by A. M. Wilson
Elias’s eyes harden, and his jaw clenches, and then he resumes singing. The fucker is pissed. He’s not the only one.
The girl in his lap starts to stir, and I take that as my cue to get out of here. Without a word, I push off from the wall and stalk to Elias’s room. Looks like he’s got her covered tonight, so I’m not taking the fucking couch. The sound of her retching follows me down the hall, and I close the bedroom door quietly behind me.
I strip naked and shower, washing the weekend of booze, coke, and chicks down the drain.
Then I go to bed alone.
I wake up the next morning cranky with a lifeless dick and feeling like hell—what a weekend of hard partying and drugs do to a man. I dress groggily. Jeans, black tee, socks, and boots. After that, I wander to the kitchen in search of coffee.
What I find instead is her.
I stop in the mouth of the hallway and take her in. She’s starting to heal nicely. And it’s amazing what a good shower can do for someone, but she’s still too damn skinny. The tee Elias gave her is drowning her. The hem nearly reaches her knees, and the sleeves hang to her elbows. And the black makes her sickly pale skin even more noticeable.
The sight makes my stomach sour and clench. This is fucking stupid, she’s not my damn responsibility, but I can’t help feeling like I got to get some food in her.
I can’t let her get attached. People become something to me, and they wind up dead. I won’t take any more casualties.
I clear my throat and move toward the kitchen, but even that small noise scares the shit out of her. She jumps as if she was electrocuted and drops the mug in her hands to the floor. It shatters into a hundred pieces.
Fuck.
A whimper slips past her lips before she drops to her fucking knees in a pile of glass shards and starts sweeping them up with her hands. What the fuck?
“Stop!” I command, my voice rough from the weekend so it comes out scarier than I intended. She whimpers again but thankfully stops moving.
Frozen solid and won’t look at me. Jesus.
Glass crunches beneath my boots as I cross the room. My legs want to race over to her, but I force myself to slow. She’s afraid enough.
I walk around her, giving her the chance to see my face and that I mean no harm. Blood drips from her hand, and I bet she has glass embedded in her knees too. “What were you thinking?” I question before I can stop myself. I’m angry she’d be so damn careless.
“I-I-I-I’m sorry. I’ll clean it up.”
God, her voice is broken. Everything about her is broken. I need to clean her up, then put her somewhere she’ll be safe and out of my way.
Without thinking, I reach out to lift her away from the glass. I realize my mistake too late.
The girl lets out a small scream and thrusts herself backward to get away from me—right onto more glass. Her palms smack the floor to break her fall, and she lands on her ass. The cry of pain goes straight to my gut, but the look on her face sears itself into my brain. The torment and terror etched there is something I’ll never forget. She’s torn between the risk of asking for help or scurrying across the shards to get away. Holy fuck, the trauma this girl must have endured.
Taking a note from Elias, I crouch down and hold my hands up. In the gentlest tone an angry bastard of my size can muster, I try to calm her. “I won’t hurt you. You’re bleeding, and I need to help you.”
She drops from her palm to her elbow and tries dragging herself backward.
Fuck this. “Stop!” I command again.
She instantly freezes.
“Look at me.”
Her throat works on a swallow. But then, slowly, she lifts her eyes to mine.
I try to ignore the punch to my gut. “I’m gonna lift you, carry you to the bathroom, and clean out the glass from your hands and knees. Got it?”
Then the most fucked-up thing happens. I watch as those two watery eyes of hers go completely dead and shutter against the world. Blank. Lifeless. Empty.
“Whatever you wish,” she says in a monotone, robotic voice.
Oh, fuck.
“Stay with me. Don’t give me that shit. You aren’t back there, you hear me? You are here.” My heart pumps wildly. Picking her up, I rush down the hall to the bathroom and set her gently on her feet. “Stay with me. Say something. Tell me my name.”
While I dig in the cabinet beneath the sink, she responds. “I don’t need your name to give you what you want.”
My head whips around to look at her. “You aren’t back there, girl. Tell me my name.”
“I can suck your dick for fifty, but sex is two hundred.”
Jesus Christ!
I find the kit, slam it on the counter, and surge to my feet. When my hand hooks around her neck, she doesn’t even flinch, and I pull her so we are face to face. “Sin. My name is Sin, and you are safe.”
It doesn’t work.
For the first time in a long time, I feel something akin to fear.
If I can’t snap her out of it, I need to at least get her cleaned up. I drop to my knees without breaking my fall, but the pain doesn’t register. The only thing I feel is a desperate need to get this girl back to reality and cleaned up. Then I can get on my bike and get the fuck out.
Cupping the back of her right knee with one hand, I rinse her wounds with water from a saturated rag. Bloodied rivulets of water course down her shin and calf, dripping steadily to the floor. With the blood washed away, several shards of glass glisten from where they’re embedded into her skin.
After snagging the kit and the tweezers, I peek up at her. The girl stands stoically. Face pale and hair hanging limp, she doesn’t even twitch.
She’s still lost in the world her body no longer resides in, but her mind has never left.
My jaw clenches. This shouldn’t happen. Not to her, not to Molly. Not to any living, breathing human on this god-forsaken planet.
