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I reached out next to me, feeling around until my fingers graced the side of the bowl. My vision was fuzzy; I wasn’t exactly watching what I was doing. Water dripped on the floor as I moved the towel over to Jackson’s body. I placed it over the cut and looked at Jackson’s face. His eyes were closed again, and his eyebrows pushed together. I didn’t want to think about the level of pain he was in.
 

When I moved the towel away, bright red blood pooled in the shallow wound. I pressed the towel to it, but the wet fabric did nothing to stop the bleeding.
 

“You need stitches,” I whispered and tipped my head, examining the bruises on his ribcage. “And probably an X-ray. Your ribs could be broken.” I traced my eyes over the rest of his exposed torso. He was lean and muscular, and I suddenly realized that all the yard work I had seen him doing wasn’t by choice. Like us, he was forced to work. Just in a different way. How could I have been so blind to it before?

“I’ll be okay,” he tried to assure me. He took a ragged breath and slowly sat up. He reached for me, taking the towel from my hands. He pressed it against his nose and leaned back.

“You should tilt your head forward,” I told him softly. “That way you won’t swallow the blood.” It took effort for him to bend over.
 
“I’ll get you another towel,” I offered and began to stand.

“No,” he said, his voice muffled by the towel. “It’s okay.”

I settled back down, hugging my knees to my chest. I ran my eyes over Jackson, taking in the strength of his arms and his broad chest. “Jackson?” I asked quietly. He tipped his head in my direction. “How come you didn’t fight back?” I blurted.

He put his head back down again. “There were two of them and one of me,” he began. “Zane is almost always carrying.” He coughed and spit blood into the towel. “And I used to,” he said and looked at me. “Fight back, I mean. The last time I did, I hit Zane in the mouth, knocked out one of his teeth in the front. He has a fake tooth now. You can’t tell unless you’re really close though,” he muttered. “And Nate broke my arm. He made me wait nine days to get it casted.”

I didn’t know how to respond.
 
I looked at him, wanting to apologize and nurse his wounds. I opened my mouth when the floor upstairs creaked.

“Go,” Jackson told me. “Now!”

I scrambled to my feet, almost tripping over the bowl of water. I picked it up with such haste that I sloshed half of it out of the bowl. The unmistakable sound of liquid splashing onto the floor sent a jolt of terror through me.
 

“Go!” Jackson said again. He unwrapped the towel and planted a hand on the floor. He tossed the towel over the spilled water. “Adeline, get out of here!”

I scuttled into the kitchen and dumped the bloody water down the drain. I flicked on the sink and scrubbed at my hands, getting rid of all evidence of helping Jackson. I heard footsteps behind me. I took the towel and started wiping down the sink.

“Good enough,” Nate spoke, causing me to jump, even though I knew he was behind me. He went to the basement door and waved us in. I set the towel down and stole one last look at Jackson before I went back into the cold, dark basement.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

TWO WEEKS PASSED before I saw Jackson again. I was startled awake when I heard him plodding down the stairs. The bruises on his face had faded considerably. I opened my mouth only to snap it shut. I had no idea what to say to him. He looked at me before crossing to the table and setting our food down.
 

“Jackson,” I said and sat up. “A-are you okay?” I stuttered.
 

He looked down at his body and shrugged. “I think so.”

“Where have you been?” Zane had taken over the job of providing us with food and water. Instead of carrying it down the stairs like Jackson did, he threw it. The water bottles had burst open more than once, and we had to scrape our sandwiches off the dirty floor.
 

His eyes went to the floor, and he shook his head, not wanting to talk about it. He took a step back and turned around. “I can’t stay down here,” he told me and took another step.

I tossed the blanket back and got out of bed. “Thank you,” I said quickly. “I never said thank you for what you did. I wish I could pay you back somehow.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Adeline.” He gave me a small smile and went upstairs.
 

I ate breakfast and paced around the basement while Phoebe slept. Lily and Rochelle went to work at the club the night before and had yet to return. Phoebe didn’t feel well again, and for three days, all she had done was sleep when she wasn’t working.
 

