It was nearing two in the morning and I hadn’t had a break in over six hours. My bladder was threatening mutiny. I took a saran-wrapped case of marijuana off the scale and headed toward the disgusting bathroom. There was only one bathroom in Zero’s warehouse, and he didn’t keep a cleaner. If I was lucky, there would be a roll of toilet paper I could line the seat with, though I would never use that toilet paper.
I passed Zero’s “office”, which was just four drywall sheets with no ceiling. I always felt a chill passing his office, as if it was haunted. I suppose it was haunted, haunted by him. I stepped up my pace, wanting to pass by quickly.
“What about Gracie?”
I stopped as the sound of my name escaped over the walls of Zero’s office. There were no windows, just grey, unpainted drywall and one door. He couldn’t see me standing outside, but I slowly crept against the end of the hallway, just in case.
“Fucking great,” I heard Zero respond. “Never had anything on that nigger anyway, then she shows up and offers to trade for his place. Almost makes me wish I sold sex.”
A laugh I recognized as coming from Zero’s second in command, Roy, bellowed above the walls.
“Probably a virgin, though,” Roy said.
“Even better,” Zero laughed. “People pay double for virgins.”
The doorknob to Zero’s office shimmied and I scurried back to my post. As I continued weighing and sorting the drugs, I felt like I was going to be sick. Burning bile crept up my throat, but I swallowed it back down when Zero and Roy walked past me.
They shared a smile with one another. Any other day I would have thought that the smile they shared was just them being their usual icky selves. Now I knew better. I knew the secrets they shared. I knew what the smile meant.
My hand shook as I sorted another pile of drugs.
Zero had nothing on Eli. He’d made up the twenty grand and lied to Eli about the proof of his illegal activity, too. Eli had been free from the beginning and I had willingly sold myself into slavery. Tears formed on my lids as I took stock of my situation. I didn’t want this to be my life. There was no getting out. Even if the stuff about Eli was made up, that didn’t make my situation less real. I would never be free.
I was so sick and tired of the town and its memories. I walked through the street and it was like walking through a graveyard. Every lamppost and tree was like a headstone. I saw Eli everywhere. The worst part was knowing that I’d done this to myself.
Maybe I should have fought harder for him. Maybe I should have told him that I’d lost our baby. Maybe he could have helped me through it all. I thought I was protecting Eli, but maybe I was just protecting myself.
Maybe.
My life was filled with what-ifs. That’s the terrible thing about life, though: there’s no roadmap. No how-to guide. If there was a way to do this thing without second-guessing, I hadn’t figured it out yet.
In any case, it was too late now. Eli had moved on. It was time for me to do the same.
The room was silent as everyone waited for me to elaborate. I was waiting for the same thing. My voice was caught in my throat, along with the memories that needed to surface in order to explain. I’d alluded to the notion that there was more than met the eye with Zero and me, but now I had to clarify.
“Gracie, you don’t need to say anything,” Eli said. He reached for my hand, but I held my palms flat. “It was so long ago and we were just kids. I was stupid but you still had the guts to leave.”
I closed my eyes tight, focusing on my breathing. I knew what Eli was referring to, but it wasn’t what I was talking about. He was thinking of the time we’d gone to Zero’s together. He’d taken me to show me his new job. I’d left because Zero had creeped me out.
Eli thought that was the only time I’d ever met Zero. Eli thought that because I’d let him think that.
It was easier that way.
Maybe if I stood there with my eyes closed a little bit longer I could let everyone continue to believe the lie.
“Grace?” Lennox prompted.
“I worked for Zero for a few months before and after Eli went to college. Until I left. Until I ran away.” My eyes were still closed. I didn’t want to see anyone’s faces. I didn’t want to see Vic’s I-told-you-so, because he had told me so—I had run away. I didn’t want to see Lennox’s pity.
I definitely didn’t want to see Eli. Whatever was on his face, I couldn’t handle.