After I find a clean disposable cup in the drawer, I set to work. She’s so far gone I don’t even bother telling her to prepare herself.
The shards plink together as I move from one knee to the next. The girl never changes her position except to allow me to switch legs.
Man or not, I keep my eyes averted from the hem of the shirt, and my mind away from what she might or might not have on underneath it. I’m the worst type of bastard, but even I have my limits.
That’s all shot to hell when I finish on the left leg and pull my hand away from the back of her knee. Blood. More fresh blood.
“Girl, I need you to turn around.” I don’t wait for a response that won’t come. As gently as I can, I grasp her hips and start to turn her around.
Fucking hell.
The woman has glass shards stuck in the soft curve of her ass.
I should call Elias and tell him to deal with this shit. This is a situation I want nothing to do with. She’s halfway catatonic, and I have to figure out how to touch her without making the traumatized girl feel violated. I’d rather go back out there and roll around in the broken glass myself.
“You’ve got glass stuck to your ass, girl. I need you to snap out of it.”
My brows snap together, and I roll my lips between my teeth. She’s not facing me, but I can see how hard she’s suddenly trembling. Finally, a sign of life.
I gentle my voice even though no amount of effort can disguise the gruff sound. The command comes out steady. “I know you can hear me. Nod your head. Tell me you’re listening.”
Her head bobs, and she whimpers.
“Your knees are done, but I’ve gotta get these shards out of your ass. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
She whimpers louder but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge what I said.
“Never violate you. Not into that. I’m just gonna clean you up. You hear me?”
Nothing.
I start to lose my temper. “You got a mouth on you, don’t you? Answer me.”
“Y-yes,” she whispers, her voice trembling as hard as her hands.
<
br /> There’s no time to waste before she launches back into la-la land, so I work quickly. I lift the hem of the tee and clench my teeth. A breath of air puffs out of my chest before I can remember how to exhale properly. The tips of my fingers curl tighter into the cotton fabric while I try to contain myself.
Hundreds of thin, shallow lines cover every inch of her bare skin from her lower back to the middle of her thighs. Every direction and varying lengths as though she was beat repeatedly with some thin reed or sliced into methodically.
My gut constricts, and I choke back the bile rushing up my throat. I tell myself it’s from the weekend bender. Those three days of drinking and snorting coke with no food are making me sick. I tell myself that because if I admit the truth, I’d admit there’s a bit of decency left in me after all.
“I know how ugly I am.” Her soft whisper pulls me back to this house, this bathroom, this minute. It takes a second for the words to register, and she takes my silence as assent.
Her small hands try to brush me away. “Just leave it. I can get the rest myself.”
“There’s nothing ugly about the scars inflicted on us by others. What’s ugly is letting them sink down deep enough that it starts to come out of your eyes and your mouth. You can’t let what someone else did to you affect the way you see yourself. Speak about yourself. You can’t let it.” The small fire I see inside her captures my interest and pulls the words out before I can stop them.
She peeks over her shoulder at me. “You really believe that?”
I grunt in response. “I’m goin’ to get to work here. It’ll be quick. Hold still.”
The silence lasts for only a beat before her soft voice fills the small space. “I haven’t seen you around much since I woke up. I’ve spent a lot of time with Elias. He’s been really nice.”
Plink. Plink.
“Um…and I just want to say that…that I’m sorry for intruding on you like this.”
Plink.
“And I’ll, uh, get out of here as soon as I can. A couple of days tops.”
“No.”
The muscles of her legs tighten as she goes rigid. “What?” she breathes.
“You got family?” I ask while staying focused on my task.
“I, no. Not anymore.”
“You got a place to go? A job? Money?”
“I can take care of myself. I’ll find a job.” Her voice cracks on the last word.
“Yeah? You think you can just waltz into some business wearing one of Elias’s tees like a dress and someone will hire you with no background and no work history besides the fact you were recently a prostitute?”
The girl sucks in a sharp breath that I feel all the way in my gut. Fucking Christ.
“How did you know that?”
“None of your damn business how I know. Point is, you’ll stay put until we can figure out what to do with you.”
The last piece of glass comes free, which means I can stop staring at her damn ass and pretending I’m unaffected. Which I’m not. The scars are prominent, sure, but they don’t detract from the beauty in front of my face that I wouldn’t mind sinking my teeth into. Fuck, I’m a sick bastard.
After carefully applying some ointment, I tape the cuts with a large piece of gauze and some medical tape.
“Turn around,” I command gruffly.
The girl does, and I snatch her small wrist and go to work on her hands. To her, my focus is on the shards in her palms. That’s because I don’t want her to see how angry her bony wrists make me.
“It seems you know more about me than I do.”
I don’t bother with a response to that total baited bullshit.
“I don’t even know my own name.”
The tweezers slip and sink into the fleshy part of her palm, but she doesn’t even flinch.
“The, ah, place I was at, they called me Chloe. Wouldn’t let me use my real name. I’m not that girl anymore either, though, you know? I’m sorry, I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. I mean, it’s really nice of you to help me. I thought, maybe, you’d want to know.”
“Pick a different one.”
