by Joey W. Hill
“‘Raindrops Are Falling On My Head,’” she said. “The fireman who carried me out of the house came to see me once. He brought that to me. There was one bedroom that halfway survived the fire, a sewing room my mother had upstairs, and she had it tucked away in a box. I’d never seen it before, but she kept some stuff from her childhood up there.
“That’s a Hummel music box. It’s not worth much, but I kept it all these years, a reminder of my family. I didn’t like to think of it still at Lonnie’s, not honored or appreciated for what it was. I think the getting it back was the main thing, you know. Almost more important than the object itself. Reclaiming that part of myself, saying this is who I am now. That who I was with Lonnie has no hold on me anymore.”
“I thought you might be there for the picture.”
She looked puzzled, then her gaze cleared. “Oh, that. I cut that out of a magazine. It’s one of Monet’s Spring series. I didn’t know that then. I just liked it because it was so pretty. I could stare at it, get lost in those purples and greens. I’d feel like I was sitting with that lady on the grass, the cool touch of spring wind on my face as I listened to it rustle through the tree overhead. Maybe Lonnie will find what I did in it. It kept reminding me there was something better.”
He lifted his gaze, met hers. Held. After a few seconds, she broke the lock between them, turning her attention to the window. She swallowed. “He told you, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, tightened them. “Sorry I’m not what you thought I was.”
“Brave? Beautiful? Kind-hearted beyond anything I’ve ever seen in my life? A survivor?”
Her surprised eyes came back to him. She studied him hard for a minute, as if she didn’t believe that was his true opinion. Then he saw it in her mind, her recollection that he didn’t say what he didn’t mean, ever. Incredulity was replaced by deeper emotions. Emotions she kept corralled, not wanting to show him how much it meant to her.
He put his hand over hers. “You’ve told me, in several different ways, that you’ll accept the pain of loss, if I give everything I can give to you freely. I can’t always honor that, Ella, because I do care for your heart and your feelings, but don’t hold back on me. Be as honest with me as you wish to be. Does it bother you that I know?”
She let out a breath. “Not now. It only would have if I saw it changed the way you think of me, in a bad way. But I guess I’d rather you know anyway. I don’t want to be false to anyone.”
“Ella, I don’t think you would know how to be less than who you are.”
She sent him a soft smile. “I showed you a picture that says otherwise. We can all be less than we are, if we doubt ourselves too much. If we let what others think creep in too deeply. If we forget how short life is, and wallow in stupid shit that doesn’t mean anything. I tried really hard to be everything he wanted me to be, but I couldn't. It took me a while to figure out that I wasn’t supposed to be what he wanted me to be, that he’d had no right to ask that of me.”
“Good girl,” he said, and won a small smile. “How did you end up with him? That’s what I want to know.”
“Desperation. Stupidity,” she said baldly, with a half chuckle. “After the fire, I was an orphan. An orphan who barely said a word for three years. No one wanted that. Most people, if they even think of adopting, want a baby. Foster kids, older kids, come with too many problems. So I was passed around the system until I was eighteen. Didn’t really have a lot of skills because I didn’t do well in school. Didn’t go that often. So through this or that, I ended up with a group on the street. One of the older girls fed herself by hooking. She got me into it, but I couldn’t stay at her place because she already had too many roommates. Lonnie said I could move in with him if I gave him half of what I earned as rent.”
She took a breath. “It was okay at first. I became his girlfriend because that was part of the deal. Then he wanted more of my money, all of it, accused me of not trusting him to take care of me when I wanted to keep my half as agreed. He smacked me around some, until I started giving more money to him. Which had more to do with me wanting to please him than him hitting me. But finally I had enough. The night I told him I was leaving, he threw me down the stairs. I’d learned to roll by then, so I was bruised but wasn’t all that hurt, and made it to the sidewalk. He stood on the porch and told me not to come back, because I was an ungrateful whore. I had the clothes on my back and a twenty I’d managed to stuff in my bra.”
