by C. L. Stone
“Don’t look so strung out,” Axel said, his voice as deep and calm as when he’d been talking about his Sea Sparkle. “They’ll pull out the nail and patch him up. He’ll be walking out of here.”
“I shouldn’t be here,” I said. “I should go home.”
“Why do you keep insisting that you should go back there? You didn’t want to be there when you lived there. Is it just for Wil? Why do you need to see him? Where is he right now?”
“He should be at school.”
“So he’s probably safe. He’s a hell of a lot safer than you are. So why do you keep saying that you need to go home?”
I sighed, covering my eyes with my palms. “I can’t do this.”
A hand spread over my back, rubbing between my shoulder blades. “Can’t do what?”
“I don’t know any more. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You were doing fine,” Axel said. “You were perfect at the party.”
“Except when I got too close,” I said.
“That was an accident,” he said. “You didn’t know. That was probably our fault. You seemed to have a good time yesterday at the shooting range. And you were doing well today putting in roofing at the house.”
“I put the nail in his leg,” I said flatly. “We were arguing and I shot him. I did it because I was angry at him. I wasn’t really aiming at him, just at the ground near his feet. I wanted to scare him. I missed.” I rubbed my palms deeper against my eyes, causing a wash of colors behind them as if trying to dig out the memory. “And he lied to everyone and said it was an accident.”
Axel was quiet for a long moment, but his hand never left my back. “Kayli,” he said, his smoky voice deepening, softening. He shouldn’t have. I didn’t deserve his sympathy.
“I’m going to end up in jail,” I said. “I’m going to end up going home and pickpocketing until I get caught. Or one day I’ll shoot someone because I’m just mad. I’m no better than Coaltar. Probably worse because we don’t even know if he’s a bad guy.”
Axel’s hand lifted and he laid his palm on my head, gently drawing it over. He sat back against the sofa, and folded me into him, until my head was resting against his shoulder. He kept his arm around my neck, and pressed his cheek to my hair. “Stop talking like this.”
“Tell me to go home,” I said.
“You’re not going home right now,” he said, the strength returning, rising with every sentence he spoke. “You’re going to wait here with me until Marc is on his feet again. And you’re not going back to pickpocketing. You’re too smart for that. You’re going to come back to work for us. Or if you want, we’ll get you a job somewhere else. But you aren’t going to retreat back into your little hotel room and push everyone else out.”
“Why would you guys even do this?” I asked. “Why won’t you give up on me?”
“You’re not giving up on us,” he said, “or you would have gone home already. If you’re waiting for us to push you out the door, you’re going to be disappointed. That’s not what we do.”
“I just put a nail through your friend’s leg. You want me to stick around?”
“I want you to stop talking like you’ve lost your spark. So you’ve found out you’ve got some anger issues and you’re not as perfect as you thought you were. Welcome to life, Kayli. It’s hard and it sucks, but when you’ve found something good, you don’t walk away from it.”
“Uh, hello. That’s what I’m saying. Why aren’t you telling me to get lost?”
“Same reason,” he said. His arm lowered, until his hand was on my shoulder and he rubbed there. His voice softened considerably as he continued. “You’re no worse than Marc when I found him.”
“What?”
He sighed. “When I met him, Marc was thirteen years old, and living in a single room in a trailer his uncle owned. For three years, he fought coming with me; he would rather have stayed in the gutter.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why keep trying when he didn’t want you to?”
“Because he saved my life,” he said. “That’s another long story, but basically when it came down to it, when it became a choice of totally going over the edge, or stepping up and doing the right thing, he did do the right thing. He isn’t perfect. He makes mistakes. We all do. If you’re willing to learn from and make up for those mistakes, and try to do better next time, doesn’t that deserve a chance?”
I rolled my palm against my eye. “I don’t understand you guys at all. No one does this.”
“Maybe if more people did, we wouldn’t be so surprising.” His fingers traced over my shoulder, making circles against my skin. “But do me a favor. Can you stay with us at least long enough to figure out how to keep our promise to you, and to make sure you aren’t at risk of endangering yourself or your brother? I’ll invite you to stick around longer if you want, but stay until at least then. You risked a lot, diving in head first with Coaltar at our request. It’s our fault for putting you in this mess. Let us make it up to you.”
I breathed slowly in and out, feeling the cushion of his shoulder under my cheek. It surprised me how easy it had been to sink into him, like a longtime friend. What was it about this group that I simply felt comfortable among them even when my brain told me I shouldn’t be?
I’d been fighting for so long, keeping people away to protect myself. Here was this group that knew me and was trying to protect me, without me asking. Coaltar could have been anyone I’d tried to pickpocket at the mall, or downtown, or anywhere. What if he had been the one I’d targeted downtown instead of Dr. Roberts? Would I be in this same dangerous situation and not know it? I didn’t even know for sure if I was in any danger or not.
Yet still, I didn't have an answer for Axel. I didn’t trust myself to say anything when he was asking me to stay for so long. I couldn’t promise something I wasn’t sure I could do.
