallowed. It was difficult. Almost making me choke from the load. If I could have slid under the table without anyone noticing me, I would have done it.

  Things got worse. Bobby seated himself at the other end of the table. If I were forced to pick between them, I would have to flip a coin. They were equally beautiful, with an equally distressing control over my hormones.

  Rick’s sunglass slipped down my nose a little, letting in enough colors to prompt an immediate correction. And as I pushed them back up my nose, I realized Rick must be going nuts with worry. Unless he was angry with me for leaving him. No, he couldn’t be angry. He told me to run.

  Guilt hit me, and my eyes started to water. I really was sick. Just before all of this happened, didn’t I decide to be with Rick? The words were never spoken, but my heart had decided. Rick was my boyfriend, and here I was practically drooling over these guys I didn’t even know. I was sure it had something to do with the perversions deep inside I was coming to grips with.