Because You Exist (16 page)

Jo closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. When she opened them, she looked directly at me. “My father..” She stopped. Took another deep breath. Closed her eyes again. “My father got in some trouble with some drug guy. Owed him some money. He...he...he told him about me...and the man...the man...”

Jo pushed her face back into her lap. “I can’t do this, Logan.”

A scream rang out faintly amidst the thunder and pounding sounds of rain against the roof of the car.

Jo.

I didn’t need to hear anymore.

I threw open the door to the car and began to run straight for her house. I didn’t bother knocking. I slammed my body against the door, and it opened slightly. Only one of those damn silly chains kept it from opening all the way. With a grunt, I kicked the door with all my might. It flew open and hit the wall with a bang. Jo’s father's eyes met mine. I would have recognized them anywhere. A white powder covered his upper lip. Before he could reach for the gun that lay by his side on the couch, I lifted the glass coffee table in front of him and threw it at the wall behind him. I had a good arm. The table shattered against the wall above his head, raining glass on him. The distraction was just enough that I had time to grab the gun.

Before I had enough time to decide whether to shoot the bastard or not, and I was disgusted enough to think it wouldn’t be such a bad idea, I heard little Jo scream again. I whipped around, following the noise up the stairs.

As I crept to the only room where a light was on, I tried to remember how to use a gun. It’s not like I’d ever shot one before. The good thing was the perv wouldn’t know that. I’d have to hope I could scare him. When I entered the room, I almost came undone.

Little Jo was lying curled on the bed, her arms pressed against her chest. Her eyes were wide and went from me to the junkie and back to me. The scumbag was pressed against the wall.

“Dude. Don’t shoot. He said I could do it. He owed me some money, man. He said I could do it.” The man was sweating, and I noticed his belt was slightly undone.

“What did you do to her?” I managed. I was trembling. I wanted to rip this man apart.

“Nothing man. I swear. Nothing.”

I leapt towards the man and pressed the gun against his forehead. “What were you planning on doing to her?”

“I—” but I couldn’t even bear to hear his voice anymore. I shoved the gun in the waist of my jeans and pulled my fist back. Then I let it go. I hit and hit and hit and hit and hit and hit until the man fell to the ground unconscious.

I turned to Jo who was still lying on the bed. She was alert, but frozen in her position. I didn’t want to touch her. It would be the last thing she would want. “Jo. I need you to go into the bathroom. Lock yourself in there until you hear sirens. Do you understand me? Don’t open that door until you hear sirens. I’m gonna make the bad men go away.”

Little Jo sat up slowly. Her eyes were staring at my now bleeding knuckles. “You promise?” she whispered.

“I promise,” I replied, my voice choked with emotion.

Jo didn’t need any more encouragement. She jumped up and ran past me, slamming and locking the door to the bathroom as soon as she was inside. I didn’t waste any time either. I rushed down the stairs.

But I didn’t make it very far. Jo’s father was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. His fist made contact with my face before I could defend myself. I fell backwards. Her dad began to kick me over and over in the ribs. A burning pain seemed to overtake my chest. I blindly clutched for the railing to pull myself up. When I found it, I pulled with all the strength I had left. Back on my feet, I tackled Jo’s father. We both fell down.

I was about to get another hit in when I could hear them. The sirens. Someone had called the police. I couldn’t get caught there. Too many questions. Too many answers I couldn’t give. I scrambled to my feet and pushed my way out the front door. The rain felt good against my skin that now seemed as if it was on fire. I felt dizzy. Out of breath. I just needed to make it back to the car. I couldn’t run anymore. I took one step. Then another. The sirens got louder. They were coming. I was glad. I was terrified. Another step.

I saw her before I fell into her arms.

Jo.

She would have to save us both now.

Chapter 22

The first thing I felt was the pain. My whole body was humming with every punch and kick it had taken. I could taste blood in my mouth, and it was near impossible to breath without wishing I no longer had to. The light inside Jenna’s kitchen was brighter than I ever remembered it being.

I felt underneath me and realized I was laying on top of a couple of towels on the kitchen floor. It was a smart idea. The less blood I spilled everywhere the better. I didn’t remember Jenna ever telling me someone broke into her house before, which meant we’d have to keep it as clean as possible.

Like this never happened.

But it did happen.

“Jo?” I called out. Her name issuing from my lips caused a fit of painful coughs. Every cough felt like someone had taken shards of glass and were slowly pressing them into the spaces between my ribs.

I was hurt.

Bad.

“I’m here.”

Her whisper came from the corner of the kitchen where she also sat on the floor. Her back was pressed against some cabinets and her knees were pulled up to her chest. With a grunt, I pulled myself up so I was sitting as well, leaning my head against the round table where I had eaten so many family dinners with Jenna, ignorant that a world where these things happened could ever truly exist outside the news that didn’t have anything to do with me, or the movies which were made to keep me entertained.

