by Stasia Black
I can’t bear to look at her anymore. Her beautiful face and that swollen cheek from that bastard back at the restaurant. Her swiping at her tears has washed away the artful makeup she used to hide what the 12th Streeters did when they took her. She’s a mass of bruises. Broken how many times, all because of me?
I jam the car into gear and the tires squeal as I pull back out into traffic. It’s eight o’ clock, so not high-traffic time, but the streets are always clogged downtown. I weave around cars in and out of lanes. I need to be in fucking motion.
“If they were the ones who tormented your family, how could you go to the 12th Streeters for help?” I yank the clutch into fourth gear and slam the gas down in order to speed through a yellow light. It turns red right as I enter the intersection but I keep going.
Scarlet grabs the dash to brace herself but answers my question. “I thought they were just the gun. I thought you’d been the one pulling the trigger. On the street, the word was you’d screwed them over and that was why they weren’t big players anymore. The enemy of my enemy, right?” Her voice is bitter. She crosses her arms over her chest and looks out her window.
I weave in and out of traffic, cutting off some fucker driving a Tesla to pull into the parking lot of my building. I bring the car to a jolting stop in my allotted spot and Scarlet and I are both jerked forward by the sudden halt in momentum.
“What now?” I ask through my teeth.
She breathes out an explosive breath before finally looking over at me. “What can there be now? You saw what happened back there. You hate me. I lost you thirty million dollars. Which, even if I didn’t want to happen in the end, I still orchestrated. I wasn’t able to stop it.” She shakes her head. “This isn’t something we can come back from.”
I hear what she’s not saying. What she really means is my involvement in her father’s death. I think of some bull-necked bastard like Francisco breaking her father’s leg. Francisco wasn’t the leader I worked with back then. It was Benny. He was a giant dumbfuck, but mean as hell. He liked to do the dirty work himself. I think of him grabbing sweet Scarlet when she was just a little girl. She must have been so terrified. Seeing what they’d done to her father. No doubt Benny stood there yelling right in front of her face what he’d do to her if her father didn’t pay…
Christ, then I think about her being in the hospital fighting cancer and learning her father had died. Then she got out and had to carry everything on her shoulders. She survived cancer, survived her father’s death, had to take care of her kid brother, and then being homeless—for years.
Until her rage at the man who caused it all finally boiled over and she decided to do something about it. No wonder she’d come for revenge. I’m only surprised it took her as long as it did. And then—I hang my head—my behavior just now at the club.
Being hated by the people I love is nothing new. At least this time I deserve it.
“I’m sorry.” My voice is so low and choked it barely comes out at all. “I was young and stupid but that’s no excuse. I’d checked around and knew the reputation of the 12th Streeters. Fuck, it’s what attracted me to them. I wanted power and I would have done anything to get it.” I shake my head. If I’d known they were going to intimidate and threaten Scarlet’s family like that? Would I have stopped it?
I scrub a hand through my hair.
“Let’s just go get some sleep,” Scarlet says, sounding despondent. “It’s been a long day.”
I let out a huff of air. That’s a fucking understatement if I’ve ever heard one.
We’re both silent as we step into the elevator. I put my key in and turn it so we head straight up to the penthouse with no stops. I look over at Scarlet and she glances quickly away like I’ve caught her staring.
Her blonde hair is falling out of the pins she used for her updo and it’s matted on one side. With the exposed bruises on her face, she looks like a beautiful, broken flower. My miracle. And yet I let the world batter her. I spoke words I can never take back. I think of her gorgeous eyes, so bright in that moment when she came underneath me tonight.
The elevator ping startles me. Scarlet hurries out the door and I stand there like a statue, only stepping off when the doors start to close again.
Miracle lost. My fault. My fucking fault.
Still, I just move outside the elevator into the foyer of my apartment and stop there. I don’t know where to go. What to do.
A big part of me wants to run after Scarlet. To beg her to do the impossible. To forgive me. To tell me it wasn’t all pretend. Tonight, before I squashed it, I could have sworn there was something… In the way she looked at me— That just for a moment—
Don’t be a fucking idiot, you fucking disgusting loser piece of shit.
I stomp to the closest bathroom and turn on the faucet to its hottest temperature. Then I scrub at my bloody hands. Most of it is Nelson’s blood, but my knuckles are split, too. They’re going to hurt like a bitch.
Just the thought of that fucker brings a growl to my throat. He was breathing when I left. I regretted it the second I let Scarlet pull me off him and I’m still regretting it now. Bastard should be in the ground for daring to lift a hand to a woman—and not just any woman, but my woman.
No. Not your woman, Benson, get it through your fucking head.
I splash water on my face.
And that’s when I hear Scarlet’s raised voice calling, “Enzo? Enzo!”
I grab a towel to wipe my face and hands as I hurry out of the bathroom and head toward the sound of her voice.
“Enzo? This isn’t funny, where are you? I know we need to talk. Where are you? Enzo?”
“What’s going on?” I meet her in the hall as she pulls open the door to a closet that holds extra linens and towels for guests.
Worried eyes meet mine. “My brother. He’s hiding or something.”