His cheek slowed against my head, until his lips pressed down. “You could learn a lot from us, you know,” he whispered against my hair. “I think it’s been good for some of the guys. And you don’t seem to mind how rough the guys can be. It might do you some good to hang around them. Learn a few new tricks.”
“What about you?”
“You don’t want to hang out with me. I’m boring. I work too much.”
“Because of the Academy?”
“Shhh,” he said. He lifted his head and the moment he did, I missed that closeness. I wanted it back but I was too terrified to ask. “That’s supposed to be a secret, you know.”
“No one’s listening.”
“You never know who is listening. That’s something you should learn. Watch what you say all the time. Talk like the world is listening in. Usually because someone is.”
I twisted my lips, gluing them together. I didn’t want to talk any more.
♠♠♠♠♠
Later, Axel left me alone so he could go look in on Marc. When I got up, I just wanted to walk around the interior of the hospital. I needed to expel the energy I was feeling, because sitting still was too much. The frog in my throat, the thickness I felt in my eyes from forcing a brave face had solidified until I could barely stand it.
When walking the halls of the hospital wasn’t enough, I walked out into the sun to circle the building.
I told myself I was taking a walk. I wouldn’t admit I was running away. I didn’t really want to. I just wanted to think, and I couldn’t think with the boys around. They muddled my brain. I needed to calculate my own next move, and not have them pressuring me one way or another. I wouldn’t go see Wil, but the further I got away from the guys, I felt my head clearing of all the sudden feelings and the lure of promises I wasn’t ready to believe in.
And every step away, I felt like I swallowed another rock in my gut. It killed me. Disappointed faces followed me wherever I went.
Once I tasted the air outside, I couldn’t go back. Not now. Not until I knew the answers.
I got my bearings and started across the parking lot. A si
lver BMW pulled around just as I was crossing, and stopped short almost at my knees. The glare off the windshield kept me from seeing whoever it was. I kept walking. The person blared on the horn before driving on behind me, stopping to pick up some blond teenage girl waiting for him back at the hospital entrance.
I repeated that this was the right thing to do over and over in my head. Despite what Axel was telling me, it was all too hard to believe. People don’t just walk up to you and become friends, ready to do all those things for you. Maybe what he said was true, and they saw something of themselves in me and wanted to help. I appreciated what they had done for me, but I needed to find my own path and not depend on anyone else. If they could take care of Wil’s future, that’s all I wanted.
I didn’t know what I wanted for myself. Maybe nothing. What kind of future did a thief deserve? The Academy guys had no idea. They were college boys. They were some secret protection police. What did they know about the darkness that followed your soul when you’ve done horrible things? Redemption doesn’t get handed to you like a get out of jail free card. The only way I was going to redeem myself was going to be doing the right thing for other people. No credit. No help from anyone. Not for someone like me.
I stood on the corner, debating on hitching a ride somewhere, or wandering downtown. Eventually I found Marion Square and started heading east. Six blocks later, I was facing those old brick buildings on Market Street.
There was no real reason to go there. Maybe I needed a place that reminded me of a mall, where people wandered aimlessly, because that’s what I needed to do. I needed to lose myself a little to figure out where I wanted to be.
I ignored the pang of hunger in my stomach. With not a penny on me, it was hard not to revert back and lift a wallet, even just for a five dollar bill for some food. Maybe the boys were right. It had become too easy for me. I resorted to it because, in my mind, it was simply the fastest way to pick up what I needed.
But was it? There was more to it, too. I felt the itch inside of me now, walking along the streets. In a twisted way, I felt that edge of risk slipping under my skin pulling me back to the challenge. Like a drug, it was tempting me. Reasons whispered into my brain. That guy would only waste it on his girlfriend. He would never miss a twenty.
Maybe it wasn’t about the hunger, money or even needing to save Wil. What I felt, that edge of insanity right before each pull, that underlying feeling that I was doing something clever and risky was what kept me going.
The more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that was why the boys excited me. If I had really wanted to, I’d have walked out of their apartment the first time, knowing my rent was paid and have taken a job. A month of work would have been enough to save up for even a better place.
Instead, I stayed for the party, and even after, when I could have let them deal with the aftermath, I let them talk me into staying. Lifting Coaltar’s wallet had been one of the riskiest pulls I had ever done. The memory swept a wave of thrills through me that left me shaking with pleasure. The lure the boys promised me, especially Axel since he mentioned I could join the Academy, was the possibility of doing things like that as my job. Like Raven with his punching me back, or feeling the pull of the trigger and learning about guns, I was hanging onto the excitement, and one that possibly came without too much chance of getting caught. Relieving the guilt, I was freer to be a little more reckless.
But what happened when Coaltar was proven to be either a good guy or a bad guy? What happened when they no longer felt they needed to protect me? Wouldn’t they want to move on? Axel made offers, but was he even serious or just trying to make me feel better because he felt sorry for me?
Brandon’s kiss from last night reentered my mind along with the promises he’d made: that I could stay with him and he’d care of me.