“Are you all right?” I asked her. She didn’t looked hurt. She looked a little dazed. She looked soaking went. But she didn’t look hurt.

Suddenly, tears were falling from Jo’s eyes. She brought a shaky hand to her face in order to shield her show of emotion from me. There was no need. I would never judge her for something like that.

She was the strongest person I knew.

I lifted my heavy hand towards her. “It’ll be fine, Jo.”

But she continued to cry. It seemed like every time I asked her if she was all right or told her it would be fine, she only cried harder. She buried her face against her knees and sobbed openly. I felt tears begin to fall down my own cheeks. I tried to brush them away before she saw them. I wasn’t embarrassed for her to see them, but she didn’t need to worry about me too. I wasn’t even sure why I was crying.

After awhile, the sounds of her sobs ceased. She stayed quiet, her head still nestled against her knees. When she finally looked up at me her face was controlled. She was back in strategy mode, and only the redness of her eyes would betray that anything happened at all.

One deep, heavy breath was all she allowed herself until she threw herself back into action. In a matter of seconds, Jo pulled herself to her feet and exited the room. Before I could muster the strength to call out and ask her where she was going, she returned with a first aid kit.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have wasted so much time. You’re hurt. I should’ve—“

“This is nothing,” I said, cutting her off. I couldn’t bear to hear her apologize about anything. Not after tonight. Not after what I saw. It all made sense now. The way she was. How she kept herself hidden from the whole world. It reminded me of Jenna talking about Post Traumatic Stress, something she studied in AP Psych. These men carried with them the war at all times, never fully able to live in the world they returned to. Jo was kinda like that. Except her war was still raging on.

“I’m gonna kill whoever’s responsible for the shifts, Jo. I really am,” I said, wincing as she began to clean out the cuts her father put on my face.

“You saved me. If we never had shifted back here, he would have gotten away with it,” she replied simply. That’s what made it so difficult to hear. How quickly she was back to shoving all her sadness and anger away. I wasn’t ready to just be done with it. I was pissed.

It wasn’t fair to make me carry it all.

But I’d do anything for her tonight.

We were partners. One strong when the other is weak.

Jo’s hands moved down to my ribs and I nearly yelped. I could feel the sweat begin to cover my forehead. I clamped my mouth together to keep from cursing as she felt around. “I think you might have a broken rib or two. There’s not much to do about that now. We can’t take you to a hospital.”

I nodded. “Too many questions.”

She nodded back.

“You think you can make it resting here until we shift back?” she asked.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Guess not. Put your arm around my shoulders. I’ll help you to someplace where you can lie down.”

Before Jo left me alone lying on Jenna’s parents’ bed, I directed her to Jenna’s parents’ closest. She picked out some dry clothes for both of us. I didn’t dream of asking her to help me change. It took me the entire time Jo was in the shower, which had to have been a good half hour, to manage to put on the new clothes. By the time I was done, I was exhausted and in more pain than I had ever been before. I’d never walked away from a football game feeling like this.

Adrenaline is a great thing when it’s coursing through you.

But you’re going to pay for it.

Trust me.

When Jo returned to the bedroom she was wearing Jenna’s mom’s robe over the sweat pants and shirt she pulled from the closest. Standing in the doorway, she watched me. “You going to be okay in here by yourself?”

I managed a laugh despite the pain that shot through my chest. “Sleeping is one thing I’m good at.”

Jo’s mouth transformed into a thin smile. She tucked a strand of her wet hair behind her ear. She was going to stay in the guest room, but she seemed hesitant to leave. “I should have remembered it was you,” she said softly, wrapping the tie of the robe over and over her fingers till the tips began to turn purple.

“What do you mean?”

“When the police came they asked me a lot of questions about the man who beat up my dad...and the other guy. I didn’t remember a lot about him. I just remembered what he told me. He was going to make the bad men go away. I was to lock myself in the bathroom until I heard the sirens.”

Jo paused, taking a deep breath. Her eyes found mine. “It was you.”

The enormity of it all hit me. I found it even harder to breathe than before. And that’s saying something considering I had a few broken ribs. My face heated up, and I couldn’t look at her. It was unthinkable to even imagine the shift never happening. She said it. If this never happened, the shift, the whole damn mess, that low-life would have...would have...

“Tell me things got better,” I asked, nearly panting between the shock and rage I still felt from the night’s events.

Jo took a step further into the room. She still kept the rope from the robe tightly wound over her fingers. “Social services finally stepped in. They’d been to my house like a billion times before that though. Neighbors used to call a lot when I was younger. But he always found a way to keep me.”

The lack of emotion behind her words was killing me. The things she was suggesting, the years of abuse by her own father, these weren’t things that should be talked lightly of while wearing a damn pink bathrobe.

She cleared her throat. A small sign. A welcomed concession. “I’ve been in foster care ever since.”

