Then again, he’s a grown man now, wealthy in his own right.
He could run away now, if he wanted to.
There must be something he likes about that life, something dark and sharp he’s addicted to. We all have our own needles. We each rack up our own debts.
Sometimes Daddy would slip. Bills would pile up, only for him to dig us out again. When we got close to getting evicted I would count cards, but only once. Then twice. He was as scared of Jonathan Scott as me, so he understood the risk.
And I had my own addiction. Stolen moments in the Mathematics section of the high school library. Fractals drawn on my school notebooks, filled in with little hearts and smiley faces so that no one would suspect anything. No one ever did.
Once Mr. Halstead asked me to stay after physics, where he told me that I wasn’t living up to my potential. He seemed so sincere, so kind, that I actually agreed to come to after school study sessions with him. But when he put his hand on my leg and breathed against my neck, I knew he didn’t really care about my mind.
It wasn’t anything special about me that they liked.
Only that I was a girl in the west side. We were only used for one thing.
And then there was Brennan. He had a crooked smile and a motorcycle, so all my friends thought he was a great catch. I could see the appeal, from an academic standpoint. His muscles were sharpened from working in his father’s garage, his confidence an attractive quality. I hoped he never found out I went out with him for his books. Automotive Wiring and Electrical Systems. Advanced Automotive Fault Diagnoses. Not my ideal form for numbers to take, but I read them with the same secret fervor that my father bought lotto tickets, both of us desperate for a fix.
“What are you reading, babe?”
I slammed shut his book on hybrid vehicles and slipped it under my open book from Calculus class. Technically math, but it had less to teach me than See Spot Run. Brennan’s a nice guy.
Nice enough I hope he never finds out I’m using him for his books.
“Studying,” I tell him, rising up to kiss him.
He’s sweaty from working. Their house is next door to the garage. “You hungry? I’ll shower and then we can go somewhere.”
“I have a shift at eight.” I work at a sad little diner, making five bucks an hour serving barely heated food and stale coffee. It’s better than most jobs a fifteen-year-old girl can get in west Tanglewood.
“Thought you had Fridays off.”
“Jessica’s baby has a fever.”
Brennan sighs. “We barely get to go out.”
Guilt rises inside me, because I kind of prefer it that way. Hanging out after school and making out on his couch. Every time we go to a party it’s another chance to take things further.
Brennan wants that. Maybe even deserves it, after being so patient. But I can’t give it to him. Can’t end up like Jessica with a baby. I don’t think Brennan would bail the way Jessica’s boyfriend did, but it’s too big of a risk.
I put my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t say no.” And I didn’t want to. “Besides, you know I need the money.”
Something flashes across his eyes. Frustration. Futility? “What will you make? Twenty bucks? I could give you that if you spent the night.”
My hand snatches back. “Excuse me, I’m not for sale.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I mean the job’s total shit and you know it.”
“Well it’s the only one I have.” I whirl away so he can’t see the hopelessness on my face. There’s only so much humiliation a girl can take in one evening. I stare out his window at the rows of dark windows, the broken bricks. The west side is a tumbled-down maze, not even fit for living, keeping us trapped.
There is no exit strategy. No way out.
Brennan’s arms wrap around me, slick and dirty with grease but comforting all the same. “I’m a fucking idiot,” he murmurs into my hair. “I know you’re doing the best you can.”
“I just want to…” Escape. Fly to the moon. “Graduate. Then we can make plans.”
“Okay,” he says, because he understands my desire to finish school. He has his GED and he’s studying to get certified as an automotive technician. He’s a high achiever among our friends. And he’ll never know that my dreams are so far beyond this.
That I long for the impossible.
“I should get going. I have to change first.”
He turns me in his arms, his strong hands warm with familiarity, painful with certainty. He presses a kiss to my mouth. I part my lips, and he takes the invitation, pressing his tongue inside, opening me. I let him, let him, let him. That’s all I know how to do anymore.
I like his kisses the same way I like boxed mac and cheese and my worn mattress at home. They mean I’m safe and comfortable, if not quite happy.
He pulls back like he always does. Maybe sensing I would finally snap if he pushed.
It’s his own form of safe and comfortable.
His eyes search me. What does he want to find?
He traces my eyebrow, his finger agreeably callused. His expression is a little awed. “You’re the prettiest girl in the west side, you know that?”
“And out of the west side?” I ask, not because I’m vain enough to think I am. Because I want to know when we resigned ourselves to this. When we noticed the iron bars around our lives and decided not to rail against them.
His smile is sad and tired. “Out of the west side you wouldn’t be with me.”
It’s an arrow straight to the heart, because he’s right. And he deserves better. Don’t we both? I throw my arms around him and squeeze. We need friends in captivity.
* * *
Brennan takes me home on his motorcycle, the roar of the engine bouncing off pavement and brick. I mold myself to his body, my eyes squeezed tight in his helmet. There’s a perverse thrill as we race through the darkened streets. Both of us know this is as fast and as far as we’ll ever go. One slip on slick gravel is all it would take. And the worst part is the faint sense that we’re waiting for it. Wanting it. Pushing the boundaries in the hopes that we leave on our own terms, young and free.
