Charmed (5 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Dillon doesn’t even say hello when he and Barrel get back. He steers me into the Jeep and we go straight to his place.

“We gotta talk.” He knows about Martin, I know it. “I’m in trouble, Isabelle.”

He’s in trouble? I think about Kelowna. What did he do?

“Is it Erin?”

“Who?”

“The girl you took to Kelowna? I’m not mad about it. She was with Barrel, right?” Besides, who am I to talk? Waking up with Martin the suited creepster, never mind the three days I can’t remember at all.

He laughs. “You think I cheated on you with her?”

I say nothing. He starts pacing.

“I love you. I’d never cheat on you!” I want to die. He’s so good to me and I’m such a skank! “I mean trouble,” he says. “BIG trouble.”

I start to get scared. “What did you do?”

“Me?” He stops pacing. “Oh, this isn’t about me.”

I know what he’s going to say. “This is about you, Isabelle.” I was right. It is about Martin. And Reg. And who knows what else. Only, it’s not.

“Barrel’s my dealer, okay?”

I knew that. “And?”

“And it’s time to pay up.”

I scoot back on the mattress until my back is against the wall. “What do you mean?”

“We’ve been together for three months, right?”

Over three months now. For our three-month anniversary, he took me out to an expensive Italian restaurant in the city. We stayed at a motel, even, and sneaked Tuck in so he didn’t have to sleep in the Jeep.

“You know what three months adds up to when you party as much as you?”

“I don’t smoke any more than you do, Dillon.”

Dillon sits on the mattress. He lights a cigarette and doesn’t offer me one.

“Yeah, but when it was just me, I could afford it.” He sounds sad. “The work I do for Barrel, that pays for me to keep this place. He gives me pot and booze as a bonus, kind of. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah.”

He shakes his head. I put my hands on his back. He shakes his head again.

“When we were in Kelowna…”

He stops. I scoot around so I’m sitting in front of him. I put my hands on his shoulders.

“What, honey? What happened?”

“Nothing happened. It’s what he said. I had no idea.” Dillon gets up and starts pacing again. “I owe him five thousand dollars, Isabelle.”

“No.” I cover my mouth with my hands and shake my head. “Oh, no.”

He nods. “He says I have until Friday to get him the money or he’ll send his boys after me.”

I’ve heard of these boys. I’ve never met them, but Kitty has. She saw them beat up some scrawny kid who owed Barrel a couple of hundred dollars. What would they do for five thousand?

“I’m in real trouble here.” Dillon looks like he’s about to cry. That’s not what he does. He doesn’t cry. That’s not Dillon. “I need to get a job, something, anything!”

“No job will pay that much that fast!”

It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t stolen the money from Rob, I wouldn’t have been kicked out, I wouldn’t be leaching off Dillon, and he wouldn’t owe Big Bad Barrel five thousand dollars.

“I know,” he whispers. “But what can I do?”

I steer him to a chair in the kitchen and look in the fridge. I want to make him something to eat, or a hot drink, but there’s nothing. “Do you want a glass of water?”

He shakes his head. “I need a lot more than a glass of water, babe.”

I sit down. “What can I do?”

“Nothing.” He puts his head in his hands. “Nothing. No. Never.”

“Tell me.” I grip his wrists. “I love you, Dillon.”

“And I love you,” he says. “Which is why I told him no way.”

And then I get it. Yeah, maybe some of the girls mule for Barrel and his boys, but the others, like the two hookers at Barrel’s house, they work for Barrel. Barrel is a pimp. Those girls are Barrel’s girls, just like Kitty probably is, and now he wants me too. “No!” I shake my head. “I won’t do it!”

“That’s right, you won’t. And I’d never let you.”

“I’m not like those other girls.”

“That’s right! You’re not.” He kisses my forehead, my cheeks, my lips. “You’re mine.”

We sit in the kitchen as it gets darker. I get up to turn the light on. It doesn’t work. I look in the cupboard for a lightbulb.

“It’s not the lightbulb,” Dillon says. “We got cut off. Maybe it’s time for you to go home.”

“I can’t!” He wouldn’t let me take Tuck and I don’t have two hundred dollars and Mom’s not back for another couple of months and what would happen to him? I got him into this. I can’t just walk away knowing he’s in trouble. I shake my head. “I won’t leave you.”

