“Kid, this isn’t on you,” Darwin said kindly. “Don’t take this on, too.”
Lucas could feel his face burning again. How much had Charlee really told this man? But she wouldn’t have told him anything. That was something Charlee seemed to just know, agreeing silently with him without the need for discussion. Any details about their home life stayed at home. Friends, neighbors, the kids at school, and especially the teachers, who were the front end of a chain of authority figures that could destroy their lives—nothing ever got shared with them.
Lucas shifted on his feet. “What do I do?”
Darwin sighed. “You’re going to have to talk to her.”
“You mean, force in her door?” The idea horrified him. Charlee had very little. She didn’t have nice clothes, a big boom box, friends, or even a life that he would ever care to have himself. But the privacy of her room and abiding by the declaration made by her locked door was something he could give her. He’d be pissed as hell if she forced her way past his closed door.
“Lucas…” Darwin began. “Can I call you that?”
Lucas nodded.
“Sometimes, Lucas, people just don’t know what’s good for themselves. They get so worked up inside they don’t see things straight. Adults and kids. Did it occur to you that she’s kept the door locked for three days because she doesn’t know how else to yell for help?”
Lucas felt his heart physically lurch in his chest. “No,” he breathed, feeling sick. Had Charlee really wanted him to bust down her door, after all?
“You’re the only one at home that would notice the door had been shut so long,” Darwin added. “It seems to me that she’s reaching out to you in particular.”
The urge to run home—sprint home—gripped him. Lucas licked his lips. “I gotta go,” he muttered, turning.
“Do me a favor, kid?” Darwin asked.
He looked over his shoulder.
“Let me know what the problem is, when you find out? Charlee hasn’t missed a lesson in nearly two years. It has to be something dire to keep her away.”
* * * * *
Ylva came out of the kitchen with her fresh pot of tea, just in time to see Asher standing at the coat rack, swapping out his suit jacket for the more casual leather bomber he kept there.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked, her tone sharper than she usually liked to let it get.
He glanced at her as he transferred his wallet and keys, all the human accoutrements, from his suit jacket. “She hasn’t shown up for two days, Ylva.” In the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the big plate glass windows, his hair was dazzlingly bright. He wasn’t handsome in the modern sense of the word, but his confidence in his ability to defend himself and the square, sure way he carried himself gave him a bone-deep sexiness that Ylva had been watching women fall foul of for a very long time. She steeled her heart, tucking away the fact of their friendship so that she could do what she needed to do. “You can’t go to her, Asher.” She put iron into her voice. Once, that authoritative tone had always been there.
“Nearly a year, and she doesn’t miss a single day,” he replied. “Something has to be wrong for her to not come by for two whole days.” He wasn’t listening to her.
“Asher!” she snapped.
Finally, he looked at her. Really looked at her.
She shook her head. “You can’t go there. It’s Saturday. Her family will be there. You can’t just turn up at her house and demand to see her and to know what’s wrong.”
“I know where she lives….” He processed her words and frowned. “Why can’t I go there? I just want to know that she’s okay.”
“She’s eleven years old, Asher! Think of how it will look. A grown man comes calling on a young girl.”
His jaw clamped and rippled. His eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?” he asked, his voice hard.
“I’m not saying anything. I’m telling you how it will look! I know what the facts are. I know what this really is. I’ve sat here for a year drinking tea with her, too. I’m worried, of course I’m worried. But you can’t just turn up at her house. They’ll report you, or worse.”
His jaw wasn’t loosening up at all. There was a hot light in his eyes. “I’m supposed to just sit here and wait for her to show up again?”
“As hard as it seems, yes, that’s exactly what you get to do.”
“What if she’s in trouble? Real trouble, I mean.”
Ylva knew exactly what he meant by “real” trouble. The sort of trouble that one of the Kine, one with a sword, could resolve but that no normal human could fix.
“I could help her,” Asher insisted. “I’m supposed to help her.”
