Burn (16 page)

Cinder was naked, but there was so much blood on her body, the newspaper probably didn’t need to cover her breasts and crotch with black bars. The photo was
more than two years old and Gian had seen Cinder only whole and healthy, but his heart still pounded hard, his
stomach still knotted as if her pain and suffering were
fresh.

A second photo showed Cinder in a hospital bed. A
large bandage covered half her forehead above her left
eye, which was black and swollen to the size of a baseball.
A circular close-up set in the photo revealed the stitches
that had been used to reattach the lobe of her right ear.

S
he wore a uniform of casts and bandages, her left
shoulder, feet, right knee, and right arm the only exposed
parts of her. Oxygen fed into her nose, and an intubation
tube jutted from her puffy and torn lips.

Gian touched his monitor as if he could feel the
uneven scrub of her hair, which had been crudely
chopped off.

He read on, determined to learn as much as he could
about what she had endured.

. . . .aid Bolds: “I’m sure there are people who wouldn’t want these photos publicized, but I think it’s important for people to see precisely what abusers do to their spouses. A
battered woman might look at those photos and see herself
the next time her spouse decides to go upside her head,
and she’ll get out before that happens.”

Fourteen months prior to the attack on his wife,
Wyatt, 35, had been released from his position as history
teacher and soccer coach at West Reading High School
after a physical altercation with a student.

While not underplaying the severity of Wyatt’s crime,
his attorney attempted a creative defense, blaming
Wyatt’s actions, in part, on extreme emotional duress and
cultural conditioning.

“My client is a proud man of Thai descent,” defense
attorney Vincent Gorman said. “He comes from a cul
ture where women are meant to care for the home and
children and men are meant to support the family.
Losing his job and his role as breadwinner led to a severe
psycho-emotional breakdown for Mr. Wyatt, who has no
m
emory of the crime. The jurors didn’t take that into
consideration during the trial, but I hope it makes a dif
ference in sentencing.”

Wyatt has been held in custody without bail since his
June 11 arrest despite attempts by his counsel to get him
released on bail.

Said former Commonwealth prosecutor Evelyn
Cranston, who has commentated on the case for
TruNewsTV, “Wyatt’s defense screwed the pooch for him
when they allowed him to testify that the ‘psycho-
emotional stress’ of being financially supported by his
wife led to his attempt to beat her to death.

“What judge in his or her right mind is going to
name bail for a defendant who testifies to having no
memory of his crime? If it’s true, and this is an ‘If’ the
size of Texas, what’s to stop him from going out and
beating the (expletive) out of someone else? Wyatt is
where he belongs and I hope his sentence keeps him there
for the rest of his life.”

Gian scrolled down, skimming over the rest of the
lengthy article. He stopped at a third photo. According to
its caption, the image was a captured still from an inter
view televised by TruNewsTv shortly after Sumchai
Wyatt’s sentencing hearing. In it, Cinder was more recog
nizable, yet still unfamiliar. Her hair was short, but it was
nicely styled in an adorable pixie cut. Her physical
wounds appeared to be healed, but her thin frame, gaunt
face, and flat eyes indicated that her emotional injuries
were still fresh.

Gian clicked on the link beneath the image, which
took him to TruNewsTV.com’s video archives. He clicked
on the white arrow centered in the middle of the video
box, and it began to play.

“Twenty-eight-year-old Cinder Bloch had a very
happy upbringing in Milton, Massachusetts,” started
TruNewsTV reporter Andrew Dalton, who Gian recog
nized from the expose shows Drake regularly did for the
network. “Her parents, a Northeastern University
English professor and a third-grade teacher, built a home for their daughter, full of warmth, love, and humor, as
evidenced by young Cinder’s name.”

Dalton, who was reporting from Manchester-by-the
Sea in Massachusetts, turned and half raised an arm
toward the huge farmhouse in the background. “But as
their daughter’s marriage to Sumchai Wyatt progressed,
the Blochs came to realize that Cinder’s home was
nothing like the one they had made for her.”

Gian settled into the chair, glancing at the running
time of the tape. At twenty-two minutes, an entire seg
ment of the news show was devoted to Cinder. The
camera cut away from the charming farmhouse to a pic
ture of a woman. The photograph captured the sparkle in
her eyes, which were so dark, they reflected the photog
rapher’s image. Her wide, bright smile forced a lazy grin
from Gian, who again reached for the screen to touch the
long fall of black hair framing the woman’s face.

Cinder. Younger, happier.

Cinder, before it all went bad.

“Cinder Bloch, 28, met Sumchai ‘Chai’ Wyatt during
a Career Day event at their high school alma mater,
Wakefield’s Eichorn High School. Nicknamed “IQ” High
by local residents, Eichorn’s student body consists of
some of the brightest students in the United States. Chai,
a math prodigy, was a senior at Eichorn when Cinder was
a freshman. Yet the two wouldn’t meet until that fateful
career day ten years after Cinder’s graduation . . .”

