“I’m not talking to you right now,” Lennox snaps, shoving his brother again. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“I can tell you what I was about to do,” Maddox drawls, shoving Lennox off him, not rising to match his brother’s anger. “I was about to teach this little girl not to fuck with a real man unless she wants to get fucked back. But your dumb ass had to walk in before I could start the lesson.”
“You said you didn’t want her,” Lennox growls, glaring at his brother through his glasses. “You said she couldn’t hang, that she wasn’t strong or tough enough to join the crew.”
“What?” I whisper, hurt biting into me as I stand, fully dressed in Maddox’s clothes. He told me once that I’d never be a Crow, but that was before. Now that we’re closer…
I can’t believe I was stupid enough to think he wanted me, that he’d let me in their crew, that I had any kind of power over anyone, let alone Maddox North.
“Who said anything about joining the crew?” Maddox asks, back to his usual cool demeanor, though Lennox is still seething. “I just wanted to pop that cherry before you. Maybe hear her scream my name while she milks my cock like a porn star with that hot little vice grip of a cunt she’s got between her legs.”
Lennox takes a swing, but Maddox ducks aside and steps back, taunting his brother. “Don’t pretend you’re any better. I know you’re plotting to get in her pants the second my back is turned, too. You just like to charm them first, make sure to make them cry so you can get off on it. Isn’t that right, little brother?”
“You son of a bitch,malparido, motherfucker,” Lennox splutters, rushing at Maddox again.
Maddox pushes him off and grins, then palms his erection through his pants and gyrates his hips, slowly pumping into his hand. “Don’t worry,parce. I’ll pass her on to you after I break her in, bust in all her holes a few times, wear them out. The ones who don’t know what they’re doing are no use after that.”
“Good to know,” I say, a storm of humiliation and rage boiling inside me, threatening to spill over into tears. I’m damn sure not crying in front of them again, though. “I’ll just be going now.”
“No offense, little girl,” Maddox says, tipping his chin at me. “But the good gangster dick gets chicks like you all clingy and shit.”
“Well, thanks for the clothes.” I give him a two-finger salute. “Jerk face.”
He smirks. “You look good in my shirt, little mama. Like you’re playing dress-up in daddy’s clothes.”
“Is that what we’re calling you now?” I ask, batting my eyes. “Daddy Maddox?”
Without waiting for a reply, I spin on my heel and march out, closing the door behind me. I’m too mad to stay, even when I hear them continue arguing. My clothes aren’t dry yet, so I go to the kitchen and help Valeria chop vegetables for the soup she’s making. She keeps insisting I stay for dinner, but there’s no way I’m sitting across from her sons like nothing happened. So, when the clothes are dry, I insist I can’t stay, that my parents want me home for dinner. Then I head back across the yard, duck through the hole in the fence, and sneak into the shed.
I’m so busy trying to keep from tearing the shed down board by board to get out my rage that I almost don’t see the disturbance in my tiny home. When my eyes adjust to the dim interior of the windowless room, I skid to a stop. Beside the bench where I’ve been sleeping sits a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke, a bag of Doritos, a bowl of congealed, cold Hamburger Helper with a plastic spoon in it, and a familiar, faded sleeping bag.
“Mom,” I whisper, feeling unaccountably touched. Of course she’d try to take care of me when Lee’s not looking. Now that he can’t work, he’s running her ragged, making her wait on him hand and foot. But she still took a moment to sneak me something to help, even knowing what it will cost her if he finds out.
I hug the sleeping bag to my chest, pressing my nose into it and inhaling the smell of home. Tears blur my eyes, but I blink them away. Then I pull on my coat because the damp chill never quite goes away this time of year, and I start my homework. Gotta get it done in the few minutes remaining before dark, since there’s no electricity out here. The steady, light rain continues falling, though there’s no thunder or lightning, no ominous clouds or anything scary, though. It’s just drab and wet and cold, the whole world the colorless, grey nothingness of winter in Arkansas.
When the light fades from the dull evening, I slide into the sleeping bag, almost tearing up at my mother’s small, kind gesture. It’s so much better than trying to hug my knees up inside my jacket all night.
“Goodnight, Poe,” I whisper, reaching out to run a finger over the cold feathers on the stiff bird. I know I should bury her, that once spring comes I won’t have a choice. But for now, I can’t bear to let go of the one companion I have in the world, the one Crow who will never hurt or betray me.
twenty
#1 on the Billboard Chart:
“Nice & Slow”—Usher
Rae West
After the incident at the North’s, I decide that taking showers in the locker room after school isn’t so bad after all. Since it’s my last class of the day, I just have to dawdle until everyone else has gone home. Hoping the creepy coach doesn’t stick his head in and see me, I frantically shower and dive back into my clothes before the girls basketball team arrives for practice, then run for the bus.
I miss it a few times over the next few weeks, but Faulkner’s small enough that most everything is within walking distance if you’ve got an hour or two to kill. My house isn’t even an hour’s walk from school, so I just shoulder my bag and head for home.
One afternoon I’m walking home under a slurry grey sky, hurrying to make it before the rain, when a two-tone brown Ford Lariat pulls up beside me. After a glance, I ignore it, since when people pull over to talk to me, it’s usually older men who want ‘directions to the highway’ and offer to take me back to school afterwards if I’ll just get in and show them how to get there.
A few fat droplets of rain splatter down, and I increase my pace.
I hear the window cranking down and then a familiar voice. “Hey,” Lexi calls. “Hop in, slut! We’ll take you home.”
I glance up and see her hanging out the window, and beyond her, Billy in the driver’s seat. “Oh, hey,” I say. “That’s okay. It’s not far. I can walk.”