Brighter Than the Sun

by Darynda Jones

  She knows there is something wrong. She knows she should’ve said no. Should’ve run from him. Dutch is like me. She can feel emotions, too. And she knows the emotions coming off this man are not right. They are not in her best interest.

  His grip is growing firmer with every step. He’s getting excited. I can feel the blood pumping through his veins. His heart beats speed up. And Dutch feels it, too. She pulls her bottom lip through her teeth. She feels fear, true fear, possibly for the first time in her life. And she doesn’t like it.

  She starts to struggle against his hold. He locks thick fingers around her wrist and almost drags her to his apartment. When she struggles more, he picks her up and carries her. She’s wearing a dress. Denise made her. She likes making Dutch wear things she doesn’t want to, like it’s a way to torture her or to control her. The man feels her panties when he picks her up, and almost comes in his pants. I feel a slight sting of excitement burst from him.

  I want Dutch to scream, but she just pushes against the man. Against his face and shoulders. When he locks the door behind them, she pulls at his hair and kicks and bites. She’s more of a handful than he expects, so he throws her on his bed and wraps her in a blanket.

  I know what is about to happen. I’ve been on the receiving end for as long as I can remember. But it’s my fucking dream. Why can’t I stop him?

  I’m trembling and tears are blurring my vision.

  She is kicking from under the blanket. He holds her down with his arm. Hard.

  Her heart is racing when he lifts the blanket over her legs. She kicks some more, so he presses harder. Almost crushes her windpipe, but still she fights. She tries to push him off her. She scratches and claws at him, but he is lost. He runs his fingers along the band of her panties. They are pink with tiny flowers on them.

  I am shaking so hard, I almost throw up. I can feel those same fingers on me. Pushing. Pinching. Invading.

  Stop. Stop. Stop.

  She manages to get the blanket off her face and she sees me. I feel it the moment her gaze lands on me. I’m in my cloak, though. She can’t see my face, but she’s even more afraid. Why? I’m not the one who wants to do bad things to her.

  But that doesn’t matter. She has stopped fighting and is staring at me, her eyes, like raw gold dust, large and shimmering with unspent tears. He doesn’t pay attention. He is mesmerized by her panties. By her slim legs. By the V they create at her crotch. He pushes her knees apart. She lets him. She’s gone completely limp, but I know what he is going to do next.

  Vomit creeps up my throat. This is my dream. This is my dream. Not his.

  He pulls her panties down, and something inside me breaks. I can’t see him do this to her. He’s been slated for hell for years, but he doesn’t go for a long time.

  So maybe he doesn’t die just yet, but that doesn’t mean he should be able to hurt people. Especially not Dutch. Not my Dutch.

  If this were a video game …

  My cloak billows around me like a deep black sea. The cloak that I created with a single thought. What if—?

  I reach behind my back as I would in the video game at the laundry mat, wrap my fingers around the hilt of a blade, and unleash a wicked sword. It’s hot like it just came out of a fire. Smoke drifts off its razor-sharp edge. An edge that’s serrated with wisps of curves and hooks, very much like the markings on my shoulders and back. And I know it’s from hell. Like me.

  I wrap both hands around the hilt. I have no choice but to do this in front of Dutch. Her gaze is locked on to me. My every move. My every emotion. She no longer even notices where his fingers are. How he has violated her.

  I jump onto a dresser and swing the sword. It slices clean through him. Easily. Like he is barely there.

  But there’s no blood. There’s no wound. He doesn’t cry out or double over, and I stand there in shock. I’ve failed. My eyes drift shut. I’ve failed. There’s nothing I can do.

  A thud echoes in the room and I look down as Ethan slumps over. His eyes are wide. He doesn’t know what happened. But neither do I.

  What I do know is that they are looking for her. Her father and uncle are in the alley, calling her name. I can hear them, but Dutch is in a trance. She huddles in the corner, her panties around her ankles, the blanket bunched in her tiny fists and around her midsection. It covers half her face and she is biting it. Biting her knuckles through it.

  “Run,” I tell her.

