Burn (Brothers of Ink and Steel #2)

by Allie Juliette Mousseau

  “About time! What took you so long?” Diamond croons as I get closer.

  I shrug, not wanting to tell her the truth—that I was establishing a hiding place past the washed out road down by the cemetery on the other side of town. I don’t know her enough yet; we just met a few nights ago, after I had been wandering for hours. Guess she knew the look—when you live on the street you have nowhere to go, no destination, so you walk, sometimes for hours, moving place to place, trying to stay safe and not loiter in one spot for too long while you’re hungry and cold.

  She started talking to me, then bought me a grilled cheese and Pepsi at the all night diner on State Street. I was pretty shocked when I saw all of her money! She noticed I noticed and laughed.

  “I’ve been exactly where you are. But I know this guy who can give you a great job! You can make this”—she waved the handful of cash at me—“every night! The work is easy too.”

  She’s definitely older than me by a few years—and obviously has connections I don’t.

  So I agreed to meet her and her friends.

  “You ready?” she asks.

  “Yeah.” I was hoping she’d offer another grilled cheese before we went, but she doesn’t.

  “It’s not far; just up the block,” she says, and I follow her as we walk along the dirty sidewalk.

  She’s really beautiful, almost glamorous.

  “Why do you hang out down here so much if you have a good job?”

  “This is where I find the best clients,” she says.

  Clients. Clients …

  “Here we are.”

  The sign over the bar and hotel reads, The DuBois. The windows are tinted dark and I can’t see in, but I can see out once we’re at the door. Men are standing around laughing and smoking with women hanging all over them. Other girls line the curb, beckoning to cars and passersby

  I freeze at the door.

  “Come on, it’s not as bad as it looks,” Diamond encourages me.

  “I don’t … think so,” I stammer fearfully.

  “Look,”—she comes over and places a hand on my shoulder—“these girls are having fun. They were just like me and you once, but now they make good money and have a warm place to sleep.”

  I’m not budging. I get it. I didn’t before, but I do now, and all I want to do is run in the opposite direction.

  “They’ll have pizza and drinks upstairs.”

  Food. I haven’t eaten for two days. It’s frightening and pathetic what you’ll consider doing when you’re hungry and scared and have nothing.

  “I don’t … want to …”

  “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Just come up and meet my friends, have something to eat and leave. Then you can think about it all on a full stomach,” she coaxes.

  “I can go if I want to, if I don’t like it?” I ask, unsure.

  “Absolutely. I promise.”

  “Okay.” My stomach twists, and I’m not sure if it’s from hunger or fear or the intuition to run like hell that I’m ignoring.

  I follow her through the main door and up the stairs. It smells awful—like smoke and sweat and urine. Guys watch us as we make our way to the first floor, where she knocks on the door.

  A large black man opens it, and along with the bad smells, I detect pizza.

  “It’s Diamond,” he announces in a heavy bass voice.

  She walks in like she owns the place while I try very hard to hide behind her.

  “Hi Vince,” she purrs.

  “You brought me a gift,” he says to her.

  “She’s a shy one,” Diamond responds. “She’s hungry, too.”

  Vince’s eyes scrutinize me from head to toe before they wander to a table on the far side of the room. “Help yourself,” he tells me. “But when you get your plate, make sure you bring your pretty little self over here so I can get to know you better.”

  All reason leaves me when I see the table covered with food—pizza, soda, cake, candy—I rush to it and jam as much of a slice of pepperoni pizza into my mouth as I can. Two long days without food. I can’t think of anything else, except how ridiculously good it tastes. I down it with some Coke and then stuff my mouth with the other half, up to the crust.

  “She looks good … and young,” I hear Vince say behind me.

  “Fourteen,” Diamond tells him.

  “Fifteen,” I correct her, mumbling through my food-filled mouth. I’ve always looked younger than I am.

  After I gain enough composure to wipe my mouth, I go back over to sit next to Diamond, but she’s on an armchair all to herself. Vince pats the seat next to him on the L-shaped extended sofa. Nervously, I take stock of what’s happening in the room.