We arrive at my apartment building, sudden stillness almost violent after the rush.
The crumbling concrete of the curb shifts under my feet.
My ears ring as I take off the helmet, placing it on Brennan’s head and tapping it into place. “I dub thee Sir Brennan. Go forth into battle.”
He grins from beneath the visor. “If I’m a knight, what does that make you?”
“The princess, of course.”
Kissing never works well with a helmet on. Someone’s forehead ends up smacked. Instead I kiss my palm and press it to his mouth, the way lords and ladies did with handkerchiefs.
A chaste kiss.
Then he’s off in a cloud of exhaust, his noble steed lovingly restored and shining.
The diner is only a couple blocks away. I have plenty of time to change before my shift. Then it will be a monotony of grease and coffee, miles to go on the same black-and-white tiles with my tired feet.
I turn toward my building, mentally bracing myself for the night to come.
“Hello, princess.”
The words come out of the dark alley to the side, and I jump back. Brennan insists on taking me home every night, when I could take the bus, partly because of safety. The voice is low and grave and completely new to me. If it’s a stranger the best thing I can do is ignore him. Hope he goes away.
That’s what they tell you to do about bullies, isn’t it?
I put my head down, wrapping my arms around myself.
With my eyes downcast I can’t see him, but I feel him. He steps out of the shadows, his presence like a cold burst of air in the hot night. “That’s not what I call you, though. To me you’ll always be a baby genius.”
Shock holds me paralyzed on the sidewalk. A dangerous prospect considering it’s late in the evening in the west side. Made even more dangerous because I
know exactly who this is.
I know exactly what he’s become.
There’s a storm inside me. A whirlwind of surprise and fear, threatening to drown me. Why are you back? That’s what I want to ask. From somewhere deep inside, another whisper. Why did you take so long?
“It’s so much more interesting than a princess, don’t you think? A pretty face has its appeal, but a sharp mind is a goddamn aphrodisiac.”
When I turn to face him, he moves behind me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He makes a tsk sound, keeping pace as I try to confront him. “That’s not true, Penny. But I understand. You’re so used to playing dumb, aren’t you? It’s more than a habit now. It’s a veil, keeping you hidden.”
“I can’t believe you’re talking to me right now.”
“You don’t have to hide with me.”
“I’m not trying to hide,” I say, and with him at least it’s the truth. “I’m trying to look at you.”
He stops moving, and I finally face him.
I must have turned one too many times, because the air leaves my chest. Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of his dark eyes—black like night. Like inky depths I could never hope to enter. Never hope to escape. He looks so much like his father it steals my breath.
Some logical part of me knows they have differences. Jonathan Scott already had silver threading his dark hair when I met him years ago. He was taller, leaner, more severe in every way. It’s my heart that’s somehow breaking, seeing in him the whisper of evil.
With his perfectly disarranged hair and the evening shadow on his jaw, he bears little resemblance to the wild boy I knew once. His lips have filled out. His chest has filled out too, fitting into that dress shirt and tailored vest perfectly. Only the eyes prove it’s him, at once knowing and curious. Pitch black, like the night sky above the city, no stars at all to light the way.
I think I loved him once.
About as much as I despise this handsome man. He’s everything my mother would have chased after. Everything I’ve learned not to trust.
“You’re right,” he says softly. “We should go up.”
“You’re not going anywhere with me.” I glare at him, giving him my meanest look. It doesn’t seem to worry him any. A smile flickers on his lips, making him look dashing.
I don’t trust men who look dashing.
Amusement flashes across dark eyes, as if he knows. “Where are your manners?”
“They’re reserved for people I actually like.”
“Like Brennan Chase?”
I struggle to remember if I said Brennan’s full name. I dub thee Sir Brennan. Go forth into battle. My heart squeezes, imagining Damon keeping tabs on me. “How do you know his last name?”
“It’s my business to know people’s names. Their likes and dislikes. Their addictions. Do you have any addictions, baby genius?”
“Do you?”
“Many. Some worse than others.”
An answer that admits nothing. “What are you doing here?”
“I may not deserve a warm welcome, but I didn’t expect hostility. You invited me inside once.”
“That was before you were your father’s puppet.” I still feel guilty for that, but it doesn’t change the fact that he can’t be trusted. He didn’t only survive his father. He became him.
“Ah.”
“That’s all you have to say for yourself?”
“Would you like me to deny it? Fine. That’s not true, darling. I was most definitely my father’s puppet before we ever met.”
The seductive tone almost draws me in, even as his words confirm my worst fears. “You did what you had to do when you were a child. You’re a grown man now.”
“Thank you for noticing. Though I don’t work with my father.”
“Everyone says you do.”
“They say that?”
“They say you deal in money and drugs and women.”
He pauses meaningfully. “Not with my father, I don’t.”
It’s an admission.
He does every horrible thing he’s accused of doing. Every single thing I raged against in my mind. How could the sweet boy I once met be so horrible? How could someone who once risked his life for me be responsible for hurting other girls?