“And that’s been better, right?”

Please don’t let her tell me my actions made her life worse.

Was that even possible?

Jo shrugged. “I don’t have anyone trying to sell me for drugs, so I guess that’s a step in the right direction.”

“He went to jail, right? Your dad?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Mom’s in the crazy house and dad’s in jail. Certainly bodes well for me, huh? Guess that’s why I’m the dark shifter.” Jo tried to laugh at the end of her words, but it sounded dead. Lost. Empty.

“I wondered who called the police?” I asked. I didn’t want to talk about dark shifters and light shifters tonight. It didn’t matter really. Because whatever one of us went through, it was clear the other would feel to some extent. Neither of us would be completely dark or light again.

“I did. I was sitting in that car waiting for the man to show up. I knew from the moment we stepped on this road that’s why we were here. For some reason, they wanted us to see this happen. They wanted me to relive it. Then you ran out there, and I realized it was always meant to be you. They’ve been in our lives the whole time, Logan.”

My ribs ached.

“I was sitting there,” she continued, “knowing I couldn’t run in there myself. So, I helped in the only way I could. I used the pay phone down the road and called the police. I waited outside and carried you in here.”

I nodded. It made sense. She was always thinking ahead. But there was one thing she hadn’t figured out. “Jo?”

“Hmm?” she asked, edging back towards the door.

“I know why they sent us here. Why this memory is important.”

“Why?”

“So, I could know you. So, you could trust me. We’re partners. Maybe the people who are controlling this aren’t doing it to play with us. Maybe they’re trying to make us strong. Ready for what’s to come.”

Just as quick as the emotions left Jo, they returned. Her chin wrinkled up and her eyes slammed shut. She dropped the rope and brought both hands up to cover her face. Her fingertips pressed into her forehead, her knuckles turning white.

She was fighting it.

“Jo.”

She curled her fingers into fists. “Don’t try to justify them,” she spat out between her arms, her face impossible to see.

“I wasn’t trying—”

She yanked her hands from her face and looked straight at me. Enraged. “You were. You like things to have explanations. You need answers. Sometimes evil is just evil. Sometimes people just like making other people feel pain.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off again. “I’ll never be normal. Never! I’ll always be this way. I am so thankful you saved me, but I can’t be happy to have to live this again. I live it every day. I’ll always be this freak. Stuck.”

“That’s not true.” Maybe it was. I didn’t know.

Her anger was soon replaced by defeat. She walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. She didn’t speak. She pulled her hands inside the sleeves of the robe. When she looked back at me, I was startled to see her look scared. Truly frightened.

“What is it, Jo?”

“I think I like him. Ben. I think he likes me too,” she said quietly, turning her face from me again.

I swallowed hard.

“I’ll never have what you and Jenna have.”

“You don’t want what we have. Remember? It’s not honest or something.”

Jo shook her head slowly. “What would I know? I’ve never been in a relationship. I watch people in relationships and read books. That’s all I can base my conclusions on. But I don’t want to be alone. I wish this wasn’t another thing my father could take from me.”

It killed me to say this. I didn’t like Bentham. He was cocky. He didn’t deserve her. But she liked him. And I would watch out for her. “Why don’t you tell Bentham? Be daring. Try an actual date before you ship yourself off to a nunnery. I’m sure he’d say yes. You two do talk like every minute of every day. Right?”

“It won’t ever mean anything. I can’t even wear a damn short sleeve shirt without panicking. Eventually, things will get...intimate.”

“If he’s worth anything, he won’t push you.”

“I know he won’t. But maybe I need to push myself. I’ve never told him about these things. I never told you, and you’re pretty much the only friend I have. If I can’t trust you, the person destined to my partner, how can I ever even hope to kiss a boy without wanting to throw up?”

“You’re talking now,” I offered.

And she was.

And I felt honored.

Honesty was tough, but it was also a gift.

She turned on me quickly. Her eyes set in that determined little way she always looked when tackling a challenge. “I want to show you.”

“Show me what?”

Jo closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath. I wasn’t quite prepared for what she did next. She pulled the robe off her shoulders, exposing the bare skin of her arms. Sure, I’d seen her when the survivor had forced off her jacket and when she ran at the meet, but I hadn’t seen her. Not really.

How much of the world did I refuse to see?

Even when it was staring straight at me.

“They’re horrible. Aren’t they?” she asked.

Scars and burn marks were scattered across the skin of her arms. Marked. Branded. Jo pointed to a long scar that went from her elbow to her wrist. “This one happened when I was three. I woke up screaming one night from some nightmare. I kept calling out for my mom. My dad kept telling me to shut it. He had some woman over. When I didn’t, he came in and beat me with the belt. It wasn’t unusual for him to do so. But this night, for some reason, he thought I was being particularly tiresome. He took the metal part and tore into my skin, dragging it all the way down.”

I wanted to take her hand.