Don't Breathe a Word (12 page)

Chapter 22

“I don't want to go home,” May said. She leaned into Creed, who hummed an old REM song I knew: “Nightswimming.” Though he gave it a much huskier sound.

The wet underwear beneath my clothes made me shiver. IHOP would be good right about now—my treat, if I'd had any cash left. But I didn't.

“I got an idea.” Santos was hopping up and down on one foot, trying to coax a smile out of May. Faulkner's head bobbed up and down from the front of his hoodie. “One word. Bonfire.”

A sort of half smile spread across May's face. “Golden Gardens?”

The beach skirted the northwest edge of the city where it met Puget Sound. Throughout the summer, people flocked there to soak up the six weeks of sun we could count on in Seattle. It would be deserted at this time of night, dotted only with charred remains.

Fifteen minutes later, we were on a west-bound bus—how we were going to pay for it was anybody's guess, but Santos whipped out a ten as we exited at the last stop.

We climbed down fifty feet of stairs to sea level under a canopy of evergreens. At the bottom, white beach unfolded under a crescent moon. My lungs filled with fresh air, like I was being cleaned from the inside out.

Soon Santos and Creed had a fire going. The boys dragged over a bench and knocked it on its side for camouflage. Faulkner kept trying to investigate the flames as Santos drew him back.

Creed leaned against the bench opposite me. After what happened in the water, I didn't trust myself to talk to him.

May shivered, and Santos draped over her like a blanket. He nuzzled her neck tenderly. At first, I didn't recognize the feeling in my stomach, until I noticed Creed watching them with the same eyes. Not jealousy or sadness but . . . longing.

May stared into the flames. “I saw my mom yesterday.”

Santos held her tighter and Creed touched her shoulder. May's eyes shifted to me. “I hope she fucking dies out on the street this winter. If not, I might have to kill her myself. Or get Mau—” She stopped herself. Creed sucked in his breath sharply, and I could see he was holding back. What did May have to do with Maul?

“What happened?” I whispered.

Santos tucked his chin over May's shoulder. “You should tell her,” he said quietly.

“
You
can tell her, I don't give a fuck,” she shot back. Layers of meaning passed between them. Then she relaxed into his arms. “It's okay. You can tell her.”

“Her mom is a street mom,” Santos said, as if I should know what that meant.

“What's a street mom?”

“She's a fucking drug addict,” May muttered.

When she didn't go on, Santos said, “She's like a mom to a bunch of kids up on the Ave.”

“Yeah.” May huffed. “Not to me. After her boyfriend beat the shit out of me and fucked . . . she abandoned me for the ass-bastard and his stash, and then when he kicks her to the curb, she finds a
new
daughter, a
new
fucking family, a bunch of low-life, ass-sucking Ave Rats—”

May continued muttering and cursing, and I could tell she was on the verge of crying as Santos brushed his lips on her cheek and whispered, “Hey. May. We're your real family. She's nobody. She never took care of you like we take care of you.”

Creed's fists gathered up sand and released, over and over.

“What about your dad?” I asked.

“Whoever the fuck he is,” May snapped. “Anyway, I'm sick of talking about me. Let's talk about somebody else. Creed, you tell her your story.”

So far I knew almost nothing about Creed. He was from Oregon. He loved music. He was what I wished I could be.

We all froze at the whir of a car. Santos splashed sand on the fire until it simmered down to a low crackle.

“It's not a big deal,” Creed mumbled. “Not like May.”

May made a
pffft
sound. “We all have our reasons for being here.”

Creed shook his head, firelight catching his highlights like the moon bouncing on waves. “It's just . . . it's nothing like May's, so I don't want to pretend I have anything like that,” he began.

May rolled her eyes. “Just spit it out, would you?”

Creed was as reluctant to talk as I was eager to listen—every word, every syllable would take me further into who he was. Why he was.

“It's pretty simple, really. My dad's an asshole.”

I waited for a May-style retort.
At least you have a dad
. But she was quiet.

“He wanted me to go to school—which is fine. Actually, I'd like to go to school, but not for what he wants.”

“Music,” I said.

“Yeah. Of course. I always wanted music, and my mom, whenever she would stand up for me—” He caught himself. “My mom, she doesn't really have much of a say.”

“She might talk if his dad didn't beat the shit out of her,” May cut in. “Although if I was your mom, I'd probably keep on talking just so he'd try to kill me and get his ass thrown in jail . . .”

“So you left,” I said softly. He escaped while it was still possible, while he was still in one piece. Did his dad beat him, too?