“Enzo,” she calls, “I swear I’m going to wring your neck. Come out and we can pack my stuff and get out of here. Stop being a little crap.”
She pushes past me and checks the bathroom I just came out of. She heads down the rest of the hallway. I reach to put an arm on her elbow but then stop myself. Probably the last thing she wants is me touching her.
“Let’s check the security footage. Maybe he left.”
“Left?” Scarlet twirls on me so fast her hair flies out behind her. “Why would he do that? I told him I’d be right back. That we’d talk and figure things out.”
I shrug, not knowing how to say that from what I’d seen of the temperamental teenager, he didn’t seem like the kind to wait around for a heartfelt what-are-the-next-logical-steps-to-take conversation.
“Let’s just check the video.”
She bites her lip, glancing at the hallway that leads down the stairs. “I already checked down in the main kitchen and the other places I showed him.” Then she nods. “Okay, we’ll look at the video. As long as it’s fast.”
“It’s in my office.”
As soon as I say that, she starts jogging and I walk double-time to keep up. A few minutes later, I log in and scroll back the security tape that runs in the hallway outside my door. And there, time-stamped fifteen minutes after we left, is Enzo.
He slips out the door, looks back and forth down the hallway, then jogs for the stairwell. Scarlet makes a pained noise and then puts her hand over her mouth. Instinct takes over and I move close to her side. She lets me, either that or she’s so distraught she doesn’t notice.
“Stupid boy. Where are you going?” she asks, voice tight. She crosses her arms over her stomach like she feels sick.
Then she turns and heads decisively for the door.
I take her elbow, spinning her back to me. “No. Scarlet. You can’t go looking for him now. It’s nine at night.”
She rips away from my hold, her face all challenge. “Exactly. And he’s out there alone.”
I walk in front of the door of my office to block it. “He could have gone in any direction.” I low
er my chin, “and you know just how dangerous the streets can be at night.”
“Exactly!” she says again, looking at me with eyes full of fear. “You don’t understand.” She shoves me away from the door to get past me.
When I try to stop her again, she shouts at me, “Stop it! You don’t understand anything! You don’t know what he’s been through already.”
I still don’t move, though. She’s in no condition to go recklessly chasing around the city tonight looking for her brother.
She just keeps pounding at my chest over and over. I grab her by the upper arms so she stops hitting out so recklessly. She’s going to hurt herself if she keeps it up.
“Then tell me,” I finally say. Maybe if I can get her talking, she’ll calm down.
She stops her useless attack but looks up at me with eyes so desolate, Christ, I thought there was nothing left inside me that wasn’t already hurting, but she found a new raw piece to stab with that look right there.
Even after everything she’s already told me, there’s something else.
Some secret so bad she’s held it back when she didn’t seem to mind ripping into me earlier. I want to step away and throw the door shut.
But she opens her mouth and I don’t take any of the cowardly ways out. Whatever she has to tell me, I deserve. I’ll stand here and take it even if it damns me to hell.
“You never asked, why now? Why after all this time did I decide to come after you?” She looks just as pained by the words as she says them. She’s not relishing in what she’s telling me. But it’s like the darkness has to be expelled from inside her, regardless of what it’s going to do to me.
“It was Enzo.” Her blue eyes cover over with a sheen of tears that don’t fall. “He’d been hanging out with some other street kids. I never liked it. They were nice enough. They form a kind of family and look out for each other, but the sad truth is that most of them have become addicts of some kind. And the way they get money.”
She squeezes her eyes shut and her whole face crumples. “They convinced Enzo it would be so easy. We were heading into another hard winter. There were no beds in the shelter and we both hated those places anyway.” She looks back up at me like she’s begging me for something—forgiveness or redemption?
“I had no idea what he was going to do. If I’d known.” The tears crest and fall and her face contorts as she talks through her tears. “He came home with two hundred dollars and when I demanded to know where it came from, if he’d been selling drugs, he just completely broke down. He said his friend Shawn said it wouldn’t even be real sex. That rich men came to Haight-Ashbury looking for boys like him, just for—for— Enzo cried and said the other boys said it wasn’t real sex if it was just his mouth but that he— He said he just wanted to get us a nice meal and—”
She breaks off and I can’t stand it. I cross the few steps and grab her into my arms. Finally, she lets me, sinking into my embrace. Her whole body is trembling so bad. Damn it. Her skin feels cold, too. Like reliving that made her ice down to her bones.
“Shhh. Christ. Don’t think about it anymore, honey.” I rub her arms up and down, trying to warm her. “That won’t happen again. It’s just one night. We’ll go out first thing tomorrow morning and we won’t stop until we find him. You know how smart he is.” My words might be placation than anything else, but she’s got to get some rest. “We’ll start looking at dawn. I swear. I swear, do you understand me?” I pull her back long enough so that she looks in my eyes. “Do you hear me?”
She meets my gaze and nods, her chin still trembling. I draw her into my chest again and continue stroking her back, rubbing her shoulders, anything to try to comfort her and erase everything that happened to her before she met me.
Because my very presence is a reminder of everything that’s so fucked up in her life.