Wolf looked across the street at the dilapidated house with the overgrown yard, so opposite of the whimsical beauty Ella surrounded herself with. “I’ll be right back.”
Ella’s hand was on his arm, slim fingers tightening on muscles drawn tight as bow string. “Please don’t,” she said quietly.
When Wolf looked toward her, he knew she saw pure murder in his silver eyes. “That you care enough to want to break his legs, that’s enough. It’s not needed. You’ve seen him. He’s pathetic, in trouble. Please, Wolf.”
He pushed down the need to break the male, mainly because he couldn’t push the image out of his mind she’d just so wisely planted there. Her colorful, healthy self, next to the scrawny, self-destructive Lonnie. The picture had reversed. Ella had survived and triumphed. All on her own. It gave him a peculiar feeling, not all bad, but complicated.
“Okay,” he said.
Her shoulders eased, but the worry on her face was replaced by something more earnest. “I want to ask you something. Is that why you don’t want me to be your full servant? Because you think I’d have to be something other than I am, and you won’t ask that of me?”
He frowned, and she pushed on, before he could say anything.
“Would I have to be something other than what I am all the time, or just some of the time? With you, alone, could I still be who I am? I know it’s a moot point, because you don’t want me for that, but…”
“Ella.”
“My point is, all of us, every day, have to be something other than what we are for a certain amount of time. Whether it’s to hold down a job we don’t really like but it pays the bills, or to do any one of a hundred things that don’t feel like us. But as long as some of the time, with a person that matters, we can be who we are, life is good. You know what I mean? That’s not a bad life.”
She shook her head. “You haven’t asked me to be your third mark. You didn’t even want to make me your second mark. I know that. I just wanted to say that to you, so you know…if you did start thinking about it, about me or anyone, maybe you should think about it from that perspective, rather than an all-or-nothing kind of thing. Nothing is all or nothing. If you go down that road, you always end up with nothing.”
She stopped. “Anyhow, hopefully now you understand.”
He lifted a brow. “I understand plenty of things, but you’re going to have to narrow it down.”
Her expression sobered further. “Why I don’t limit myself when I’m with people. I’m not ever going to restrain myself, make myself be something I’m not again, when it matters, when I’m with a person who matters. While that sometimes puts me in danger, I consider it far less a risk than becoming what I was with Lonnie. I know it sounds kind of contradictory, because I'll do most anything for a caring Dom, but that’s because pleasing them makes me truly happy. The things they ask of me are things I want to give.”
She gave him a searching look. “I do know the difference between that and doing something that’s not me, not something I really want. Does that make better sense? Or do I still seem oblivious, a girl with a lack of common sense, crying out for attention?”
He bit back the wince, barely. “No, you don’t seem like any of those things. But you take risks that worry the people you care about. You can expect them to grumble about it, give you hell.”
“Okay. Deal.” She smiled. “I can accept that.”
“Only because you like spankings.”
“Sometimes. That thing with the
belt…it was harsh.” She hesitated. “But you’d do it all again, wouldn’t you?”
He put his hand over the one on his forearm and dipped his head close, brushing his lips over her brow, her nose, her cheek, before he spoke. “In a heartbeat. And enjoy every fucking minute of it, knowing the punishment was deserved and that it helps you let go, give all of yourself to me.”
Her breath drew in. He saw the swirl of thoughts in her head, the images. The belting had been brutal, and feeling that heady mix of dread and longing in her, to embrace that edge again, where she couldn’t hold any part of herself back, was hellishly distracting. He had to remember what he’d promised her.
She’d been very, very good.
“So…” He brushed a lock of hair from her face. “Ice cream?”
“Ice cream,” she confirmed, though a little breathlessly. He cupped her breast because he could, brushed a thumb over the nipple he could feel taut against her bra.
“Where?”
Her gaze was unfocused. He had to lean in and speak against her ear, while he tightened his grip on the nipple. “Ella, I asked you a question. Where?”