All the street lamps have blown out here, maybe on purpose. The only light is the moon, and when it shines over his dark eyes, the reflection makes them look silver.
He may not work with his father, but he’s become him.
“And that’s supposed to make it better?” I manage to ask. “That you do them for your own gain instead of working for your father?”
“Better? No, but it’s definitely more lucrative this way.”
It’s upsetting that he looks so clean and crisp and beautiful standing beside a run-down tenement. Upsetting that he looks so good when he’s clearly a bad man. That his movie star smile hides a terrible broken soul. “You’re not the boy I knew.”
“No,” he agrees. “Are you the girl I knew?”
“You’ll never find out.”
He tilts his head to the side, as if demurring. Too much of a gentleman to tell me I’m wrong. Except he’s no gentleman. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to speak to your father.”
My heart thuds. “Why?”
“He owes me money.”
Oh God. Daddy, what have you done? “He doesn’t.”
I’m only delaying the inevitable, but I can’t think right now. Can’t deal with the fact that we have rent due in two days and barely enough money to cover it. How will we pay back hundreds of dollars?
Damon looks to the side a little. As if he’s embarrassed by my horror. Or maybe bored. He straightens the cuffs of his fine white shirt, perfectly tailored to his broad chest and narrow waist. He might be waiting in the eaves for an opera to begin, so casually refined.
“How dare you?” I whisper, waiting for him to meet my eyes, daring him.
He glances back at me, one dark eyebrow raised. “Pardon?”
“You know he doesn’t have a way to pay you back. How dare you loan him money? Charging insane interest rates he’ll never be able to afford. How dare you?”
A small laugh. “Would you have preferred I told him no? He would have gone straight to my father, who would have charged him higher interest than I did.”
“I hate you,” I say, tears stinging my eyes. “I hate you both.”
“And it’s not quite true that he doesn’t have a way to pay the money back.”
The silence spins out in brutal possibility. “How?”
“He has you.”
PART TWO
The King
Chapter Seven
When I first came to live with Daddy he worked in a prison-release program at Goodwill. He would pick things out of the donation piles to bring home. A Barbie with her hair cut jagged. A half-empty box of tinker toys. It was when he brought home the Rubik’s Cube that we hit the jackpot.
Some of the stickers had been torn or smudged away, but the colors were still visible. Only one sticker was gone completely, but a quick count of the sides told me it was yellow.
I sat down in front of the armchair, still worn and lumpy then. My legs crisscrossed, my heart pumping. And in twenty minutes solved the cube for the first time.
Daddy watched with a strange look in his eyes.
When I was done he turned the columns this way and that, trying his best to make sure no two colors were side by side. This time I already had practice. It took fifteen minutes.
So many evenings we sat like that, him messing up the cube, me putting it right.
That was before he lost the job at Goodwill, before he turned heavy to gambling. Before I met Damon Scott and began to hide what I could do.
Though I guess we’re still in old patterns. Daddy messing things up.
Me putting it right.
I can tell Daddy’s home before I put my key in the lock. Something ab
out the air feels heavy with despair, with guilt—though maybe that’s just wishful thinking. I want him to be sorry for what he’s done. But the only thing I feel when I feed my addiction, when I breathe in the sharp tang of numbers is relief.
He sits in his lumpy armchair, the secondhand metal cane leaning against the side.
My feet seem to slow down as I approach him. As much as I need to have this confrontation, as many questions and accusations are swirling inside me, I wish I were anywhere but here.
I don’t bother to sit on the lumpy couch or the wooden coffee table with a crack down the side. Instead I sit down at his feet, crossing my legs. In the same place I sat so many times. The same way I did when I was a little girl.
That’s how I feel right now. Small and helpless.
In Daddy’s eyes I find terrible confirmation.
“I’m sorry,” he says gruffly.
“I don’t understand. Why would you borrow from Damon Scott?” When his lips press together, my heart stops. “Oh God. You owe someone else.”
He shakes his head, as if struggling to understand it himself. “I thought if I could pay off the debt with Damon Scott I’d have more time. So I borrowed from someone else. Pretty soon I owed almost everyone in the city money.”
“Almost?” I say, my voice tight.
Where I felt a surge of emotion with Damon Scott, there’s only emptiness. A blissful numbness that spreads from my heart to my fingers. It’s a relief, however temporary.
His eyes sharpen. “I didn’t borrow from Jonathan Scott.”
“You wanted to.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway, whether I borrowed from him or not. There’s no way I can survive this. Not with the amount of money on the line.”
“Damon Scott talked to me.”
Daddy surges up in a surprising show of strength, before making a cry of pain and falling back into the chair. “That bastard. Did he touch you?”
That small amount of protectiveness makes my heart squeeze. This is what I wanted. Someone to care about me, someone for me to care about. Without having to worry about kneecaps breaking.
How is it that some people get huge trees of family, aunts and uncles and cousins? A flick of a DNA strand, a twist of fate. And here I am, almost alone. Except for one person.
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