Sticks and Stones (14 page)

“Sorry,” he apologized again. His teeth were very white and lovely straight; his voice was soft.

He was
nice
and Sandra wanted to cry.

“Hey.” He touched her shoulder, real gentle, helped straighten her. “You okay?”

“Fine.” Her voice was cracked and she cleared her throat. “Fine,” she said again.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I uh…” He showed those teeth again, shrugged one shoulder up and pointed into the pub, thumb over his shoulder and smile growing sheepish on his face. “How about I buy you one, to make it up to you?”

He felt bad. She knew he did, but she didn’t want pity just because she seemed like a wreck. “I don’t drink,” seemed better than telling him she was just underage.

“Well, how about some company then?” His brown eyes were intent and warm. He seemed like the type of guy you could bring home. The guy your parents would be proud of. That was, any parents other than hers. “Truthfully,” he said, “I don’t feel like spending the evening alone. And I didn’t have much of a choice before, but…” He shrugged again, as though asking,
what’d ya say?

“I … yeah…. Okay.” Because she didn’t want to go home either.

“Yeah?” He grinned, and this time it lit up his face. “Great.” He led her back into the pub where everything seemed intimate and dark, and he held her chair out for her and pushed it back, and Sandra knew she was blushing but his face said he didn’t mind. “I’m Thomas,” he said, and this time the skin-on-skin of his palm didn’t jar so badly. His name made her think of Tommy, and she hadn’t thought of him in ages. Thomas didn’t give his last name and Sandra was glad because she didn’t want to be browsing obituaries with that in mind.

“I’m Sandra.” For once, it was nice not to have to give a lie as a last name.

Thomas shrugged off his jacket, revealing a soft, brown cotton shirt. It looked thin and worn and comfortable on his shoulders. He ordered a beer, got her a cocktail without the alcohol, and ordered some wings, which Sandra waved off.

She couldn’t get a read on his age. He seemed young, but so solid.

“You live in town?” he asked, frown between his brows like he was trying to place her.

“My family’s just passing through.”

“Yeah?”

“My, uh, brothers…” Sandra hesitated, looked down, drew patterns in the dew from her glass on the tabletop. Thomas just gave another soft laugh.

“Problems, huh? I know how that can be. Older?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm, caught halfway between looking up to them and halfway to wanting to murder them in their sleep.” His grin stretched wider. “I spent most of my childhood just trying to get away.” His face wilted a bit. “And now here I am.”

Sandra managed a questioning sound, fingers curling against wet laminate that mimicked wood.

“I’m a student. College. Looking to be a doctor. I…” Thomas sighed, rubbed a weary hand across his face. He smiled again, but it was strained at the edges. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I’d like to hear.”

The beer slid smoothly down his throat.

“You don’t want to hear me complain. That’s not why I asked you here.”

“Seems like you need to talk.”

“I…” he laughed again, a surprised, almost bitter thing. “I had to watch my mother die when I was young. She had cancer, and then in school I decided I was going to help people, try and make a difference, try and make sure no one had to go through that again… My family didn’t understand. Everyone works close to home, helps with the family business … I didn’t think it was such an ignoble goal.”

“It’s not.”

“I just want to help others.”

Sandra wanted to cry. Because he’d never get the chance.

Even if she was there, if she managed to find the exact time and date and road he would be on and save him…

There were just some things you couldn’t change.

Maybe Lem had been living on borrowed time after all.

“Hey.” Thomas’ fingers touched hers, gentle-light and then with growing pressure. “Are you sure you’re okay? Do
you
need to talk?”

Sandra gave a watery huff. “I don’t feel much like talking.”

He squeezed her hand before leaning back. “Sure you don’t want that drink?”

Sandra hid her smile in her hair. “No. Thanks.”

He sort of shrugged, but didn’t push it. Then his wings arrived and Sandra watched him lick barbecue sauce off his fingers, not seeming to mind her silence at all.

The music had turned to some bluesy jazz. It came faint over the commentary of the game, of the talking and cheers and faint kitchen noises drifting in through the back. Sandra felt odd, like she was watching everything from inside a fog, disconnected and distant. But then Thomas looked up, giving her a messy smile that included no one else – just them – and she didn’t feel alone at all anymore.

“How long are you in town for?” He chased his wings down with the dregs of his beer. He looked around, tried to spot the waitress and finally caught her eye.

“Not long.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie, but wasn’t true either. Sandra wasn’t going to explain about abandoned houses and squatting and the possibility of being charged with trespassing if they were caught.

Thomas made a sound, like he was displeased, or disappointed, but his face didn’t match and he ended up shrugging his shoulders, giving a look at Sandra’s questioning face. “You’re good company,” he pointed out, which seemed
wrong
, when all Sandra could think about was how his head would crack open like an egg on the street.

“You too,” was all she said. It was true. And it was better than sitting home alone, cleaning a gun she never wanted to use.

A sudden cheer made her look up, watch the men over at the bar slap each other on the back, grins so wide their faces almost cracked. One of them nearly toppled over, spilling beer on himself and on the floor. When she looked back, Thomas had a wistful expression on his face, like he wished life could be so easy, joyful in small moments.

What a pair we
make
.

But that just made everything ache again, whistle of wind in her ears.

“You’ll make a great doctor one day.”

Something in her voice made him look up, but Thomas didn’t say a word, stared quietly, and then the night was winding up and he was helping her to her feet, forgetting a moment that she didn’t have a jacket and laughing as he hugged her instead.

His shirt had a smoky smell – not cigarettes, but something deeper and richer.

“We should do this again sometime,” he said, and Sandra nodded.

“I’d like that,” she heard herself say. And if he somehow heard the sudden surge of tears in her throat, he didn’t say a thing.

