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“Really? Cuz you sure as shit look a lot like me.” He bent down and ran a thumb over my eye—the one that mirrored where his scar was. “I miss not having a mark on my face. I was a fuck of a lot prettier back in the day.”
The scar ran from above his brow down across his upper eyelid and split the lower lid in half, finishing up in the middle of his cheek. It gave the effect of his light blue eye constantly crying. His nasty breath still hot on my face, he reached toward the nightstand, toward a large pocket-knife.
“You motherfucker,” I said in a low voice, straining my neck muscles in an attempt to pull away from the demented bastard.
He brought the knife slowly down toward my forehead. The point sliced into my skin, and blood ran sideways across my brow, the smell of iron piercing my nose.
Head wounds bleed like a stuck pig. I recalled that goddamn cliché as I used every muscle in my bound body to jerk away from his knife. “If you fucking think th—”
The door flew open, and the blond, tall man stood in the entry, framed sickly yellow from the light over the door and darkness beyond. How long had I been out? It’d been mid-morning when I’d coasted in.
“Cyd, got more company,” Blondie said.
Cyd—over thirty years on this goddamn planet, and I finally learn my dad’s name. He inhaled from the butt of the cigarette and blew smoke in my face. I coughed.
“Looks like you brought a goddamn party to my shit hole town. No one ever comes to visit.” Cyd walked over to the door and conversed in whispers with Blondie. Then he called back to me, “You relax, little Jane. I’ll be back soon.”
I bucked against the ropes, yelling for the piece of horse shit to untie me as my fucking father—Cyd, El Griego. The Greek—pulled the door closed, laughing.
35
Bou
Someone called my name in the dark, over and over. The voice was slow... no, fast, but it faded. The back of my head throbbed. My face throbbed. I wasn’t ready to face reality. I turned away, back into the darkness, pain-free and floating.
* * *
My body shook when I neared the surface again. An angry, but low voice beckoned to me from outside the dark void.
“Bou, come on Bou,” it pleaded.
I shoved it away. Wherever that voice came from, there was pain. So much pain. The dark had peace.
* * *
“Wake the fuck up!” The voice was combined with a swift jerk.
I gasped. My eyes flew open. I had no idea how much time passed, but the lamp light from the nightstand scorched its way into my brain, so I squeezed my lids tight again. Was that pounding inside my head or coming from somewhere else? My arms were bound behind my back, tied up with someone else’s—a man’s. The man who’d been calling to me. Pain split my head in two; my jaw screamed in protest when I tried to open my mouth.
“Owie,” I whined.
“Oh, thank fuck,” my brother said, and something inside loosened at hearing the relief in his voice. “I’ve been trying to get you to respond for hours.”
A whimper clamored up my throat and escaped my lips as I tried to remember what had happened. I opened one eye gingerly. A baby blue quilt with tiny darker blue flowers stared back at me—crumpled as if there’d been a wrestling match on top. My father’s quilt.
“Pops?” I asked, my voice grating across tired vocal cords.
“No, Bou, it’s Celt. You gonna be okay?” he asked, softer concern lacing his words.
I took long, slow breaths through my nose and after a few, answered, “Yeah...” I swallowed. “I think so.”
Celt wriggled at the bonds around our wrists. “Help me try to get these loose.”
My shoulders protested as he tried to work the ropes.
I couldn’t. “Wait,” I panted. “Gimme a minute.” I needed to wake up . . . clear the fog from my head . . . figure out how to operate my body again or, at least, set my mind to working through the pain physically.
Not only were our wrists bound, but more ropes tied our waists and shoulders, and my feet were bound together and anchored to the heavy bedpost in the master bedroom of my childhood home. Pops’ room. Celt’s room now. I hadn’t been in this room for so long. Celt hadn’t changed a thing, even down to the tattered blue-on-blue bedspread that Pops loved because it was one of the only possessions he had left from her. Mom, I may have called her if she’d been around long enough to see me grow up.