Ylva smiled a little. “I know the doctrine as well as you….” The expression in his face halted her. “You’re not talking about just service to humanity, are you? You’re talking about helping her. Charlee, specifically. Is that how…is that why you met her? What does she know about you, Asher?”
“Nothing,” he said flatly. “She knows not to ask, and she never did.” He shoved his hands in the front pockets of the jacket. “I’ll get a cab. It’ll be quicker.”
“You’re risking exposure,” she countered. It was a last desperate bid to keep him here, but it was a genuine concern, too.
His answer was to head for the door.
“Let me know what happens!” Ylva called after him, then she grimaced at her own hypocrisy. She wanted to know what had happened to Charlee as badly as Asher did. Who was she fooling with her talk of duty and laun? She watched through the front window as Asher climbed into the back of a cab. She clearly hadn’t fooled Asher. If she had, he wouldn’t have left.
What had happened to Charlee? Please let it be nothing serious. Ylva glanced up to the ceiling as she sent up her silent prayer, then carried the pot back to the kitchen. There was no one left to share it with, out here.
* * * * *
Lucas kept up his tapping on the door, even though Charlee didn’t answer. He couldn’t bang on the door the way he really wanted to. The fear was careening around inside him now, a runaway train that was building up speed with every passing minute. He kept seeing things in his imagination, scenarios of disaster all of them. Rape. Gang rape. Extortion. A newly acquired drug habit. Police brutality. They weren’t just ideas ripped from the headlines, either. Lucas knew kids who had been through all of it and worse. There wasn’t anything about his and Charlee’s lives that would protect Charlee from some of the nightmare situations that a kid growing up in the Bronx could face. All those possibilities formed in his mind, making him sick, making his heart thud hard and making him want to ram down the door like it was a tackle dummy, bust in there and demand to know what was wrong with her, at the top of his lungs.
But banging, shouting, anything loud or unexpected would raise his parents’ attention, downstairs. Mom wouldn’t come to see, but his father might, if the noises were alarming enough.
So Lucas forced himself to tap quietly, but persistently. He put his mouth close to the door frame. “Charlee, if you don’t let me in, I’m going to stand here and scratch at your door until you do. I’ll drive you fucking crazy. I wanna know what’s wrong, so open the goddamn door!”
Nothing.
He started tapping again. Now that Darwin Baxter had clued him in, he would stand here for a month, if that was what it took to wear her down. But he would find out. He…would…find…out. He tapped in time to his thoughts. Tap…tap…tap…tap!
It took twenty minutes. By that time, Lucas had swapped hands a dozen times over and had resorted to holding his forearm with the other hand to support it. But he didn’t stop tapping.
The door unlocked with a soft ‘snick’ sound as the bolt was drawn back. That was the only sign that he had won. Lucas stepped back, staring at the chipped dark brown paint on the door, at Charlee’s hand-lettered poster declaring it was Charlee’s room, stay out! The door didn’t move, but he hadn’t imagined that quick click of the b
olt.
His heart in his throat, making his mouth dry, Lucas curled his hand around the doorknob and turned it. The door gave way and his heart leapt even higher. He pushed the door open, wondering what he would see. Pregnant. Raped. Beaten up. Black eye. Stitches. Bruises across her whole body.
Charlee sat on her bed.
The bed was perfectly made. The bedside lamp wasn’t on because it was still mid-afternoon and the sun was high overhead.
Lucas found he was examining Charlee from kinky head to bare toes. No stitches. No baby. No bruises.
Then what is wrong with her?
He shut the door. “What’s wrong, Einie? What’s happened? What happened on Tuesday?”
She flinched. He saw what looked like bruises under her eyes that he hadn’t seen with his first swift scan. She had lost weight (she hasn’t been eating, you dork!), which made her look even more gawky and long. For the first time, he noticed that the hem of her jeans stopped short of her ankles by a bit more than the fashionable length. She was growing. Again.
“Charlee?” he coaxed softly.
