Sins & Needles (The Artists Trilogy #1) (6 page)

And just like that, I let all the guilt over what I had done to him go. Javier once told me I wore my guilt like a badge of honor, because it meant someone else was suffering the same as I was, or worse. But it was obvious that Camden wasn’t suffering anymore. And I was.

“Are you leaving, Ellie?” Camden asked me. I looked over to him, his eyes on the needle as it buzzed along Audrey’s arm. She was watching me expectantly, her face a little pale and shiny. Pain sweats.

I had somehow moved closer to the door and now I was standing in the middle of the Technicolor store like I was caught in limbo. I could go. I could go and leave Palm Valley and try to find a new life somewhere else. But I was down to my last $200. I couldn’t afford a place to stay for very long or food to eat if I were to leave Uncle Jim. I needed a job. I needed money.

When I couldn’t find a job, I was known to create my own.

I realized they were still staring at me, waiting for my response. The needle’s buzz was hypnotizing me into a drug-like state. Christ, I really needed to eat something.

“I…uh…”

You need to go,
I yelled at myself in my head.
You need to walk out that door, tell him it was nice seeing him again, wish him the best of luck, and disappear. You need to go. Go before you do something stupid. Go before this gets complicated.

“I’m playing a show tonight in Palm Springs,” Camden said while taking the gun off her and peering at it. “How about I pick you up at six?”

I blinked. “Sorry, what? You’re playing a show?”

I looked at Audrey who was nearly pouting at our exchange. Was Camden asking me out on a date? The idea was equal parts thrilling and nerve-wracking.

“Yes.  I told you, I’m a guitarist. It’s a Cramps cover band called Kettle Black.”

Well,
that
was intriguing.

“Do you remember where my uncle lives?”

“I haven’t forgotten,” he said and flashed me that smile of his. I swear Audrey melted into a puddle at his feet.  “So I’ll pick you up at six.”

Before I knew what I was doing, I was nodding and saying, “Yes, see you then.”

Then I was out on his porch and making my way to Jose in a daze. It was too hot outside, the sun was too bright, and I felt totally off balance. I opened the car door and let the stale blast of hot air flow out. While I waited for the interior to cool, I stared at the bright shop and wondered what the hell was wrong with me.

I didn’t have many friends. Friends are dangerous liabilities when you’re a grifter.  They’re dangerous liabilities, period. I never really had them as a child. In high school, there was Camden, then the fake friends I traded him in for. After I graduated, I decided to do the only thing I knew how and that was grifting. The word rhymes with drifting for a reason. I floated like a dead leaf from state to state, and until I met Javier, my ties to people were superficial at best. That’s not to say I didn’t have some buddies—usually socially unsavory types—I could call up and chat. I did. I got by. But I never had anyone I could depend on. And aside from my uncle, I never had anyone who knew me back when I was “innocent.”

And so there I was, standing outside the house of a guy who knew me when I was still redeemable. Someone who had known me and my parents. Knew exactly what I was and where I came from. Someone who was asking me out on a date to see his show. And I was thinking two things: one, I couldn’t afford to befriend anyone, let alone someone I wouldn’t mind seeing naked, and two,  how much cash could I take from him before I hated myself?

***

It was almost six o’ clock and Uncle Jim’s kitchen was succumbing to monochrome as the sun lowered itself behind the San Jacinto Mountains. He was leaning against the dishwasher, arms folded across his aging flannel shirt, and eying me as I applied my makeup.

I glanced at him over my compact. “What?”

He shrugged. “What nothing. I thought you said this wasn’t a date.”

I brushed on a few coats of mascara, nearly rolling my eyes into the wand. “It’s not a date. It’s just old friends connecting. And I like to look nice for old friends, you got that? Here, have some of my bourbon, it’ll take the edge off.”

I nudged the unlabeled bottle toward him, the mahogany liquid sloshing around inside. He looked at it for a few seconds before sighing and bringing a glass out of the cupboard. He’d been anxious ever since I walked back in his door. After I told him I was going to see a show with the Sheriff’s son, it only doubled.

He poured himself a glass, took a sip, and nearly spat it out. He winced overdramatically. “Jesus, Ellie, you making moonshine over here?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “A friend from Kentucky brews his own. If you have a few shots, you’ll forget all your problems.”

He pushed the glass over to me, shaking his head. “Yeah well, I hope that’s not what you’re trying to do.”

My compact closed with a satisfying click. “You think I’m trying to forget my problems?”

“Either that or create new ones. Really, Ellie…” He wiped his mouth, licking his lips with distaste and turned to the window and the dying light that was settling over the groves.

“Well I’m certainly not creating any problems with Camden McQueen,” I told him, reaching over for his still full glass. I swirled the bourbon around, watching it, mesmerized. “I mean, he’s the son of the town’s law enforcement—that doesn’t exactly invite trouble.”

He grunted in response, not buying it. The truth is, I was looking for trouble tonight. I was looking for someone in particular, a local lackey, a douchebag, a deadbeat criminal. I was looking for someone people would suspect if Sins & Needles were to ever be robbed. I was looking for a way out of the past.

A honk blasted from outside. My heart jumped in my chest, making me realize I was just as on edge as Uncle Jim was. I slammed back the rest of the drink, my throat burning like I was drinking antiseptic, and hopped off the bar stool.

“Have fun,” he said without turning his head.

I missed the days when I could kiss my uncle on his cheek and make him smile. But it seemed like the days of smiling had long since passed.

I snatched up my purse and shrugged a worn leather jacket over my shoulders as I made my way out the door and down the driveway. Camden was waiting in a dark, doorless Jeep, its exhaust rising high in the rapidly cooling air. Crickets chirped and I smiled into the headlights as I made my way around the front of the vehicle.