Gian spun his chair to face his tall windows instead of
his monitor. A cool breeze carrying a hint of the
approaching fall stirred the sheers drawn over the
window. The sheers muted the glow of the full pearl
moon, which seemed to stare back at Gian. He saw none
of its beauty, not with the new images of Cinder tattooed
onto his retinas. His stomach roiled and burned, and for a moment, he thought whatever was left of his dinner
would come up. He was no stranger to senseless and
brutal violence—he’d been a soldier. What Cinder had
suffered was worse than anything he’d witnessed in war
simply because she had been victimized by someone she
had trusted, who had claimed to love her.

Gian had never met Sumchai Wyatt and hoped he
never would. He knew he’d have no problem killing him
on sight.

Chip walked among the couples squared off for spar
ring, checking their stances and fighting positions. “I
want you to strike your opponent with an open fist,
and—”

Zae giggled.

“What’s so funny, Mrs. Richardson?” Chip asked
amiably.

“That’s an oxymoron,” she grinned. “By definition, a fist is a closed hand. If the hand is open, it’s not a fist.”

In a fast, fluid motion, Chip demonstrated the open
fist strike on Zae, catching her upper right shoulder and sending her bum-first to the floor. “Oxymoron or not, it’s
still effective, isn’t it? Now I want you all to try that
move.”

From the lobby, Cinder watched Zae pick herself up,
rubbing her offended backside. Chip’s class was nearly over, which meant that she would soon have to take a
place of her own on the big mat for her first group class.

Sionne had always seemed kind and patient, and Zae had no complaints about him, so Cinder had decided to
man up and take the class, even though she had no con
fidence at all that she was at the level Gian thought she
was.

C
inder wanted to get in and out of the locker room
before Zae’s class ended. She started there, making a
quick stop in Gian’s office. A dark head was bowed over
Gian’s desk, and she started to greet him.

But he wasn’t Gian.

He looked up and Cinder stammered a hello to Karl.
“Hey, don’t run off so fast,” Karl called after her once
she’d backed clear of the doorframe.

Cinder kept walking, pretending she hadn’t heard
him. Karl’s long legs caught up with her, circling her to
obstruct her path to the locker room. Cinder wondered
if he’d vaulted over the desk to get to her so quickly.

“Hey, Cinder, I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Karl continued, “ever since you started coming
here.” He swiped a forefinger under his nose and moved
closer to her, nearly backing her up against a vending machine. “I, uh, am usually pretty good at this sort of thing, but you make me really nervous.”

The feeling is mutual
, Cinder thought, little appeased
by his lopsided grin.

“I was hoping you were free tomorrow night,” he said
quietly. “We could have dinner and catch a concert in
Forest Park, or—”

“Karl, I’m so flattered,” she started. “I—”

“So what time should I pick you up?” He stroked a
fingertip along the lapel band of her
gi
.

“I have to say no,” she finished.

He stood to his full height, drawing away from her.
“I already have plans for tomorrow night,” she
explained.

“
Well, what about the night after that? Or maybe
Saturday?” He smiled, and for once, it didn’t leave Cinder
with the feeling that he wanted to peel the skin from her
face with his teeth. “Once you get to know me, you’ll see
that I’m really a nice guy.”

“I’m seeing someone.”

“Oh, yeah? Who?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business, Karl.” She
sidestepped away from him.

He grabbed her by the arm. “Is it Gian?”

She shrugged free of his grasp. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset
you, but—”

“You’re
sorry
?” Karl’s friendly, open expression
instantly hardened.

Cinder clutched the strap of her gym bag, hunching
her shoulders.

“Don’t be so stuck on yourself,” he scoffed. “I don’t need your pity. I can go out right now and find ten gals
prettier and skinnier than you to spend my time with.
Peace out, homegirl. Isn’t that what you people say?”

Cinder hurried to the locker room to put away her
bag. Even though she had done nothing wrong, she
couldn’t help feeling that she had yet to be punished for
refusing Karl.

* * *

Cinder took deep breaths to steady her heart rate.
None of the veteran students had looked pleased when
Karl entered the studio and informed them that he
would be teaching Sionne’s class. One of two new students in the class of seven, she was Karl’s first target.

“We meet again.” He spoke low in Cinder’s ear. “And
so soon.” He threw out a fist, the force of it shoving air currents around Cinder’s head. She blinked, but made no
other outward sign of fear or shock.

“I’ve never seen anyone pass Karl’s flinch test before,”
one of the male students, eyeing Karl, softly whispered.

Karl hurried to him and placed his fingertips against
the student’s head. He pushed, cracking his knuckles against the man’s skull. Karl followed it with a quick
punch. He didn’t make contact, but the student flinched
just the same.

“Twenty for flinching,” Karl said, ordering the guy to
the mat for twenty push-ups to be executed on his
knuckles.

Karl returned to Cinder, circling her. “You’re going to
pair off and show me what Sionne’s been teaching you,
and then I’ll spend the rest of the hour teaching you how
to do it all the right way.”

He paired them up, leaving Cinder standing alone. “I
guess it’s you and me after all, baby girl.”