She just sat, mute. But something, some emotion, was flowing off her like a heat wave. He couldn’t figure out what it was. Sorrow? Anger? Both?
“Charlee, please,” he added, when she didn’t speak. “You’re scaring the shit out of me.”
Her eyes grew bigger and he saw surprise there.
The front doorbell buzzed like an angry wasp, yanking his attention away from Charlee. He swore, because Dad wasn’t home. He’d caught a rare overtime shift on the docks where he worked. Only Mom was home and she wouldn’t—
“Lucas!” she called from the kitchen, her voice wavering up to them. “Someone’s at the door.” There wasn’t too much slur in her words yet, but the game was on. By the end of the fourth quarter….
“I gotta get the door,” Lucas told Charlee. “Promise me you’ll tell me what’s wrong when I get back. Promise?”
She considered him. Then she nodded, her head moving by a fraction of an inch. But it was a promise.
Grimly pleased, Lucas rushed downstairs, taking them three and four at a time, gripping the bannister to keep balance. He glanced through to the kitchen. His mother was out of sight of the front door. So were any beer bottles. The relief he felt was almost subliminal.
He yanked the door open.
There was a giant standing on their stoop. That was his first impression. The guy was huge. He wasn’t just tall; his shoulders were like a professional football player’s. He was wearing a leather jacket, one of the trendy ones that looked like Indiana Jones’ jacket, but it was black. He studied Lucas for a moment.
Fuck, are his eyes really that blue? Lucas wondered inanely. Or did he do something to them to make them look that way?
“Lucas?” the man asked.
Lucas drew in a sharp breath, shocked. “Who wants to know?” he retorted automatically. Defensively.
“You don’t know me,” the guy said, then his gaze flickered over Lucas’ shoulder, and up. “Charlee,” he breathed, sounding just as surprised as Lucas was.
Lucas whirled. Charlee was standing at the top of the stairs, gripping the bannister like it might fall down…or she might. Her eyes were huge, the bruises under them making them seem even bigger.
“Hell’s hounds, Charlee,” the man said roughly. “What’s happened?”
Lucas watched her, amazed that she had emerged from her room. Fear leapt in him as tears sparkled in her eyes and slid down her cheeks. Her chin quivered as she looked not at him, but at the man.
“They killed Chocolate,” she said, and began to cry in soft, heart-wrenching sobs.
The man slipped past Lucas and climbed the stairs in four big strides. He wrapped his arms around Charlee and sat right there on the step, holding her against him.
Lucas didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know the man who was (hugging her, he’s hugging Charlee) sitting on the stairs, but Charlee did. And who the hell was Chocolate? Her mystery book-loving friend?
Charlee wrapped her arms around the man’s neck and tucked her face into his chest. She wept in big, almost silent heaves, her shoulders shaking.
Lucas couldn’t help it. He glanced through to the kitchen again, checking. But the game was clearly going well, for the volume had been turned up. Mom wouldn’t move from the table until it was all over, now.
Lucas climbed up to where the man’s feet were propped on the step five below the one he sat on. He wore shoes that looked expensive and a long way away from what a professional footballer would wear, or even Indiana Jones, come to that. The pants above them were that dull shiny material that really good suits were made out of.
He got as close to them as he could on the narrow stairs. “Who the fuck are you?” he demanded in a low voice.
The man looked at him. “Asher Strand,” he said and miraculously, his voice was just as low as Lucas’. Charlee’s arms tightened around his neck, and his hand soothed her shoulder. Lucas wasn’t sure he liked that much. But this dude had unlocked the dam inside Charlee just by showing up, when he, Lucas, hadn’t been able to get her to even unlock her door for three days.
“No offense,” Lucas said, “but your name doesn’t tell me dick. Who are you?”
“A friend,” Asher Strand said. “Look, Lucas, Charlee and I have to head out into the neighborhood for a while. I need to take care of something for her. You can stay here, or if it makes you more comfortable, come with us.”
“You ain’t moving anywhere with my sister,” Lucas shot back, his anger boiling.
