A text pinged through. It was from Pixie.
I need you to come home.
I heard the sirens getting closer and closer. I took the stairs three at a time and the key slipped out of my hands twice in my haste. I flung open the door and it bounced against the wall. I could see the fire across the way immediately. I sprinted to the window in time to see Pixie’s panicked face outside the window.
I had her arm before I knew my hand had moved. My insane reflexes that got me so much basketball attention had now reacted before my mind was even in gear.
I grabbed her wrist with my other hand as her body weight swung me over the window. My hips slammed into the sill as I struggled. My hands felt slippery. I was the only thing keeping her from falling to her death. I ignored the giant movement behind her and registered the noise of something hitting the pavement, but my focus was Pixie.
She wasn’t talking, just trying to find something to get a grip on with her feet. I knew I wasn’t going to let her go. If I felt like she was slipping, I was going with her. Headfirst.
I felt a strong set of hands on my shoulders. “What? What can I do?”
“Help me grab her!”
Austin was there. He wiggled his upper body through the window and reached down. I pulled on Pixie to bring her a little closer, because actually Austin’s arm span wasn’t as long as mine. Once he had a grip on Pixie’s hands, too, we pulled together. I saw her scraping her knee on the wall, but it didn’t matter. We pulled her into the window as the few onlookers clapped.
She fell on top of me. I wrapped my arms around her. Both our hearts were hammering. Austin hugged us both as well.
“What the ever-living shit went on here?”
“He didn’t get you. I’m here. I’m here. He didn’t get you.”
Pixie hugged us both back and nodded with me. Whatever she’d done to get on that ramp had terrified her. I eased her off of me. “Does anything hurt? Your shoulders? Your arms? Your knee is bleeding.”
Austin sat up. “I’ll get us the first aid stuff.”
“I’m okay. I’m okay.” Pixie took my help to stand as we checked to make sure everything was actually working.
She touched my arm. “I scratched you. I’m so sorry.”
I pulled her into a hug. A few seconds into it I heard a high-pitched meow.
Pixie pulled away from me and carefully swung her knapsack around to the front. She opened the zipper like a bomb had been in it. Instead, a little striped kitten was the source of all the careful attention and the noise.
“He’s okay. I’m okay. Is Bic…” She surveyed the open window. There were reflections from the lights of the emergency responders bouncing off of it.
I peered over the sill, holding out an arm to Pixie to keep her from seeing the wreckage below. Bic had hit hard, possibly headfirst.
“He’s not going to hurt you ever again.”
PIXIE
The sound of a man’s body hitting the pavement five stories below shouldn’t be in a love story. We never did anything the right way—he and I.
The fire painted Gaze’s face with an orange glow. I didn’t want to look to see what had happened, so he did. I watched as his childhood dripped off of him like perspiration.
His jaw tightened as he clenched his fists. I watched as he mouthed something to the form below.
I swallowed my own childhood as I made way for my next words, “Is he dead?”
“Yeah.” He spat from the window, and I would bet my life that he’d hit his mark below. He was great at spitting. “Too fast for him. Too easy for him.”
I leaned toward the window, all of a sudden compelled to see.
He turned and blocked the open window, grasping my shoulders. “Nah. You don’t get to carry that image in your head. I’ll do it for both of us.”
I moved closer to the window, which was also incidentally into his arms. He was an amazing hugger.
“Maybe I should be crying? Am I doing this right?” I bet I was in shock.
He petted my head from the crown to the middle of my back. “You can cry if you want.”
He wouldn’t judge me. Never had. Never would.
“We just murdered a man.”
And then the truth flowed from me, like it always seemed to with him. He was like speaking to my own reflection. Things were only between the two of us. “No. He deserved it.”
He got me. He knew what I was asking. I wanted a trophy of this monster’s death. Deserved it. God help me, I’d earned it.
I hugged him again and listened to his heartbeat as the building next to his sizzled and burned. The beat was steady despite the burden it carried.
I hoped we only had to share this one death.
