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He scoffed. “Like it could be anything else.”
Horror hit me in the chest. “You can’t be serious. You’re a fucking kid.”
His gaze flickered to mine, and he shrugged again.
“Where do you live?”
Another noncommittal lift of his shoulders.
“So on the streets.”
He didn’t meet my eyes.
“Where have you been the last two years? You run away?”
“No,” he spat the word at me, defensive.
“Foster care, then?” I’d seen it my whole life. Most of our fathers took out on us what they couldn’t on life. But it had to be bad if they got involved. Mostly they didn’t give a shit about us.
“Group home.”
“Right. You can’t be doing that. Those guys would have beaten you, then taken what they wanted.” It wasn’t nice, but he had to know. I didn’t want him back at it tomorrow night when I wouldn’t be out here. If they were into kids, fuck knows they wouldn’t care about rape.
“What else am I going to do? I’m not going back.”
I knew he couldn’t be over fourteen. He’d always been a couple of years behind me in school. “Why not? Can’t you get a different placement?”
He leveled me with a flat look. “You know no one wants older kids.”
“And why can’t you go back? Shit, can’t be as bad as that?”
“Because that’s going to happen to me if I go back, and if I’m going to be forced to do it, I’m at least going to get paid for it and not have to live with them.” His words struck like little barbs working their way into my chest and scarring into a memory I’d never forget.
The way his hair fell in his face. The way the streetlight glinted off his porcelain skin, tinged green under his left eye. The scowl on his bloody lips. I knew I’d kill anyone who laid a hand on him, and I wouldn’t feel an ounce of remorse. Maybe that was the parts of me I’d inherited from my father. I regretted a lot of things I’d learned from him, but not those parts, not after I’d seen those men chase Aspen.
“You at least need to learn to defend yourself if you’re going to do that.” My chest tightened, wanting to do more than what I’d already done to that guy, but he was long gone now. Probably back to his brownstone and his fucking wife.
“How am I going to do that? I don’t have any fucking money.” He wouldn’t look at me as he sucked on his fat lip.
“Come on. My mom’s at work. You can shower and get yourself cleaned up.”
He sized me up, but he knew me. We’d hung in the same groups before he went away. Kids went in and out of foster care all the time here. It wasn’t unusual for kids to disappear from our classes and not be seen for a few years. “Is your dad there?”
“He’s dead.” I spit on the ground, leveling him in a stare. “You don’t gotta worry about him.”
He hesitated, then nodded. “But just for the night. I don’t want your Ma to rat me out.”
She wouldn’t, but I wasn’t going to argue the point.
“Okay, but then you’re coming to the gym with me in the morning so we can teach you to fight.” I held out my hand. He’d give me his word, and he’d keep it.
“Fine.” He took it, and we shook.
And he never left.
We never talked about that night again or what he’d let those guys do before he’d run off. But he let other things slip over the years, and his night terrors said more than he ever did awake.
And no matter how much it was beyond my control, I hated the demons he lived with from those long nights before he came home with me. I’d spent the last twenty years watching him battle those demons.
