Core

by Teshelle Combs

  Cale released her, studying her face again. “Are you sure?”

  She scowled, crossing her arms. “Are you trying to make me change my mind?”

  Cale grinned. “Can I tell everyone?” He looked at the clock over his bed. “It’s almost noon. They should be awake by now. And I’m starving.”

  Ava gasped. “Noon? It can’t be that late already.”

  “Reds like to sleep in,” he said with a shrug. “Why? Are you late to something?”

  “I have to go,” she said, jumping over him. She took the stairs three at a time and yelled back at him, “I’ll call you later.”

  Cale tried not to double over at the feeling of her being gone. It was almost cruel, like half of him had been stripped away by a giant Band-Aid. Stop being such a baby, he told himself. She’ll be fine without you. You’ll be fine without her. It’s just for a little while.

  ***

  Ava’s hands were gripping the wheel to Miriam’s sedan so tightly she was hurting herself. She pulled into the driveway behind Jim’s silver Mercedes and fought the urge to ram into its bumper.

  She sat in the car for a moment, gathering her thoughts, trying to plan out what she would do if Jim hadn’t waited for her to get home before he let his colors show. She already knew she’d do something bad. She’d been planning for it her whole life. Just in case of a day like this.

  Because she thought his voice would calm her down, because she felt like she hadn’t seen him in hours, because…she picked up her phone and dialed his number.

  “Ava. What’s up?” Cale asked like they talked all the time.

  “I don’t know why I called you–”

  Cale’s next words were sharp. “Where are you? I’m coming.”

  “Cale, no, you don’t need to come. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

  “Liar. Why are you calling me if everything’s fine?”

  “To say hi. See how you’re doing.” The lies came out quick and easy. “Did you tell everyone yet?”

  “Tell me what’s going on or I’m driving to your house, Ava.”

  She sighed and pressed the phone even closer to her face, like she was sharing a secret, a secret she’d been keeping her whole life. She hadn’t talked about it with anyone. Not with Walter, not with T, not with her case workers. So why am I talking to him about it? Somehow, she felt unusually comfortable on the other end of the phone.

  “It’s just sometimes my foster father can get…aggressive.”

  “Aggressive?”

  “And we sort of wrecked the house last night with the sirens and all that. Plus, I took Miriam’s car without asking him. He’s going to be pissed. But it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Are you in the house right now?” His voice sounded strained, tight.

  “No, I’m still in the driveway.”

  “Good. Stay where you are. I’ll be there in less than ten minutes.”

  “Cale–” But he hung up on her.

  She huffed at her silent phone. I can handle this myself.

  She got out of the car, about to walk around to the window when she noticed the front door was ajar. She pushed and it swung open without a sound. Ava forgot that the lock had been smashed the night before. Again, she wondered why the alarm never went off, but she buried it. No time for curiosity. Instead she crept upstairs and opened her bedroom door, where she suspected Miriam was hiding since she could hear Jim clanking around in their bedroom.

  Miriam was sitting on Ava’s bed, going through an old photo album. Ava knew without looking that it was the scrapbook Miriam had made when Ava first came to live with them. Ava was four years old in all the pictures, her poofy hair braided in pigtails. She couldn’t box then, she remembered, but God, could she could lie. Her teachers, her neighbors, her foster mother all bought her soppy-eyed stories. Falling down the stairs, climbing trees, slipping in the bathtub. Each bruise its own story.

  “Ava? I was so worried,” Miriam dropped the scrapbook and ran to her, but Ava stopped her by raising a hand. She looked at her foster mother from a distance. The gray and red mark spread from Miriam’s eye to her cheekbone, glaring against her pale skin.

  “Jim,” Ava called out loud enough for her foster father to hear her across the hall. “Jim!”

  “Ava, please, he’ll hear you,” Miriam whispered, clutching onto Ava’s arm, her eyes wide. “I can explain,” she said.

  But Ava shook herself free and walked into the hallway. Enough explanations. Enough lies. “Jim! Get out here.”

