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Cass inhales loudly. It’s a hiccup and a sob she’s trying to keep in, but I don’t look at her, and she doesn’t say anything about it. She swallows, but the first few words still crackle and fizzle out of her tightly closed-up throat. “What set them off? Or did they do it because they were sick like that?”
I focus on a dog lunging at a chainlink fence, baring its teeth at us as we walk past. I feel like my insides—alright, maybe some of my outsides too—used to resemble that dog. The thing is a mutt, unsightly, dirty, and uncared for. It’s got long hair, but the hair is falling out in clumps that haven’t been brushed out. Spoiler alert: I’m the rescue dog that gets all shined up, pretty, and happy(ish) after it’s adopted into a furrever family.
“They really got into it whenever they were high, which was pretty much all the time. Both of them were nasty and mean, but the drugs made them worse. They didn’t just sit around and get all blissed out. They did the nastiest stuff, and it made them totally unpredictable. I knew that, even as a kid. I fucked up a lot too, but I was a five-year-old, then a six-year-old, then a seven-year-old kid running drugs. I didn’t even realize it half the time, and they were too high to keep their shit straight. Of course, they liked to blame me, so the fuck-ups weren’t their fault. They liked to make me pay.”
“Please tell me the universe punishes people like that? Please tell me that, Lennox!” Cass drops my hand, races around in front of me, and grips my shoulders. Her teeth grinding together is so loud that it literally reverberates through me. “Tell me that someone called social services, and you got out of there.”
I shake my head without emotion. “No, the universe didn’t punish them. They punished themselves. They owed a lot of money to the wrong kind of people and knew what was coming for them. I was ten at the time, and I knew what was coming. By then, I’d been skimming their cash for two years. I was a smart kid. I was saving up for the day I could get away, and that day came sooner than I thought. I had just over four grand stashed away, if you can believe that. I’d met some really shady people who thought it was cute that I was being used in the drug business at such a young age.
“I left those two, took the money I’d saved, and was gone. A few months later, I heard that my biological creators had overdosed, and no one thought it was accidental because they knew what was coming for them. Because all the money they owed would have been worse. After I left, I survived by going from one person to the next, getting work where I could. People use kids for the same reason I was being used before then. Because no one suspects a kid that young. Anyway, I did that for a few years, and by then, I was pretty hardened. I stole my first car at twelve. Thought I was hot shit. A couple of guys taught me what I needed to know, and I had a head and talent for the bad stuff that was born out of so much practice. I stole cars for a few guys for a long time.”
Cass’ hands slowly leave my shoulders. They fall to my waist, oddly enough, and she reels herself in while I stand as still as a statue. I look past her and speak to the air because it’s easier to admit your sins to nature than it is to another person. Especially a person with lovely blue eyes the color of a pristine sky, hair the color of wheat, and rosy lips that I would very much like to kiss again.
“And then your granny found you,” she says quietly.
“No, I found her. A couple of guys had been talking about this lady who had a classic car stored in her garage. Nothing special, really, but it would get a few grand. Classics are easy to jack, so it got me excited. I broke into the garage and stole the car in under two minutes flat. At that time, I was living in a ratty old house with four other guys, and it was the most disgusting place. The neighborhood was terrible. It was the kind of neighborhood where you could get shot or stabbed without provocation if you stepped a foot out of the house after a certain hour. I grew up with that shit, so I was never scared, but this lady…this old freaking lady. She comes all the way from a pretty decent part of the city. All. The. Way. And she knocks on the door. In the middle of the night. None of us could believe it. The guys thought it was hilarious, and then, well, you’ll never get this. She pulls out a damn Glock and stands back. She’s wearing shitkickers, all dressed in this fancy black pantsuit. None of us had noticed those boots before. And then, she winds up and kicks the fucking door in. It wasn’t much of a door, but it went in. The other guys ran and escaped through the back door. But not me. I was too impressed. People like that…they’re the type you want as your boss. The kind who are so crazy fearless that death could be breathing down their necks, and they’d just tell the bastard to go fu…uh…farf himself.”