“I’m sorry?” Her brows furrow in confusion.
“Your name. You’re free now. Pick a new one.”
“Oh, right. I’ll have to think of something.”
The gauze is rough beneath my thumb as I slap it over her palms and tape it down. Then I shove the kit back under the sink. The slamming cabinet door startles her.
“Get in the kitchen and make yourself some decent food. You’re a fucking skeleton.”
With that parting shot, I leave her standing in the bathroom. Her shocked stillness follows me out the door.
I don’t know if she follows or listened to my insult. I storm straight from the bathroom, grab my leather jacket, and hop on my bike, all the while ignoring the feeling in my chest and the mess left on the kitchen floor.
I need to get my father’s bar open and running again. Priorities first. Dealing with the stray is not even on my fucking list.
I make it to the bar fine in my reckless state. Get the door open, call in a few staff, and the regulars start trickling in.
Business as usual. Who gives a fuck my pop died? So long as they have their alcohol and a place to plant their asses to drown out their own problems.
After that, it’s all a blur. The bottle of liquor on my father’s desk might be to blame. The image of that girl's face and torn-up flesh swirling like a kaleidoscope in my mind might be too.
Or maybe it’s because I’m a lowlife piece of shit.
Black consumes me, and I welcome the darkness.
Chapter Four
Sin
What in the fuck is that noise?
A loud trill sounds again, reverberating around my skull like a tiny fucking jackhammer. I groan. Lifting my head from the black leather couch, I wipe the puddle of drool with the hem of my shirt.
My mouth feels like I was sucking on cotton balls all damn night. With more effort than I care to exert, I push myself from the couch and stumble to the bathroom. The auto light flicks on, blinding the hell out of me.
And that goddamn ringing won’t stop.
Turning the cold water as high as it can go, I cup my hands and drink greedily. After I’ve had my fill—enough to take away the thirst but not enough to make me puke—I splash some coolness on my face to wake up.
Way to go, fucker. You’ve done a great job running from your problems this time. How many more times do you think Elias will put up with your stupid ass before he realizes your friendship and the risk to his life aren’t worth it?
That sound, the sound of my motherfucking phone ringing, goes off again. With speed no faster than a tortoise, I stumble to my father’s desk.
“’Lo,” I answer in a deep, gruff voice.
The line is silent for a beat.
“I said hello?” I grind out between clenched teeth.
“Hang on. I’m trying to talk myself out of fucking killing you.” Elias, again. Probably calling to chew my ass out like my fucking grandmother.
“Yeah? Well, my hangover says go the fuck away.”
“Your dad’s house blew up last night. Completely demolished. There’s nothing left. Not even enough to tell Richard if your piece of shit body was inside.”
My stomach hollows as if I’ve been carved out from the inside. “What’d you say?” The sound of my voice is unrecognizable. The scratch from earlier has eroded into nothing more than a whisper.
“I said—ˮ
“THE FUCK DID YOU SAY?”
Elias sighs. “I’m so sorry, brother.”
“No,” I groan in agony. So many things. So many memories lost in an instant. Another thing touched by me taken down.
Molly.
Everything about her. Every picture. Every item that belonged to her. All of her was in that house.
My body clutches in agony. The pain is nearly as bad as the day she went missing and every day that’s followed.
Every breath of air burns as if I’m inhaling the flames of a campfire. “You can’t. Stay out of my shit.”
“Sin—ˮ
“You’re busy with that girl you brought home. Take care of her and mind your own goddamn business.”
I tap the end button but can’t seem to let go of the phone. The plastic feels flimsy in my large hand. My other hand scrubs roughly over my mouth, the callouses of my palm abrading my lips.
“Goddammit!” I roar, my phone flying out of my hand with the force of a bullet. It bounces off the opposite wall, and several pieces go flying.
My hungover body stumbles backward into the rolling desk chair. No amount of slow breathing can calm the storm raging in me. I feel molten inside. Everything I touch is destroyed faster than I can pick the pieces up from the last disaster. It’s only a matter of time until I take down the remainder of the people around me. Richard, Elias, that girl. One by one, the devil inside me will destroy their lives. It might be so slow we don’t notice, but it’ll happen. I can count on it.
I can sit here all damn day and wallow in self-pity, or I can go see if there’s anything left of my father’s life. Even though I know there isn’t. This wasn’t an accident. The bastards who’re set on destroying my family are behind this, which means the bar is probably next.
The rumble of my bike cuts through the still air when I pull up to the remnants of my pop’s place. Even the birds don’t chirp here. The only sounds are the firefighters spraying hot spots around the property and the spectators standing around gawking.
Nothing but charred, blackened earth remains where the 6,500 sq. ft. home used to reside. The thick smell of burning wood and smoke hangs heavily.
At first, I can’t even approach. I don’t even leave my bike. I sit with my dark shades covering my eyes and take in the now-empty lot. The ashes of my sister’s life scattered about. The people watching in gross curiousness at someone else’s misfortune. Firefighters and police block the roads to keep the crowd back. Over everything else, I can just make out the muttering about the homeowners. People are wondering if they were trapped inside and succumbed to the flames.