  The door to the master bedroom–the one Jim and Miriam had shared for twenty torturous years–opened wide. He showed himself, still dressed in his work clothes, his white collared shirt wrinkled and his politician hair disheveled, probably from slapping Miriam around.

  “It’s rude to yell in someone else’s house,” he said to Ava, his voice gravelly. With just a glance, Ava could tell he wasn’t drunk, and that made her even more furious.

  He wasn’t the sort of man who was impressively intelligent or obviously aggressive. He was clean cut. He had a medium build and the tone of his voice charmed most. But Miriam must have known what he was really like. She must have, because Ava surely did.

  Yet until then, Ava had been his punching bag, for Miriam’s sake and without her knowledge. She had refused to defend herself against him, knowing that if she made the wrong move–if she hit him back or angered him–Jim would have her sent back to the custody of the state. He’d do it just to break Miriam’s heart. She’d be alone after that, the sole object of his temper for the rest of her life.

  Ava had always resolved that she’d protect Miriam from him. And if she couldn’t do it by pretending to be weak, she’d do it by proving she was anything but.

  Ava had stared at Jim Conrad’s square jaw for years, his too-straight nose, his thin lips. Every time she laid eyes on him she’d imagined how good it would feel to put a dent in him. And at last, all her hard work, her training, every fight she’d ever won was going to pay off.

  Jim lunged at her first, just as he always did, which made it all the more sweeter when she sidestepped him and drove her knee into his groin. He doubled over with a shout and it was all too easy for Ava to lift her knee again, that time striking him in the nose. He yelped and stumbled, but before Ava could get to him again, he turned on her and pointed a pistol at her head. Apparently, Jim had his own plans as well.

  Ava froze, her breath caught in her throat. Her head began to pound louder than her thoughts. Where did he get that? She wanted to swallow, but her mouth was too dry, her eyes burning as she stared the barrel of the weapon. And what is he going to do with it?

  Jim’s mouth and nose were bleeding and despite his look of satisfaction, Ava felt ten times better. It was worth it. It was all worth it to get to break his nose, just once. But he moved in close and pressed the gun to her cheek. He licked perspiration and blood from his lips, his breathing aggravated, as though he was actually contemplating pulling the trigger.

  “Kneel,” he said, a winded laugh following it, almost as if he was giddy.

  Ava had a feeling that if she pushed Jim, if she gave him even the slightest provocation, he would be angry enough to kill. She’d seen that look before. She’d seen it on the faces of the opponents that would rather end her life before they lost another match. But it had never been on Jim’s face before. He’d been angry. He’d been drunk. He’d been just plain mean. But Ava never thought her retaliation would push him to murder. His wild eyes told her she should have guessed.

  Miriam whimpered from behind her husband. She wrung her hands together, tears slipping from her eyes. “Jim, please, we can talk about this,” she begged, her entire person trembling.

  Miriam tried to grab onto Jim’s arm, to reason with him. As Jim swung to get her off of him, Ava found her chance. She shoved his arm up into the air and brought it back down over her knee so that the gun slipped out of his grasp and slid across the floor.

  In the next instant, Jim’s b
ody was hoisted into the air, right out of Ava’s grasp. He was slammed down hard into the floor, then lifted up again and smacked into the corner. Mac had his beefy hand around Jim’s throat, the gun Jim had dropped pressed tightly against the smaller man’s forehead.

  “Move, and I’ll pull the trigger,” Mac said.

  Ava couldn’t believe those words were coming from him, from the same man who’d chest-bumped Cale just a day before, who’d won the smiles of his sons with ease. He seemed bigger than Ava remembered–stronger.

  Cale offered Ava his hand and she took it, surprised to feel how warm it was as he pulled her up to her feet.

  “You alright?” he asked her.

  “He didn’t shoot,” Ava said. It wasn’t really an answer to Cale’s question but he didn’t press.

  “That him?” Rory asked as he plowed up the stairs, his eyes already glued to Jim.