I hold her tighter. Christ. I never want to let her go. She’s too precious. Too beautiful. She’s suffered so much. Too much for her short life. It’s not fair. I thought I knew suffering, but I didn’t know a fucking thing.
“Come on, you’re exhausted. Let me put you to bed. I promise, first thing tomorrow, we’ll be pounding pavement. I have some connections I can call and they’ll help us look for him.”
There’s a second’s silence but then I feel her nod against my chest. “Okay.” It’s the faintest whisper, but I hear it.
Thank Christ. I lean my cheek against the top of her head and breathe her in. This might be the last time I’ll ever hold her like this.
If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to even the scales for this woman. I’m going to do everything in my power to bring her happiness and peace.
Even if it means disappearing from her life so she never has to face the reminder of all that I’ve done to her.
* * *
“Kennedy, baby,” my mother cries out from the other room, “why do you hate me? All I ever wanted was a little boy to love me. Instead, I’m a prisoner. If anyone knew how sadistic you are, if I could leave here and tell anyone how you torture your own mother…” She breaks off in a fit of crying.
I’m curled up under my bed with my hands over my ears, but I can still hear her. I always hear.
“Stop hoarding it!” she suddenly yells. “You’re starving me. I could call the cops on you, you know. You’d go to prison and you know what they’d do to a scrawny little kid like you? You wouldn’t survive a week.” She laughs harshly.
“But I don’t do that, do I baby?” Her voice has gone wheedling. “Because I love you, no matter how cruel you are. It’s a mother’s burden. Even if you’re a monster, I still love you. But I pray for your soul. Every day, I pray for you that you’ll find the light and get this demon out of you.
“All I want is my sweet little boy back. You were such a beautiful baby. You barely ever cried. I’d take you to the park and you’d giggle at the leaves falling. We were so happy back then.”
More crying.
“If only you hadn’t turned evil and chased your father away. You ruined everything.”
I curled into an even tighter ball, my stomach growling with hunger. I looked over at the package of beef jerky I’d been saving for dinner. It was the end of the month. I’d used up all the checks. The food currently in my room was all we’d have left all week. I had two granola bars (good for fiber), a third of a box of cereal and half a quart of milk (good for protein and calcium), two candy bars (one could last me for at least half a day if I drank enough water), one package of jerky pieces, four slices of bread, and a quarter stick of butter (toast was a staple for me) all neatly stacked at the back of my closet.
Mom had gotten too big to fit through my bedroom door. It had been a twisted blessing when she hit that point. She was forced to stay in the living room. We had to widen the bathroom door and moved the couch so close it was only a few steps to the toilet, which was about all Mom could walk.
“I’m so hungry, baby. Just bring me a little something. How about a candy bar? Or some jerky? I just need something? Come on, show me that my sweet little boy still lives in there somewhere. I need to see him tonight. I need it so bad. Come on, be the little boy that Mama loves. Things can be different. Come out baby.”
I look to the door. Mama. “I want that, too, Mama,” I whisper. I know she can’t hear me. She’s crying again.
I’m so tired. Her crying’s kept me up all night. I just want her to not be sad.
Sometimes her crying makes me mad and then I feel bad for it because she’s so sad. She’s sick. She has to take shots every day. I hate shots. Seeing those needles makes my stomach hurt.
I wrap my arms around my tummy and look over at the jerky again. It’s a bigger package. Maybe I could take it out there and Mama and I could share. That’d be nice. She said she wanted it to be like it used to.
I still have a few memories from before Daddy left. I was happy once, I think.
Maybe there’s still a chance for Mama and me. She sounded different tonight, right?
Like maybe we can change how things are?
My stomach growls and I look toward the door.
I know if I don’t go out with something, Mama won’t even talk to me. So I’ll share the jerky. Like, what was that thing I just learned about in school? Oh yeah. A peace offering. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll take her half my jerky as a peace offering.
Then we can talk about how we want to change things. Like grownups.
That part makes me smile. I’m only ten and a half, but I’m pretty grown up already. This is a good plan. A good grown-up plan.
Carefully, I peel open the package of jerky. I separate out the pieces. It smells soooooo good, but I don’t even take the smallest nibble. There’s an uneven number, so I give Mom the extra piece.
Then I take a deep breath and push my door open, carefully balancing both portions, one on each side of the plastic jerky package.
Mom’s breath hitches as soon as she sees me.
“Hey Mama,” I say tentatively as I walk toward her. “I brought you something.”
“Give it here.” She lifts her large arm toward me.
I don’t hesitate. I hurry to her side and set her half of the jerky in her hand, then I back away. She’s snatched food from me before. She shoves all her pieces of jerky in her mouth at once. She chews a few times and swallows, chews, then swallows. For a moment, her eyelids flutter and she looks to the ceiling.
But then her eyes come back to me. Or rather to my hand. “Give me that.” She gestures at the rest of the jerky.
“I wanted to talk to you about that.” My voice trembles as I say it. I’ve always just hidden the food away. I never tried talking to Mom about it directly. Maybe that was always our problem. The school counselor comes into the classroom sometimes and talks about how important communication is. She says you should start with ‘I feel’ statements and make sure not to accuse the other person so they don’t feel attacked.