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And maybe I owed her my own.
SEVENTEEN
Sorina took us out of town, down Highway 38 in her Pontiac. I hadn’t been that way yet, and it made me realize I desperately wanted wheels of my own.
I knew we had money, but I wasn’t sure Valerie would part with it to buy me one. She’d purchased two small safes after we arrived in Hart Hollow. One sat in the bottom of my bedroom closet and was filled with the wages I’d earned while we lived our nomadic lifestyle doing odd jobs and waiting tables.
I’d seen a help wanted sign at the Nest earlier, but when Valerie had suggested I get a job, I’d protested the idea. Maybe I needed to rethink it. I wanted my own spending money and a way out of situations I didn’t like, like the dinner with the Deacon. If I’d had my own truck, I could have faked being sick and gotten the hell outta there when I got that terrible feeling. Which would have been as soon as I showed up on his doorstep. As soon as I smelled him.
Beside me, Sorina was quiet, the windows down, fall air whipping her ponytail around.
After driving about ten miles, she turned down a drive to what looked like a summer camp. Cabin buildings lined the woods, and a pool with a chained fence was in the center.
Sorina cut the engine, then exited her car. She never lingered.
I followed.
When she got to the fence, Sorina pulled on the chain link, exposing an area that had been cut.
I didn’t go through, opting to grab the fence instead, motioning for her to go ahead—like a gentleman.
She slipped through the fence with no sound, not a part of her snagging. When she reached the other side, she placed her hand where mine was, and I let go, following her in.
I walked past her, heading to the other side of the pool, staring into the sky, half expecting the thing from my nightmares to arrive. Bad shit always happened when I was around her. Waking or dreaming.
Sorina pulled out the joint again, then a lighter. I walked back to her when I smelled it, heard the clink of the metal in her hand. She took a long drag, then held it up to me, an offering.
I shook my head.
“So, what were you doing at the Archer house?” she asked, blowing smoke from her nostrils.
I crossed my arms, walking around the pool. “I don’t know. Might hang out there with my new friends. We’re trying to find out who owns it.”
Sorina grinned, incisors catching my eye. “A few of us know who owns the house.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Me. Diana. We have deep roots.”
I tested her. “Yet you’re bothnewto town, just like me,” I said, turning my head to the side, a smirk there.
“What’s new is old, sometimes.”
My smirk fell away, and I bit my tongue, drawing blood. “Ah yes, the lovely fucking riddles and poems. Missed those. Where have you been?” I asked. I could hear the breaking, and I knew then that Sorina heard it too. Felt it. The nightmares had been worse since she’d been absent. I hadn’t been sleeping well. What haunted me was that first night after she kicked me out. I felt like she was in my bed with me, holding me close. I felt her bare skin against mine, and it didn’t hurt. It didn’t make me sick; I wanted to rip my skin from my bones and light it on fire.
It made me feel safe. I’d never felt safe in my life with someone else. Sometimes when I was alone, I felt safe, but never with someone. Not even with Valerie.
“Why are you hanging around those kids, acting like you’re Scooby Doo’s gang or something?”
“What the fuck is Scooby Doo? That brown dog?” I never had a childhood, and when I was free of the cage of the ranch, I immersed myself in literature that was beyond my age.
“Sorry,” Sorina said, taking another long drag. “Sometimes I forget you’re not like the rest of them. That you don’t get those … references. And I should just speak how I am.”
I was tired of the riddles, the way she danced around everything. “Then just talk to me however the fuck you are.”
Sorina walked around the pool toward me but I walked away. Something resembling hurt flickered across her face.
She tried again. “Why are you making friends?”
