No Saint (Wild Men, #6)

by Jo Raven

  If anger is what keeps my heart ticking, my body going, what will I be without it? What will become of me?

  And why do I see in my mind her face whenever I ask myself that?

  ***

  Lighting up a smoke in the street behind the diner, I gaze up at the darkening sky. Summer is good, warm and dry, allowing me to sleep outside, or sometimes at the garage. Come Winter, I’ll have to make other arrangements. Rent a room somewhere. If anyone is willing to take me in, and that’s a big fucking If.

  Or go back to the house. Go home.

  Ha. Yeah, whatever.

  But it’s not come to that yet, and who cares about Winter? Nothing’s permanent. Nothing lasts. What’s the use of making plans when life will kick you in the balls tomorrow anyway?

  Fucking pointless, is what it is. So I draw in smoke, close my eyes, and let the Summer breeze blow in my face. Peaceful. Small noises from the diner kitchen behind me, a crow cawing, a phone ringing. Normal evening sounds, and I can pretend for a little while that I’m part of this peace, of this town, of the lives unfolding inside quiet houses where parents prepare dinner and kids set the table and then they all eat and sit in front of the TV, talking and smiling.

  Living.

  It used to make me so damn angry. That others had that and I did not. Lots used to make me angry. Now it’s only... bittersweet. I never knew what that meant until I felt it. Nostalgic for something I’ve never had. Tired of wanting, and yet tired of searching.

  Sad.

  I’m thinking about that, lost in thought, until a familiar bark and whine has me opening my eyes. With my cigarette burning, smoke swirling into the night, I lock eyes with my mutt.

  “Whatcha want, Buddy? How did you find me?”

  Buddy looks at me soulfully and barks again. Doggy sure likes to follow me about. I feed him sometimes, so there’s that. Not stupid, this dog. It’s not like he sticks with me thanks to my winning personality. I buy his affection.

  I flick away my cigarette and drop on one knee. “Come here. I got you something.” I pull out the dog chow bag. “Come here, have your dinner, but stop following me, you hear? Told ya, I can’t take you with me.”

  That’s when they get the jump on me, goddamn Ed and his buddies, slamming the bag out of my hand, spraying the smelly pellets everywhere, sending Buddy yelping back. They slam me to the ground, and as they fall on me, I wonder if the reason Buddy came to find me here was to warn me.

  That would make him my only friend in the entire goddamn world. Not that I believe it, and anyway, it’s too late.

  Too late for me.

  He whines and backs away as they drag me against the wall of the diner and laugh in my face, laugh at my jerk-knee attempts to shove them off me.

  But what’s the use?

  I try to let them do what they will. I tell myself I should. Try to switch off my brain, not let the anger come. It’s instinct, the way I react, that I fight back.

  But then in my memory I hear her words, clear as bells. “You belong in a hole, where you crawled out of. You should crawl right back inside. Make the world a better place.”

  There’s my reminder that I don’t have a right to be angry, to fight back. Embrace the pain, right? Take it.

  But I can’t. Not that I have much choice with four against one...

  Chapter Nine

  Luna

  I’ve stepped out for a coffee break, leaving Dena to deal with our few customers, only to find a brawl in the narrow stretch of the backstreet. I back into the diner, just inside the door, peeking around the jamb, blood thundering in my ears.

  It’s Ross. He’s lying on the asphalt with a bunch of guys bent over him, working him over. He’s trying to get them off him, to roll away, but it’s four of them. He stands no chance.

  For some weird reason, my chest feels tight, my eyes hot. But old instincts, honed through years of fear, keep me quiet and hidden. I’m frozen in place, watching as they kick and hit him, until he’s rolling on the street, spitting blood, a grimace contorting his handsome face.

  The four guys keep punching and kicking him, and worry eats at me. Why won’t they stop? How long has this been going on? Should I call the cops?

  He deserves this and worse, I tell myself. Back at school, his sharp, wicked words broke me, cracked me wide open, made me feel worthless. Done for. His little fan club, shoving me, blocking my way, destroying my locker, tearing my books and notebooks to pieces so small I couldn’t glue them back together—breaking me into pieces until I couldn’t recognize myself. Sent me running away from my home, my family.