I let out all the breaths I was holding and opened my eyes, facing my audience. My judges. “I only dealt once, as a sort of rite of passage. After that I did mostly back room stuff, because I was better at it. I weighed the drugs, organized them, and stuff like that…”
Vic scoffed in reply.
“You don’t know what it was like!” I exclaimed, rounding on Vic. “What our town became.”
“You think it was some magical fucking fairytale when I was there?” Vic growled. “I didn’t deal drugs.”
“Don’t act like you’re Jesus, Vic,” Lennox said from her perch in the shadowy corner. “You’ve got just as many skeletons in your closet. Probably more.” Vic cast a sideways glance at Lennox, but she only shrugged.
“That’s different,” Vic remarked. “There’s no saving me.” Before anyone could say anything, Vic walked out of the room. His thunderous steps were heard like the crash of a judge’s mallet. The room fell into a cramped silence.
I had little time to reflect on Vic’s words because Eli quickly asked, “Why?”
“Because you needed to be free,” I whispered. “He wasn’t going to let you go.” I prayed he didn’t ask me to explain further. I didn’t want to go into how I’d had to meet Zero myself and practically beg him to let me take the debt, the debt that had turned out to be fiction.
“You had no right,” Eli responded, his voice dangerously soft.
“Eli—”
“We could have figured it out together!” Eli yelled, the soft cadence now replaced with booming thunder. His eyes were wide and angry, furious. I stepped back, but then he started to cough uncontrollably.
“Where’s your inhaler?” I asked, rubbing his back.
“I haven’t…” Eli said through pained breaths. “Had…to…use…it…in…years…” I rubbed Eli’s back in silence, getting him through his attack like I had when we were kids. Eventually, when his breathing evened out, I explained.
“There’s no figuring it out with Zero. I didn’t want to be his slave but it was better than you. You were going somewhere. You were doing something. Why can’t you see that?”
“Why can’t you see your potential?” Eli knocked my hand off his back and grabbed me by the shoulders. “Were you hit so many times that it bruised your soul?” I choked on my breath, tears stinging my eyes. I looked away so he couldn’t see my eyes reddening, but he kept me in his hold. I felt the harsh bruise of his fingers digging into my skin, and I could feel his eyes practically burning a hole into my cheek.
“Eli,” Lennox warned. “I think it’s time you leave.” I’d forgotten Lennox was in the room, having assumed she’d left with Vic, but when her sharp, steely voice cut in, I couldn’t have been more thankful. Eli let go of me and I stumbled back, feet unsure of themselves. After a few moments of tense silence, Eli released a breath that nearly sounded like a growl and left. As he walked out the door, his body was so tight I could see every muscle and sinew. When he was gone, I fell to the ground.
“Can I get you anything?” Lennox offered, lightly touching me on the shoulder.
I shook my head. “I just need to be alone.”
After sitting alone in my new room for thirty minutes, I walked into the living room of Vic and Lennox’s apartment, feeling bruised. I felt worse than when Daddy would become enraged with me because he would forget where he was and thought I was someone trying to hurt him. On those days I was lucky if I could walk away. After those days, I would have bruises that were deep purple for weeks.
Now I felt like my heart wa
s bruised a deep purple. Maybe Eli was right, maybe my soul was bruised. Growing up with Daddy, I’d learned to look for the signs of healing in my and Mama’s bruises. If they weren’t getting ugly and yellow, that meant they needed to be seen by a doctor. A bruise that stays blue or gets black isn’t healing. You want an ugly bruise.
Maybe my soul never got ugly.
Maybe my soul stayed blue.
Maybe my soul turned black.
Maybe I was dead inside.
I walked past Vic sitting alone on the couch. Part of me wanted to stop and talk to him. What had he meant when he said there’s no saving him? Did he think that I needed to be saved? But more importantly, why did he think he wasn’t savable?
Instead of asking those questions, I kept walking to the kitchen. I just wanted something so I could fall asleep without hunger pains—or, more realistically, so I could lie in bed without hunger pains. There was a good chance I wasn’t falling asleep that night.
“I won’t have my little sister dating a drug dealer.” Vic’s chilled voice wafted into the kitchen.
