by Bethany-Kris
They were idiots.
Penny was far beyond troubled.
She passed that years ago.
Mrs. Tippens sighed, murmuring, “At the time, I didn’t fully comprehend the help and support Penny would need while attending this institution and finishing her final year. But it’s also hard to come up with a proper plan to make sure she has what she needs when she doesn’t even attend in the first place. I’m sure you understand.”
Despite being uncomfortable in the chair and not wanting to be there in the first place, Penny had done so because Naz asked her. Now, she couldn’t help rolling her eyes. Almost hard enough that she was able to see the back of her head. “You wouldn’t want me here on my bad days.”
“We want you here on all the days, Penny.”
Next to her in the second chair that faced the large, modern desk, Naz cleared his throat and shot Penny a look. One that said she should be quiet, and damn, she was trying, but this was harder than she expected.
Leaning forward in his chair, Naz rested his arms over his knees and clasped his hands together. The smile he offered to the woman on the other side of the desk was kind. Friendly, even, but Penny knew that was all for show. If there was anything she learned about Naz over the many months she had been living under his roof, it was that he could appear like anything he wanted ... or rather, what someone else wanted him to be.
Right then, the principal wanted compliance. An apology, maybe. She wanted Naz to tell her that everything would be handled from Penny’s lack of interest in school to the grades that were barely passable.
She wanted him to lie.
Because shit ... Penny planned on fixing nothing. This entire place was the least of her worries when it came to things she needed to handle in her life. Considering she still wasn’t even happy to wake up each morning, why would she care about something as stupid as high school?
It seemed ... ridiculous.
“The delinquency needs correcting,” the principal said. “Fast and first. Then, we can maybe move to making other things better. Like engaging her peers, the issues with her teachers ... incomplete schoolwork. All of it.”
“And we’re what, ignoring how difficult the last few months have been for her all the while?” Naz asked.
“I—”
“Her father’s trial and then death. Her frail mental health. I think it’s obvious that Penny does well to hold it together visually,” Naz stressed, arching a brow as if to dare the woman across from him to deny his statement, “but where she struggles internally, we see it in things like her disinterest in other people, or the ability to finish tasks that takes a certain level of commitment and even enjoyment that she just doesn’t have. Which I know you’re aware because the school has a direct line to her therapist in case things come up that need to be handled ... on either end. Is it really her fault for doing what she can, considering?”
“Mr. Donati—”
“Is it her fault?” he asked again, stronger the second time. “At least answer me.”
Mrs. Tippens’ gaze darted to Penny before moving right back to Naz. “My point is only that maybe this isn’t the best place for her because it’s become apparent we don’t have the system in place for someone with Penny’s needs. There are other places I could suggest that are better equipped to handle her delicate situation. Or a program, maybe, I—”
“What, like a ward?” Penny asked suddenly, the anger ringing out in every word. She glanced over at Naz, her brow pinched when she demanded, “Does she mean like a place they put me in overseas? Another hospital or—”
“That’s not going to happen,” Naz told her.
His tone was firm.
Other than Roz, only Naz or the social worker—if her guardians weren’t doing their part in caring for her—could check her into another mental institution. She had to trust when he said it wasn’t on the table, but a part of her still didn’t believe it.
Penny still couldn’t help the heaviness settling in her chest or the ache in her heart. That vicious swell of anxiety threatened to drown her under the rush of waves crashing into her one after the other with no end in sight. The way her mood could go from bleak to terrifying in the span of seconds was sometimes disconcerting.
“I don’t wanna go back—”
“Penny,” Naz murmured, his hand cutting between them like he was drawing an invisible line there, “it’s not happening. It’s not.”
Right, right.
So, why didn’t her brain hear that, too?
Then, to the principal, Naz lost his friendly, willing-to-please facade when he said, “She’s not moving out of this school. I’ve already paid for her year—her graduation isn’t that far away. Her grades are passable. She’s kept up with online classes and the minimum classwork needed to stay above board. And what, because she won’t engage with people the way you think is acceptable, you’re willing to push her out altogether? Give me a fucking break.”
“Excuse me, just who do you think—”
“You know exactly who I am,” Naz muttered, standing from his chair and stretching to his full height. Penny quickly moved to follow. “What do you want—more money? I heard they’re looking to add to the gym facilities and upgrade current equipment. Send me a memo. A check will follow. In the meantime, make a little more space for Penny while she finishes her year here and without bullshit like this that wastes my time. She’s already been victimized enough outside of these walls. Let’s not add to it while we get her to graduation day.”
The principal gaped, silent.
Naz smiled again. “Anything else?”
“I ...”
“I’ll take that as a no. Penny, let’s go.”
“Okay,” she whispered, quickly scrambling around the chairs to follow after Naz. On their way out of the office, Naz snatched the phone from Penny’s hand without regard to her question of, “What are you doing?”
