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“Why do you ask?”
I bit my lip, concerned now that it was a very high number. “Because I know you’ve been too well acquainted with death and you’re confident that you can protect yourself and me.”
He chuckled once grimly, not turning to look at me. It sounded like something out of a tomb. “Protecting you is like trying to stop a flood with a fishing net, Poe.”
“If you don’t want to tell me how many, then tell me what you’d do if someone tried to hurt me.”
“What kind of hurt?”
I struggled with the question because there were so many different ways I had been hurt before, so many ways I could be hurt again. “Whatever comes to mind first.”
He leaned over the banana bread, one hand on the counter on either side of the stove, as though weighed down by something terribly heavy. “As an example, I’m going to be picking up your foster-father tomorrow on charges of negligence, two counts of attempted first degree murder, child abuse, domestic abuse, and battery. Forensics got several confirmed fingerprints at your apartment and I’ll have the arrest warrant tomorrow morning. Depending on how the trial goes, it could be twenty-five to life in prison.”
I stared at his broad shoulders for several minutes in shock. In all the years I’d had to deal with Mr. Aaron and his hatred, his abuse, I had never dreamed he would be caught, much less put in jail. It had simply never occurred to me. When I finally found my voice, it was a nearly inaudible whisper. “Thank you.”
Frost finally turned around, his eyebrows creased in concern. “Of course.” He paused about a step away from me, but didn’t put his arms around me, though it seemed he wanted to. “I couldn’t stand for anything less.”
I looked up into his ice-blue, molten eyes, then closed then space between us, wrapping my arms around him, pressing my cheek against his chest. When his arms were around me, I silently marveled at how warm he was, how surreally right and good it felt to be there, how seemingly perfectly we fit together, like puzzle pieces. “I’ve killed six people,” he whispered sadly, his breath gently brushing my forehead.
“All self-defense?”
“Two trying to defend my first partner, the one who was killed. Two of self-defense. One suicide bomber in a train station.”
“And the sixth?”
He sighed and his arms tightened around me, pulling me into him. “I can’t talk about it.”
I didn’t say anything and I promised myself I would never ask him again. For the first time, I felt like I was holding him instead of the other way around. I had always felt that whenever we hugged like this, he was holding me upright or holding the pieces of me together. But not tonight. “Poe…” Frost whispered, his voice a thousand years old.
“It’s okay, Frost. I’ve got you this time.”
He chuckled once, the saddest smile in his voice. “I never thought I’d hear you say that.”
“There’s a lot of me that’s broken, but not all. I’m not as fragile as you think.” It took certain circumstances to see it, yes, but the truth was that no matter how delicate my sanity was, or how breakable my heart was, my will was made of iron.
----
Without my Starbucks job, I was able to pick up the lunch and afternoon shift at the restaurant in place of my usual evening shift. By that route, I freed my evening for Trina’s recital. The lunch shift was not half as busy as evenings, which was helpful in the way that it made rushing less important and thus made my clumsiness less dangerous, but it left a lot of thinking time. Mostly consuming my mind were thoughts of Frost arresting Mr. Aaron. I wondered if Mr. Aaron would feign superiority and innocence and go quietly. This seemed like the most likely path for him to follow. But knowing his sudden spasms of rage so well, I could just as easily picture him fighting back or attempting to flee. Mr. Aaron was a huge and powerful man and, having never seen Frost in action, I was afraid for him.
I also wondered if there was any possible connection between Mr. Aaron and the Poe curse. Was it possible that he was just one of its pawns that could be defeated? Or, on the other hand, was he as formidable as aBlack CatorTell-Tale Heart? With my life as historically blood-stained as it was, I had no way to tell what was curse-driven and what was merely terrible in its own way.
Dancing around my mind, amidst images of Mr. Aaron throwing Frost through the sliding glass patio door in the dining room, was Nina Faucett of all people. The discovery of her mother’s…suicide? Murder? Accident? Whatever it may have been, it had jolted me to the core. Nina had been far out of my life, at least directly speaking, since high school had ended. Gigi and I had been coworkers and the memories of Nina’s hatred had not left me, but I hadn’t seen or heard from her in six years. I knew she had been in court on charges of battery and harassment, but I had never read in the paper whether she was convicted or what her sentence was.
I had been happy to be without any contact with the Faucett family, and when I started working with Gigi, it hadn’t been the worst thing. She was a really sweet girl, after all. But the memories dredged up by merely knowing the Faucetts existed were more than I could bear. Alana Faucett’s voice echoed in my mind.‘Poe, I’m so sorry, I’ve made such a terrible mistake.’ Nina’s eyes flashed as she straddled me on the cold, filthy tile floor of the high school cafeteria, punching me over and over.“How dare you exist?! How dare you?! I’ll kill you, you filthy bitch!”
To this day, I did not know whether what I had done had been the less painful route to take. I didn’t know what Nina knew that had enraged her to such a point. Sometimes, when my mind wandered into the darkest corners of my memories, I weighed what my options had been and wondered if, knowing what path one decision would lead me down, I would have taken the other.
Frost picked me up at work when my shift ended at four and as we rode through the crowded, rush-hour traffic, I asked him about the recital.
“It’s at six o’clock, but I have to take care of something before then, so I’ll meet you there. You can ride with my family; they won’t mind if that’s okay with you,” he said, his voice unreadable and his face invisible with him seated in front of me on the motorcycle.
I frowned. “Um…okay. What do you have to take care of?”
“You’ll see,” he answered, seeming to smile mischievously. Something dark was hidden deep in his voice, though, but it was far too well hidden to decode. Like the tiny flash of a blade in a dark room.
“Fine. I’ll see you there, then, I guess,” I agreed warily.
“Thanks.”