Dillon says something, but so quietly I can’t hear him. “What?”

“I was saying what if ? You know, you’d just have to do it a couple of times, and then we’d be square and we can forget it ever happened.”

“With Barrel?” My stomach flips. I can’t. I’d be sick. I’m going to be sick at just the thought of it!

“At first.” Dillon stares at his shoes. It’s too dark for me to see his face. He sounds defeated. Lost. Helpless. “You know, that five thousand doesn’t even include the chair.”

The chair. The brand-new leather chair that me, myself and I ruined all by myself.

“It doesn’t?” My legs begin to tremble. “How much do I owe him?”

“Two thousand for the chair.” There’s a catch in his voice. “Do you know about Barrel’s boys?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Do you have any idea what they’ll do to me?”

I shake my head.

“They’ll probably kill me, Isabelle. Seven thousand dollars.” He gets up. “Think about it.”

We lie on the mattress in the cold dark, the sleeping bag and our coats covering us. He holds me. We say nothing. He falls asleep first and I watch his breath in the frosty air. I fall asleep hours later, but I only sleep for a few moments at a time because of that awful nightmare I keep having, the one about me and Martin in the bed, only he’s wearing black track pants with snaps down the sides instead of his suit. I stay awake by pinching the skin at my wrist whenever I feel myself drifting off. By morning I have made my decision. I’ll do it. If it will keep Dillon safe, alive, I’ll do it. Sometimes you just have to do terrible things. No one ever said love was easy. No one ever said life was easy either.

Chapter Sixteen

Dillon said he couldn’t even be in the same town while it was happening. He was so torn up about it that when I was getting ready to go to Barrel’s, he put his fist through the wall. His fist was swollen badly. I wrapped some ice from the 7-Eleven in a dishtowel and made him sit at the table and stay put before he could hurt himself any more.

“I know this is hard,” I said. “It’ll all be over soon.”

He buried his face in my stomach. “It’s just that I love you so much!”

“I love you too, Dillon.”

Then Barrel’s car arrived, driven by one of his boys.

I waited for Dillon to kiss me goodbye, but he didn’t. I understand; it’s all so weird and gross right now.

I manage not to be sick while it’s happening, but right after Barrel leaves the room I make a dash for the bathroom and stay in there for almost an hour, retching. At least I didn’t get any of it on anything expensive.

After I’ve been in the bathroom for a couple of minutes, Barrel sends Kitty in. She rubs my back and coos nice things at me about how it’s all okay, and that’s just how life goes.

“He sent you in here to make me feel better?” I wipe my face.

She shrugs. “You really want to know?”

I nod.

“He sent me in to make sure you don’t escape.” She raises her eyes to the tiny window above the toilet. We’re in the upstairs bathroom.

“I’d break my legs!” I sound alarmed, but it’s only a couple of seconds later before I consider whether or not that would be any worse than being stuck under the great big heaving, hairy weight of Barrel, Lord King of Disgustingness and All That Is Revolting.

She shrugs. “Some have.”

“Some?” I start crying again. “How many?”

She rubs my back some more. “Just take care of yourself, okay?”

“That’s what you do? Take care of yourself ?” I push her hand away. “Is that why you never told me?”

She shrugs again. “Stop shrugging!” I scream. There’s a knock at the door. It’s one of Barrel’s boys.

“Everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” Kitty chirps. She pushes my hair out of my face and whispers, “Knowing what you know now, do you blame me?”

I shake my head. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I was in her position.

“So, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll do the same.”

“Or what?”

She starts to shrug again. She catches herself and grins. “How about I make you some bread?”

When she says that, she becomes old. She becomes the grandmother I’ve never had. She puts on seventy-five years like it’s a comfy old housecoat. She looks tired and hopeful and safe. She pats my puffy cheeks.

“Have a shower. It’ll make you feel better. I’ll go make you some bread.” She heads downstairs to the kitchen. Barrel’s boys make me keep the door open while I have a shower, but that doesn’t seem like such a big deal considering everything else. As I get dressed, I seriously consider jumping out the window, but I figure Barrel’s boys would grab hold of me before I’d even get my head out. I don’t want to know what the punishment would be for trying to get away. And besides, if I ran away, my debt wouldn’t be paid off and they’d go after Dillon. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to him because of me. I try not to think about him, how furious and powerless and upset he must feel, being apart from me, knowing what I’m doing for him, for us.