He plugged in a number, then handed it back saying, “If they give you any shit here after today, and you need somebody to get here fast, but Roz and I aren’t available, call Luca. That’s his number. He’ll drop everything and be here, okay?”
Penny quieted, glancing down at the new contact staring back at her. Naz didn’t miss it.
“You seemed okay with him—sorry, I didn’t mean to assume. Are you not?”
The empty corridor of the school leading away from the office echoed with their footsteps. She had to ask herself that same question while a warmth bloomed in her chest at the idea of having Luca available to her with nothing more than a phone call. It was almost enough to make her smile.
And that was crazy.
Dumb, even.
It certainly didn’t help that the guy made her tongue-tied just by being near, and that she didn’t even know why. Was she okay with it?
Confused more than anything.
Eventually, Penny muttered, “Yeah, it’s okay.”
Sort of.
“And thank you,” she added.
Naz frowned. “For what?”
“That. Back there with Tippens.”
He stopped walking. Penny turned to face Naz at the same time.
“I guess,” she said when he continued staring at her while saying nothing, “I’m still surprised you guys keep doing anything for me at all when I don’t do very much for you except ... be here. In the way.”
“You’re not in the way, for one. And don’t be surprised about shit. This is what we do for people we love, Penny. We take care of them. We take care of you.” He didn’t give her time to consider his words before he said, “Therapist appointment next, right?”
Penny nodded, her throat thick with an emotion she hadn’t expected. “Yeah.”
THERAPY WAS THE SAME as it always was which meant Penny zoned out the second she sat on the chair facing the windows. For a while, Dr. Tangler was willing to play along with her patient’s typical behavior, but then she asked a question that couldn’t be ignored.
“Are you wil
ling to talk about your father today?” the therapist asked.
Penny snapped out of her haze in an instant. “Talk about what, specifically?”
“Well—”
“I did hours of victim testimony. Sat in front of cameras while I talked to detective after detective. And I know you were given access to all of it, so what exactly do you want me to say to you about him that I haven’t already said?”
Over her shoulder, she found the therapist staring back at her instead of down at the pad in her hands that she constantly scribbled notes throughout their sessions. What Penny would give to get a single peek at those notes even once.
What did the woman write about her?
What did she think?
Probably nothing worse than what Penny dealt with on her own. It couldn’t be.
“For those things,” Dr. Tangler replied, “you detailed the sexual abuse and circumstances of your situation over the years. I was thinking—”
“It’s all the same. Him. What he did to me. Nothing is different now.”
“How about his death, for starters. We could talk about that and if that’s had any—”
“He got what he deserved,” Penny said, a venom coating every single word. And she didn’t regret it, even when the doctor’s eyes widened at her patient’s outburst. “And he’s where he belongs, too.”
In hell.
She hoped he burnt there forever.
Turning back to the window, Penny ignored the sound of a pen scratching against paper behind her. She expected the woman to push the topic a little more—as if every other time Preston Dunsworth was brought into their sessions, and she refused to talk about it would change.
Instead, the therapist changed the subject. Entirely.
“How are things at home with Nazio and Rosalynn?”
Penny’s brow dipped. “Fine. Why?”
“I wonder if you’re happy there or if ... things have changed at all. I wanted to ask if you noticed anything that made you uncomfortable or that you might want to chat about with me while you’re here.”
That didn’t sit right.
Penny didn’t know why.
Red flag number one.
This was the first time the therapist ever asked about Naz and Roz in such a way. If anything, the doctor seemed to like the way Penny responded to her guardians and being in their custody. It wasn’t an issue.
Why was she searching for one?
“Has anything concerned you—maybe business within the home—with them?” the doctor asked. “Anything at all?”
Penny turned on the chair, making it spin on the pedestal to face the therapist. “What do you mean?”
“Anything. Maybe they ... argue. Or perhaps you’ve noticed things aren’t always as they seem as they come and go. Have you noticed any criminal activity—”
“What?”
Penny wasn’t stupid. Like every other teenage girl in America, she also had access to the internet. She knew who Naz and Roz were, where they came from ... their family’s legacy in the criminal underworld. The few exchanges she had—mostly with Naz—about the undercurrent of the mafia side of things made it clear she shouldn’t concern herself with something that didn’t involve her.
They weren’t above board. But they also weren’t bad people. Not the kind of people who hurt her, anyway. Penny was very black and white in that way. Things either were or they were not.
“I’m asking,” the therapist said when Penny remained mute in the chair, “because your caseworker is concerned that your current residence might not be the best place for you considering some of the recent actions and notes from your school. She wanted me to bring up these issues with you and see how you felt.”