  She hears me. Her eyes widen even farther, but she remains silent.

  “Where?” her father asks a woman in the alley.

  She shakes her head. Unsure. “I just saw a little girl. I was carrying groceries. I just— I don’t know.”

  “Go, damn it. Run.”

  Dutch continues to stare, so I grab a handful of hair and jerk her toward me. I don’t show her my face. I keep it hidden in the black. Maybe that’s even better. Maybe that will make her even more scared of me, which right now would be awesome.

  I wrap my other hand around her throat. The fear in her eyes is almost unbearable, but her dad and uncle go the wrong way. Search in the wrong direction.

  I lean in closer and whisper this time. “Run or I will snap your fucking neck.”

  She takes a breath to scream, but they are too far away to hear her.

  I squeeze harder, tighten my hold on her hair, and without another second of hesitation, she scrambles out from under the blanket and runs at last. The lock gives her some trouble, so I reach out and turn with her.

  It gives and she lunges toward the stairs. Stumbles down them. Trips on the last one and crashes into the door. But she barely notices.

  Then sunlight streams in and she steps outside. She is in a trance again, walking without seeing. When she gets halfway to Denise’s car, she stops, paralyzed. Fat tears shimmer between her lashes as urine streams down her legs. Soaks her socks. Pools in her shoes.

  Humiliation blazes to life inside her. It brightens her skin and blisters her cheeks. At first I think it’s because she’s peeing or because of what Ethan did, but she has gathered her skirt into her tiny fists and is holding it to her legs. Sobs punch through her chest as she turns around and starts walking back towards the building.

  What the hell? Why would she go back there?

  Then I understand. Her panties. They got bunched up in the blanket when she scrambled to get away from me and she left them there.

  I appear in front of her and she stops short. I take a step forward. She takes one back. I do it again and again. Her dad and uncle are running toward us. I can hear them. Another step forward. Another one back.

  Then her dad’s arms are around her. He’s asking her questions, but she can only stare at me, so I back off to a safe distance. It doesn’t help. Her gaze never leaves mine.

  Her uncle strokes her hair then notices her condition. He pulls out a handkerchief. Cleans her legs. Dabs at her socks.

  Her dad sets her at arm’s length. Asks her what happened.

  She bows her head. Shame incinerates her and it breaks my heart. But she doesn’t tell him. She shakes her head and says, “I— I got lost.”

  He doesn’t believe her. I can tell, but after another quick scan of the area, he drops it and pulls her into his arms again. She is in a state of shock when he lifts her into his arms.

  The pervert is alive. And he’ll be alive for years, slurping his supper through a straw. Fucker. If only I could do that in real life. I’d love nothing more than to have Earl slurping his supper through straws as well.

  She may be afraid of me, but at least she’s alive. And then it hits me. I remember. Most of her kind don’t live long. Seekers. Reapers. Soul collectors. They always die very young, and I wonder if that is a part of the world I created. I just know in the same way I know when someone is going to hell. I know their name and what they did to get sentenced to such a horrible end.

  Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe Earl has hit me one too many times. Drugged me one too many times.

  Denise finall
y makes her way out of the bar, but Leland ignores her. He puts Dutch into his SUV and takes her home. When they are gone, Robert glares at Denise.

  She raises her chin and is about to deny fault when he steps toward her and says, “Your father is dead. He died two hours ago at Pres.”

  He seems to enjoy her astonishment. I didn’t take him for a cruel man, but I suddenly like him a whole lot more.

  Too bad he dies in the most horrible way possible. Too bad he goes to hell.

  8

  By the time I realize I’ve been drugged, it’s over and Earl is done with me. He loosens the ties and goes to clean himself up. I must have fought him despite the drugs. He hits me when I fight him, and I’m pretty sure my jaw is broken. Pain tears through me every time I try to move, so I lie still.

  The breaks are just one more way Earl makes sure I don’t run. It’s hard to sneak out of a crawl space with a broken wrist. To run with a broken ankle. Every time I’m almost healed, he breaks something else. Breaks are fine. I can endure the breaks. It’s the other things he does, the things that crush me on the inside, that make me want to die.

