“I'm fine,” I tell him, breathing hard, feeling my cheeks heat.
I've always wanted to kiss Maddox and now I've done it. I guess it only takes the threat of death to get me to make a move. But what about Nash? What's he going to think about this? Hell, what's Maddox going to think when he finds out I slept with Nash first?
“Do you have any cigarettes?” I ask, breathing a sigh of relief when he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a pack. Now I have something to do with my hands that doesn't involve touching Mad's face or groping his chest.
“Are you gonna tell me what exactly happened last night?” he asks as he lights me up and watches me take a few glorious puffs on the cigarette. White curls of smoke dance in the wind as I tilt my head back and close my eyes, letting the warmth of the sun settle across my skin. My clothes are still wet from the rain last night, damp and clinging to my body. I decide to yank my hoodie off first, tossing it aside in a heap and noticing that Mad's eyes have drifted down toward my chest.
As soon as he realizes he's doing it, he glances away and scoots out from underneath me, gently pushing me aside so that I'm sitting next to him rather than on his lap. Right now, I'm wearing a wet t-shirt with no bra, but I don't care. In this moment, it's just me and Maddox and a pack of cigarettes.
I need that, that simplicity for just a few minutes longer.
“Why did you kiss me, Mer?”
“Because I wanted to,” I say, even though that's a stupid answer that really doesn't say anything at all. But how do I tell Maddox that I love him and Gunner and Nash in the same way, in a way that begs for kisses and careful touches, for warm bodies and mouths and hands. I don't love them like brothers, even if I should. “Didn't you want me to?”
“I've wanted to kiss you for years,” he admits, glancing over at me and then shrugging out of his jacket. Now we're both wearing white t-shirts with no bra. I feel a grin tease my lips as I study the pebbled points of Maddox's nipples through the thin fabric of his tee. He doesn't smile back at me, but maybe that's because my face is a swollen mess and I know for a fact that he was tasting blood when I kissed him. “But I don't want anything to change.”
“I know,” I say, and then we both go quiet for several minutes. “I thought I might die last night, Mad,” I tell him, and feel a small ripple of pleasure when he reaches over and takes my hand in his. “That man … I don't even know his name … he came at me in a drunken rage and when I fought back, it just pissed him off more. He tried to choke me.”
I look up at the towering cliffs, dressed in shrubbery and dancing in the wind. It's beautiful here, peaceful. I wish I could just sit in this spot forever, smoking a cigarette and holding Maddox's hand, knowing the other boys are safely asleep in the warm sand.
“A man I didn't even know tried to kill me for no reason at all.” I ash my cigarette onto the old wood of the pier and sigh. “I'm tired of it, Mad. I'm tired of being scared to go to sleep, of wondering if I'm going to be sent away, if one of you is going to get shipped off to Purgatory.” My eyes water, but I blink back the tears and smoke my cigarette instead. “I stabbed him in the eye with a fork, you know.”
“A fork?” Mad asks, and then he chuckles a little, pulling his cigarette from the lush fullness of his lips with two fingers. I smile at him, but I know that even with his limited vision he can see that it doesn't quite reach my eyes. “Is that why you ran away?”
“You know I'll get blamed for this—even if I was defending myself, I might be charged with assault.”
“We won't go back then,” a voice says from behind me, startling me so badly that I drop my cigarette. When I turn around, I see Gunner standing at the edge of the ramp, smiling softly at me. “I'm glad you're safe, Mer,” he tells me as I scramble to my feet and throw my arms around my neck. Good thing I'm standing on the ramp because it helps make up for the height difference between us. For once in my life, it feels like I might actually be on eye level with Gunner Colvin.
“How long have you been standing there?” I ask, wondering if he saw the kiss between me and Mad.
The way he holds me, it's hard to say.
With Gunner, I feel like he's holding back at all times, shielding part of himself from me because he's afraid of getting hurt. At the same time, when he touches me, it's like there's this electrical current between us, carrying the emotional storm inside of him into my chest. I can feel it crashing and breaking, raging and pouring. Just like the tumultuous deluge from last night, it soaks me and leaves me dripping.