Creed looked at me through his lashes, almost shyly. “I came here to find a new family. And to make music. Music that speaks to people about truth and conviction. What's real.”

I wanted to tell him—his first words to me had opened a door, but the music drew me in. I'd known him even before he knew me. Every night when I fell asleep next to him, our connection was much deeper than skin.

All that was left was for our skin to touch.

“I hear it in your voice every time you sing,” I said.

Creed seemed close to tears, if that were possible. “I hated leaving my mom—she never stands up to him. Not like I did. She just fades . . .”

Maybe that's why he watched over all of us—because of the ones he couldn't protect, he took care of the ones he could.

“You would never hurt someone on purpose,” I said aloud. “Not like . . .” I let my voice fall away. May's brow furrowed, and Santos's gaze rested on me with the force of his whole heart.

“Someone close to you?” Santos asked. “Someone hurt you?”

Concern filled Creed's eyes—and anger, sending a warmth through my body. But he didn't say anything. He would let me tell my own story.

There was only one story I would tell, if I could.

Chapter 23

“But everyone already knows I'm yours,” I'd said to Asher that night.

I was relieved when he finally returned my calls. His silence had been more terrifying than anything he could say.

“You're mine, Joy,” he said, when he picked me up in his car, shiny and sleek in the twilight. I could almost see my face in it, the shape of my dread. “Don't ever do that again.”

Asher took me back to his apartment and didn't turn on the lights.

Slowly, as if he were seducing me, he took my clothes off piece by piece until I was completely exposed. Only the crow bracelet encircled my wrist, cold against my naked skin.

“I'm wearing the bracelet. I never took it off once,” I pleaded, hoping that all of this—the candles he was lighting, the deliberate way he drew back the sheets on his bed—would begin and end with words only. Angry words, cutting words, words that would reduce me to shame . . . but only words. And then he would take me in his arms and press into me with forgiveness.

His gentle hands, his calculated movements hypnotized me and even sent a thrill into my most secret places. This elaborate ritual had to do with how much he loved me. He wouldn't be so angry if he didn't.

He kissed me hard, so hard that it hurt my lips. Then he put his arm around me and carefully led me to the bed.

The Zippo flashed in his hand, and I frowned at the strangeness of him lighting up a cigarette while in bed.

Instead, he lit another candle and took something out of the drawer—a thin rod that I had never seen before. He spun it rhythmically through the flame.

“I don't care if anyone else knows,” he said. “I only care if you know, Joy. You belong to me.”

He heated the rod, turning and turning. On one end it had a handle. When the metal glowed, he pressed the handle into my fingers. He was waiting.

I shook my head and pulled the sheet a little closer around me, even though it was sticky hot that evening. “What do you want me to do with this?”

Asher drew the sheet back, exposing the blue veins running around my hip. He put his hand over mine.

“I want you to write.”

Gently, he traced the letters of his name with one finger on my hip. The lightness of his touch gave me chills, even with the metal hot in my hand.

I'd read about girls who did things to themselves on purpose, cutting or burning and marking their skin to release the pain of living.

But this was different. He wanted to own me. Not just tag me with a bracelet like the researchers tagged the crows. He wanted to brand me.

He wanted me to do it myself.

“Joy, you know you owe me.”

I slowly nodded, tears threatening. He didn't have to say more. He could destroy me, my dad, and my family. If I couldn't find a way to please him, this might only be the beginning.

And all at once, I knew what I had to do.

I could sense the heat, smell the burning of the fine hairs, but I could feel nothing but the shock as I traced the first letter.

A.

I hovered the point as close as I could without touching, only licking the air above my skin, just singeing the surface.

“Closer,” he said, reaching toward me.

“No wait, I can do it,” I whispered, pushing the metal just a little closer. I might not have heard the sizzle, had I not held back a scream.

Then I seared the letters of his name, one by one. I could see how someone could get addicted to this, trading one kind of torture for another. White-hot pain drowned out the cry of my spirit.

S.

H.

Each letter beaded and coursed with awakening nerves. Asher's face was a mix of fascination and horror. Fascination at my obedience. Horror, maybe, that he
did
have that kind of power over me.

E.

Each line bubbled as the blood began to rush to the surface, inflaming the burns in a rhythmic throbbing cadence. It wasn't just the skin—it was the muscles and sinews and bones beneath, connecting tissues that led to my legs and stomach and heart. Sweat dripped down my forehead, pounding each second out before I burned the last letter.