_______________
There’s a specific set of rules that must be followed when a man dies. Questioning police come around. I answered the door both times they came knocking.
No one mentioned me inching across the platform or the fact that Bic followed me and that led to his death. The neighbors were good at keeping information to themselves.
The conversation with the officer was pretty predictable until Officer Clarke wanted to know about the ramp between the buildings.
“The downstairs neighbor said he saw you going back-and-forth across a ramp when you were kids, and I couldn’t help but notice the remains of what appeared to be one piece of a car tow ramp on the ground below. Know anything about that?”
Gaze had a quicker response than I did.
“We used to have a plank to toss the ball back-and-forth when we were little. I did have to go out on it once to save a bird, so that’s probably what old Frankie was thinking about.” Gaze ran his hand through his hair and then gave me a look.
I knew he was trying to protect me. My old apartment was hollowed out, the ash a giant gaping hole in the building next door. The firefighters had to use tons of water to get the fire under control. I saw residents looking out of their windows a few floors below, so I knew the whole building wasn’t still outside milling in the parking lot. I felt guilty about the fire, but I still couldn’t come up with a better idea, even now with the luxury of time and a clear head.
Austin came up next to me and put his arm around my waist. I leaned my head against his shoulder.
After a few more basic questions, Office Clarke tucked his iPad away and wished us the best after passing us a business card. And then we were finally alone.
Austin fixed my hair a little before giving me two air kisses. “I’m glad you’re safe, Kitten. You two probably have some stuff to discuss, so I’ll leave you to it.”
He took the real kitten out of my hands. Austin must have gone downstairs to buy the kitten what he needed from the grocery store, because there was a bowl with food on the floor.
I stood in the kitchen looking at the counter until Gaze’s arms came around me, pulling me against his chest.
But I also had concerns that not telling others about Bic was sort of letting him have a hero’s death. Not that anyone that knew him ever made that mistake, but I could just picture the neighborhood gossips getting a fresh new line of lies to snort.
I felt Gaze’s body relax, happy that he’d gotten through to me no doubt.
That’s where we were. Austin was speaking to his parents on the phone. He put one finger in the ear that was free of the phone.
I turned in Gaze’s arms to look at him.
“I can’t believe he’s gone. Is it wrong to be happy? Like I couldn’t have had a better gift if I tried. Does that make me a bad person?” I chewed on the pad of my thumb, considering my moral dilemma.
“I think I know exactly what makes Bic a bad person. I can’t point out a single thing about you that isn’t based in love and empathy, so wish away.” He rubbed my hips lightly. “Do you want to sleep in Austin’s room tonight? Is it too hard to deal with what happened outside our windows?”
I thought about it for a few minutes before answering, “Your room. I want to be in the spo
t in the world where I’m safe. With you.” I reached up and touched the curve of his sharp jaw. “I actually might have the best night of my life in a long while.”
After turning and hugging Gaze, I had to break away to shower. I was cooled off for now, and it was time to get the dust and ash from my hair.
It was as if I left one day for the shower and returned on a different one entirely. The lights were dim. I walked over to the couch and sat. Austin put the kitten in my lap and Gaze took to his knee in front of me, gauze and antibacterial cream in his hands.
“I want to make sure this gets covered.”
I nodded at him as he doctored up my cut. “Thanks.”
The little loud kitten was now just a purring boneless blob of happiness. I petted his little head. His tummy was sticking out, full from the food.
“Um. I think I got a cat?” I hadn’t even considered anything other than taking the kitten from Bic and Dreama. They sucked at caretaking anything. People. Money. Me.
“We noticed.” Gaze finished up the bandaging. My knee was actually starting to hurt more after the shower. I had held it outside the spray to keep from wincing.
“Anyone allergic?” I petted his little head again and the purring stutter stopped and revved up again.
“Not so much that we can toss that cat out of the apartment. He’s super cute.” Austin’s eyes were indeed red.