  I would have if not for Dutch’s light. I would be dead. I know it. I wish it were real. I wish she were real. She’s getting older and more beautiful with each passing day, and even though she’s a figment of my fucked-up imagination, I love her. To the very depths of my soul.

  Kim rushes in with a bowl of hot water and a rag. It’s our usual routine, and I try to remember what I did before she arrived.

  Oh, yeah. I writhed in agony and bled a lot. Pretty much like now, only without Kim watching over me.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I say to her, my voice cracking with each syllable.

  She lowers her gaze. Focuses on my wounds. Doesn’t believe me.

  But I’m not lying. I think of a day very much like this one. I’m seven and three-quarters. That three-quarters is very important to me.

  Earl sits beside me on the bed. I pretend to be asleep.

  “What are you?” he asks. He examines a break I had two weeks ago. I was opening a can of SpaghettiOs and dropped it. The kitchen ended up covered in SpaghettiOs and I ended up with a broken wrist.

  He lifts my arm, now completely healed, and turns it over in the light. I feel his confusion. His fascination. He’s been trying to come up with a way to make money off the fact that I heal fast, because he thinks of only two things: sex and money. Mostly sex. And it’s not worth losing me to get a little extra dough. Any attention he brings to me could open a can of worms he’s not ready to eat.

  There’s a knock on the door and he bolts forward to turn off the lamp in my room. The knock sounds again, harder this time.

  A woman calls out. “I know you’re in there.” She coughs and pounds on the door some more. “Earl! I know you’re in there!”

  He recognizes the voice and lets out a long, frustrated sigh. After walking to the front door, he says through it, “What do you want, Kelly?”

  “I have something for you.”

  “Leave it at the door.” Then he mutters, “Crazy bitch.”

  “I heard that. And I can’t just leave it at the door. Open up.” There is a long silence; then she adds, “I’m dying, Earl. Open the door.”

  He opens the door at last, and I can see from my bedroom a redheaded woman. A woman I recognize from somewhere. She has a redheaded girl in one hand and a suitcase in the other. It’s blue.

  “What is this?” he asks.

  She coughs a full two minutes before she can answer. When she does, her voice is gravelly, like she smokes too much. “I’m dying. I don’t have long, and I need you to take Kim.”

  He looks down at the girl, but she is looking at me. Or she seems to be. But my room is dark. Can she even see me? Her eyes are like saucers. She is sick, too. Or maybe she just doesn’t get enough to eat. Either way, she is skinny and her long hair is full of tangles.

  “Why would I take your bastard kid?”

  The woman pushes the girl toward him. “Because she’s yours. She’s your daughter.”

  He snaps to attention. “Bullshit.”

  “She is. Check the birth certificate.” She holds out an envelope.

  “That don’t mean jack, and you know it. You could’ve put the king of England’s name on that thing, and you put mine?”

  I don’t mention to Earl that there’s not a king of England right now.

  “Yes. Because she’s yours. I got pregnant right before you got the boy.”

  He turns back to me, and I slam my eyes shut.

  “I just need you to take her for a few days. Just until I can hunt down my aunt Donna. You remember her.”

  He nods. “Don’t mean I can take her.”

  “Please, Earl. I have nowhere else to turn.” When he doesn’t budge, she says, “I can pay.”

  That gets his attention.

  She pushes the envelope toward him again. “I got two thousand in there. It’s yours if you’ll just keep her safe until I can find Aunt Donna.”

  He hesitates. Looks the ragamuffin up and down. Then agrees with a low rumble in his chest. “You got one week, then she’s out on the street.”

  She nods, her face suddenly bright like all her prayers were just answered, and I wonder if she even knows the man she’s talking to. If she realizes she’s just delivered her daughter into the arms of the devil.