My hand rested limply on the fridge door. “What?” I asked, staring at my steel reflection. That’s what I felt like now: steel. Cold. Molded by the elements around me.
“I won’t have my little sister dating a drug dealer,” Vic repeated. He was also staring forward, his reflection looking back at him from the empty TV screen. I removed my hand from the fridge and walked over to him.
“You know nothing about Eli. And little sister?” Is he serious? “You lost the right to call me that when you left sixteen years ago! I’m nothing to you! I’m a stranger.”
“A stranger who showed up on my doorstep,” Vic pointed out. Lennox came down the stairs but stopped midway when she saw us fighting. I glanced in her direction, feeling sorry for bringing such chaos into her house.
“You’re right,” I conceded. “I’m a stranger that showed up on your doorstep.” I turned around, ready to leave. Vic and I were nothing to each other. He had no idea what I’d gone through. We didn’t share sibling memories. We hadn’t gone through the Wall War together. He’d gone AWOL. I’d taken all the mortar hits on my own.
I didn’t know what I had been thinking going there. The more I saw of Vic and his family, the more I realized how distant we were.
“Wait, Grace,” Vic stood up, calling after me. “Wait.”
“For what?” I turned to face him. “We have absolutely nothing in common. We are barely related. You and I couldn’t be more different.”
Lennox scoffed. I turned my attention to her, frowning. “Sorry,” she said, raising her hands up in surrender. “It’s just, you guys are ridiculously similar. You’re practically twins.” Vic and I exchanged a look. “Right,” Lennox continued. “Neither of you are emotionally damaged by your terrible parents. Neither of you regret not having a relationship with each other. Neither of you have relationship hangups. Neither of you speak in one-liners. Neither of you stare in lieu of polite conversation. Neither of you—”
“That’s enough, Lenny,” Vic said. Lennox raised her eyebrows in response, but kept quiet.
“I’m gonna go…pretend that I have something else to do while I’m really just giving you both time to talk.” Lennox turned around and walked up the way she’d come, leaving Vic and me in thorny silence. We both stared at each other, neither speaking.
Dammit, Lennox is right.
“Well one of us should say something,” I finally said.
Vic sighed. “What do you want to say?”
I guessed it was now or never. “I’m pretty pissed at you for leaving.”
Vic raised an eyebrow. “I can see that.”
I rolled my eyes and looked out the window at a beautiful view of the beach. The marine layer was gone and all that was left was bright blue. Bright blue sky and bright blue ocean, only the yellow sand separating the two.
“I couldn’t stay, Grace,” Vic said, breaking the silence. “I honestly thought you would be okay.”
It was my turn to scoff.
“When I left you were just a child,” Vic explained. “You were their child.”
“You were their child,” I countered, my voice lame and exhausted.
“No.” Vic shook his head. “When you were born I became the demon spawn that Daddy needed to beat. You were their angel. You were their saving Grace.”
I nearly gasped. I’d had no idea. I suppose some part of me knew that Vic left because of their abuse, but I’d been so young when he left I had no memory of it. I hated him for leaving, because I felt like he’d abandoned me to their abuse intentionally. Like he took off when he had the chance and didn’t care what happened to little ol’ me.
I had absolutely no inkling that the reason he was abused was because of me, though. He didn’t even sound bitter about it; he just stated it as a fact. Like apples were apples, and I was the reason he was abused.
I cleared my throat. “When you left I became the demon spawn. Daddy beat me.” It was Vic’s turn to be surprised. I saw realization spread across his features. I realized he’d really believed that when he left, I would be okay.
Neither of us said anything, we just let the revelations wash over us. Both our eyes traveled to the window. I watched as the waves crashed against the shore, each crash wiping away the old sand and creating a smooth new palate. Adults and children were laughing on the sand, smiling and having a normal life.
“He’s not a drug dealer, you know,” I said, sitting down on a kitchen bar stool, preparing for a talk I didn’t want to have. I didn’t know what I’d expected when I’d come there. Family wasn’t something I had, so why had I thought I’d get a brother?