  Ava remembered how angry he’d been the previous night when he saw that Cale had gotten hurt. He looked just as intense, his brown eyes gleaming, red rushing to his face and neck.

  Karma was at Miriam’s side, checking her face, making sure she didn’t have a concussion. Then Miriam pulled the other woman in closer and whispered into her ear. When she pulled away, both women smiled at each other, or at least Karma’s eyes gleamed a little. Ava felt like she was in an alternate universe as she watched them hurry down the stairs. Why is the entire Anders family in my hallway? And what could Miriam possibly have to say to Karma?

  “We’ll be right back,” Karma called back up. “Try not to kill him if you can help it, Mac.”

  “No promises,” Mac answered. And by the looks of it, he meant what he said.

  Jim scoffed at the man who balanced his life on his trigger finger. “You’re all going to prison for a very long time. Breaking and entering, attempted murder of a senator. I almost feel sorry for you,” he said, clenching his teeth against the pain of his broken nose. He glared at Ava. “You think I’m going to forget about this? You think you’re not going to pay for it?”

  Cale pulled Ava aside once again. “He hit you, Ava?”

  She shook her head. “Not today, no.”

  “But he has. He’s hit you before.”

  Ava didn’t deny it and she didn’t look away in shame. She stared straight back at Cale, unflinching.

  “How many times?”

  Still no answer. She had no desire to admit it out loud. It didn’t need to be said. It was almost as if talking about being hurt by him gave Jim even more power.

  But she didn’t need to say anything. Cale’s eyes flashed, interpreting her silence accurately. “And you still live here with him? You didn’t speak up?”

  Ava couldn’t find the words to explain how her life had gotten that way. How she knew how to defend herself but had resolved not to, for Miriam’s sake. How desperately she wanted to leave. How many times Miriam had refused.

  “I had good reasons,” she said. “Trust me. I’m not some victim.”

  Cale studied her, his eyes exploring her face, paying attention to her posture, her expression, even the pulse of her blood through the veins in her neck. Satisfied that she was stable, he let go of her, turning all of his scowling fury onto Jim. But before Cale could start in on him, Miriam walked back up the stairs and straight to Ava. She looked over to Karma, who gave her an encouraging nod.

  “I was talking with this very nice lady,” Miriam started. “And she thinks I need to ask you a few questions. Ava, I need you to tell me the truth.” Miriam took a deep breath. “Has Jim ever hit you?”

  “Yes.” Ava didn’t hesitate.

  The word came out bluntly. Plain, honest truth. A part of Ava had been dying for Miriam to open her eyes, to realize what she’d been through and why. How could she not know? Because Ava had been careful. So careful.

  “More than once?”

  “Often.”

  Miriam hesitated, fighting back her tears. “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “I didn’t think you could handle it.”

  Miriam swallowed that. Then, she squared her thin shoulders, jutted her chin forward and did something about it. She went to Karma and took a blue folder that she’d been holding for her.

  “Will you keep him there while I talk to him?” she asked Mac.

  “My pleasure, little lady,” he answered.

  Jim took in a breath, about to say something emotionally scarring, no doubt, but Miriam wound up her little hand and popped him right in the mouth. He was so shocked he couldn’t figure out how to close his lips again. Miriam opened the folder and dropped two documents on the floor in front of him. Then she shoved a pen into his face, nearly up his nose.

  “You’re going to sign both of these,” she said. Every part of her was shaking. “Ava’s adoption papers and our divorce papers. The settlement is already spelled out. You can keep your money and your house. I keep my daughter and you never show your face anywhere near us again.”

  “You really think that’s going to work?” he spat out.

  Miriam smiled at him, a glow in her eyes Ava had never seen before. She held a flash drive up to his eyeball. “Here’s how I know it’ll work. This morning, instead of going sick with worry about where my daughter had gone and instead of cleaning up the house so you would be more comfortable, I decided to do what I should have done years ago. You see, a long time ago, I had surveillance cameras placed in every room of this house. But until today, I was too afraid to use them. But not this time. While you got your kicks slapping me around and while you threatened to kill my Ava, I recorded you. You so much as sneeze wrong, and I will send this video to every law enforcement agency in the country.”