  I shouldn’t care.

  I don’t. Okay? I don’t give a damn.

  But Ross never hit you, a voice in my mind pipes up. He never touched you. He only fought guys his size, when they got into arguments. And he did save you the other night, didn’t he...

  No. Stop. What’s happening to him is only fair. Maybe now he’ll understand what pain is. He brought this on himself. It’s retribution.

  So I don’t really comprehend why I step back out, letting the door bang behind me—ready to scream my lungs off, pull the thugs off him with my bare hands, if need be.

  But before I open my mouth to yell at them, they stop, the only sound their labored breathing.

  “Who’s there?” one of them calls. “Hey, who’s there?”

  “Oh shit, let’s go,” someone else mutters, and then they’re running away, not even looking back as they vanish around the corner.

  Leaving me standing on the street, adrenaline pounding through my blood, torn between rage and fear.

  Ross.

  I turn to him and he’s lying on his side, breathing hard. I can see the movement of his chest. I want to go to him, but hesitate. He hasn’t seen me yet.

  He doesn’t know that I almost rode to his rescue like an idiot. Good. This is good, because... then I don’t have to spend my days later wondering what I’d have done for him. How far I’d have gone.

  Besides, he isn’t in need of rescuing anymore. It’s over. He’d probably be annoyed if he knew I’d seen him getting kicked about.

  Time to go—but then he groans and I turn back toward him, my pulse spiking, new doubts assaulting me. What if he’s badly hurt? What if he needs a doctor?

  Before I make up my mind, a bark startles me.

  It’s a stray dog, an ugly little thing, not yet an adult, with pointy ears and filthy, matted fur. The dog scampers up to Ross and starts licking his face, where he’s lying in the dirt.

  I half-expect Ross to shove the animal away, kick it.

  But he doesn’t. Instead he lifts a bloodied hand and pats the dog on the head. “Hey, don’t you worry, buddy,” he rasps. “I’ll be all right. And you can stop eating my face now or I won’t have any left.”

  Somehow, now my heart is racing worse than before. I step back into the doorway, into the shadows, feeling like a voyeur, watching this strange scene unfold. My thoughts are frozen, tangled up like balls of thread.

  Watching as the dog gives a happy yip and snags Ross’s T-shirt sleeve and tugs, as if trying to get him to move, until he pushes himself up to sit and spits a gob of blood onto the asphalt.

  “You’re right,” he mutters, the words barely audible. “I should get going. Gimme a sec, okay?”

  The dog barks, a joyful, expectant sound. So this isn’t a random meeting, I’m guessing. They know each other. He’s Ross’s dog? I wonder where he lives. If it’s still in the house close to the river. Close to mine.

  You don’t care, Luna. You shouldn’t care. Stop caring.

  He’s facing away from me, so I can’t see his expression. It’s a good thing, I tell myself, because he can’t see me, either. Can’t know I’m here.

  I should leave.

  But as the dog dances around him, I find I can’t, not yet. I want to see what he’ll do. I need to witness this. Something tells me it’s important, even if I don’t get why just yet.

  Ross reaches out and pets the dog�
��s head, rubs along the fur on its back. “Yeah, you’re all right, Buddy. Good dog. You waited for me, huh? Thought I’d have more food on me?”

  The dog barks, and I blink. A stray dog, then, just like I thought at first, but Ross is feeding it.

  “Tell you a secret, Buddy,” Ross is saying. “I got no friends. Never tried to make any. Thought, who needs that shit, right? People suck anyway.” He’s quiet for a few beats. “But you’re my friend. Know why? Because you and I, we got nobody else.” He pulls the dog closer, bends over it. “Nobody.”

  Oh shit. What just happened. Tears roll down my face and I can’t stop them. What’s wrong with me?

  Aw my heart.

  Turning blindly, I walk back into the diner, trying to get my breath back and my thoughts straight. God, I can’t. I can’t do this. Can’t be so frigging stupid, can’t let my guard down. Sure this is sad, and sure Ross seems to have a softer side, a hurt side, but never forget, right?

