She knew, for instance, that the pancakes her sister was eating were slathered in strawberry syrup, not blood. But as she stared, her stomach churning, blood was exactly what she saw.
It was the way the syrup saturated the pancake, spreading, turning pleasant-colored tan into soaking wet crimson.
Try though she might, Ani couldn’t rip her gaze away. Tori was telling her about why she’d cut her hair so short—to piss her foster mother off—but Ani couldn’t concentrate. She wasn’t seeing her sister’s pancakes and syrup but the bloom of red spreading across Mara’s back, matting her pale green footie pajamas to her skin.
Mara had looked so peaceful, and Ani was close to unconscious, having tumbled down the stairs, that at first she couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. It seemed to her that it was just another in an endless line of stains. Like any child, Mara made an art out of creatively soiling her clothes, so Ani wasn’t surprised that she’d managed to spill something down her back. But the way it crept, getting larger and glistening wetly, thickly, before her eyes, confused Ani more than anything.
The grate of a knife scraping across a plate made Ani jump, and she blinked. She grabbed her glass of water, taking tiny sips to cool the painful lump that had risen to her throat. Her heart beat a frantic tattoo against her ribs, making her lungs feel cramped. She’d broken out in a cold sweat.
Tori regarded her with an arched eyebrow, chewing her mouthful of strawberry pancake slowly. “Uh, you kind of look like you’re going to blow chunks, dude.” Her features twisted as if in disgust at the mental image. “Listen, this is the first time I’ve been hungry in days. If you barf, I’m pretty sure I’m going to barf, too.”
“I’m not going to throw up.” Ani pressed the back of her hand against her cheek. The statement was as much an instruction to herself as it was an assurance to her sister. She pushed her untouched breakfast away and closed her eyes, trying to push the horrible images of blood and life draining out of Jett and Mara to the back of her mind where they were always present but rarely acknowledged.
Her brief lapse of reality had set off a chain reaction in her head. Her thoughts still felt scattered and out of sorts. They stumbled away from Jett and Mara to concentrate on the girl sitting across the table. Her emotions spiraled into panic at the overwhelming task she was about to embark upon.
A couple of weeks previous, watching her little sister break down a second time, insisting she had no option but to terminate her pregnancy, Ani had made an offer without stopping to think it through. She’d never been a spontaneous person, and now that they’d taken the first step in the option she’d proposed, Ani was certain she couldn’t do what she’d promised.
Tori couldn’t fathom giving her baby up for adoption. There were too many variables, and the idea of not knowing what happened to the child she’d sparked into existence was too much for the girl after everything she’d seen. Yet, the idea of going through with terminating the pregnancy only made her devolve into hysterics. When Ani had suggested she keep the baby, with Ani’s full support, of course, Tori’s eyes had been wide and her tone terrified.
“I can’t. I can’t,” she’d cried, shaking her head furiously the way Mara had when Ani had to give her medicine. “Just look at me. I’m so stupid and fucked-up. I can’t. I would mess it all up. It would be just another idiot like me. I can’t do that.”
They’d been sitting in Ani’s car in the first parking lot they came to after they drove away from the clinic. Tori had pulled her legs up onto the seat, wrapping her arms around them and burying her head in the tiny space between her knees and her chest. She’d begun to cry miserable tears, and Ani had blurted the only thing she could think of to ease her sister’s pain.
“Let me take care of you during the pregnancy, and then I’ll take the baby when it’s born.”
Now Ani wondered how the thought had ever even entered her mind as plausible. She couldn’t deal with a baby any more than Tori could. Children made her ache. She would never be able to look at another baby and not remember holding her daughter for the first time—red faced, covered in the gore of birth, and still the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. How would she go through it all again—the sleepless nights, every first from shots to sitting up, watching the baby grow and learn—and not remember when it had been Mara? And when that child grew to be an age Mara never got to experience, how would she hold back her resentment?
She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
She couldn’t do this.