I went to the table and shuffled the worn deck of cards. I tried building a house, but the edges of the cards were too worn and bent to stay upright. I tossed them in the middle and leaned back in the chair, the hard metal pressing against my spine. I inhaled deeply and sighed, blowing loose strands of hair from my face.
 

The basement door creaked open and heels clicked on the wooden steps. Rochelle hurried to the vanity where she plugged in the curling iron and plopped onto the stool to fix her makeup. Lily went straight to her cot. Dark circles hung under her eyes, and lipstick was smeared across her face. She sank down on the mattress and flipped her head over, pulling her red locks into a bun on the top of her head. She stripped down to her undergarments and got under the quilt.

I stayed at the table, absentmindedly shuffling the cards while Rochelle primped and polished her already stunning face and Lily slept. When my feet began to fall asleep, I got up and paced around the basement.

“How do I look?” Rochelle asked me and stood from the stool.

“Beautiful.” It was the truth.

“Great, thanks.” She turned to inspect herself in the mirror one more time. “I hope Zane thinks so too.” She changed her clothes and then skipped up the stairs. She knocked on the basement door and waited. About a minute later, the door opened just long enough for Rochelle to leave. Then it slammed shut, waking Lily.
 

“Is Phoebe working?” Lily rubbed her eyes and pushed herself up.

“No,” I told her and pointed to the bed. “She hasn’t gotten up yet.”

Lily’s young face muddled with worry. “Is she sick?”

I shook my head. “She has to be.”
 

Lily bit her lip and looked concerned. “She’s been sick on and off for so long now.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Hey,” she said suddenly. “Want to test me to see if I’m psychic?”

I blinked. “Uh, sure. How?”

She joined me at the table and shuffled the deck of cards. “You hold them up and I’ll try to read your thoughts and say if it’s red or black.”

“And that can determine if you can see the future?”

“No, psychic,” she said.

“Lily, you do know what being psychic means, right?”

“Yeah, duh. It means you, like, know things you can’t explain.”

I couldn’t refute that. I got up, keeping my blanket close to my body, and joined Lily at the table. “If you can read my thoughts, you’d be telepathic, not psychic. Though I suppose telepathy is under the broad spectrum of ‘psychic powers’.” I shuffled the cards.

“How do you know that?”

I took a deep breath and sighed. “Books.”

“Like witchcraft books?” she asked and leaned forward.

“Not quite. Fiction books, technically. About fantasy and magic. I used to read a lot.”

“I don’t like to read,” she said casually. “It’s boring.”

“You sound like my sister,” I said. I wanted to ask her how anything could be any more boring than being stuck in the basement but withheld my comment.

“What was her name again?”

“Arianna.”
 

“Do you still miss her?”

“Of course,” I said. “What do you mean ‘still?’”

She shrugged. “I don’t miss my family or friends anymore. I, like, never really missed my mom, and I definitely don’t miss my asshole stepdad. I kinda missed my cousin at first. Then I stopped caring.”

“That’s sad, Lily.”

She shrugged again. “They never cared about me, not really. But, like, whatever, right?” She closed her eyes. “Black?”

“Uh,” I started. I hadn’t even looked at the cards. “Red.”

“Damn it.” She closed her eyes. “Are you thinking? I’m not hearing anything.”

I looked down at the black nine of clubs. “Why is Rochelle so obsessed with Zane?”

Lily shrugged. “He’s nice to her, most of the time.”

“I wouldn’t care if he was nice to me all of the time, I know what kind of person he is. And I would
never
be obsessed with him.”
 

“They used to, like, date.”

“Date?” I shuffled the cards again.

“Yeah. Before Rochelle started working. That’s, like, how they met.” She bit her lip and thought. “I think at a street fair, or something like that.”

I leaned in. “So she didn’t know Zane was … well,
Zane
then, right?”

She shrugged. “I doubt it. She told me that Zane swept her off her feet, they fell in love, and blah, blah, blah … ya know, all that romantic shit that doesn’t really happen.”

“And it didn’t happen.”

She sighed. “Black.”

“What?”

Her eyes widened and she shook her head. “The card, dummy.”

“Oh, yeah. Uh, yes.”

“Awesome!”

