Sheltered (23 page)

For a second she couldn’t quite come to grips with what he’d said. There were too many elements to it, too much time in there—God, it sounded as if he’d just described the next eight hundred years of their lives.

Which sounded crazy, until she said, “Van, exactly how much money do you have?”

And he replied, “Ninety-three thousand dollars.”

An almighty silence fell then. One in which she considered many things. She thought about this terrible apartment he was living in, with all that money lying in a bank account somewhere, and the things he’d said about beautiful houses and chickens in the alley.

But most of all she thought about the kind of person who walked away from a life of wealth to plan and save and be so careful. To be so grateful for that amount of money, and not want to throw it all away on nothing.

“I guess you kind of like the rats, huh?”

He smiled, and this time it touched his eyes.

“I do. I love the rats. I love the bare floors, I love the elevator that barely works. I love all of this more than I ever loved tennis courts and swimming pools.
This
is the life I want—a life of hard work and being careful and planning for the future.
Our
future, if you want it to be.”

And for the first time she could see it there, in the distance. She could really see forever there, beyond his words.

“I do want it to be. I…yes. I want those things.”

He closed his eyes, just for a second. As though he needed to bask in it for a moment, or maybe take the time to pray. Before clapping his hands together, as loud as a gunshot.

“Okay,” he said. “So let’s go get your stuff.”

* * * * *

Things looked different, now that she’d had a taste of that other life. The colors were drabber, the surfaces of things less real, somehow. Everything seemed smaller, though rationally she knew it couldn’t be.

She’d just been living in a vast and plentiful space for the last twenty-four hours. This tight little corner of suburbia was bound to appear tiny and choking by comparison—and that was before she’d even gotten into the time limit. Because of course now that they were here, they had one again.

Her father would be back by five-thirty. They had two hours to grab things she wasn’t even sure she wanted, before he returned.

“You want this picture of your parents?” he asked, as she stuffed clothes into his backpack.

Yeah, that one was on the definitely-sure-she-didn’t-want-it list. But then there were other things, things she hadn’t even thought of that he suggested almost immediately.

“You’ll want your schoolbooks,” he said, just as she tossed them aside. “Whatever college you go to, they’re going to study the Brontes. Probably Charles Dickens too.”

She looked at the fan of books on her bedroom floor. Thought about what he’d said again, over and over.
Ninety-three thousand dollars.

“You’re not paying for my education, Van,” she said, as she went for another woeful pair of shoes. She had no idea what the real world was going to make of her, dressed like this. Though really, how could she care about a thing like that anymore?

They had made plans together. There was a real and solid future ahead of them—one in which she could get a job, and buy new clothes, and just be normal. She had a chance at being normal, and by God she was going to take it.

“Yeah we’ll see. How about your music box?”

“Leave it. And the answer’s still no on the education thing, no matter how many we’ll sees you give me.”

“That’s right, baby. Be firm with me.”

“Stop it—I’m serious. I’m going to get a job as a street sweeper.”

“Again—Victorian England is not reality. No restaurants serve gruel, and you can’t make a living by lighting gas lamps.”

“I didn’t say gas lamps, you nerd. I said—”

He held up a hand, in a way that startled her for two diametrically opposed reasons. One being that she immediately knew what the hand meant, and warmed all over inside to think that she understood him that well. The other being a more stomach-dropping
he’s telling me to be quiet because he just heard my father come home early
.

Really, really early.

“There’s no way,” she told him, but of course the whispery tone of her voice gave her away. Apparently there was a way, if her vocal cords now wanted to believe him. “My father’s
never
home before five.”

“You sure? ’Cause I just heard someone come out of your parents’ bedroom.”

“What? That’s even…no. That’s…not possible,” she said, but even as she did so she could just make out footsteps on the stairs, going down. The faint buzz as the kitchen light snapped on.

“He would have heard us, if he’d been in the bedroom all this time. He would have—”

“Maybe it’s your mom.”

“She’ll
never
come back now. Never. And besides, it sounds like him.” She paused, listening for those heavy footsteps. “It’s just—I’ve never known him take a day off from work. I don’t even—”

“Take it easy, take it easy. We’re fine. We’re just going to pick up your stuff and get the fuck out of here, okay? You don’t have anything to be worried about.”

Which was all very well to say, but her legs still didn’t want to help her up. He had to put a hand on her arm—strong and good and reassuring—and make her look at him. Of course, once she did things felt different. He didn’t appear the least bit scared.

“Here, you put your hand in mine, all right? I’m with you. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

But what about
you,
she wanted to say.
What about if he hurts
you
?

It was a possibility, after all. One that seemed to get dimmer as he squeezed her hand in his fist and led her out of the bedroom.

He took the stairs carefully, slowly, quietly. Urged her to wait when she got a little too eager to run right out the door, listened for sounds from the kitchen in a way that almost slowed her pounding heart.

He just went so
still
. As though he wasn’t nervous in the slightest, and didn’t need to tremble uncontrollably. Of course there was caution in his movements—in the way he touched two fingertips to the wall, like a dancer balancing himself—but there was surety too.

