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“Hi, beautiful.” I pull her in for a hug and a kiss. It’s longer than I planned, but she’s warm and I don’t want to let go too quickly. “There are dead animals watching us.”
“They’re everywhere,” she whispers.
“Please tell me not in the room.”
“Not in the room.”
“Thank fuck for that,” I say. “They’re creepy as hell.”
“Don’t get too excited,” she warns with humor.
“It’s that bad?”
“It’s more of this.” She gestures to the décor. “But it’s clean.”
“Good enough,” I say. “Are we still meeting Callie for dinner?”
“Yeah, let’s drop your stuff in the room, then we’ll go pick her up.”
The room is straight out of a Field and Stream magazine. It’s a spacious two-room suite, though, and she’s right about how clean it is.
“How’s Callie doing?”
“Better. Maybe too excited about the idea of moving to Seattle. I’m afraid of what happens if we can’t get the go ahead.”
“He’ll sign,” I tell her. I’ve never been more confident. Or more prepared. Whatever it takes is what I said to Alexander and I plan on following through.
“She has a bruise, Damian,” she tells me, emotion choking her words. “He hit her on the face. She’s lucky he didn’t break a bone.”
“Fuck.” I tug her in for another hug. “Alexander is going to go ballistic when he sees that.”
“I know,” she mumbles into my chest. “She’s very self-conscious about it, too.”
She’s probably feeling embarrassed atop feeling ashamed of her father. In such a small town, gossip must be spreading like wildfire.
“Tell me anything I’ve missed in the car. Let’s go get our girl.”
This will be my first time meeting her, or any member of Alexander’s family. She won’t know who I am, or who I am to her brother. It’s good that she already knows Willa, I don’t want to cause her any more discomfort.
“I talked to Ellen yesterday after I met with Callie. She said Steve’s drinking has increased in the last few months. He lost his job and that only made things worse. Because she had to take on an extra job to make ends meet, she’s gone a few evenings a week. Callie tries to keep out of sight as much as she can.”
“She shouldn’t have to hide in her own house,” I say, instantly irate. Even in my own childhood, where I spent plenty of time avoiding my parents, I never felt unsafe at home. Alexander has said, that though there were a few times when his father was physical with him, it wasn’t an occurrence that happened often. And only when Alexander pushed the limits, itching for a fight as much as Steve was. It surprised him when Callie called him the other night. Not because she’d had an altercation with their father, but because it had been as violent as it was.
Unfortunately, it has soured his feelings for his mother even further as well. She’s not a victim in the same way as Callie, but a victim, nonetheless.
“No. It’s a horrible way to live,” Willa agrees. “I think Ellen is inching closer to leaving him, but she’s not there yet.”
“Foolish. Though, I know it’s not easy to leave abusive relationships.”
“I’m sure it’s not. Nor will it be easy to send her daughter away.” Regardless, we’re going to make the offer a tempting one. Willa pulls down a residential street lined with quaint, cookie cutter houses. All the driveways are perfectly shoveled of the fresh snow that blankets the rest of the ground. There was nowhere to hide Callie in this small town, but at least here, at her friend’s house, any altercation would be noticed by the neighbors. It’s as protected as she can be here. “She expressed an interest in going to a pizza place tonight. I guess they play all Zan’s games on the televisions.”
“Whatever she wants to do,” I say. Callie exits the house as we park. She must have been anxiously waiting with her nose pressed against the window.
“Hey, Callie,” Willa greets as we step out of the car.
“Hi,” Callie says, her eyes darting to me shyly. She resembles Alexander quite a lot. The same round eyes, so dark they’re almost black. The same flat tip of the nose. Only this girl comes with long waves of hair trailing below her knit cap. And a purpling bruise she tries to hide behind that curtain of hair.
“Hi, I’m Damian.”