  You can’t.

  He’s not a good guy. Dena may not have firsthand experience of the real Ross Jones, but I should never forget that I do, and that people don’t change.

  But what if he has?

  What if he has?

  ***

  “Hey, how do I look?” Dena pouts her lips at me. “Like the color?”

  It’s a bright pink lipstick that looks garish even in the dim lights of the diner but I shrug. “Looks all right, I guess.”

  “All right? Just that?”

  “I don’t know. Look, I’m gonna go check if anyone wants to order, okay?”

  “Luna.”

  I stop, dreading to look her in the eye. Afraid I may have tear stains on my cheeks, and the shadow of doubt in my gaze.

  “What happened?” She glances at the customers at the tables, obviously decides nobody is in urgent need of a waitress, and drags me behind the bar. “I heard voices outside. Did you talk to Ross? He headed out right before you, out through the back.”

  “No.”

  “Luna, come on. Look, I know you hate it here. You hate Destiny, you hate all of us—”

  “Whoa, hold your horses.” I take a step back, frowning. “I don’t... I don’t hate you. Or Destiny. What are you talking about?”

  “You think I’m stupid? You were unhappy here, so you left, and you’re not back by choice. You’re itching to leave again.”

  “I...” Hard to gainsay what is true. “Look, I didn’t talk to him, okay?”

  “Okay.” She lifts her hands. “Okay, fine.”

  “Some guys were beating him up. He’s all right,” I rush to add when her eyes go wide. “I wouldn’t be here talking to you if he wasn’t all right, no matter what you think of me. I’m not that kind of person.”

  “No. no, Luna, that’s not...” She sighs. “I know you’re not. Guys beat Ross up all the time, okay? He kind of brought it on himself. Made everyone an enemy. But you... you have feelings for him.”

  “I don’t.” It’s an automatic denial, repeated in my mind like a mantra every day and night—and again I have to ask myself why that should be necessary when it comes to a boy who hurt me.

  “Be honest with yourself. You care. And you want him. You look and your pulse races and you feel faint and too hot and you want to talk to him and you want to touch him. Don’t you? Don’t you?”

  “You don’t... understand.” The words clog my throat. They ache coming up. “People don’t change, Dena. He can’t change.”

  “Oh right, “people don’t change,” right?” she mimics my tone, very badly if you ask me. “So you’re saying you can’t change? None of us can change for the better? All doom and gloom. If you’re right, then what are we living for? For a dead-end future? The end of days? What?”

  God. What does she want me to say? It all comes back to the thoughts that have been crowding my head more and more lately.

  “So stop giving me that look when I flirt with him, or talk about him,” she continues, oblivious to the war inside me. “Like you’re so much better than me and him, than all of us. Go off to your big city dreams, then, and stop pretending you belong here.”

  “Dena, stop. It’s not like that.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  She’s right. If I don’t think anyone can change, then how am I so convinced that I myself can change? Because let’s be honest: he was a bully, and I was a coward. Sure, I was teased and I was hurt, but I have to believe that now I have grown stronger, tougher.

  What if Ross has grown kinder? What if he’s grown a heart to match his good looks? What if he had a heart all along but kept it hidden?

  But why? How does this make any sense? Saving my ass once and telling me it was only because I had been “in his way” doesn’t mean any of that, does it? Being friends with a stray dog doesn’t turn a man’s black heart to gold.

  Does it?

  I guess I’ll have to check for a heartbeat in Ross Jones after all...

  ***

  It’s a small town, and the next day, on my way back from work, I see buddy again. The stray dog Ross has befriended.

  As the street lamps come on—I had an early shift today—I make out his stiff ears and pointy nose. He’s kind of cute—it’s a he, apparently—but when I get near him, he snarls at me, barks and runs away.

  Feral.

  Kind of like Ross, I think randomly, bemused. Yeah, it doesn’t matter how often I admonish myself to stop. Dena is right. I do worry about him. I think about him all the time. Everything reminds me of him.

  It makes absolutely no sense.