“Then you’re coming with us,” Asher concluded. He stood up and helped Charlee gently back onto her feet. Her sobs had diminished to sniffles and hiccups.
“What the hell is going on here?” Lucas demanded, baffled and uneasy.
“Come with us and find out,” Asher replied, then looked at Charlee.
It was the sadness in his expression that talked Lucas into agreeing.
* * * * *
Once they were outside and beyond the view of the house, Asher Strand didn’t wave down a cab or head for a car, as Lucas expected. Instead, he looked at Charlee. “Where is she?” he asked.
Charlee drew in a shuddering breath. “This way,” she murmured, and hurried down the street.
They followed her around the corner and over to Trinity, then across 162nd, then 161st, running to catch the lights and breaks in traffic. Once they were on the other side, Asher stretched out his stride and drew level with Charlee. “Is she in the alley?”
Charlee nodded, looking down at her feet. Then she looked up at Asher. “That’s how I know it was them.”
Lucas wanted to demand explanations, for none of this was making sense. Was there really a body in an alley, somewhere ahead? A person called Chocolate, who Charlee had been grieving over for two fucking days without telling anyone? And who was “them”? The dire range of possible answers to his unvoiced questions kept him silent. He would rather wait for the truth.
The alley was one of the crooked ones that bent around the outside of a building. This one was on the corner of 160th, a big ten-story apartment block. He hurried after the odd pair ahead of him, the skinny red-headed girl who was his sister and the giant mystery man who seemed to know more about Charlee than he did.
Charlee stepped around the bend in the alley and up to the wooden paling that separated the alley from the back yards of the houses on the next block. There was a collection of rusty and dented trashcans and the miscellaneous garbage that always collected around them: big, flattened cardboard cartons, unwanted and junky furniture with the stuffing hanging out, old tricycles and toys that had faded from lying in the sun.
Charlee lifted one of the bigger cartons away from its lean against the fence. She stood there with her head down, her eyes closed. “See,” she whispered.
Lucas hurried over to see for himself, his heart thundering.
The dog had been dead for three days, but even so, it was horribly easy to
see what had killed it. While Lucas’ mind jerked to a halt in surprise, then hurried to put things together in light of this most obvious (in hindsight! his mind whispered defensively) possibility. Chocolate was a dog and from the look of it—her—she had been a stray.
But homelessness hadn’t killed her. Charlee was right. Someone had cut her throat. Right here by the look of it, because it—she—was lying in a pool of dried blood. The smell must have been ferocious for a few days, but the worst of it had faded. Now, flies buzzed around the carcass. In a few days (so glad you didn’t get to see that, Einie!), there would be maggots crawling out of every orifice.
Then, secondary details registered. There was a long piece of twine tied around the dog’s neck in a rough-and-ready leash. The dog had been led here to her death.
Anger roiled in him. Who could do this to a mutt? Why would they do it and put his sister through hell and back?
Charlee looked up at the man. Her eyes were swimming again. “They did it to get at me.”
He sighed. “I’m afraid so, Charlee,” he said softly. “They must have found her roaming the streets.”
Lucas stared at them, astonishment warring with his still bubbling anger. Someone had done this deliberately. Someone had done this precisely to put his sister through hell. “Who are they?” he demanded. “I’ll fucking kill them.”
Asher shook his head. “You won’t do anything at all. You’re going to leave this to me.”
Lucas’ breath pushed out in a rush. “You? Who the fuck are you? Why should I leave this to you? It’s my sister these fuckers came after.”
Strand turned away from his study of the dog to round on Lucas. His eyes were chilly, his jaw set. “Do you want to go back to high school next year, Lucas? Do you want to be breathing when September rolls around?”
Lucas scrambled to assimilate his meaning. “Who are they?” he asked, his voice lower, his anger cooled.
“Someone I thought I had dealt with once before,” Asher said, sounding mildly annoyed.
The Branded Rose Prophecy Page 10