  Two big guys are now standing on each side of the door, looking in at us. One’s black and the other’s white—both are probably four times bigger than me. Then there are other men sitting all around, many of them with hardly-dressed girls on their laps. The men eye me like I eyed the pizza, while the girls look less than friendly. A few look like they may want to start a fight with me.

  “Come on, girl, I won’t bite,” Vince says.

  I’m not comfortable at all as I walk over and sit carefully on the edge of the couch cushion.

  “Look at her!” Vince laughs. “Baby, what do you have to be scared of? Nobody’s gonna hurt a sweet little piece of ass like you. Now lean back and make yourself at home.”

  “Vince is the leader of the Westhill Cartel,” Diamond offers.

  A chill runs up my spine. I may not have been out on the streets long, but long enough to know that the Westhill Cartel is the roughest, most brutal gang this side of the city.

  “I’m sorry.” I stand up and set my plate on the coffee table in front of me. “I think I made a mistake.”

  “You’re looking for a job, right?” Vince asks. He wears a pair of black dress pants with a blue button-up and a black vest. He could easily be mistaken for a fresh-out-of-work businessman.

  My body feels numb. “I should go,” I say.

  Everyone laughs.

  “You haven’t even heard my proposition.” Vince’s dark wavy hair is combed back, and he sits with a relaxed demeanor. I think he’s several nationalities, but I can’t tell what—maybe a blend of Caucasian, Latino and African American. If I met him on the street, I don’t know what I’d think—maybe that he just left his bank job—but here, in this atmosphere, now that I know who he is …

  “I don’t think I need to. I’d like to leave now … please,” I respond, realizing my freedom may be denied.

  “Fifteen years old. Young thang, you and I could make a lot of money together.” He stands up and gets close to me. “Is this your natural hair color?” Vince runs the back of his hand through my hair. “Yeah, it is!” He laughs and his friends laugh with him.

  His hand slips from my hair to my arm, where he caresses a line down to my elbow.

  His touch makes my skin crawl.

  “You’re a virgin, aren’t you?” He cackles. “I haven’t had me a virgin in over a year.” Vince licks his lips. “Best meat ever.”

  At that, Diamond jumps up and approaches me too. “Don’t worry, like I said it’s easy. I’ll help you through it. You get to keep fifteen percent of everything you earn.”

  “Oh yeah, baby, you’re so fine, you’ll make more money in a week than these bitches make all month.”

  Diamond winces at his words. “You’re scaring her, Vince.”

  “Don’t tell me how to run my business, cunt,” he says in a threatening tone.

  She swallows hard and steps back.

  “You know how they make veal so tender, girl?” he asks me.

  I think I shake my head no, but I’m not sure.

  “They take that newborn cow and it never sees daylight again. They chain it down in a dark little cubicle so it can’t move—that way its muscles atrophy and get nice and tender—while they feed it nothing but milk. It makes the veal so soft it just melts in your mouth.”


  I get it. I’m the veal. I want to scream, but I still can’t make myself move.

  Screaming won’t help me now anyway.

  I thought Diamond was going to help me. I’m sorry I ever met her.

  Vince leans in and licks his tongue against the side of my neck.

  My eyes shift to watch what he’s doing. Up close I can see the scars covering his face—like he’s been in a lot of fights. My breath becomes painful as my chest heaves in terror.

  “Oh, she tastes just as fine as she looks,” he says before grabbing one of my breasts in his hand. “Such full, round titties for a girl so young. You’ll be just about perfect.”

  I feel the pizza start to come back up.

  “Get my room prepared, Eric. And you know what to do with the whore waiting for me now,” Vince orders, and the Caucasian guy at the door nods and leaves the room.

  “Vince,”—one of the girls sitting in one of the guy’s laps gets up and walks over and pets Vince’s arm like a lover—“the girl in your room is my recruit. She’s my cousin, too.”

  “Bitch, get back over where you belong and blow his dick!” Vince shoves her hard to her knees and back into the man she walked away from.

