I reached for her sunglasses again, and this time, she let me. I pulled them off carefully and folded them to give my hands something to do instead of smashing into the tree beside us at the sight that met my eyes. One of her beautiful hazel eyes was wreathed in bruises, and a cut sat high on her cheekbone.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Thank my lucky stars that oversized sunglasses are still in fashion,” she quipped.
I lost my control.“That fucker,” I cursed as I turned and let my fist fly at a peculiarly face-shaped piece of trunk.
Molly didn’t even flinch. Of course, she didn’t. She was used to violence. The thought made me feel worse than ever.
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately.
The pain blossoming in my hand soothed my anger. It balanced me. I rested my head against the trunk and closed my eyes. It was the powerlessness that destroyed me. I couldn’t protect my mother from the cruelty of life, and I couldn’t protect Mallory, either. I was nothing. No one. I was too young, too ineffectual, too weak. I could only watch. I swallowed a hot knot of devastation and fury inside me and stiffened when Molly reached out to touch my throbbing hand.
“You did that so you could claim sympathy pain, didn’t you?” she joked quietly.
It broke the tension between us. The tension in which all the ways I failed her piled on top of me. I turned my head and rested my cheek against the bark, enjoying the rough touch.
“You think I’ll just let you be the only injured party?” I teased back, but my heart wasn’t in it.
She smiled, nonetheless. What else was there to do?
“Stay at mine tonight,” I urged her.
Her smile dropped away, and she shook her head.“I can’t. When Henry gets like this, it’s best to be at home. If I’m not, it’ll only be worse later.”
“I’ll come over then,” I said immediately.
She laughed and shook her head. Her eyes were shining, as though her tears were held back only by a supreme force of will.“He wouldn’t like that. Don’t worry. I can handle him.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” I bit out.
She shrugged after a moment.
“Do you want me to take care of him for you?” The question left my lips before I could call it back. It was a joke, or it was supposed to be. As soon as the words sat between us, I realized it wasn’t a joke. It was far from one.
Her breath caught in her chest, and her eyes locked on mine. Something passed between us in that look. The total honesty of two kids who’d never felt safe, not even once, until they met each other.
“Not today. Just become an Olympic track star, and I can be your agent and ride your coattails to freedom,” she said.
A laugh escaped me. Mallory could always lighten my mood, no matter how dark. Still, those words lay there, threads of raw electricity in the air. One touch could ignite it.
She turned to look at my hand and tutted. Fishing tissues from her bag, she cleaned my hand. I watched my blood rub onto her fingers.
One day, I would repay every drop of Mallory’s spilled blood. Every moment of pain she’d felt, I’d revisit on that man.
It suddenly struck me that maybe my mother wasn’t the gatekeeper to her only son. Maybe she wasn’t holding the wolf at bay beyond the door where my father and his dangerous world were trying to press in and corrupt me.
Maybe it wasn’t the darkness outside that she was holding her vigil against.
Maybe she was the prison guard.
Maybe she was holding the wolf back from the world.
Maybe the darkness was already inside me.
When I looked at Mallory, I couldn’t deny that darkness was there, lingering deep inside. One day, I would pay everyone back who had hurt her.
Every single one.