But that wasn’t who I was. I didn’t want to fall into that role. I didn’t want him to develop feelings for me under that illusion. The protector and the protected. No, I wouldn’t deny that I felt the flirt of something inside me when I was near him. I couldn’t stop thinking of his lips now, of his soothing touch. I felt a strange twinge with Raven, too. I thought I felt similar about Corey, but could easily pin that as an early bud of a friendship. While it was tempting to spend a month exploring their world by hiding amongst them, it also wouldn’t be fair to them. They felt forced to look out for me. I didn’t want to be forced on anyone.
No. I needed my own space. I needed to take care of me. Doing it alone would be the only way I knew for sure if any of them cared. If I did it on my own, and they still wanted to be friends, or more, that was my answer.
I needed to get rid of Coaltar, one way or another. That was the only way I’d know.
CAT AND MOUSE
I took off along King Street, heading east toward White Point and the edge of the peninsula. I didn’t have a plan, but I had an approximate idea of where Coaltar’s house was, and that’s where I was headed.
It didn’t take long to come across the house in the South of Broad area. The neighborhood itself made me too uncomfortable to linger for very long on his sidewalk. The homes here were even more of a spectacle as they surrounded White Point Garden, a popular tourist spot. Not to mention the locals used it to walk the dog, exercise, and do whatever normal people who didn’t have to steal wallets for a living did with their time. I found a bench on a corner of White Point that still allowed me to see the house. I parked myself there, catching my breath after the brisk walk.
It was dusk. The house was still. Neighbors’ homes were still. An occasional car passed. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. If I were to sit and stare at his house too long, it probably would become obvious that I was scoping it out. At night, however...
I couldn’t be sure if he was even home. I was starting from ground zero now. What in the world did I know about spying on anyone? I just had to wait for him to do something. I settled into the bench, pretending to be more interested in the park and watching the sun set.
After a while, I ended up on my back, staring up at the trees and propped up my head where I got a good view of Coaltar’s front door.
♠♠♠♠♠
Spying was starting to be really boring. Staring at an unmoving house was worse than watching grass grow.
Lights turned on after the shadows of twilight fell over the city. The house illuminated, with no other signs of life. People walking by with their dogs or jogging or driving were distractions, but temporary ones.
It took another hour of waiting on the bench, and my back killing me from the hard seat, before anything interesting happened. Movement caught my bored eyes. I stilled, wanting to sit up to see better but not wanting to draw attention.
The front gate at Coaltar’s house opened. A shadowed figure passed through. Black ball cap, jeans, and a baggy T-shirt wasn’t enough to mask that it was Coaltar. Despite trying to look casual, the shirt and jeans looked expensive and the hat appeared brand new.
Perfect.
I followed him back to King Street. He started west, and kept at a decent pace, enough that I had to do almost a jog at times. I had to wait to let him cross the street. Luckily at this time of night, the streets were nearly empty. It wasn’t too hard to keep an eye on him from a reasonable distance.
The boys had been right. He left the house at night, plain clothed. My mind jumped to conclusions of my own though. A secret lover? Or maybe he simply couldn’t sleep and he wandered around to think. Maybe he wasn’t a snob and could pull off talking to a few thugs along the way. Was it too far of a stretch?
I kept waiting for him to turn off King Street, maybe circle the block, but when he passed by Market Street, which was a decent stretch from his neighborhood, it became clear that perhaps this wasn’t some night stroll. There was some business he needed to get to.
Slowly, the neighborhood began to change from big houses to fancy shops, to less-than-attractive brick buildings. Charleston peninsula was constantly being renov
ated, but there were still places closer toward I-26 that were left in the shadows. Old factory buildings crumbled with time and every hurricane that barreled through. Ghosts of old fancy homes stood gutted, either from a storm, or from lack of funds to fix them up. While Charleston’s city council slowly pushed the lower class out further into North Charleston, they couldn’t get rid of the gritty underbelly completely.
Coaltar finally diverted from King, taking a right onto Woolfe. I bristled at the change of some of the more shabbier homes into this run-down industrial area. Old factories surrounded us. The brick walls used to have painted advertisements of what they made inside, but the paint had peeled away after years of Charleston weather, and weed-filled gravel parking lots told me no decent person had been near here in a while.
Mr. Coaltar passed by two of these buildings, and then made a left onto a side street. I slowed, not wanting to catch him around the corner if he stopped.
But when I got to the corner and checked, there was no sign of him.
I cursed to myself, and stilled. I didn’t think he caught on that someone was following him, but I couldn’t be sure. My fingertips brushed at my thighs. I wished I’d had worn jeans. With the sun down, the temperature had dropped. The walk had kept me warm up to a point, but the night breeze was starting to ice me over.
I was tempted to go back, maybe find my way back to that bench and wait again. I suddenly felt exhausted. Only pride kept me from returning to the Sergeant Jasper now. I’d been arrogant to assume maybe I could find out quickly what Mr. Coaltar had been up to. Wasn’t this what the boys had been doing? What made me think I could figure this out by following him?
I stuffed my hands into my pockets and waited, checking the streets in front and behind me. I started up between the two buildings where I last spotted Coaltar. If I bumped into him or he rerouted, I may be out of luck. I’d have to go back. Maybe I could break into his house while he was gone. Or at least peek through his windows.