“Tori,” she said, her voice spiking the word like a record scratching.
Her sister looked up, wariness tainting her features in a heartbeat. “Yeah?”
Ani opened her mouth intending to confess, but no sound came out. The silence yawned between them for a handful of heartbeats. Her thoughts were beginning to calm, as if thawing from the cold grip of panic.
She couldn’t throw a broken promise at this kid on her birthday.
“Um.” Ani searched for a save. “Nothing. It’s, well . . .” She blew out a frustrated breath. “It’s your birthday. We should do something special.”
Tori’s expression was dubious and, after a moment, the girl snorted. “Yeah. I guess eighteen is supposed to be a big deal. I’m an adult and all. I can buy cigarettes now. We could go to the gas station.”
Ani furrowed her eyebrows. “Smoking isn’t good for the—”
“Holy shit, I was kidding.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Smoke tastes disgusting, first of all, and I’m not a complete moron.” Tori shoved her empty plate away. “You—”
“I said I was sorry.” Stopping at the gas station suddenly sounded like a fantastic idea, if only because she was now in need of one of those little packets of pain reliever they sold.
“Whatever,” Tori mumbled, crossing her arms.
Blowing out a long breath, Ani tried again. “We could go to LA.”
“And do what?”
“Anything, really. Maybe we could go to the observatory.”
“Boring. Anyway, I took a field trip there last semester.”
“Or the zoo.”
“The LA Zoo? That zoo sucks.”
“San Diego, then. If we left now, we’d still have enough time to—”
“I’m not five, okay? You don’t take an adult to the zoo.”
“I like the zoo.”
“Yeah.” Tori scoffed. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
Ani bit the inside of her cheek, trying not to be frustrated. It was only natural that Tori would be so difficult with her, after all. Maybe she was an adult, but she was also a teenager—a wounded teenager.
“Well, what do you like to do?”
Tori shrugged. “Nothing.” When Ani didn’t say anything, the girl rolled her eyes. “Look, you don’t have to pretend we’re real sisters. You don’t have to pretend you want to hang out with me just because it’s my birthday. Cut the crap.”
“It’s not crap.” Ani shook her head, staving off Tori’s rebuttal. “If you don’t want to choose something yourself, would you mind if I chose for you?”
For a second, it looked like Tori wanted to argue. In the end, she just shrugged again. “Whatever. It’s your life, your car.”
Ani’s annoyance level was set to high, the arrow straining into overload, so it was difficult to take this indifference in stride. Still, Ani managed to temper her aggravation, taking Tori’s acquiescence for what it was. Perhaps it was rude and short, but she’d agreed. That was a start.
“Dude, really. I’m not a little kid,” Tori said when she saw where Ani had taken them.
“Who said anything about kids?” Ani put on a bright smile. She was going to be nice and patient with this kid if it killed her.
Besides, she expected that Tori, however passive aggressively, was trying to get under her skin. Her lack of reaction would probably be the best revenge Ani could get.
“This is an
arcade. This is stupid,” Tori grumbled, slamming the car door closed with unnecessary force. “This is kids’ stuff.”
“It so isn’t. My husband and I came here on our last anniversary.”
Tori skidded to a halt. “You have a husband? You didn’t tell me that. I don’t—”
“I had a husband,” Ani said, her tone subdued. “Had.”
Before Tori could even think about asking, Ani continued walking. Neither of them said a word as Ani fed money into the machine, retrieving two game cards with plenty of credits on them.
“Okay. What’s your poison?” Ani asked. “Shooting games? Racing? Do you want tickets?”
Tori rolled her eyes so hard Ani was surprised they didn’t go white. “What. Ever.”
Pursing her lips, Ani thought for a moment. “Fighting games. Definitely. Come on. They have an old Mortal Kombat game in here somewhere.”
“Mortal Kombat? That game’s ancient.”
“Just like me. Now come on. I’ll kick your ass.”