“Just long enough to realize you weren't a mirage,” he says as I step back and look into the pale sea green of his eyes. Because he's so tall and so competent, because he takes care of the rest of us, I forget sometimes that Gunner's barely a year older than me. Right now, staring into his face, I can see how young he really is and it's a little scary. He's not the caretaker of our little group; he's just another misfit trying to survive.
I glance over at Nash's sleeping form, a hoodie curled up under his head, and realize that he's not alone.
There's a boy sitting next to him, one with blonde and black hair, his head tilted back, eyes focused on the gray-white clouds above us, the ones that promise that even though it's sunny today, we're not finished with the rain just yet.
“What the hell is Finny doing here?” I ask, flicking my attention back to Gunner. Maddox moves over to stand beside us, tucking his fingers into his jeans pockets. I can still taste his kiss, lingering heavy and ripe on my lips. It's so distracting that I steal another cigarette and have Mad light it for me, taking a slow drag while I wait for the boys to answer.
“He cut off his ankle bracelet and tried to follow us,” Gunner says, crossing his arms over his broad chest. At age seventeen, he really shouldn't be so muscular, right? I make myself look at the sand. Staring at my boys lately only seems to be getting me into trouble. “Then he fell off the roof and fucked up his ankle pretty badly. I don't think he can walk.”
“So you, what, carried him?” I ask, flicking my attention back to Gunner.
“He bribed me, Mer,” he says with a long sigh, sliding his fingers through his hair. “Supposedly the asshole has buried treasure somewhere.”
I cock a brow and tilt my hip, smoking my cigarette and noticing that Gunner acts like my hard nipples and see-through shirt don't exist at all. Instead, he focuses on the bruises at my throat, lifting up one of those big hands of his to cup the side of my face.
“Holy shit, Merit,” he whispers as he finally takes a moment to really look at me, take it all in with a sweeping glance. I wave him off, but he doesn't listen, pulling my baseball cap from my head so that the sunlight highlights every injury on my face and neck. “Has this been going on all week?”
“It all happened last night,” I say, noticing that Hitch is looking at me over his shoulder, studying me with a carefully neutral expression. I ignore him. “Tell me about the buried treasure instead. You actually bought that crap?”
“Merit,” Gunner says with a long sigh, clearly not satisfied with me dancing around the truth. I'll tell him everything; I just don't want to do it right now.
“He says he stole some cash and buried it,” Maddox says, still working on his own cigarette. With it parked between his lips like that, he has that classic bad boy Americana look going on. A warm flush rushes over me and we exchange a glance.
Maddox isn't going to forget that I kissed him anytime soon.
“If we're not going back to Hell, we'll need money to get started,” Gunner says, drawing my attention over to him. What he just said finally hits me. 'We won't go back then.'
“You have to go back,” I say, feeling a small flutter of panic inside my chest. As much as I hate the system and everything it's done to me, I don't know what to do without it. That scares me. I might've been beaten and abused and shuffled between homes, but at least I had somewhere to lay my head, something to eat, a routine to follow.
Gunner's suggesting we simply … float out
“You don't have a lot of time left in the system, Gun,” I tell him, pursing my lips and trying to pretend like he's not a good nine inches taller than me. “And you have a job. If you leave, you'll be listed as a runaway and the second you go into work, they'll just drag you back to Hell.”
“I won't go back to work then,” Gunner says matter-of-factly, keeping his arms crossed over his chest. “We'll use what money we've got saved up until we can figure something else out. Whether that's Hitch's buried treasure or whatever else, we'll make it work.”
“You should go back, Gun,” I repeat, but he just frowns at me.
“Are you going back?”
“Obviously not—I stabbed a man in the eye with a fork.”