He squeezed her hand again, and she almost believed it. Almost. They could just slink right down the stairs, turn the corner, go down the hall and find the front door. No problems.

And then she saw her father.

Her father, who wasn’t dressed.

Her father who’d actually decided to stand in front of the open refrigerator in his undershirt and shorts.

Van actually said aloud, “Holy shit.”

And in truth, she didn’t want him to do anything else. No one could be expected to do anything else, in the face of this. The thing in front of them didn’t even look like her father—it looked like a hobo had taken possession of her father’s body, and forced him to never brush his hair.

She couldn’t move, for a moment. Couldn’t go for any of the doors, the way she’d planned. She simply stood with her hand still attached to Van’s, staring at the man who’d been her father, twenty-four hours prior.

And then he coughed, and straightened, and tried to say her name in an authoritative sort of voice, and somehow all of those things were worse. They were so much worse. What had happened here?

“Eve,” he said, again. This time with more force, but somehow still pathetic, all the same. Twenty-four hours without her mother, and
this
was what he’d been reduced to.

“Come on, Evie,” Van said, and that grounded her a little. It made it easier to form words, without dying of fear.

“What happened to you?” she went with, because that was the thing she wanted to know the most.

“I’m ill,” he said. “You’ve made me ill, whore.”

Of course she expected the latter, and it hardly hit at all. Not even when he spat it again, hands shaking, half-risen in anger—that redness creeping all over his face. But God, she didn’t expect the first word.

Ill.
As though she really had that much power. As though all along she could have pulled a string, and turned him into
this
.

“I think you’d be wise not to call her that again, Mr. Bennett,” Van said, in a voice she’d never heard before. Apparently, both men were turning into different creatures right before eyes, and the one Van had chosen was
scary as fuck
.

His tone sounded like that molten metal, hardened into steel. His hand gripped hers tightly, but only to maneuver her until she was almost behind him.

“Don’t you talk to me, boy,” her father said. Then fiercer, stronger, “If you think you can walk into my house, and take
my
daughter—”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence. Mainly because he tried to do something very bad, on the word
daughter
. He took a lumbering step forward, hand suddenly raised, and even though she could hardly process any of this she knew where that hand was going.

It just didn’t quite get there.

Van smacked it away, as though her father’s fist was no more than a fly.

“Seriously?” he asked, in that same spitting-bullets tone. “You’re going to try to hit her, in front of me? And you think that what—I’m going to let you get away with that?”

Her heart had gone past some pounding point, and all the way back around into deadly silence. If she’d keeled over, she wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised. All she could see was Van’s back, and he was right up in her father’s face, and oh God, what if her father stabbed him?

What if, what if?

“Van,” she said, as she tried to grab his hand back. Pull him away, before it was too late.

But he wasn’t listening.

“I tell you what. You want to hit someone? Try hitting me.” He shoved forward again and this time she could see, clearly. He’d butted up against her father, like some sort of mad bull. “Go on. I
dare
you to do it. I dare you to try. Because I’d love nothing better than to take your fucking head off.”

She held her breath, waiting. Any second now, and her father would do it—she even had a plan for it. She was going to rush forward the moment he laid a hand on Van, and claw his goddamned eyes out.

But it didn’t come to anything like that. Not anything like it. Instead her father sagged all in one big rush, shoulders going down. Face like an emptied bag. She saw it all as clear as anything as Van stepped away, and took hold of her hand once more.

“That’s what I thought,” he said, then after a moment, “Don’t come near your daughter again. She isn’t your daughter anymore. She’s a stranger. If you see her on the street, you don’t know her. You look the other way, understand?”

She had to hold in the gasp, when her father nodded.

And then they just walked right out of his house, as though nothing had ever happened.

* * * * *

It wasn’t as though the bike scared her. She’d made it all the way from the city to her once-was-home on the back of it, without being whipped off into some bushes or a passing car. But it didn’t exactly steady her nerves, either—and especially after a confrontation like that one.

She couldn’t even believe they’d just had a confrontation like that, even as they set off. Van telling her it was okay, just before they did. That everything was okay now, it was fine, just hold on to me Evie, okay?

She did. She held on tight, face pressed into his back. A million fears still pumping through her as the bike throttled up between her legs. It had felt like being in a wind tunnel coming, and it had the same effect now.

Only somehow, it seemed a little different. After a moment of clinging to him and trying to shove the memories of what had just happened away, something happened. She could feel it, going through her—loosening knots as it went.

And though the sudden urge she had terrified her, she found herself doing it, anyway. She pressed hard with her knees and started to let go of Van’s back. Just a little. Just enough to see if she could do it.

She could.

She let go entirely and still stayed on the bike, as he gunned it down Narrowfoot Lane. Heart suddenly pounding in a different way altogether, everything in her letting go all at once. And when she raised her hands to the sky and felt the air running through her fingers, with no one saying stop or don’t or you can’t, she knew it clearly.

She was free. Finally free.