  Jim snatched the pen and scribbled his signature in all the right places. Then Miriam had the boys carry the suitcases she’d already packed down to their van.

  “May we have a ride to this hotel,” Miriam asked Mac once he had left the senator a parting gift that would probably make smiling for the camera very difficult at his next photo shoot.

  Mac asked to see the print out Miriam had with the hotel’s address on it. He crumpled it into a ball and handed it back to her. “Ava’s family now. You can stay with us until you figure something out.”

  Miriam leaned over to Ava. “Who are these people?”

  Apparently, I have no idea. “I’ll explain later,” she answered. She picked up the folder Miriam had rested on her lap and flipped through it, trying not to let what Mac said stick to her. Family. Ava knew family was no fairytale. It was complicated. And every experience she’d ever had with her family ended in hurt. Still, she couldn’t believe how different her life had become in just a few days.

  “Adoption papers, huh?” Ava said, frowning at Miriam. “Who says I want you to adopt me?”

  Miriam smiled and kissed Ava’s cheek.

  “And you’re sure you don’t want his money?” Ava asked.

  Miriam broke into laughter, a high, tinkling, delirious sound. “He hasn’t got any. Can you believe it? He’s so badly in debt, they’re repossessing the house.”

  So that’s why the security system didn’t go off. Jim can’t afford the bills. Ava watched as Miriam laughed so hard she couldn’t keep from crying. For the first time, Ava felt like maybe, just maybe, she was really seeing Miriam.

  “I am really proud of you, Mom,” she said.

  Miriam rubbed her tears into her cheeks, a sappy smile on her pale lips. “Ava…you just called me mom.”

  Ava did her best to hide her frown. She let Miriam cling to her as they drove. She didn't have the heart to tell her it would never happen again. Mom. The world felt forced, like it didn't belong to her. Even after what Miriam had done, she didn't understand Ava, and Ava didn't understand her. Different. They would always be too different.

  Six

  Tradition

  The logs in the fireplace crackled, filling the room with the scent of wood and smoke. It was hardly autumn, and Miami never got cold enough to actually need a fire indoors, but
Karma had stoked it anyway, for her own reasons. She told Miriam and Ava that they could sit closer to her or Cameron if they felt too warm.

  “I think I might have a concussion,” Miriam said.

  She was propped up in their monster of an armchair, Ava and Karma in the sofa across the room from her, and Cameron as far away from the group as he could be while remaining within hearing distance. Cale sat on the floor with the other reds, near enough to Ava that he could lean back on her leg, close enough to the fire that if he stretched out his foot, it would be caught up in flames.

  “No, you’re not losing your mind, Miriam. It’s real,” Ava said. “Remember the creatures?”

  “Yes, I certainly remember the creatures.” She shook her head, trying to forget them again. “So, they were dragons, too?”

  A chorus of protestations erupted from the family, some angry, some offended, some rationally objective. At one point, both Rory and Mac spit into the fireplace. The flames crackled in their own sort of outcry. Karma put her hand up to silence the room.

  “The creatures you saw were sirens, not dragons. That particular race of sirens is called nightfolk due to their affinity for dark places and because of the shadow eels they keep as pets, often on their persons. Sirens in general tend to be jealous creatures, wanting fame, honor, and most of all, love and affection for themselves. They are nothing like dragons. You’ve heard of them through your own legends, I’m sure. Vampires. Werewolves. Mermaids. Even some knights of old were sirens, dragon slayers praised for deceiving the writers of history.

  “Usually sirens–like the ones that attacked you–do not plan or plot. They are impulsive creatures who see others receiving attention and react without thought. They form clans often, but never for long enough to fulfill any real goals before they turn on one another. But the three that attacked you seemed to be deliberately casing your home. And the pendants….”

  “What about them?” Ava asked.