“Thanks. I’ll vacuum more and stuff.” I put my hands around the kitten to make it a little bed for him. He cuddled in.
“I think the real issue is that this is a no pet building. We have stuff to discuss, but I’m busted. Let’s all get to bed. I’ll grab a quick shower and meet you in there, Pixie.” Gaze leaned over me and kissed my forehead, then gave the kitten a little finger pet.
I felt like I didn’t have the energy to get up. Everything was hitting me. How many places I ached. My shoulders, my arms from being jerked into the apartment.
“Did you get what you needed?” Austin moved next to me on the couch even though the edges of his nostrils were reddening.
“What do you mean?” I glanced in my lap, the automatic response to the bullying I received at school.
“Hey. I’m just making sure that you got it. Because whatever it was, I’d help now if I could.” Austin gently bumped my shoulder with his.
“I had papers and stuff over there that I needed. It was incredibly unthought-out. It was an impulse, sort of.” I’d failed to mention to Gaze that Bic had approached me. I didn’t want him worked up while he was making huge decisions about his college career. And thanks for the offer. I think I got out everything that I could. And anything else would be soaked or burnt.”
I stood, shifting the kitten to my shoulder. He clung on. I walked into Gaze’s room and Austin followed me. We looked across the way. It was crazy that something so close seemed so far away when I was balancing on the ramp.
I heard Gaze’s footsteps and the murmur between the brothers before Austin left and Gaze took his spot behind me, looking across the way.
“Well, that’s how that worked out.” He gestured to the fire scene.
It struck me funny. Maybe inappropriately so. Like the hollowed out hole of my old place was the end of a series show on Netflix.
My exhaustion and frazzled nerves set off a hysteria of laughing. I had to bend over, holding the kitten in place as I started to laugh harder. Gaze wasn’t sure what the hell I was laughing at, but his face went from concerned, to smiling, to out and out laughing with me. We staggered over to the bed and flopped down together. I had to keep wiping my eyes. Gaze was taking gasping breaths between his laughing attacks.
It took us a full fifteen minutes to wind down, occasionally busting out with laughter here and there. We fell asleep slumped together, the skin on my face slightly tight from the tears that had dried on my face. It was every emotion and then none as we fell off to sleep.
Chapter 71
GAZE
WAKING UP IN the morning, with a Saturday ahead of us was normally something to look forward to. But this morning everything had changed. It took a few minutes before the new reality seeped back into my consciousness. Bic was dead. Pixie’s old apartment was just a soggy hole in the building.
She was here with me, still sleeping, with her new kitten tucked under her chin. She made it. I don’t think I’ll ever stop seeing her frantic eyes as I held her up from falling to the alley below. It made my whole chest constrict thinking about it. I almost lost her. I snaked an arm around her, placing my hand on her stomach. I nuzzled her hair and inhaled it.
The kitten went from sound asleep to full-on attack mode and launched into an assault of my left hand.
Instead of the gentle wake up I was hoping for, I wound up half-screaming, “Ow, you little fucker,” as I tried to disengage the pin sharp kitten claws from my skin.
Pixie stared at me like I was speaking a different language until she saw what the cat was doing, then she had the gall to laugh at me.
The cat started chasing a lock of Pixie’s hair and stepped on her neck, so her laughing was cut short. I lifted the little terror and held him a distance away.
I liked that Pixie went to bed laughing and woke up the same way. All good things.
Pixie pushed herself to sitting, resting her back on my wall. I did the same, setting the little bitey kitten on her lap. “This thing is yours.”
“Yeah. For sure.” She started petting him and he attacked her hand a little before flopping over and purring.
“That thing is crazy.” I pointed at it.
“Yeah. I think all kittens are little nutbags.” She wrinkled her nose at me. “Hey. Thanks for saving my life.”
She reached over and laid her hand on my bicep. I flexed because I had to.
“Should we talk about how you wound up on the ramp with a kitten?” I didn’t want to press her, but she’d been quiet about it. I was hoping she’d give me some explanation.
