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I pushed through the double doors and went into the back.
It took me longer to find the coat than it should have, but then again, I didn't know why it was in one of the walk-in freezers to start with. Maybe Finn had been in there making out with one of the college-age waitresses. You'd think those girls were old enough to know better, but they all giggled whenever they saw Finn. I didn't know why.
I grabbed his coat, which was cold and crusted with ice, and headed toward the front of the restaurant - "You don't approve of what Fletcher is doing with Gin,"
I heard Jo-Jo say.
I froze, my hand against one of the double doors. One good push, and it would swing wide open, and I could step into the storefront with the sisters. But instead, I found myself leaving it shut and peering through the small round window set into the top.
Jo-Jo and Sophia stood in the middle of the restaurant in the same position as before. Even though I knew that I didn't have to hide from the dwarves, I remained perfectly still. An old habit from living on the streets and trying to make myself as invisible as possible to all of the big, bad people out there.
"Why don't you like the thought of him training her?"
Jo-Jo asked, even though Sophia hadn't answered her first question yet. "He just wants to teach her how to defend herself. The way he taught you. "
Silence.
"Too young," Sophia finally said in her eerie, broken voice. "Too innocent. Too soft. "
Soft? Too soft? I seethed. I wasn't soft . Not anymore. Not since my family had been murdered, and especially not since
I'd been living on the streets. I'd seen things, done
things, that couldn't be unseen or undone. Like eating garbage on a regular basis, scrounging through Dumpsters for enough newspapers to stay warm at night, and running away from the vampire pimps so they wouldn't try to force me to be one of their girls. So if there was one thing that I was not, it was soft
. "Well, I guess we'll see," Jo-Jo said. "Now, where is Gin with Finn's jacket - "
"Right here," I said, finally pushing through the doors to the other side.
I handed Jo-Jo the coat.
"Thank you, darling. I'll see you two at home. " Jo-Jo winked at me, then left.
I turned to Sophia, but she'd already disappeared back into the bathroom to finish cleaning. Of course she had. Anything would be better than having to talk to me.
I had started to go back over to the counter and eat an other cookie when the bell over the door chimed again. Jo-Jo must have forgotten something.
But it wasn't Jo-Jo. Instead, a skinny blond kid whose height suggested he was about my age hurried into the restaurant and ducked down behind one of the booths. He stayed like that for a few seconds before slowly rising, peering over the table, and staring through the windows and out into the street.
"Can I, uh, help you?" I asked.
He whirled around at the sound of my voice, and that's
when I saw all the blood on him. His face looked like someone had taken a hammer to it. Every part of it from his chin to his cheeks to his forehead was bruised and puffy. Both of his lips were split open and dripping blood all over the floor that Sophia had just mopped. A pair of glasses clung to hisnose, although the frames were bent out of shape, probably by whoever's fist had plowed into his face so many times. But perhaps worst of all, several red, angry burns dotted his neck, as though someone had lit a whole pack of cigarettes and then stubbed them out one by one on his skin there. More cigarette burns marred his thin arms, but those looked older, since they had already scarred over.
Sophia had heard the bell too and stepped into the storefront. She saw the kid and frowned. "Sorry. Closed - "
The kid whipped his head in her direction. Sophia blinked, as surprised by his battered face as I had been.
"Please don't kick me out!" he said, scrambling to his feet.
"You gotta help me! They're after me!"
"Who?" she asked.
"Two giants," the kid said, his blue eyes wide and frightened behind his glasses. "All I did was pick their pockets while they were smoking in the alley. I swear. And only because
I needed some money for food. They only had, like, twenty bucks on them, but one of the giants chased and grabbed me anyway. He would have put my eyes out with his stupid cigarettes, if I hadn't kneed him in the balls and taken off.
