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“All I could find,” he says, with a shrug. “It’ll look prettier tomorrow when the town’s open. So this guy came to talk you to about drugs …”
I sit down, watching Markus work, imagining that he’s fixing up a baby’s room in our house instead of patching up a window shattered by a brick in my friend’s house. I start to tell myself to stop it, but then I realize that might be making it worse, all this self-denial just erupting in defiance.
So I just let the heart soothing vignettes move through me, assuring myself that they’re just fantasies and will remain just fantasies. I never have to voice them. I never have to face the rejection.
“Yes,” I say, after a pause. “His name was Finn Marston. Well, is Finn Marston. He gave us this speech about gateway drugs, stuff like that, basically telling us to keep clean. But the whole time I felt like he was staring at me. I was a nervous kid, pretty paranoid and self-conscious, I guess you could say. So it wasn’t unusual for me to think I was being singled out. But he kept staring.
“Anyway, he left, and that’s when my life started to get really weird. Every few months, somebody would leave messages under my pillow. I know what you’ve done. Stuff like that, always accusing me of this mysterious thing. I swear to God, Markus, I had no idea—I have no idea what he was talking about. That was it for a few years, just those messages.”
Markus turns, placing the duct tape on the counter, the cardboard billowing but holding where he’s overlapped it.
“That would fuck with any kid’s head,” he says, walking over to me, reaching down and giving Lava a stroke before taking the seat next to me. He pulls it up so we’re sitting close together. “You don’t have to downplay it.”
I take his hand, squeezing onto it for comfort.
“Well, yeah, it did,” I admit. “It was horrible. It was hell. But as I got older, things got even creepier. Some of the notes told me to meet him at certain times and places, and I always ignored them. Then he started leaving rats in my locker at school. Things in my book bag. He stabbed my bike tires four or five times until I just gave up and never rode my bike again.”
A light flashes in Markus’ eyes. I imagine him thinking, So he has a history of tire-stabbing.
“Things got even worse when I moved out,” I go on. “Bricks through the window, just like now. Setting fire to my mail. He even planted drugs once in my apartment and had the police show up. Luckily I told them my story and they believed me, and they let me off with a warning. I moved. He did the same. I don’t know how the heck he does it, always breaking in like that, never being seen. When I was a kid I used to think he was a vampire or something. But now I know he’s just a sick freak.”
I can’t keep the acid out of my voice. Markus reaches across and thumbs a tear from my cheek, one I didn’t even know I’d shed.
“It’s okay,” Markus whispers softly. “I’m here, Millie.”
“The worst part is never knowing why,” I tell him. “He just walked in one day and got this crazy obsession with me.”
“Some people are just evil,” Markus murmurs, but he doesn’t sound convinced. “I can look into it. I’ve got some contacts who should be able to track him, to see if he’s stayed in your old city or moved out here. I’ll need a list, everything you can think of. Name of your orphanage, your old high school, your apartments, things like that. It’ll help build a picture.”
“Why are you doing this?”
He leans in, a smoldering in his eyes. “Because I—”
The door slams open and Jackie rushes in, shivering from the cold. She stares at us for a moment and then at the boarded-up window, and back again.
“What the hell happened in here?”Chapter ElevenMarkusI wake with Lava draped over my feet, the couch sagging and whining beneath me as I sit up, rubbing at my eyes. The sun has yet to rise and the world is dark, Lava shifting and glancing at me as though annoyed at me for moving so soon.
It’s not even six, his eyes say accusingly. What the hell is wrong with you?
“Sorry, boy,” I whisper, giving him a light rub on the head. “Go back to sleep. It’s okay.”
I stand up and stretch my arms up over my head, rolling my shoulders, tilting my head from side to side to loosen up my neck.
I’ve slept in far worse places than Jackie and Millie’s living room, that’s for sure.
I wander into the kitchen, making sure that my DIY solution to the window has stayed in place.