“Whatever,” Tori muttered, but she followed after her.
An hour and a half later, Tori had completely forgotten that she was supposed to be indifferent to anything her sister liked.
It had started slowly, as Tori got into the competition of the fighting game. Ani had been an arcade junkie in her childhood and knew all the best plays, including all the finishing moves.
“Did you just make a snowman for me? A friendship finishing move? What kind of fighting game is this?”
“I could have thrown an ice grenade at you.” Ani feigned an innocent tone. “Or turned you into a baby. Or an animal.”
Finally, Tori had called fighting games “lame” and challenged Ani to racing. She did better but still lost. From there, Ani coaxed her over to the ticket games. Though Tori initially deemed Ani’s favorite ticket game as boring—it was the one where you dropped coins down onto a pile of other coins to try and push them off the edge—she soon became engrossed.
“Yes!” Tori shrieked when a coin stack of epic proportions fell clinking into the pit. She’d been cursing at them for the better part of thirty minutes. “Yes. Yes. Yes.” She jumped around, looking every bit the five-year-old she kept insisting she wasn’t.
With her face lit up and all the defensiveness gone from her expression, Tori looked so much more like the tiny girl Ani remembered.
When her parents announced they were expecting, Ani had been fifteen years old and very annoyed. Throughout her childhood, she’d longed and begged for a little sister, wanting the built in playmate many of her friends had. At fifteen, she found it weird and borderline disgusting. And of course, by the time Tori was born, Ani was too busy with almost grown-up girl things to want a baby sister.
Still, Tori had adored her. She toddled in her shadow and thought Ani was the funniest thing she’d ever seen. Ani no more than glanced at her before the tiny girl erupted into a fit of giggles, her hands pressed over her always sticky mouth.
Tori became that little girl again, happy and free and glad to be with her big sister. Ani knew better than to think it would last, so she enjoyed it while she could.
She was the same little girl who had once looked up at her with huge, frightened, confused eyes, crying I-don’t-understand tears when their parents didn’t come home. The same little girl who had climbed into Ani’s arms, whimpering against her neck and clinging tightly, falling asleep with her head on her shoulder with all the trust of a child that her big sister was going to take care of her.
The little girl whom Ani had abandoned time after time, leaving her looking pensive with three fingers stuffed into her mouth for comfort every time she drove away.
“You’ll come back, right?” Tori had asked at the end of every visit. As long as Ani said yes, she didn’t cry.
But the day came when Ani didn’t come back.
Watching her sister gleefully picking up the mountain of tickets spewing out of the machine, Ani sighed.
Victoria wasn’t that trusting child anymore. She was eighteen now, alone, pregnant, and scared out of her mind. It didn’t matter how unprepared and overwhelmed Ani felt. She’d been unprepared and overwhelmed at nineteen and had failed her innocent baby sister to a tremendous degree.
Abandoning her again wasn’t an option.
Chapter 5: Home
As midway game prizes went, there were few things more obnoxious than the giant stuffed animals. Why anyone wanted a bear the size of a four-year-old sumo wrestler, Ani would never understand. But of all the oversized balls of fluff, of course Tori had to choose the neon-colored, coiled snake.
It was the most Ani had seen her little sister smile, so she bit the inside of her cheek and said nothing about how vexed she was. Tori couldn’t know. She loved her new toy as much as Mara had loved the one Jett had won for her not so long ago. She’d loved it for the same reason Tori did. Mara had been forever climbing into the middle of her snake, her little legs kicking as she squirmed in its hold. Tori had wrapped it around her body the instant the attendant had brought the thing down.
As they drove home, Ani glanced at the rearview mirror, staring at the green and orange mottled thing propped up in the backseat like it was a person. She couldn’t help thinking of its red-and-green-colored twin sitting in the room that no longer echoed with Mara’s giggles with the rest of the little girl’s left-behind toys.
“Oh, shit,” Tori said. “We’re here, right?”