  9

  Her name is Kim. Kim Millar. She’s shy and hides behind anything she can find, which suits Earl just fine. I can’t wait for her to leave, because then I can ditch this Popsicle stand. The minute I get a chance, I’m outta here. Earl hasn’t messed with me at all the whole time she’s been here, though. He’s mad. It’s been two weeks, and Kim’s mother still hasn’t shown up. He keeps threatening to take her downtown and dump her off at the nearest shelter.

  He’s gone to look for Kim’s mother when I take the skinny shell of a girl a bowl of ramen noodles. She’s hiding behind the couch again. It’s her favorite place to hide, so I have to hunch over and hand her the noodles through the tiny space between it and the wall.

  She doesn’t take them. She never takes them.

  “You have to eat,” I say to her.

  “I’ll eat when my mom gets back.” It’s the first thing she’s said to me in two weeks.

  Surprised, I sit beside the couch. “That could be days.” I know she eats. Just not in front of me or Earl. She waits until we go to bed; then she scrounges for food and hides it away with her behind the couch. I can see a crunched box of crackers from where I sit and an empty can of deviled ham.

  She scoots farther back into the tunnel, so I start to eat her noodles. I slurp them up, making lots of noise, until she caves.

  “Maybe I’ll have a little.”

  I pass her the bowl. She inches closer.

  “How old are you?” I ask.

  She takes a mouthful of noodles and mumbles softly, “Four and a half.”

  “I’m seven and three-quarters.”

  “I don’t like Earl.”

  I laugh. “I don’t like Earl either.”

  “Is he your dad?”

  “Hell no.”

  She nods unfazed, clearly used to bad words. Earl told me her mom is a prostitute and they were probably living on the streets.

  “Do you have a house?” I ask, very interested, as I am going to be living on the streets soon myself.

  She shakes her head.

  “Where do you sleep?”

  Now she ducks her head and slurps up another spoonful of noodles.

  “Is your mom really dying?”

  She nods.

  “Do you—?”

  “Why do you have seizures?” she asks just before she lifts the bowl and drinks the juice, making slurping sounds that rival my own. Little droplets slide down her chin.

  “Who says I have seizures?”

  She swallows hard and lowers the bowl. “Earl. You were having one today and he got mad.”

  I cross my a
rms over my chest. He didn’t need to tell her that. I had to see Dutch. She was … upset. I could feel it. When I go to her, she is at a park with her stepmom. She tells her a little girl that the whole town is looking for is making castles in the sandbox. The little girl’s mom runs and stumbles and calls out to her daughter. Denise is mortified. She can’t see ghosts like we can. She doesn’t believe her, and right there in front of everybody and God, she slaps Dutch right on the face.

  Anger consumes me almost as bad as when Dutch was taken into that apartment. Everyone was yelling at her. Accusing her of being a horrible person, but Dutch was right: The little girl was right there, waving at her mom. Stupid-ass people.

  Unfortunately, sometimes I can’t control my emotions, and I decide the stepmom has to go. I pull out my sword, but Dutch is terrified. She shakes her head, her expression pleading. So I put my sword back and go off into the trees to sulk as everyone still yells at her.

  Her dad shows up, and instead of getting mad at Denise, he wraps his arm around her and helps her to his car like she’s crippled. I could’ve crippled her. Missed my chance.

  Then he goes to check on Dutch. Lowers his head as if ashamed when he asks if she knows where the body is. She nods and tries to tell him through hiccups as she sobs.

  By the time I left, there was a whole regiment of cops taping off the area and going over maps to coordinate a search.

  I look over at Kim, and I don’t know why, but I tell her the truth. About Dutch, that is. About my dreams. About how I know who is going to hell. I don’t tell her absolutely everything. I don’t tell her that her mom is already dead. It wasn’t the disease that killed her though, though. She was killed by a man last week and then buried on the West Mesa. I’d seen him one day when Earl let me out to go to the store by myself. That’s why I recognized her mother. Kelly was his first offense. The one that got him sentenced to hell.

  She hadn’t been lying when she said she was dying. I asked only because I wondered if Kim knew the truth. Her mom was lying, however, when she told Earl she was going to find her aunt Donna. Kelly was never going to look for Donna, and she was never coming back for Kim.