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“Me neither. It’s a school night,” I said and smiled to soften the refusal.
Jack snorted and popped a can for himself. He wandered toward us and sat way too close to Eve. She quickly scooted along the seat and pressed into my side.
“So, you going to school with Cayden? Watch yourselves, pretty little things like you…” Jack swigged from his bottle and then chortled to himself. “Though, I don’t know if girls are golden boy’s thing. He’s never indulged in any of the attention he’s had over the years. Damn waste.”
“Um, are you Cayden’s foster father?” Eve asked and elbowed me in the side.
Right, I’d better get my questions asked. I couldn’t stop my eyes from wandering around.
“Sure am. Been fostering his criminal ass since he was eight years old.”
“Eight, wow. You must be close,” I heard myself say for want of something better.
Jack laughed. “Close enough, I’d say. I know every thought that goes through that boy’s head. I made him the man he is today, and what did he do? Run off to play hockey for a swanky school like HHH – no offense. Full of idiots with more money than sense,” Jack said, his expression telling us that he clearly meant offense.
“None taken. Did you guys get along?”
“As well as anyone could get along with a boy like that. He’s... damaged, deep down. Dangerous, too.”
“Dangerous how?” I asked, my heart all but leaping into my mouth.
Jack leaned forward. “Well, since you’re not from here, you won’t know the rumors, but it’s said that when he was eight, he killed someone. Two people, actually.” There was definitely a light of amusement in Jack’s eye. He was enjoying himself. Was this all a joke? Was he just trying to fuck with his former foster son, or was he being serious?
Killed someone?
“What? How can that be?” Eve asked, her voice subdued.
Jack shrugged. “That’s what happens when you get a bad apple in the bunch. As an adult, I’ve tried my best to keep him on the straight and narrow, but anyone around here could tell you stories about him…he’s violent, unpredictable. He attacks pimps, hookers, and addicts and takes money off them. He’s put rival hockey players in the hospital after a game once or twice.”
I could only stare as Jack rattled off terrible things about the boy living down the hall from me.
“Social workers always went easy on him, considering his first foster family and what they did to him before I came along. Still, I don’t see how that can excuse it. He’s a danger to society as an adult, as big as he is. Though, I don’t know what anyone expected…his mother was turning tricks when he was just a baby, and she OD’d when he was five, then three years with the other ones… the cutters…anyone would lose their minds, I suppose, but that don’t mean he should be out there, living among normal people. He came at me a while ago and tried to knife me. I nearly broke my arm trying to defend myself.”
Jack continued to talk, and Eve shot me an appalled glance. My heart had slipped from my mouth and felt like it was down by my toes now.
What the hell?I’d come here to dig up something on Cayden to level the playing field between us, but instead, I’d found out way too much. I’d overstepped, I’d seen too deep into his traumatic past, and holy fucking hell, it was terrible.
“So, you took him in when he was eight?” I managed to find my voice somewhere.
“Sure did. With all the hubbub about him, no one else was going to take the chance, but I knew I could hold my own.” Jack got up and went to a stack of yellowed newspapers. He pulled one out and looked at the front page, nodding to himself. It was theMidnight Falls Chronicle, and a black-and-white photo stared at me when he put it down on the table.
“I thought I kept that. You can take it if you want. Show the coach in Hade Harbor or the principal or someone. Someone should know what that boy’s capable of,” Jack said.
He tapped the picture as the headline screamed at me.
FOSTER SON ONLY SURVIVOR OF HOUSE FIRE THAT SEES BOTH PARENTS DEAD. POLICE SUSPECT FOUL PLAY.
Cayden
Lily was avoidingme again after the bathroom incident at intermission. Or maybe it was because Josh got temporarily benched after someone attacked him in the parking lot and broke his nose after the game.
Poor boy. Only the satisfying feeling of his nose breaking under my fist had soothed my anger. I had no idea if he suspected me. It had been dark, and I’d been careful. I was more than used to doing violent things in the dark. It had once been my bread and butter in my job for Uncle Jack. Now, I realized how different my life had been before, living with the Williamses.
I lay in my room next to Lily’s and stared at the ceiling. There was nobody who I was scared of in this house. There was nobody I needed to hide from here. I was safe.Safe.What an odd word. Only now, I finally saw that it was something I’d never, ever felt before.
There weren’t the frightening noises of my mother entertaining her “friends” like there had been when I was small. Those memories were the worst, and luckily the faintest. But I did have a few good memories of my mother, and they were the most precious things I could call my own. Snatches of time with the one person who had ever tried to love me.
Some days, when she was high and feeling good, she’d get dressed up and we’d go to a nearby diner and have ice cream sundaes. At five years old, I hadn’t seen how her lipstick was smeared over her teeth, or that her pretty party dress was torn and dirty. I hadn’t noticed how often she’d snuck away to the bathroom, or how everyone in the place had looked up at me in pity, sitting alone, with my chocolate sundae, beaming with excitement.
