A Child's Days

by C. L. Quinn

  She looked out into the living room as she saw Julia, stiff, angry, heading towards the door.

  “I’ll keep an eye and ear out, and if I hear anything, you’re toast.”

  “Thanks for the warning, cunt!” Mother yelled.

  Gently pushing the door closed again, Punk slid down against the wall. Julia was gone and now, it was just her and Mother again. Things just got worse. Again.

  The apartment had been quiet for hours, so Punk opened her door to make her way to the kitchenette. The second she walked into the room, she knew Mother was there before she even saw smoke curling up from the couch, lit by the dim light coming from Mother’s open bedroom door.

  Mother knew that she was there, too, before she heard or saw her.

  “Pack your shit, we’re moving.”

  IN FLORIDA

  Southern sunshine dominated the skies as Punk carefully left the apartment while her mother slept. She was fairly certain that it was safe, Mother had been out all night, and after coming in this afternoon, she’d only just gone into her bedroom half an hour ago. And she’d been wiped.

  Although this was risky, it was worth the risk. Out in the sun, away from Mother and mother’s newest crop of friends, alone with only her own thoughts, it was paradise.

  Two years ago when they’d moved to this ramshackle building, she’d been miserable. It wasn’t the first time they’d relocated, packing and sneaking away was quite common for them. While she had made two friends in Michigan, and she missed both of them terribly at first, she’d learned a long time ago not to get attached to anyone or anyplace. Mother liked to run when things got uncomfortable. And Julia had made things very uncomfortable for her.

  Here, though, it was warm all the time, the breeze cooled her skin while the sun baked it. Mother had boarded up the windows again like she always liked to do, but since Punk has been able to get out when her mother slept, she had fallen in love with Florida.

  “I’ll only live in warm places from now on. And I want to live by the ocean,” she promised herself. Just a few more years and she would be able to get out of her mother’s reach and discover the world that looked so beautiful from her small corner of it.

  The beach was three blocks from the apartment her mother rented, so she walked along the broken sidewalk until she reached a trail that led through an old beach shack that had been degrading for years and onto the soft sand.

  Sighing, she walked slowly as she dug her toes in and reveled in the pleasure she felt here. Because it was past dinnertime, and this neighborhood wasn’t a very good one to linger in, the beach was deserted on this pretty evening.

  Lifting a piece of an old towel up to let it billow down, she placed it on the sand and pulled out a bag of pretzels she’d bought with some change after her last store visit.

  Inside a plastic grocery bag lay the final books that Mrs. Brooks had sent her so that she could continue her studies.

  As Punk dropped onto her belly, she crossed her legs and bit off the end of one of the pretzel sticks. The chocolate bars she loved, but these salty treats were a favorite too. Opening her book, she settled in to enjoy at least half an hour of reading, sunshine, and the coveted pretzels until she needed to get back just in case Mother woke.

  Liquid heat poured over her body as she tried to engage herself with the history book she’d picked up first, but before she knew it, Punk fell asleep, her body sprawled awkwardly on top of the book, the pretzels pressed into one cheek.

  Jacob Ward moved slowly as he walked down the beach, the sands pleasant on his aching feet, the cool breeze welcome on skin warmed by the Florida climate that he was not accustomed to. The sun had just dropped, so he was able to enjoy the roar of the sea he enjoyed before he headed back to Vancouver. He’d been too busy lately taking care of business to actually just relax. This was overdue and extremely appreciated.

  Pink still lingered at the edge of the sky as he looked towards the distant city. Maggie would be happy with her new home when Bas sent her here in a few years. He’d already purchased the facility that Bas wanted Maggie to go to when the time came.

  It was hard when a beloved blood-bond moved back into their human lives, but Maggie was ready after spending a lifetime with Bas and his people. She was a lovely, gentle soul and everyone would miss her.