Chapter Seventeen

Two weeks pass. Where is Dillon? Barrel won’t answer my questions. Kitty says she doesn’t know, but I don’t know if I should believe her or not. I’ve been trapped in Barrel’s house the entire time. I haven’t set foot outside even once. If this were the real world, he’d be arrested for kidnapping and unlawful confinement of a minor. The Barrel Boys took my clothes and my wallet with all of my ID. All I’ve got is one pair of underwear and a bra I wash out in the sink when I get a chance and this thin robe thing. When some sleazy lowlife pig who probably goes home to his wife and kids and pretends like he’s a nice normal guy is not screwing me, I walk around wrapped up in a quilt. I’ve never been so cold in all my life.

I don’t want to think about how many times I’ve been locked in that smelly room with creepy men and that enormous bed. I’m sure the debt has been paid by now. Kitty says Barrel’s the one who decides when and if the debt’s been erased.

“If ?”

“If, Izzy.” She hands me another slice of bread. “That’s just how it goes around here. Come on, you must realize that by now.”

I want to go home. Not to Dillon’s place. Back to my house. I want Rob the Slob to drive drunk straight off a cliff and die. I want Mom to hurt herself at work so she’ll never leave me alone again. I want Big Bad Barrel to eat some bad shellfish and die a slow, painful death. I’d watch. I swear I would. I’d stand right over him and laugh and spit on him and kick him. I would. I’d kick a dying man. That’s how far I’ve sunk, never mind the business in the room with that enormous bed and the men with their serious body stink.

One day the Barrel Boy watching me falls asleep on the couch. They took my cell phone, so I sneak to the phone in the kitchen and call Margaret’s house. Her mother answers.

“I heard you’ve quit school, Izzy,” she says in her stick-up-her-butt way.

“Yeah, but I’m going back though.”

“Oh?” I can hear her lick her lips. “And what do you think Mrs. Singh will make of that?”

“Just get me Margaret, okay?” The Barrel Boy is stirring. “I’m in a hurry.”

“Don’t take that tone with me, young lady.”

“Get me Margaret!” I hiss. “It’s an emergency!”

“I seem to recall that Margaret has stepped out just now, with Amanda.”

“You’re a stupid, fat cow, Mrs. Pritchard!”

“And you are a waste of my Margaret’s time.” She hangs up.

“Bitch!” I yell at the dial tone. That wakes the Barrel Boy. He gives me a clumsy whack that ends up in a couple of black eyes, but it’s worth it, saying that to her. She’s hated me since third grade.

I think the black eyes might get me out of work for a couple of days, but apparently it’s no big deal to have black eyes in the game. That’s what Kitty and the other girls call it. The game. What kind of game is it if you’re always the loser?

I know the other girls’ names now. Cherise and Lena. But just because I know their names doesn’t mean I like them any better. They’re snobs. They talk quietly in some kind of language they made up, kind of like pig Latin, only not quite, because then I’d understand them. They float around like ghosts, drifting upstairs in the morning and downstairs at night. They look hollow and mean and older than Kitty when she’s in her grandmotherly mood. Cherise and Lena can come and go as they please. No one’s looking for them. No one’s waiting for them. They have nowhere to go. Who knows, maybe they like living like this.

One morning when they come in, Lena’s arms are covered in bruises. Her top is ripped, and her lip is split and bloody. She lets Kitty fix her up. Cherise is too shaky to do it. I don’t know if it’s fright or if she’s coming off coke or something. Those two like their coke, that’s for sure. I’m wrapped in my quilt, a mug of hot apple juice warming my hands.

“Why don’t you just leave?” I ask.

Lena winces, either from the question or from the antiseptic stuff Kitty’s dabbing on her lip. I ask the question again. She doesn’t answer.

“I mean, I can’t leave.” I glance through to the living room where my current Barrel Boy is watching a hockey game. “Mullet Man in there would chase me down and kill me. But you two could.”

“Don’t screw things up for us!” Cherise stands up suddenly. “You don’t understand how things work around here!”

That’s the most she’s said to me in plain English, ever. Cherise helps Lena upstairs. Kitty frowns at me as she puts the first-aid kit away. She leaves the room and doesn’t talk to me for the rest of the day.