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“Because you deserve it?”
The question caught me off guard and I suddenly found it hard to swallow.
When I didn’t answer, Phoenix asked, “Did he hit you when you were a kid too?”
I managed a nod. “He…he was worried I’d turn out like Ricky.”
“What do you mean?”
I could feel the cold settling into my body and I quickly stood up. “Can I use your bathroom?”
I didn’t wait for him to answer as I hurried towards the hallway where I’d seen a half-bath earlier as I’d been walking to Phoenix’s room. Once inside, I closed the door and then flipped the lock. I turned the water in the sink on and began splashing my face as I willed my mind to stay in the moment.
Ricky, stop! Please, don’t!
“Fuck,” I whispered as my knees began to buckle.
“Levi?”
I was dimly aware of the sound of knocking, but I couldn’t make sense of where it was coming from.
Stop crying, you little bitch!
“Levi, open the door.”
You gonna call out for Mommy? Do it! Let her see what her precious little boy really likes!
Pain seared through my body and I pressed my mouth against my arm as I remembered all the times I’d imagined it was my mother’s headless body I’d seen hanging from the rafter in that boiler room.
“Levi!”
The pounding in my head grew louder, but thankfully, darkness finally began to seep along the edges of my vision and the image of my mother’s body receded and the pain firing up my spine began to fade. And then, blessedly, Ricky was done and I let myself slide into the blissful blackness that swallowed me whole.
Chapter 10
Phoenix
I was normally someone who was cool under pressure, but the longer Levi was out, the more I began to panic.
“Levi, I need you to wake up now,” I murmured against his head as I pulled him even closer to my chest. After finally getting into the bathroom after Levi had ignored my requests for him to open the door, I’d found him lying on his side on the floor, his body lifeless, but his eyes open.
He’d been cold.
Frighteningly so.
I’d remembered Father O’s words about needing to get Levi warm when the same thing had happened at the soup kitchen, so I’d immediately picked Levi up and carried him into my room and put him under the bedcovers. I’d gone a step further and crawled in with him in the hopes I could snap him out of his trance, because it was freaking me the fuck out. At the soup kitchen, he’d snapped out of the event within minutes. This time around, it had been almost a half an hour since I’d picked him up off that floor and he had yet to respond to me in any kind of way.
I glanced over at Henry to make sure he was still asleep. I’d been worried he’d woken up when I’d broken the bathroom door down, but he hadn’t.
I lifted my hand to clasp the side of Levi’s face as I held him against me. His skin felt warmer and I wondered if I should try to get him some juice like Father O had that day. But before I could move, I felt him stir against me. His arm had ended up slung across my waist when I’d pulled him against me, but he hadn’t actually been holding onto me. Now, I felt his fingers press against my side.
“Thank fuck,” I whispered to myself. “Levi, can you hear me?”
“Phoenix?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” I murmured as I began rubbing my hand up and down his back.
“Henry?” Levi suddenly blurted out and tried to move off me.
“He’s fine,” I said. “Still asleep.”
Levi shifted enough so he could look at the mattress on the floor. He held there a moment before he relaxed in my arms again. I couldn’t help but think how right it felt to have him there.
And how wrong.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I said as I leaned down to press a kiss against his head. “You scared the hell out of me,” I admitted.
“I thought I could stop it this time.”
“How often does it happen?” I asked.
“Not often,” he responded. “It was bad for a while after Ricky got out of prison, but since he died…”
“What happened to him?” I asked, though I already knew.
“Not sure. Cops think it was some kind of turf war or something…said he probably pissed off a rival dealer. They said he was killed execution style and his body was found near an underpass that was popular with both dealers and users. They think whoever killed him was sending a message.”
It didn’t surprise me that the cops had thought that, since that had been exactly what Ronan had wanted them to think when he’d had Maverick “Mav” James terminate Ricky.
“Your brother dealt drugs?” I asked.
Levi nodded. “Before he went to prison for killing his girlfriend, he was mainly just doing drugs. He started dealing when he got out.”