  College is what I should be thinking about. What to study, maybe a degree in history. My grades were good. I could take out a student loan, stay with friends at first until I got a job in town, then maybe... I could make it work.

  Running away, Josh said.

  Hating Destiny, Dena accused.

  Easy for them to say. I just want to live. To live happy. To start anew. Getting away from the traumatic event helps heal, right? I’m sure I read something like that. Staying in a place where everything and everyone reminds you of what caused you pain won’t help.

  But I already walked away once. Reinvented myself once. How often can I do that without losing myself and all that’s important to me? How about dad, and Josh? How about facing my fears? Facing Ross?

  Speaking of whom, his dog appears again. He comes running up the street, tongue lolling out, until he’s right in front of me.

  Like he wants to tell me something.

  “What is it, Buddy?” It’s as good a name as any. He trots a few feet away, turns and looks at me. Barks again, then whines. His brown eyes are intelligent and seem to be trying to tell me something. “Want me to go with you?”

  Laughing, I follow him. It’s on my way to the diner anyway, not like I’m taking a detour or anything. Might as well. I’m curious to see where he’s taking me.

  “Are we friends now, too?” I ask him and he barks. He seems to be laughing, too. “Where are we going?” He sets off, and I jog after him. “Hey, wait. Doggy, wait!”

  He doesn’t, though, and I jog faster after him. “This had better be good!” I mutter, focusing on not losing his small form as he goes, inhumanly fast for a creature with legs that short.

  I’m panting by the time he stops outside Jasper’s Garage. The place’s padlocked. My dad informed me it was closed down when Jasper went to prison. There was never talk of letting Ross manage it or anything, apparently. It’s a huge thing, the height easily two stories tall, towering over most buildings in town.

  “What is here that you wanted to show me?” I glare at the doggy. “Well? There’s nobody here, you know that, right?”

  Buddy looks up at me and whines, then scampers around the back of the garage, down a side street, stopping once in a while to make sure I follow.

  Well, okay. Still not seeing anyone. The side street is deserted and kind of dark. What am I doing, following a dog? I’m more distracted than I thought, by Ross, to be so careless. So thoughtless.


  But as I stop, trying to catch my breath, I look up and I catch a glimpse of someone on the roof of the garage.

  Swallowing a gasp, I step back until my back hits the fence lining the street. I’m lost in shadows, but the flickering street lamp on the main street illuminates him clearly where he stands, balancing on the very edge of the roof.

  That impossibly pale hair is a dead giveaway.

  Ross? What the hell is he doing?

  I open my mouth to shout at him to get down, to step back, anything but stand so precariously on the rusty roof with the twenty-foot drop to the street below, when the ruby embers of a cigarette light up his face.

  He’s smoking.

  And then he opens his arms like he’s about to fly, and a gasp leaves my lips. I prepare to scream—would screaming be a good idea if someone is about to jump off a roof?—for him to stop, fear slamming my heart about in my chest, drying out my mouth. He kinda looks like an angel up there, his open shirt flapping in the breeze, his pale hair gleaming.

  But then he flicks the cigarette off, letting it drop, and he sits down on the roof edge, letting his long legs dangle over the side, black boots hitting the metal wall with a bang that I feel in my bones.

  A long breath leaves my lungs.

  I wonder if Ross will see me. He doesn’t seem to look my way, though. He lights up another cigarette and puffs on it as I skulk away, my heart still racing, my palms damp, and not sure how I feel.

  Still scared.

  Also angry that he made me so afraid. That I worry. That Dena was right. I can’t pretend not to care anymore, and that’s not good at all.

  Chapter Ten

  Ross

  The diner is my hide-out when things get bad, and they’re bad now. I’m still hungover from last night, sore from working heavy construction, my mind fuzzy and my ribs aching from the most recent beating that left me sprawled out in an alley with blood in my mouth and laughing at the justice of it all.

  A girl is walking among the tables of the diner and I’ve been idly watching her, trying to remember her name. She’s been working here since forever, but for some reason I can never remember anything about her—name, face, body. I’m frowning, when someone comes to stand over me.