  She wasn’t vampire, but for years she’d lived a vampire’s life. Human blood-bonds didn’t age while they served their host vampire, but eventually, most wanted to return to their human lives. It wasn’t natural for them to live for centuries. Their bodies tired too easily, even with the tiny amount of vampire blood they ingested each day to keep young and healthy.

  With his task finished, Jacob had decided to spend several days here in Florida, visit a couple of old friends who lived in the Keys, and just decompress, before he headed back home.

  He released a long moan as his body did exactly what he needed it to do. Every tight muscle relaxed, he picked up a seashell lying in his path and fingered the smooth texture that whirled into a spiral. One more example of the beauty this world offered.

  He started to lay it gently back on the ground when he saw a figure lying on the sand. Was that a child? Alone, asleep on the beach in the dark? Was she all right?

  Jacob approached her slowly, he didn’t want to startle her, but he felt as if he should check on her.

  A book flattened beneath her cheek had protected her from sand in her eyes or nose. She was completely out, so he squatted beside her and touched her shoulder.

  “Hey, wake up, it’s dark,” he said softly. She roused and rolled towards him. Strawberry blonde hair ballooned around a very pretty face as she finally opened eyes the color of the deep sea. His vampire vision could see her easily in the waning light.

  It took a few moments before she realized someone was there, and he did startle her. Pushing back away from Jacob, the girl was breathing hard.

  “What do you want?” she said, quietly, but he felt a threat in the question too. This girl was used to having to defend herself.

  Jacob stood and backed off a step.

  “Don’t worry, I just wanted to wake you. You had fallen asleep and it’s dark. I can’t imagine that’s safe for you alone here on the sand.”

  The girl looked around, her eyes sharp. Jacob wondered what her story was. Something about her intrigued him. Children were not common in his community where almost everyone who lived there were vampires, hundreds of years old, and incapable of having children.

  “I’m Jacob. Are you okay? Do you need me to call someone for you? Your mother?”

  He saw panic in her eyes at the mention of her mother. Was this child troubled or in trouble?

  Standing quickly, the girl shook her head. “No! Umm, I mean, you don’t need to call anyone, I just need to get home.”

  “Okay. Is it near? Is it safe this time of night? I can walk you there if you’d like.”

  “No, really, I’m okay, mister.”

  “Jacob.” He glanced down at the books strewn around a towel she’d been lying on. “Schoolbooks? Studying tonight, huh? What grade are you in?”

  “I’m homeschooled. I think I’ll be finished with my high school levels in a few more months.”

  “Really? You’re early, aren’t you? What are you, thirteen, fourteen?”

  “Fourteen.” Fifteen, she thought, but she wasn’t sure.

  Jacob could see the girl hesitate, then she lowered her eyes. Shy, but strong, he could tell. When she lifted her eyes back to him, she smiled.

  “I’m pretty quick,” she said.

  “That’s a great skill. A sharp mind will get you anywhere you want in this world.”

  Suddenly she stepped towards him, her eyes sparkling. “That’s what I think. I have a plan.” Her voice was deeper now and insistent.

  Fourteen, and ready to take on the world, he thought.

  “That’s the best way to get where you want to go. And at your age, you already know where that is?”

  She
nodded vigorously. “Yeah. Away from here. As far as possible.”

  Damn, he hated that he had been right. “Why? Why do you want to get away? Are you parents hurting you? I can help if they are.”

  The girl closed up again. “No, no one is hurting me. I am just anxious to get to my life. I’m going to be a scientist.”

  “Admirable. And I’m sure you will do it. May I ask your name?

  Her eyes on him, she answered after a slight hesitation. “Julia. My name is Julia.”

  Moving forward, Jacob smiled with a hand out to her, and although he’d already told her his name, he introduced himself officially. “Hi, I’m Jacob, nice to meet you.”

  She was skittish, but she still moved closer and took his hand with a firm handshake. “Nice to meet you, too. Do you live close by?”

  “No. I live in Canada. Do you know where that is?”

  “Of course. On the west coast, the country that borders the U.S. Why are you here in Florida?”