“Nice ride,” I told him and eased myself up onto the passenger seat.

“Nice date,” he answered back smoothly, looking me up and down with a broad grin. I was glad it was dark outside and he couldn’t see the flush on my cheeks. Not only at the word “date” which I had been so certain it wasn’t, but the petty fact that he liked how I looked. I was pretty much wearing the same thing as earlier, the same thing I always wore—boots and jeans—but had a flirty white top that showed off a small slice of cleavage. Okay so maybe I dolled myself up more than I should have for a so-called friend. Damn my uncle for being right.

Naturally, Camden didn’t look too shabby himself. He was wearing black pants that were flatteringly tight in the crotch area, bad-ass boots, and a Battlestar Gallactica tee that would have looked geeky on anyone else but only made his wide chest and thick biceps more noticeable. Most surprising of all were the glasses he was wearing. It was the only thing that reminded me of the Camden I used to know, even though the glasses now were black rimmed in that hipsterish way.

“Glasses?” I asked. “Looks good.”

He grinned and gunned the jeep in the dark. We roared out of the cul-de-sac, the smell of fresh night air and sagebrush filling my nose.

“I only wear these for shows,” he admitted in a conspiratorial voice that made me lean in close to him. “A little thing I discovered as I got older, turns out women love men in glasses. Sure would have come in handy in high school.”

I smiled as diplomatically as possible. “Well, girls are pretty stupid when you’re in high school. They wouldn’t know a good man if they saw one.”

If I hadn’t been staring at him so intently as we drove under the garish streetlights, I wouldn’t have caught the rather malevolent look that clouded his brow like a heavy storm cloud. And like so many of his moods, it passed in an instant, leaving only a pained tightening of the lips behind.

He reached forward and flipped on the radio, blasting us both into silence.

CHAPTER FOUR

Then

The girl and the boy lay beside each other on his trampoline, staring up at the night sky that looked like a sheet of ink with tiny jewels affixed to it. The trampoline wasn’t good for jumping anymore thanks to the hole in the corner that had gone unpatched since Camden broke it years ago, but it was the perfect spot for them to spend the warm summer evenings.

There was one thing that happened that night that made it different from all the other nights they spent on it. That night, Camden had reached for the girl’s hand and the girl had let him hold it. That night, in the sweet June air, the girl fell victim to her hormones. She fell to the hopes that maybe she could love this strange beast, even though she was more of a monster than he was. She believed that maybe the affection of the weirdest boy in school—her friend—was better than no affection at all.

But nothing more than hand-holding had happened yet between them. They just lay side by side, staring up at the stars and listening to Soundgarden’s “The Day I Tried to Live” on his portable speakers, watching for satellites and enjoying that feeling that they, in their fourteen-year-old tragedies, were the center of the universe. His hand gripped hers and despite how sweaty her palms felt, she didn’t take it away.

She was about to remark, perhaps because it was true or perhaps because his hand was making her nervous, that Chris Cornell sang an awful lot about the sun when they heard the sound of the backdoor being flung open. They both tensed up, their hands jerking back to themselves on some untested reflex.

“Camden!” his father bellowed from the door. They sat up, ramrod straight, and twisted around to face the house. His large, formidable silhouette was in the doorway. In that blackness, the girl couldn’t see eyes to judge her, or features to fear. But she knew that Camden feared him and that was enough for her.

“What are you doing out there?” he continued to yell.

“We’re just laying here,” Camden answered anxiously.

“Are you with that Watt kid again? The girl?”

The girl and Camden exchanged a quick look. She’d been over to Camden’s house a few times but they usually hid in his room where they could talk, listen to music, and be themselves. His younger half-sisters loved annoying him and his step-mother was so drugged up on medications that she couldn’t control them.

“Her name’s Ellie!” Camden shouted back. The girl felt a shawl of pride wrap around her, loving his protectiveness.

There was a pause and she could see the man, Palm Valley’s Sheriff, hesitate in the doorway.

“Well I guess I should be happy you’re not the faggot I thought you were,” Camden’s father spat out before going back in the house and slamming the door behind him.

The girl’s face immediately went red over the father’s offensive choice of words. She swallowed hard and looked at Camden. His pale face looked even whiter in the darkness and his blue eyes looked down at his hands.

“Does your father think you’re gay?” she asked him.

“Who doesn’t?” he said with a laugh but kept his eyes away from hers. “You forget my nickname is The Dark Queen. If I’m not threatening to blow up the school, then I’m trying to rape young boys.”

The girl grimaced, feeling sorry for him. “Even if you were gay…”

“I’m not,” he said quickly.

She smiled softly. “I know. But even if you were, that’s a terrible way for your dad to act toward you.”

He sighed and lay back down on the trampoline. The moonlight glared in his thick glasses. “Yeah, well that’s my dad.”

The girl started running her hands over the trampoline’s gritty surface. “Have you ever thought about, you know, not dressing the way you do?”

She could hear his breath catch in his throat and knew she’d struck a chord.

“What’s wrong with the way I dress?”

“Well, nothing, to me. But maybe if you didn’t look so scary and wear makeup, the other kids wouldn’t make fun of you.”

“But then I wouldn’t be who I am. I don’t want to hide myself. I’m not ashamed of being Camden McQueen. Are you ashamed of being Ellie Watt?”

“Yes,” she said softly.

He sat up and leaned in close to her, his eyes searching her face. “You’re serious?”

She frowned. “Of course I am. You have a choice, Camden. You can start acting normal and not like a freak and you’ll be fine. I can’t hide who I am, even if I wanted to, even though I’m trying to. I can’t change the way I walk and I can’t get rid of the scars on my leg.”

Camden continued looking at her with fervent intensity. It started to make her a little bit uncomfortable and she wiped her hands on her jeans. “You’ve never shown me your scars.”