She let out a breathy moan, but managed the words. “One of my favorite places. But…”
Her eyes had closed. Pure male satisfaction surged, because he saw she couldn’t marshal an answer until he drew back, releasing her breast with a lingering touch. Slowly, she lifted her lashes, showing him eyes clouded with desire.
She cleared her throat. “We need to stop and get the ice cream first. A lot of it.” Her lips slowly curved at his puzzled expression. “I promised to show you how I spend my money, right?”
He’d expected a park, a restaurant. A quaint café. He hadn’t expected a homeless shelter run by a one-man church set in the most broken-down, drug and gang-infested area of the city. But in hindsight, he guessed he should have. This was Ella they were talking about.
She had him pull up to the back of the building and jumped out. Wolf moved fast to join her, since a trio of junkies were sitting on crates in the back. Then he realized, thanks to his enhanced senses, that the beverage they were sipping out of red cups was some kind of iced tea. One man had the shakes, but the second man was steadying the cup in his hand.
“Hey, Paul,” Ella said, putting her hand on his bony shoulder. “Where’s Watt? I know I missed dinner, but I’ve got ice cream. You can have your favorite flavor, as long as it’s chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry. I brought hot fudge and some toppings.”
She’d taken him to a twenty-four hour restaurant supply place for the ice cream, buying three giant tubs from the guys working the evening shift. Right before that she’d practically cleaned out the topping section of the all-night grocery store, since she knew the restaurant place didn’t have them.
“I’m here, baby girl.” The booming voice, the voice of a gospel preacher, belonged to a spare black man not much taller than Ella. Watt looked somewhere between forty and sixty, his ravaged face blurring the signs of youth. He didn’t have any of his real teeth, replaced by a bridge. The spare build was likely permanent, but there was a healthy energy to the spry male that said his obvious past drug addiction no longer fueled him. It was a part of his past, not his present, except for a congregation populated with those fighting the same battle.
His eyes were shrewd, sharp and steady. The attitude he projected said he was willing to be fair, but he’d have no tolerance for bullshit. The moment he saw Ella, a smile took over his face, his arms already extended to take one of the tubs of ice cream.
“It’s late, but that’s just the way God planned it. An unexpected treat, staying up past bedtime to eat ice cream. We got a lot of kids in tonight, and adults needing to feel like kids. This will do the trick.”
His gaze passed over Wolf, measured, assessed, but the man simply gave him a cordial nod. “We can catch up after we get this set up. Nothing more important than making sure ice cream gets eaten before it melts.”
After they ferried the ice cream inside, Ella squeezed Wolf’s hand, received his mental permission to leave his side. It did something to him, her taking the time to ask, treating him as her Master outside Atlantis.
He was such a fucking hypocrite.
As soon as he let her go, she took command of a group of volunteers like a pint-sized general, and began to set up an ice cream sundae buffet bar. There were about seventy people of varying ages and sexes hanging out in the converted warehouse. A small army of cots were set out in rows for sleeping. He saw a rec room, flanked with a wall of cheap shelves piled with books. Partitions showed there were other areas, maybe for therapy or health exams.
His gaze lifted to the big banner on the wall, and his brow lifted.
“Church of Watt. Yep.” Watt was standing at his side.
“Modest,” Wolf observed.
Watt grinned. “God is in me, he acts through me. So I tell people they’re the same way. We’re each of us a church, walking around, able to do good with God’s help. We build that church under and around ourselves with everything we do, and we bring people to it and help them build a church of their own. Do you have a faith, young man?”
Wolf was likely twenty to thirty years older than Watt, but since most vampires looked in their thirties at full maturity, unless they were made at a later age, he was used to being called young man or son by those who perceived themselves as older than him. “My mother did. I lost my way during the war, but found my path eventually. Nothing formal, no doctrine bullshit.”