  “Please, Vince, she’s only seventeen!” she pleads.

  The guy she’s with backhands her. “Do what he says, cunt.”

  The girl is in tears as she pulls down the man’s zipper.

  This is when my feet begin to move. I find myself taking a step back from Vince.

  “Now where do you think you’re going?” He smiles ruthlessly.

  “My mom will be looking for me,” I say shakily.

  He laughs and so do his friends. “How many times I’ve heard that! And yet, you don’t see no mamas.”

  “NO, PLEASE!” We all hear a female voice yell from the hall. “JENNY!”

  The door busts open for a fraction of a second before Eric gets his thick hand around the runaway girl’s throat and lifts her off the ground. Her legs make short little kicks.

  “Get her the fuck out of here!” Vince roars. And the two disappear from view. “Diamond, take our little girl here and get her ready for me.

  “I’m leaving.” Was that my voice?

  “Only place you’re going is my bed chamber, where I’m gonna fuck that tight little pussy till it bleeds.”

  From the corner of my eye, I see the other guard at the door step out, and I wonder if he’s helping his friend with the girl. I hope she gets away.

  No guards at the door. And they left the door open.

  The guy getting his dick worked on by the young woman howls in pain. She jumps up and cries, “Please, Vince! You’ve already had her and so have your lieutenants, so please, let her go!”

  “Fucking bitch just bit me!” the man cries.

  One of the other guys drops the girl on his lap to the floor, stalks over and punches the biter in the face. The momentum throws her against the wall.

  “Looks like you’re getting too lenient with your stock, Vince,” one of the guys sitting in an overstuffed armchair quips with a smile, relaxing as a girl rubs between his legs.

  “We’ll have to teach these two cousins here a lesson,” Vince replies coldly.

  That’s when my knee goes up fast and hard into Vince’s soft groin.

  I don’t wait to see what happens next; instead I tear out through the unguarded door and run.

  After literally sliding down the stairs and bursting free from the downstairs door, I use all of the adrenaline that’s been pumping through my muscles to propel me faster, and I don’t look back.

  Afraid they’ll get into their cars and catch me, I steal down the alley behind the diner and hide. When the cook comes out to empty a bag of trash, I sneak through the open door and into the large pantry, behind some storage boxes.

  I curl my knees up and hug them to my chest. I’m not sure how I’m going to get out of here—and every noise I hear makes me jump—I won’t be sleeping.

  I stay like this for hours, until someone opens the pantry door and leaves it ajar. I grab what food I can and stuff it into my jacket before I shoot out the kitchen door. I hear someone swear from behind me, but I don’t stop … until I physically run into a cop outside in the alley.

  “What’s your hurry?” he asks gruffly.

  “School, I’m late for school.” As I say it and my eyes adjust to the morning sunlight, I see that the alley has been sectioned off with yellow crime tape.

  “Were you around here last night?”

  “No, my dad just brought me to the diner for breakfast before he took off for work.”

  I can’t tell if the cop believes me.

  “Tell your dad that he shouldn’t be bringing you anywhere around here. A lot of bad things happen on this side of town.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  At that moment, two other cops pull a woman’s body out of the alley dumpster.

  It’s Diamond! She’s naked and covered in blood and bruises.

  “Do you know her?” the cop asks me when he catches me staring.

  “No.” I shake my head.

  “Go on, get out of here, and don’t let me see you on State Street—or anywhere around Westhill—again.”

  I nod obediently, duck under the crime tape and take off running.

  For weeks I stay hidden under the safety of the bridge and in the cemetery with the concrete angel. I’m scared to death to leave. I keep thinking Vince and his gang of thugs are going to find me and make me pay for kneeing him and running away—like they made Diamond pay. I shudder to think what happened to the two cousins.

  The cemetery gives me solace. I can’t explain why. Maybe because the people here are dead and can’t hurt me like living people can and do.