“If you're not going back, then neither am I. Merit, we're a family,” Gunner says, dropping his arms to his sides and tucking his thumbs into the waistband of his sweats. They're the same threadbare navy blue pair that matches my hoodie; he's been wearing them as pj's for years. Clearly, he didn't take the time to change before ditching Hell to come find me. “We're in this together.”
“What about Hitch?” I ask with a tilt of my head.
“We take care of him until he can walk again, help him find the money, and take our half. I couldn't care less what he does after that,” Gunner says, casting a look in Hitch's direction.
The asshole's not watching us anymore, instead choosing to lounge on his back in the sunshine. Next to him, Nash fidgets in his sleep but he doesn't wake up. I should go get him and tell him I'm okay.
“You really want to do this?” I ask, glancing over at Maddox. I know I should put up more of a fight, but I don't want to do this alone. And I can't go back. It's not just because of the fork incident either; it's everything. Just fucking everything. It's the uncertainty and the fear, the abuse and the threats. What would it be like to wake up everyday and not have to wonder if that's the last night I'll ever sleep in that particular bed? If the next place I go will even let me sleep? If I'll have to lie awake in fear of someone breaking into my room so they can choke me?
Escaping all of that … sounds too good to be true.
I should've known then that it wouldn't be quite so easy. When has anything in our lives ever been easy?
But a desperate, hopeful heart can get a girl to do all sorts of things, can't it?
“We should've left when the Buzzard first said you were going back to the Kennedys,” Maddox says, lifting his chin up and looking me square in the eye. “If we had, none of this would've happened.” He looks at me and pulls his cigarette out from between his lips, ashing it into the wind. “And Merit, as bad as this is, you got lucky last night.”
“I know,” I say, feeling that anxious tickle settle a little. He's right. I could've been raped or killed—or both. As scary as whatever we're about to go through might be, it can't be worse than last night, can it? “So what do we do now?”
“First,” Gunner says, glancing down the length of the pier at what's left of the cement ship known as the S.S. Palo Alto. It used to be kind of a tourist attraction around here, but the recent storms quite literally tore the stern off the old sunken ship and tossed it in the water like a child's toy. “We get a hotel for the night, so we can shower and relax and figure this all out.”
“We can't afford a hotel, Gun,” I say softly, but the idea of sleeping in a real bed sounds so appealing that I don't put up much of a fight. “Besides, don't most hotels require credit cards?”
“One of my buddies from the store works at the Best Western on Ocean. I bet I can get him to rent us a room for the night. We'll still pay; we just won't have a credit card.”
“You think he'll do that?”
“He might give us the room for free,” Gunner suggests, dropping my baseball cap back on my head. “Considering I caught him getting a blow job in the storeroom last week.”
“Who was giving it to him?” I ask, trying to lighten the mood and pretend like my head doesn't feel like it's about to explode, like I'm not at all scared about the prospect of living on the street. Nope, not this girl right here.
“The night shift manager.”
“Is she married?” I ask and Gunner smiles slyly.
“He is married, yes—to a woman.”
“And he was sucking some young employee's cock while on duty? Sounds like pretty good blackmail to me.” I take a deep breath and adjust my hat, tucking loose strands of white-blonde hair underneath it so they don't whip around my face in the breeze. “Okay then.” I look Gunner in the eye, and then Maddox. “Let's do it.”
The hotel room we check into is about a thousand times nicer than anyplace I've ever stayed—before or after I was put into the foster care system. Thank fucking god Gunner's blow job connection came through because I know for a fact we couldn't afford it otherwise—even if Hitch is telling the truth about his buried pirate treasure.
“Your ankle looks like shit,” I tell him as Nash and Merit lay curled up together in one of the two beds. I try not to be jealous, but there's this dark little part inside of me that wants her for myself. I mean, I'd give up a limb to keep the family we've created together but … she's always been so close with Nash, cuddling up to him, sitting in his lap, sleeping next to him.
I want all of those things, too, just in a different way.
My body reacts to the memory of her warmth pressed up against me, our lips tangled, my hands on her back. And that t-shirt she was wearing under the hoodie? That almost killed me. I love that girl with everything I have, but I also want her. Beneath me, above me, surrounding me. Is that wrong? Somehow it feels like I'm betraying her just by thinking that.