Then I snaked it into a curve.

Asher's expression changed from fascination to anger in a split second as he knocked the stylus out of my hand. It clattered to the floor.

“You can't even
spell my name
without fucking it up?” he yelled.

He stood up and headed for the bathroom, turning the faucet up to maximum. Suddenly the full scream of my nerves hit me as I tried to stand.
Ice. Water
. My throat was too dry to cry out for them.

“It'll heal,” I pleaded, tears streaming down my face. “I'll fix it. I'll try again.”

Asher thrust a wet towel into my hand, and I held it against my hip to escape this blackness closing in on my vision. He had a tube of burn salve ready. He wrapped me in blankets and gave me water, maybe to keep me from going into shock. The salve reduced the pain down to a scorched blister. The burn would heal, but it would leave a mark.

Later, after Asher had covered my hip with bites and kisses and had fallen asleep, I ran my fingers over the letters I had made.

ASHES.

He had reduced me to ashes.

And now I would rise.

“Someone close to you? Someone hurt you?”

Santos's question still hung in the air, penetrating the scar tissue of shame I now felt. I'd lied to them by omission because the truth would be damning. If Asher had hit me, I would have something tangible.

But he didn't. He never laid a finger on me, only words. As terrible as they were, as much as they hurt me, they were only words.

Asher didn't hurt me that night. I did it myself.

“Mmm,” I responded. I wasn't ready to spill my secrets. As far as they knew, they could be anything—or nothing at all. I wanted to keep it that way.

“You can tell us whenever you're ready,” Creed said.

Even May's eyes were wide, as if she could only imagine what would drive a girl like me, 'Burbs, out into the streets to live on shit and garbage and spare change. Santos played with the laces on his shoes, scraping a pattern in the side as if trying to wipe his own memories away.

I could see the kind of force operating here that kept all of them together. At home, they'd clipped my wings and then caged me so I couldn't fall. Here, they bandaged one another's broken wings, helped each other fly. Telling them the truth would expel me forever.

“Yeah, someone close to me,” I said, holding my breath.

Creed nodded. He knew this part already.

“Someone beating up on you or something?” Santos asked gently. “More than that?”

Sure. It might as well be. No one would believe that words could be as damaging as fists. I didn't even believe it myself.

“What I saw was bad enough,” Creed said softly.

I nodded my head.

Then Creed took me into his arms, the center of gravity and grace. Then they all surrounded me, crying and hurting, bonded not by blood but by pain.

“Fuck,” whispered Santos. He cuddled the ferret close to his chest and stared into the fire, as if he were reliving a memory too terrible to speak.

I held my breath. Everyone did, waiting for Santos to say more, maybe tell his story. But Santos only shook his head and let Faulkner go. “Fucking . . . fuck.”

No one spoke the question, the one Santos couldn't evade with fast words or fast feet.

But I was different here. I put my head on his shoulder. “Santos.”

“Yeah? What up?”

“Where do you go, when you go out at night?”

And right there, I had crossed the invisible barrier.

Creed was unreadable in the smoldering flame. May's face froze. The code on the street was to respect one another's secrets. And here I was, breaking the silence.

Santos stood up, snatching Faulkner out of the sand. “It's fucking cold out here.” He didn't once look at me as he gave the sand a hard kick in the direction of the fire. Then he stalked off toward the dock.

“You didn't have to spray us with the damn sand!” May shouted after him. “Now it's probably too late to catch a bus,” she muttered. “Somebody's fucking bright idea.”

I was hungry and tired and suddenly not remotely able to deal with all of this. I just wanted to get out of here. The moment we'd shared was definitely gone as we trudged up the hill and contemplated the many miles ahead.

Santos started coming back later and later, with deeper circles under his eyes and thinner despite May's offerings of Café Flora pasta and lattes. Wherever he'd been, I didn't ask.

When May returnd from a modeling job, she'd toss out, “It would be nice if you'd find some way to contribute instead of sitting around on your ass all day.”

Creed wasn't even defending me anymore. Instead, he made excuses for May. “She just wants you to make it on the street, you know? It's going to be cold soon, and this house is going to be an ice block.”

It was easy to think of all the reasons why he should be defending her. I could think of only one reason why he might want to defend me, and nothing was sure about that. Since we'd been together in the pool, he'd given no sign he thought of me as anything but a sister, and maybe another mouth to feed. He frowned any time he saw me use my medication, but I continued to tell him it was no big deal.

He was right.

I knew what I had to do next.