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I make a face. “I don’t know.”
“Stop thinking of it that way. This is a job. We need someone to provide for us. Pay for your fancy school—and Barron’s loans. Especially now that Philip can’t be sure how long he’s going to stay employed.” She cuts me a dark look, like I somehow forgot that I’m the one that got him in trouble with the boss of a crime family. Like I am going to start caring. They’ve done much worse to me.
“So long as you don’t work Clyde,” I say quietly. “You don’t need to. You’re plenty charming on your own.”
She laughs and pours her Prosecco into a water glass. It fizzes like the peroxide. “Like mother, like son. We’re both charming when we want something. Right, Cassel?”
“So I want you to stay out of jail,” I say. “So what? Is that supposed to be a secret?”
The doorbell of her room buzzes. “What did you order?” I ask her, and head over to open it.
Mom makes a sound of alarm, but she’s too late.
Clyde Austin is standing in the hallway, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s swinging from one hand. “Oh,” he says, embarrassed. “I must have the wrong room. I thought—”
Then he gets a good look at me—at the blood on my jeans, the scrape on my bare hand. And he sees my mother sitting on the bed. And he knows. His face goes ugly.
“You set me up,” he says. “You and her.” The way he says “her” tells me everything he’s thinking about us.
I start to explain, when he swings the bottle at my head. I see it moving, but I am too clumsy, too slow. It makes a hollow, horrible thunk against my temple.
I hit the carpet, dizzy. Dull pain makes me nauseous. That’s what I get for underestimating the guy. I roll onto my back just in time to see him over me, raising the Jack Daniel’s to strike again.
With a shriek Mom rakes her nails against his neck.
He whirls around, wild, swinging. His elbow connects. She flies back against the desk. Her magnifying mirror cracks against the wall, the shards falling like glittering confetti.
I reach up my bare hand. I could stop him with a single touch.
I could change him into a cockroach.
I could transform him into a puddle of grease.
I really want to.
Clyde has gone still, though, looking around like he suddenly doesn’t know where he is. “Shandra?” he says gently, reaching for my mother. “I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?”
“That’s okay,” Mom says in a soothing voice, getting up slowly. She winces. There’s blood on her lip. “You just came by to bring me a little liquor, didn’t you? And you saw my son. Maybe you mistook him for someone else.”
“I guess,” he says. “We got along so well that I figured why wait until tomorrow night? And then… He does look like the mugger, you have to admit.”
Mom’s an emotion worker. She can’t change his memories; my brother Barron could do that, but he’s not here. What Mom can do with a single bare-handed touch is make Clyde Austin like her so much that he’s willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. About anything. Everything. Even this.
A wave of dizziness overwhelms me.
“That’s true, baby,” she says. “He does look a little like the mugger. It was an honest mistake. I’m just going to walk you to the door now.” Her fingers go to his neck, which should make anybody flinch—bare fingers, no glove—but it doesn’t bother him at all. He lets himself be steered.
“I’m really sorry for what happened,” he says. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“I understand,” Mom tells him. “And I forgive you, but I don’t think that we can see each other tomorrow night. You get that, right?”
Shame heats his face. “Of course.”
My vision blurs. She says something else soothing, but not to me.
* * *
We check out in the morning. Sunlight makes my brain feel like it’s throbbing inside my skull. Sweat slicks my skin—the kind of unnatural sweat that comes along with injury. Each movement makes me as dizzy as riding a thousand roller coasters all at once. While we wait for the valet to get my car, I fumble through my backpack for sunglasses and try to avoid looking at the dark bruise on Mom’s shoulder.