She sighed toward the window. “I should’ve told you, but I didn’t want you to hurt your chances of getting the scholarships. And I knew you’d be mad.”
I felt my blood rush to my fists and ears.
“Did he touch you?” I wasn’t sure if it was possible to kill a dead body, but I was angry enough to try.
“A few days ago he told me I had to move back into my old place.”
“You spoke with him? Where was I?”
“Talking to the coach. Bic said he had something for me from my mother, so I started thinking about getting over there just to make sure that he was full of shit.”
“Holy crap. So you went over and clearly he was there?”
“Not at first. He was supposed to be at the lawyer’s office, but I’d been eavesdropping.”
“You didn’t want to tell me. You didn’t want me to help.” I felt the betrayal. We did stuff together. We did everything together.
“I did, of course. But I wasn’t willing to let you screw up your whole future because of me. You know?” She was getting upset. I had to settle down and talk to her calmly.
I centered myself and tried to put my anger and betrayal in the back seat in my head.
“Did he hurt you?” I flooded my mind all at once. That she was alone with him. And all he had done in the past.
“He stuffed me in the bathroom and told me he’d keep me there so I’d be forced to say I live with them. They were going to start missing checks and stuff because I wasn’t there.”
I held one fist in my hand and squeezed. “He tried to kidnap you?”
“I lit a piece of paper and held it under the smoke detector to—”
I finished it for her, “Set off the alarms and the sprinklers. It calls the fire department.”
“Yeah. It was a crap shoot because I wasn’t sure he would let me out of the bathroom. I was hoping I had to be alive for him to get the checks. When I ran away from him, I went out on the ramp. That thing was rusty as hell.” She turned to the window again.
“And I
know the rest. I’m sorry you didn’t feel comfortable telling me.”
“What would you have done?” Pixie leaned over and lifted my fist with her fingertips.
I noticed the anger I was barely containing. “You’ve got a point.”
I held out my arms to her as she collapsed into my chest. “But I never want it to be like that again. Look how it turned out. Doing things without you sucks.”
“Yeah. To say the least. I get where you were coming from, but how would I have known where to find you? What could’ve been done to you?” I held her hand in mine.
“Are you angry?” Pixie hugged one of my arms to her chest.
“I’m grateful I was here. I think that was your mom intervening.”
Pixie had a sad smile. “Oh, for sure. She always said she wanted to get me a kitten someday after she was done traveling.”
”Well, I think she came through on that.” I petted the cat again on his tiny head. “Hey. I wanted to ask you something.”
“Shoot.”
“Our birthdays are next week, which means that the Burathons can’t have a restraining order against them anymore, so I’d like to ask if they’d let us move in. But only if you feel comfortable.”
She sat back for a few minutes, then she weighed in, “I want to make sure I get these paperwork things handled. I have things coming my way that my mom set up. A college savings, and things like that. I want to be able to pay my own way, you know?”
I nodded. “I get it. I also know the Burathons are super helpful people and really nice. They’re foster parents, after all. They care a lot about kids and they love me. I know they’ll love you.”
She looked a little spooked. “I don’t want to interfere in your relationship with them. It’s super special.”
“You’re my heart. They know that. They all know that. There’s no me without you.” I lifted her hands and kissed her knuckles.
“I’d be okay with that. We can talk about it.” Pixie leaned forward and kissed my lips.
Epilogue
Pixie Rae
1 year later . . .
WRAPPING UP THE first year in college was surreal. Going home to the Burathons was even more so. Mike and Ronna folded me into their big family like it was exactly what they had planned. I had spent so much of my childhood longing for exactly the environment Gaze and I were now in. Family movie night, dinners around the table, basketball games in the backyard. Milt and Teddi were awesome. I was allowed to keep Tiger, the kitten, and he had sprouted up into the rambunctious hellion he was now. He gave Rocket a run for her money and enjoyed pouncing on the spaniel whenever she wasn’t looking. Tiger loved lying on Mike’s chest at night, so he had really wormed his way in.
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