“Think it's broken, doc?” Hitch asks sarcastically, cringing as I drop a bag of ice onto the swollen purple flesh of his ankle. He tucks it close and then accepts the handful of pain pills I offer him. As soon as they saw his ankle, one of the desk clerks up front offered us a massive supply of complimentary ibuprofen and acetaminophen pills, all tucked away in these little pouches of two with the hotel's logo on the front.
“If it is, you do realize you'll have to seek actual medical treatment, right?”
“That so?” Hitch asks, leaning back into the pillows with this smug look on his face that almost convinces me right then and there that it's time to put in his place. I might still have some fond memories of the kid called Finny, but I won't hesitate to punch out the dickhead he's grown into. “No, it's not broken.”
“And you know that how?” I ask, settling into a chair near the window. Gunner's already asleep on the couch, taking a nap that I've promised to wake him up from in twenty minutes. I'm giving him two hours. He works too goddamn hard.
“Because I've had several broken bones over the years, and this doesn't feel like those did. It actually hurts more,” he says, adjusting his propped up ankle with a sigh and a grimace. “Fuck.”
“Why don't you just tell me where the money's buried and I'll dump your half right here so we can be on our way?” I ask with a slight smile. Hitch returns the favor, smirking at me and crossing his arms together behind his head.
“If only chivalry weren't dead,” he says with a sigh, almost like he really means that.
“Is that why you were so gung-ho on getting out of hell? To grab that money?”
“I was actually planning on taking my time before making the great escape.” Hitch cracks his orange-brown eyes and glances over at me. “But if three other kids go missing from the home first? Makes it a hell of a lot harder to get out of there undetected. You guys gave me no choice.”
“Well, boo-fucking-hoo,” I say, curling my fingers around the chair arms. “Sorry that Merit got the shit beat out of her last night. We'll make sure to plan that stuff more carefully in the future.”
“I'm not judging you,” Hitch says with a slight shrug. “I'm just saying you messed up my plans is all. So now I'm here and we're stuck with each other, so we should probably make the best of it, huh? Honestly, I think you're getting a way better deal out of this than I am.”
“You know, I really don't fucking like you,” I say, focusing on his face and trying to ignore the fact that on either side of Hitch, there's just this blurry darkness, like I'm staring down a tunnel. It's been getting worse and worse lately, my peripheral vision. It's at the point where I feel like I'm looking down the length of a straw, like my whole world's narrowed to this small pinprick of light.
I won't ever admit this to anyone, but it scars the shit out of me.
How can I protect myself if I can't see? How can I protect Gunner and Nash? How can I protect fucking Merit if I'm blind?
And god, I love my sight. I love the color of the sky and the sea, the trees, the spring wildflowers, the white-blonde of Mer's hair and the ice cold depths of her eyes. I can't even imagine what it'd feel like to never be able to see those things again, to know that the rest of my life will be spent in empty blackness.
I exhale and close my eyes for a moment. When I open them, the blurriness on either side is slightly diminished. That makes me feel better. Maybe I'm just fucking tired as hell right now?
“Mad?”
When I crack my lids, I see Merit sitting up in the bed and watching me.
“You okay?”
“Just fine,” I tell her, standing up and digging some change from my pocket. “I'm gonna hit the vending machine real quick. Do you want anything?”
“I'm coming with you,” she says, throwing the blankets aside and standing up.
If I were Gunner, I'd probably tell her to stay here and get some rest. Instead, I hold open the door so she can pad into the hallway barefoot. As I'm closing it behind me, I notice Hitch watching her from his position on the bed, his eyes locked onto her svelte form with unbridled interest.
Goddamn it.
I really am going to have to punch that guy in the face.
“I really don't like that guy,” I tell her as she takes my hand out of habit and leads me down the hall. I can see just fine in here, but I like the feel of her fingers wrapped in mine too much to protest.
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