“You and me both,” I mutter, breaking off a piece of the cracker. I drop it out onto the roof, and she hops over and picks it up, gulping it down and ruffling her wings as she stares at me expectantly. I break off another piece and set it out, leaving my fingertips against the edge of it. She watches me and caws as if to tell me to back off. I don’t. I wait, and eventually she hops over, looks at me, and then snatches up the bit of cracker.
My heart starts beating harder again, this time with excitement. I break off a piece of cracker and lay it in my palm, extending my hand out the window. I murmur a few soothing words to the bird as she hops closer and then back, flaps her wings, and caws in agitation. Finally, she stalks forward on her little crow legs and pecks the cracker with her black beak. She’s so close I can see her nostrils, can see each soft feather on her small head.
Suddenly, my bedroom door flies open, and Lee stands silhouetted there like a madman from a horror movie. I jerk back from the window. In a flurry of feathers and squawks, Poe takes off and disappears into the coming darkness.
My heart beats erratically as I stare back at Lee, wondering if he turned into that kind of creep from seeing my bare ass.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demands.
“Nothing,” I say, brushing off my hands and gripping the window. It hurts to tense enough to hold it up, but it’s too cold to leave it open. I pull the stack of books in with one sweep and lower the glass.
“I don’t buy the food around here so you can feed it to pests,” he snaps. “You got some mice in here you’re feeding too? You fancy yourself Cinderella? Is that why we got rats in the wall?”
“It’s just a bird,” I say, feeling the need to defend Poe.
“It’s a crow,” he says flatly. “They’re a nuisance in this neighborhood, always squawking and bickering so there’s no peace and quiet to be had.”
“Sorry,” I lie. “Won’t happen again.”
I don’t bother pointing out that I only fed her half a cracker, and the whole package costs exactly a quarter at the gas station. Lee thinks his money is god. When he thinks it’s being wasted, there’s no point in arguing.
“The pool cover’s falling in,” he says. “You did a piss poor job of it last fall. Go out and fix it before the storm blows leaves in.”
“Now?” I ask incredulously. I can’t even move without panting from pain.
“Yes, now, goddamn it,” he roars.
“Okay,” I say quickly. “Just let me get dressed.”
He gives me a long, baleful look, and then closes my door. I wait until I hear his heavy footfalls stomping back along the hall before I let out a breath. My hands shake as I quickly peel off Maddox’s shirt and rush into a pair of underwear and a sports bra, terrified the door will fly open at any moment and Lee will be back. I flinch as I pull on a pair of jeans, the bruises on my thighs throbbing with pain as the denim scrapes over them, my back and arms throbbing when I have to bend and pull them on. I shrug into a long sleeve tee, then layer it with a regular t-shirt, and then grab a beanie on my way out.
Downstairs, mom is scurrying around the kitchen, her eyes downcast. From the looks of it, she’s been in there a while. She must have heard Lee whaling on me, but of course she wouldn’t try to help. If she did, he’d turn his wrath on her.
I step out the back door, and the loose screen door whips back at me in the wind, nearly smacking me in the face. As if I’m not bruised up enough already. If I’m not cursed, this day definitely is.
Lightning sizzles across the sky, and thunder builds, the kind that starts far away and rolls across the earth, shaking the ground as it grows louder and louder with its approach. Instantly, I’m shaking all over, and I can hardly swallow. But I know I can’t go back in without obeying Lee’s command. I take a deep breath, duck my head, and dive into what feels like a march down death row.
Icy rain pings off the tin roof of the dilapidated shed as I hurry to the pool to where the cover is sagging down into the empty pit. I grip the edge and heave to pull the heavy tarp up. Pain lances through my ribs and grips my entire torso in a spasm so intense that I cry out and fall on my knees, cradling my body and taking a ragged breath. When the worst of it subsides, I carefully lean forward and reach down, tugging the edge of the tarp up slowly this time, gritting my teeth when the rib starts to ache again.
“Hey there, Sunshine,” Lennox’s voice calls from the broken spot in the fence. “Need some help?”
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath, ducking my head and trying to collect myself. Then I lift my face and wave, clenching my teeth past the pain and hoping he sees it as a smile. “I got it, thanks!”
He steps through the gap, Maddox close on his heel. They hurry over, and within minutes, the pool cover is secure again and rain is falling in a steady, grey drizzle. I’m still on my knees, having reached down to help so they didn’t notice anything was off. But now they’re both standing there looking at me, and I know I have to stand, and I know I can’t do it without wincing.
“Thanks for your help,” I say, smiling brightly.
Lennox holds out a hand to me, smiling back. “What did Ijusttell you about coming to me when you need help?” he asks. “We take care of what’s ours, Sunshine.”
“Am I yours?” I ask, cocking my head and squinting up at him through the streaks of dismal, icy rain. “Because I seem to remember you telling me I couldn’t join your Murder of Crows.”
Maddox frowns down at me. Somehow, he looks right at home in the December rain, like the king of this dark, depressing season. “You’re in our territory, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but so are lots of people.”
“If you’re on our turf, you’re either our responsibility or our problem to take care of.”
I gulp at the thought of him ‘taking care of’ someone. He’s not talking about the way he takes care of me. He’s talking about literal murder, taking someone’s life. The very first time they came to the pool, his friends told me he had bodies buried in his backyard.