  “Taking care of some business for my boss, Sebastian. We have a friend who came from here a long time ago, and she’s going to be coming back, so I’m here to make arrangements for when she does.”

  “Oh. Do you like your boss? My mother doesn’t have a job because she says that bosses are a pain in the, um, butt.”

  Ass, is what she’d said, Jacob was sure of it. He was getting the idea that this girl’s mother wasn’t exactly a kind soul.

  “I like him very much. We’re more like family, but we’ve been together for a very long time. You would like Bas, if you were to meet him. So, no, not every boss is a pain in the butt.”

  “Good. Because I’m going to have a job, a good job, someday soon.”

  “I’m sure of it. You strike me as a smart young woman. Julia, why don’t I make sure that you get home safely? I’ll walk you there.”

  Punk hesitated again as she chewed on her lower lip and kept her eyes on the ocean while considering her choices.

  “Will you get in trouble if I’m with you?”

  Her eyes lifted to him. “Yes, I would. I’m really not supposed to be here at all. In fact, I’m probably already in trouble. So I need to get home.”

  Jacob watched the girl bend over and quickly grab the old towel and books. “Thanks, anyway, Jacob. Maybe someday I’ll go to Canada.”

  “It’s very beautiful, I’m sure you would love it.”

  “Yeah. Okay, I’m gonna go now. ‘Bye.”

  Jacob watched her as she left the beach, balancing the books until she got them repositioned on top of each other and tucked them into a plastic bag.

  Even though she hadn’t wanted him to watch over her as she made her way home, he did anyway. She skipped up eight steps into an apartment building that led into a small foyer. The building looked like it hadn’t seen any maintenance in a decade, paint peeling, siding missing from several places, and a pile of trash on the side of the building that looked like it was going nowhere soon.

  He wondered that such a bright light could come from such a dark place, but he knew that the world created beauty even in its bleakest corners.

  Well, the lovely child was home and safe, so Jacob headed back to the beach. No one was around except a man three buildings away who looked stoned, so he used air displacement to move faster than humans normally could. He’d look for a nice dinner and try a local bar for a quick blood meal, and then head south to visit Tom and his crew before he returned to Vancouver.

  Thankfully, Mother was still asleep, snoring loudly through her closed bedroom door. Slipping quietly into her room, Punk hid her books under the bed, and rolled the shredded towel up and stashed it against the wall.

  After finding a slice of bread that wasn’t stale, she covered it with some margarine and scooted back on the pink couch that Mother insisted was called salmon. As she chewed, she thought about the handsome guy she’d met on the beach. He was handsome, that she decided easily, but it was his kind and humorous manner that struck her most. She’d met a lot of men over the years, mother’s men, and none of them had seemed kind or loving.

  Loving. She snorted. Like she knew anything about loving. She understood the emotion, the feeling of caring so much for someone that you would do anything to be sure they were well and happy. It was present in nearly every book she’d ever read. But it wasn’t a part of her life.

  Mother didn’t know how to love. Punk had decided that had to be true, because if it wasn’t, then there must be something wrong with Punk that her mother couldn’t love her. After all these years, she still tried to take care of her mother. She’d long ago accepted that her mother not only had no love for her, but she couldn’t even bring herself to be nice to her. Through all the days of her life, Punk had no memory of her mother ever doing anything loving for her.

  It was okay, this was just a normal life for Punk, with no expectations of anything changing. That’s why she covertly finished her school work. The only goal was to leave her mother’s world and never see her again.

  That gentle man on the beach had proven to her that there really were caring people out there somewhere. She’d seen him, as he followed her, and waited to make sure she was inside the building and safe before he left. Someday, she would have people like that in her life, who loved her and saw that she was safe.

  At that point, Mother would be just a bad memory.