“So how did Rochelle end up down here?” I set the cards on the table.

“I don’t really know.” Lily brushed her strawberry blonde hair behind her shoulders. “Phoebe thinks it's so she can keep an eye on us or something. You know she’ll tell Zane anything.”

“That’s …” I trailed off, not knowing what to say.

“Creepy?” Lily offered.

“Among other things.”

Lily stretched her arms above her head. “I’m tired.” She stood and went back to her cot.
 

“Me too,” I said, though I thought my sleepiness was brought on by boredom. I retreated to my uncomfortable cot and climbed under the covers. I closed my eyes and conjured up the comforting image of my family seated around the dining room table, eating and talking. I didn’t realize I had even fallen asleep until I heard Jackson whisper my name.
 

“Adeline,” Jackson repeated, speaking softly, pulling me from my sleep. I blinked open my eyes. “Sorry for waking you up.”

I sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. “It’s okay, but why are you?”

“Nate sent me down to get you.” As soon as the words left his mouth, my body went rigid with fear. “He wants us to shovel the driveway.”

“Really?”

Jackson nodded. “Several clients come on Tuesdays.”

“Oh.” I threw back the covers, stood, and realized that I didn’t have any sort of winter gear. As if he could read my mind, Jackson motioned to the stairs.
 

“I have boots you can wear. They’ll be big, but at least your feet will stay warm and dry.”

“Thanks,” I told him.
 

His dark eyes met mine. He looked at me with the same empty look that he always had, but I saw the real Jackson now. There was sorrow on his face, and it hurt. I now knew that the anger he held back was directed at Nate and Zane.
 

I put as many layers on as humanly possible and followed Jackson up the stairs. He was right. The boots were big, but I was thankful for them anyway. The sun was low in the gray, cloud-covered sky, and the wind had picked up. The shovels were already leaning against the house. I took one and started scraping snow off the porch steps while Jackson worked on the sidewalk.

“I can’t believe you’ve never seen all the Harry Potter movies,” I said, looking over my shoulder. My breath clouded around me.

Jackson’s frown turned into a small smile. “I want to see them,” he said. The smile disappeared. “I can’t see movies though. Nate makes sure I don’t watch TV or listen to the radio.”

My stomach twisted with guilt.
Way to go, Addie. What a great topic to bring up.
The dejection in his voice hurt my heart.
 

“I went to the theme park two years ago. It was awesome. I got a wand,” I said.

“I heard about that park. It sounds amazing.” Jackson stopped shoveling and looked at me. A glimmer of hope sparkled in his dark eyes.

“It is,” I said and went on to tell him about the park, only to get overcome with emotion since the memory involved my family and Lynn. I blinked back the tears, not wanting them to freeze as the streamed down my face. We went back to shoveling.
 

“Did you really want Zane to kill me?” I asked rather suddenly.

“Huh?” Jackson said and looked up.
 

I turned around to face him. “When he took me. You said there were other ways to handle it and Zane made it sound like you were suggesting he kill me.”

Jackson shook his head and his wavy hair fell into his eyes. “No. I was hoping he’d beat the shit out of you and leave after the usual threats,” he explained. I made a face, and he shook his head again. “Not that I wanted you to get the shit beaten out of you, but anything is better than this, isn’t it?”

“That is very true.”

“What were you doing at the parade?” he asked slowly. “Are you … ?” he trailed off and looked at the ground.

“Gay? No, I’m not. My friend Matt is, and he was in the parade. I went to watch and support him.”

Jackson’s face turned a little red, though it could have just been from the cold. “Were you there with anyone?”

I nodded. “My best friend and my sister.”

“I’m really sorry, Adeline,” he said and pushed the shovel forward, scraping the metal edge on the cobblestone.

“It’s not your fault.” I finished clearing off the porch and walked ahead of Jackson. I plunged the shovel into a snowdrift. The whirl of tires and the roar of an engine caught my attention, and I flicked my head up. A truck slowly trudged down the slippery road and passed the farmhouse.

“We could run away right now,” I told him.

“We wouldn’t get far in the snow,” he spoke.

“Yes, we could. We’d just have to make it down the road. Someone would find us sooner or later.”