“That’s all right. Part of the reason I called this the Church of Watt. Otherwise people get caught up in that denomination nonsense. Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist. Religion just gets in the way of what’s between a man and the Almighty, however he views Him, whatever he calls Him.”
Even in a normal tone, Watt had the relaxed singsong of the preachers Wolf remembered from church with his mother. It also recalled the church picnics afterward, fried chicken and ten different kinds of pies to choose from, laid out under the shade of wide canopied trees on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Kids playing, mothers calling, fathers laughing in deep voices.
So long ago. He swallowed.
“It still plagues you,” Watt said quietly. “Whatever sins you carry, son, you’re never alone. And God forgives you.”
“It’s not God’s forgiveness that haunts me.” Jesus, why was he talking to this guy?
“Yeah.” Watt was looking at him with those perceptive dark eyes. “Easy enough to say God forgives you, because that’s what the pamphlets say, right? He’ll forgive any shit we do. But your family, your friends, yourself, all the people you let down? Yeah, that’s not so easy. C’mon. Let’s eat some ice cream.”
Wolf blinked as Watt drew him toward the tables, where an eager line was forming. He noted, with a twist in his heart, that everyone let the kids go first. The adults took as much pleasure in watching them decide what toppings they wanted as getting a turn at the table themselves. Ella was right in the middle of it all, helping to scoop, leaning over to ask a child what he or she wanted, smiling and laughing.
When Wolf saw one of the kids hem and haw over the toppings the way Ella had done with the stuffed animals, and heard the kid’s father scold him gently for it, hurrying him up, Ella shot a look his way. Her lips were pressed against a smile. She remembered, too.
“That child,” Watt nodded to her, “is one of God’s angels. She’s paid our utilities three months this year. Scours the secondhand shops to come up with supplies, furniture for this place.”
“How did you two meet?”
Watt slanted him a glance. “How much do you know about baby girl? Because I’m not going to give you info she hasn’t volunteered. You obviously got some interest in her, but I don’t know if you deserve her notice yet.”
Wolf nodded. “Fair enough. I know she used to do what she had to do to make money, to feed herself.”
“That she did. One night, she got herself beat up pretty good. She had a place to stay, but lo
st it. She bunked down temporarily with a friend, and the friend’s pimp, a man with the devil in his heart, tried to get her strung out on junk. He wanted her to be another of his caged birds, who made him money until she OD’ed. He injected her against her will, she fought him, and he beat her up pretty bad.”
Wolf’s fingers had closed into half fists. He saw Watt notice it, but the man continued on, in the same placid tone. “She got away from him, but ended up in the alley next to this place. I found her, disoriented as hell, holding a piece of glass like a knife. She was half out of her mind hallucinating, but she had enough mind to be protecting herself.”
With a grin, he lifted his shirt, showed Wolf a scar slashed over his rib cage like a shallow letter C. “That’s what I got for my trouble, but I got my hands on her, calmed her down. She stayed here until she found a place. I got her hooked on books.”
Watt waved at the shelves. “I keep as many as I can gather here. When I was at my lowest, a social worker gave me a book. Addicts, the mind is like a messed up kid, one who doesn’t accept responsibility for their actions. She gave me an adventure story, called The Dragon and The George. Told me if I read the book cover to cover, and proved it, by answering her questions, she’d give me a hit. I did it, though reading it was hardest thing I’d done in a while. No concentration, you see.” He tapped his forehead. “She offered me the hit, like she promised, but she said she could also give me a bed in rehab instead, and all the books I wanted to read. Most difficult decision I ever made, but I made the right one.”
He gestured toward Ella. “She might be the hardest worker I’ve ever met in my life. She isn’t happy if she isn’t helping or making the world a brighter place. But she won’t be pushed around, and she has a backbone like nothing I’ve ever seen, so if you’ve a mind to take advantage of her, I’d say you better sleep with one eye open. She also has a temper. Don’t let it out often, but when it comes, woo-boy, stand back.”