  FOUR

  As late as it was, Punk sat on her bed, worried, because Mother was particularly loud and drunk tonight. She’d had four men in the apartment since dinner, and one odd, scary woman with bad teeth and hair that stood on end like daggers. They were all drunk or high. As usual, Punk knew that the best thing for her was to stay invisible. So she sat quietly, the lights off, and tried to not hear anything that they were saying or doing out there. Until she was too tired, she would just cover her ears with her hands, but they would get numb and she would have to shake them out and let the harsh voices and weird sounds reach her again.

  “Come on, Rena, she’s old enough, isn’t she?” Bethany said, leaning across Rena’s shoulders.

  Rena glared at the woman she’d partied with for the past three months. She didn’t really know the strange woman very well, but that wasn’t necessary in order to scope out bars to find men who would pay them something to take care of their needs.

  Two of the men with them tonight seemed interested. Rena looked into their eyes, knew that they were warped, but business was business. And Bethany was right, Punk was as old now as she was when she first had sex with a boy back in Indiana.

  “I’d pay triple for a sweet young thing like that,” the old man said.

  The second man interested in her daughter was younger, sort of attractive, but Rena could see that he had a mean streak, and that, she wouldn’t do.

  Her eyes shot back to the old man. “Okay. You. But no sex, no intercourse, she’s a virgin and she stays that way. She services you, then you get the fuck out. I mean it, I’ll kill you if you touch her.”

  He’d offered three times the pay for a chance at the pretty young girl he’d seen there once before, and he couldn’t touch her? He knew that this crazy bitch meant it though, she’d freaking hurt him if he didn’t comply.

  “Okay,” he agreed. He was getting hard just thinking about the sweet young thing.

  Several more long moments passed before the bitch nodded. “I’ll be listening. If I hear anything I don’t like, I’ll be in with a fucking butcher knife, you understand?”

  Again, he agreed, this time with a smile and a nod.

  “Okay, then. Wait here.”

  Rena felt as if the distance between the living room and Punk’s bedroom was two blocks long. She felt sick at the idea of doing this. But, realistically, the kid just needed to understand that this is how the world worked, and it might be time to let her know that.

  Hell, Rena had been just a kid herself when the brat’s father bred himself on her and created this…whatever the hell that child was. She flashed back to the moment that s
he first realized that Punk’s extraordinarily beautiful father wasn’t human. He’d ruined her life when she found out what he was.

  No, the girl was anything but innocent. Anything but human.

  And the money was sorely needed.

  Justify it all you want, bitch, she thought. You’re still a cunt. She’d called herself that many times over the years, and never meant it more than right now. She wouldn’t be proud of herself for making this decision and later, she knew that she’d feel even worse.

  “Just get this over with,” she said to herself, and opened the door to Punk’s bedroom

  The girl sat on her bed, the light from the living room rushing in to fill the darkness.

  Punk looked up.

  “Mother?”

  Rena flipped on the light, dim though it was, and Punk covered her eyes.

  “Child, it’s time that you learn how to make a living. It’s time you do something to help support us around here. I’m getting old and tired, girl. You understand?”

  Rena could see that she did. Say what you will about this kid’s nature, or whatever the hell she was, Rena knew that she was smart, and seemed to always know things before she should. It weirded the fuck out of her.

  “All right. You service this man. You give him a good come, you hear me? You know what I mean by that?”

  Again, the girl nodded, her eyes hard and shiny as they searched her mother’s eyes.

  “Okay. You can use your hands or your mouth, but he’ll probably want your mouth. Just do it fast, he’s old, he’ll go quick. Then make him leave. He don’t touch you, you hear me?”

  Now, the kid just sat there, shaking, scared, and Rena knew, pissed, too. Well, welcome to the real world, kid, she thought.

  Scared, furious, Punk sat in the corner of her bedroom, aware that any minute, some man was going to come through that door and she was expected to take care of him like she’d seen her mother or other women do in the past. She knew what was expected of her, because the sex thing was so pervasive in her life. Mother made the money to pay for their food and apartment by doing that, but Punk didn’t want to…ever!