“You mean, how you feel,” Penny returned. “Because that’s what it boils down to here, right? What you think and feel about me. It goes into your little notes there—” she waved at the notepad in the doctor’s hands “—and then you pass it on to the caseworker who I barely even see and can’t remember her name. And then she comes around occasionally, to tell people who take care of me what they’re doing wrong all because she read some bullshit written on paper. Right?”
She had a scary realization, then. One that took her breath away and hurt worse than even the memories that chased her daily. These doctors and her caseworker, they could take her away from the only people who ever cared. People who helped her ... who protected her without asking for anything in return.
People who loved her.
People she loved.
Because she did.
Love them.
“Penny—”
“If they try to take me away from Naz and Roz,” she told the therapist, “it’ll be the last thing the state ever does to me.”
She had another thirty minutes on the clock with Dr. Tangler, but it didn’t make a single difference to what she did next. Standing from the chair, Penny snatched the coat hanging off the arm and headed out of the office even as the therapist called out behind her. She didn’t stop walking until she was outside and sitting in the passenger seat of Naz’s new Roadster.
He looked her way, brow raised when he said, “That was too fast. What happened?”
Penny pressed a hand against her heart, willing the organ to slow down and stop hurting. “She asked questions ... about you, and Roz.”
‘What kind of—”
“Nothing good.”
Naz dragged in a sharp breath. “You mean like ... business? The family?”
Penny only shrugged, muttering, “Said the caseworker brought it up and suggested she mention it to me. Like they want to look into the home and if it’s the right place for me or not. Are they going to remove me from—”
“No.”
“But—”
Naz reached over and grabbed Penny’s hand with his own. It was the first and only time the man had touched her, but instead of pulling away like she would for anyone else, there was stability in the action. Comfort.
“Penny, you’re not going anywhere unless you want to,” he said. “Do you hear me?”
Water had welled in her eyes, making everything a bit blurry. Still, she met his dark gaze as she asked, “Promise?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay.”
But even through the tears that she was trying to hold back, Penny could see Naz wasn’t happy. She knew it wasn’t because of her, but that didn’t make the situation any better.
“It’s going to be okay, right?” she asked.
“You focus on you ... whatever you need, getting better, just focus on you.” Naz shrugged, adding, “That’s all Roz and I ever wanted you to do. We’ll handle the rest.”
But how?
She decided it was better not to ask.
INTERLUDE: 1.
Present Day ...
“HEY, Penny.”
Whether it was the shock of someone saying her name, or just the fact that they had managed to sneak up on her in the forest behind Naz and Roz’s property, it still earned a reaction from Penny. She hadn’t heard the approach from her left until the new voice joined a silent conversation she’d been having inside her head while the memories raced for attention in her mind.
Despite her years of training to stand calm and steady no matter the situation, she let out a yelp and fell backward when she stumbled over an exposed root of a tree. The white strands of her hair made a curtain over her eyes as her palms hit the ground to catch her fall from turning into something much worse.
A quiet, child-like laugh rang out in the forest. The sound was almost musical and a total contrast to the way her heart thumped loudly in her chest.
“Sorry,” her new companion said, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Penny didn’t bother to get up, or even fix her hair. Instead, she pushed sideways and came to sit right on her ass, so she could stare directly at the guest who had joined her in the forest. He was maybe three and half feet tall, not quite four, if that. Dark hair. Soul-deep eyes. She found f
amiliarity in the softness of his boyish features. Even the way his grin tilted a little more on the right side was a smirk she had seen time and time again.
She didn’t need to ask his name.
She already knew.
“Cross,” she said.
The boy shrugged. “Well, everybody calls me little Cross when they think I can’t hear. I don’t like that very much. But since Grandpapa doesn’t like being called Senior, I have to deal with it. Or that’s what he said.”
His words were clear. His sentences, smart. For his age, anyway.
“And you are, right—Penny, I mean?”
She stared at the boy, blinking as if he might disappear in the next minute. She was still trying to figure out why in the hell he was even in the woods. Where were his parents? Was this something he did on the regular?
Hell ...
Penny hadn’t seen his face since he was six months old. Not once in all the years since she left had she even been graced with a picture of the boy as he grew. She always wondered, of course ... did he keep his father’s features, or change to look more like his mom?
She missed a lot.
About him.
His first steps.
Those first words.
Even his first day at school.
“You don’t talk?” Cross asked. “Ma says you were always quiet.”
She swallowed hard, knowing what she needed to tell the boy because she wasn’t even supposed to be here in the first place. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not—”
“Yeah, you’re Penny. I have pictures.”
So sure.
And true.
God.
Penny dragged in a quick breath. “You didn’t scare m—”
“Yeah, I did,” he interjected again, seemingly unbothered that he kept interrupting her. “Sorry. It was kind of funny, though.”
She couldn’t help the smile fighting to get out. He was quite the kid. It only killed her more.
“You know they’re looking for you, right?” Cross asked.
Penny wet her lips. “How do you know that?”