Ani’s brain processed Tori’s question with a two or three second delay as she blinked away her memories. “Oh, yes. This is my house—our house,” she answered as she pulled into the driveway.
“Yeah, I figured that part out.” Tori crossed her arms. “That’s my social worker’s car.”
“Did he tell you he was coming when you talked to him?”
Tori only stared forward with a silent, stubborn scowl. Ani recognized that defensive, guilty expression. “Victoria,” she said with mild reproof. “You didn’t tell him where you went, did you?” Ani had offered to call him herself, but she’d been relieved when Tori insisted she’d do it.
“I’m an adult. I don’t have to tell anyone where I’m going.” Despite her claim, her tone was petulant.
A lecture brewed, but Ani held her words between tight lips. She counted to ten and let it go. Lecturing her little sister on the responsibilities that came with adulthood wouldn’t go well, and Tori was being civil for the moment. “Well, let’s see what he wants.”
Tori’s social worker was a man with a face that existed in direct contrast to his tall, broad, imposing body. His eyes and smile were open and sympathetic, but being near him had made Ani nervous when she’d met him during her search for Tori. His body language spoke of gentleness despite a body that was built for destruction.
“Ms. Novak.” He nodded at Ani, but when he turned to look at Tori, his expression gentled. “Hey, Tori. You had Stacey and Jeffery worked up this morning.”
Tori snorted and crossed her arms. “Like they give a shit. You know they can’t stand me.”
Shane sighed, but Ani thought she saw amusement flit across his features. “You disappeared on their watch.”
“How dare one of their little orphan children cause them any sort of trouble.” Tori’s drawl was sarcastic.
“Well, forget about them. I’m here about you.”
“What? Did you think I was kidnapped or something?” Tori snickered.
“Brook told me where you were.” His tone was patient as he deflected each of her barbs. Ani was impressed. “And all your stuff was gone. I wasn’t worried about that.”
“Then what’s the deal? I’m eighteen, so I know I can go. What do you care? I’m just one less problem for the system to worry about.”
“It’s not that easy, kid.” He seemed wary as he looked over at Ani. “Do you mind if we talk alone?”
Ani blinked, startled by the request. She waited for the space of a few heartbeats, though sh
e wasn’t quite sure what she expected. Maybe she thought Tori would protest—it was obvious she didn’t want to see this man today. At the very least, she expected Shane to give her a significant look, something that acknowledged they would talk later, outside of the girl’s hearing. Tori just looked impatient, and Shane seemed distrustful, like she was an unwelcome intruder into their little world.
Bristling, Ani nodded with a short jerk of her head. She wanted to argue but couldn’t see that it would do any good. “I’ll be inside, then. Let yourselves in when you’re ready.”
“Thank you,” Shane said. She felt his eyes following her as she walked out of earshot.
The polite thing to do would be to give them the privacy Shane had asked for, but Ani was both miffed and curious. She went into the garage, opening and shutting the door before she crept back, keeping herself hidden around the corner as Tori and Shane talked outside.
“—so close to graduating. Why would you back out now?” Shane asked. “I don’t know what’s in your head, but a high school diploma would only make your life easier.”
“Who said anything about dropping out? God, don’t be so melodramatic.”
“Are you saying you’re going to switch schools?”
“No.”
“You’re a twenty-minute commute from your school here, Tori.”
“I’m not stupid. Ani already said she’d take me.”
“Ani,” Shane said, and Ani was shocked to hear the derision in his voice. “Look, kid, I know Jeff and Stacey can be a pain in the neck, but at least you can depend on them for the things you need. It’s just a few more months.”
“And then what? Then you can all congratulate yourselves because at least you got me a high school diploma?”
“This isn’t about anyone but you. What you need.”
“You don’t know anything about what I need.”
“So you’re going to tell me that your sister does? Come on, kid. A few weeks ago, you couldn’t stop ranting about her, and now she’s the only one who can help you?”
Finding Purgatory Page 4