  Maybe it’s the love that someone living had for someone who’s now dead. I imagine I can feel that love every time I go to the angel. She’s so beautiful; she has a soft smile on her lips as she looks down towards her charge. The engraving on the tombstone is so old it’s impossible to read. Someone must have loved whoever is buried here very much to give them the angel. I imagine the person is a beloved mom or a daughter.

  And the angel has become so much more to me than a statue or someone’s headstone. I like to think of her as a guardian angel. Or a guide—maybe she led the soul of the body she stands over to heaven. I’ve thought that maybe if I touch the hem of her concrete gown, she’d help me too. Maybe somehow I could prove to her that I’m good—a good person—that I’m worthy of being loved.

  She’s become my only friend.

  Today I tell her, “I’m so thirsty, I’m desperate. I’ve started drinking dirty river water. Maybe if I could find a pot, I could boil it over the fires I’ve figured out how to make. I’m hungry too … and cold. I don’t know how much longer I can do this, and I don’t know where else to go.”

  I swipe at the hot tears running down my cheeks, when I hear footfalls approaching.

  “Please protect me,” I beg her. She’s my only hope.

  When I tuck my head over my shoulder to see who’s coming, I realize I’ve begun to tremble. I breathe a sigh of relief when it’s only Liam Knight, a kid from school. My heart is pounding in my chest.

  Some hiding job, Quinn!

  I figure I must look crazy—walking around a grave, cleaning glass and talking to myself—but instead of walking away, Liam apparently decides he’s going to talk to me. When he invites me to have a beer, my stomach rumbles, reminding me how long it’s been since I’ve had a meal.

  I’ve been living off the food scraps I can find in the neighborhood garbage cans before the truck comes in the early morning. A couple times I’ve stolen some stuff from the nearby convenience store—but the owner and workers are starting to suspect me, so I haven’t gone back in over a week. And between the threats of Vince and St. Anne’s, I’m too freaked out to go any farther away from my hiding place. So, yeah, a beer sounds good—maybe someone will have a bag of chips too.

  I follow
Liam back to where he and his friends are partying. He gives me the cold can right before his girlfriend starts pawing him all over the place. I’m about to ask him if maybe he has some snacks, when one of the older boys starts coming on to me and acting like an asshole. To my surprise, Liam protects me.

  Maybe that’s why, after he follows me—uninvited—to my hiding place under the bridge and asks me to go to his foster house with him, I feel like I can trust him enough to say yes.

  We share our stories of how we’ve gotten into this mess of having no parents and no home, and after a couple of hours I get this feeling, like I’ve known him all my life. And when I get so tired I can barely keep my eyes open, he invites me to stay and sleep there.

  I’m sure it’s a ploy and a ruse to get me in his bed, but dear Angel, I hope not, because I feel compelled.

  Maybe it’s because it’s been so long since I’ve had companionship; maybe I just want to trust him; maybe it’s his blue-gray-green eyes that are so intense they make me think that they’re what the stormy ocean must look like; maybe it’s his messy short black hair and his amazing smile that makes him seem genuine and keeps him approachable. But, now, here with Liam, I feel almost safe for the first time in a very long time—maybe ever.

  His black jeans and work boots make him look tough—and he obviously is, the way he had no fear defending me against Dylan—but the way he’s acting with me doesn’t make him seem so fierce. In fact, it makes him seem willing to be … vulnerable.

  He’s offering trust for trust …

  When he tells me we can share his pillow, I come up and lay beside him. Facing the wall, I snuggle my back close to his front so we fit together in the small twin bed. The old mattress springs creak with my every move. I feel shy and brave and scared and safe all at the same time.

  He pulls his blanket over us. It’s a ragged, tattered thing, barely big enough to cover him. He’s confessed that his foster parents keep the heat down in the house and if he touches it he’d get beaten. When I feel his arm come around my shoulders I feel like I know him well enough from this short time to realize that he’d go cold to make sure I was warm, even though I don’t know why.

  So I decide he doesn’t have to; I take the risk and press my body against his. The sensation makes my face grow hot. He becomes utterly still.