“I have resources that indicate otherwise,” Vic replied, still standing.
I raised an eyebrow. Resources? Like the internet? “I don’t know what ‘resources’ you have, but Eli isn’t a drug dealer. He’s pre-law at UGA.”
Vic sat down, his face expressionless. “He used to work with Zero.”
“After everything I just told you, about me and about Zero, how can that still bother you?” Vic knew nothing about Zero. He’d left our town before Zero moved in and infested the place. Zero had promised everyone things that our town couldn’t possibly offer. These were the kids of addicts, of parents who worked three jobs, and of parents like mine…so Zero seemed like the second coming in comparison.
And then when we’d learned who Zero really was, it was too late. We were sucked in. There was no way to escape Zero, unless you offered yourself as a trade to save the one you loved.
“So you know what Eli did?” Vic asked, frowning. “You know he got families hooked on meth?”
“I know Eli is working to become a public defender and save lives. I know that you’re coming in when the game is almost over, and trying to act like you know things that you don’t.”
Vic ran a hand through his hair. “What the hell do you want from me, Grace?”
I shrugged. I’d thought I wanted a brother. Now? “Absolutely nothing!” I stood up and walked out of the apartment.
I slammed the door behind me, utterly frustrated with my brother and now completely unsure of where to go. I sighed, spinning around to lean against the now shut door, when—
“Oh my!” I jumped back, startled by a shadowy presence looming right next to the doorway. “How long have you been standing there?”
Eli stepped out from the shadows, his height seeming to grow in the light. His head was down and he looked despondent. “Since Lennox asked me to leave.”
I raised my eyebrows. “That was two hours ago.”
Eli took a step toward me. “I heard everything you said. You shouldn’t have said those things about me, not after the way I spoke to you. You’re too nice for your own good, Bug.”
I shrugged my shoulders, turning my attention away. I didn’t want to talk about what he’d said to me. Like every other bad thing in my life, I’d rather bury it away and forget it.
“No, don’
t do that, Bug.” Eli reached for my hands. Reluctantly, I gave them to him. “I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, averting my gaze. “Okay.”
“Grace,” Eli said, his tone provoking me. “Don’t you hide from me. I was wrong to talk to you like that. You deserve better. Remember that.”
I sighed. I didn’t agree that I deserved better. If Eli knew the secrets I was keeping from him, he’d sooner toss me out with the trash. Still, there was no arguing with Eli when he got like this. Reluctantly I nodded in agreement.
Eli glanced down the hallway. “Were you going somewhere?”
“Not really,” I admitted. “I was gonna walk around and clear my head.”
Pulling my hand with his, Eli led me down the hallway. “I’ll come with you.”
I frowned at his back, watching his prominent shoulder muscles move as he walked. “I don’t understand you, Eli Jackson.”
“Why…” Eli stopped, turning to face me with a wicked smile on his face. “Grace Wall, you understand me most of everyone.”
Eli and I walked for hours around Santa Barbara, talking mostly about nothing. We got ice cream and french fries and it almost felt like everything was normal. Now, hours later, we walked along the beach, the moon reflecting against the water in stutters.
“Don’t you need to get back to school?” I asked, daring to instigate the first question that might indicate everything wasn’t completely hunky dory in our world.
“Are you sick of me already?”
I folded my arms in response. Of course I wasn’t sick of him, I just didn’t understand how he could be there in the middle of the school year. Honestly, I still couldn’t believe that he was there. Eli had become my fairytale, and fairytales didn’t happen in real life. Prince Charming wasn’t real; I had learned to rescue myself.
I eyed him, curiosity seeping from every pore. Under the night sky, Eli didn’t wash out like most people. Most people looked like shadows of themselves when the moon came out, their eyes sinking and their skin going ashen. Eli though… Eli looked magnificent in the moonlight. The combination of his dark skin and wicked muscles made him appear a granite golem sent from the gods themselves.
Let Me Go (Owned Book 2) Page 17