His hand stayed a large, warm thing on her back, all the way out the door. “Can I walk you to your car?” he asked.

“I didn’t drive.” Sandra fiddled for a moment, eyes big and throat closed, wanting to say so much.

His palm ghosted over her jaw, but he stepped back, didn’t even try to kiss her. The air Sandra sucked in felt raw.

“I… This sounds…” Her hands fluttered a little, and so she stuck them into her jean pockets. The holes in her knees were a mess of frayed strings, fluttering in the breeze and making her feel young and out of place.

Why did you have to run into me?

“I know you don’t know me… Not really. But can you promise me something?”

Thomas blinked, slow and wary, but he nodded. That was enough.

“I… Watch out for yourself… I mean, look out for traffic. Always look both ways, okay? Don’t hurry so much.”

“Of course.” He sounded so confused.

You’re going to die
, she thought.
You’re going to die before your dreams
are realized and I don’t know what to do
.

She couldn’t keep her eyes on him. Instead, Sandra tipped up, balanced on her sneaker toes and caught his cheek. “Be careful.” She turned, and only had his whispered,
Yeah,
to follow her home.

Chapter Fourteen

The
car
wasn’t in the drive when she arrived. Danny had taken to keeping it pulled alongside the house, unseen from the road, half covered by the over-sweep of trees and brush.

Jack was inside.

“Fucking Christ,” he said, room temperature beer in hand and thumping along the worn steps of the second floor stairs down to her. “Where the hell have you been?”

Sandra stared hard, saw Jack’s jaw come up, that stubborn tilt, and she just wanted to go over and slap the back of his head, make him see how ridiculous this all was. Everyone was so angry, and she’d been sharing drinks with a
dead
man
, and Jack and Danny hadn’t been there, and she hadn’t known what to do and everything was so screwed
up
.

“Where have you been?” she asked in return.

His jaw tightened and his eyes went narrow, like he wouldn’t tell even under threat of hot coals. “You’re always home,” he said.

“Not anymore,” she said, even though she felt like burrowing into her covers and never emerging again, just wanted to go away for an eternity until things were easier. “Why’d you need to know?”

“We’re your family,” he grated out, like that was an answer, and Sandra wanted to clock his face, get him right in the jaw and make his stupid, pretty, little mouth bleed.

“Yeah, well,” Sandra shrugged, twisting bitter lips, and felt her words come out pointed and cruel, “maybe you should start acting like it then.”

Jack’s mouth worked, like he couldn’t figure out what to say, throat all tight and eyes furious, and Sandra just walked on by, kicked her sneakers off into the corner of her room, and crawled under the covers.

The floor was lit up by the moon and she could see the floorboard where she’d hidden the gun. The dark cracks in the wood seemed to creep deep, deep down.

Jack finally mounted the stairs and went into his bedroom.

Daniel didn’t get home until much later.

And, even then, Sandra didn’t sleep for a very long time. When she did, she dreamed.

She thought it may have been about Thomas.

Her head ached.

Getting out of bed was a marathon of creaking joints and popping bones. Her back felt branded, burn of muscle, and Sandra shuffled out of the room, glad they’d taken to leaving a container of water in the bathroom. It felt colder than the rest of the house and helped wake her up, the silvered reflection of the cracked mirror making her skin look blue and gray, ghostly like one of those stupid late-night horror movies the boys had sometimes watched when they were younger, in motel rooms when Lem had still been there.

Sandra had hated those films.

The boys had spent a whole night teasing her until Lem had called them off. And then they’d seemed to get it.

Horror movies weren’t scary because the things in her head were always worse.

She could still remember the guilty tilt to their bodies, the slow shift for the remote that had ended with them watching infomercials for three hours straight, Sandra’s head on Danny’s shoulder and Jack’s arms wrapped around her thigh from his position on the floor.

She missed that.

A dirty shirt was draped on the top of the banister and Danny was in the kitchen, sweats hung low on his hips and the muscles in his back rippling as he reached for a glass in the upper cupboard. It took Sandra a long moment to remember why she was supposed to be angry, that sick pit surging into her tummy until the idea of breakfast didn’t sound appetizing anymore.

Sandra left the room before she was seen.

The floorboards creaked all the way across the hall and into the side of the house and the room that might have once been a small library or a salon. The windows were big there, letting in the early morning light past big thickets of brambles and dead ivy. Dried leaves brushed against the windowpanes, echoing through with soft, crackling rustles, the wind slowly shaking them to bits.

Sandra’s hands shook as she listened to Daniel making a cold breakfast in the kitchen, Jack’s feet hitting the floor as he got out of bed up above. The air felt punched out of her. The sounds trembled and echoed, wood and walls too thin and old for privacy.

For a moment, Sandra had to press her fingers to her mouth to keep from making a noise.

God. She wanted to run again. Run and never come back. Never look back.

Jack slipped into the bathroom, swore as the cold water touched his skin.

Somewhere out there Thomas was going to die. People were dying every day and Lem was dead and the boys were drifting much too far away. Their family was unraveling at the seams. They’d given her a gun as protection against the world and it wasn’t the comfort they thought it would be.

Jack slipped down the stairs and Sandra breathed shallow, waited until he had passed before darting up the steps, closing the door to her room fast.

She stared at the floorboard where the gun was hidden.

Somewhere, a shot reverberated. It echoed in pulses of memory and futures and blood.

Something bad was coming.

And Sandra was very afraid.

~

Sometimes, Sandra dreamed she was failing Lem.

She dreamed in nightmares, half-remembered upon waking, scenes of dark eyes and bloodied hands. It felt as though she was falling, plummeting as the rest of the world stood still, watching Jack and Danny disappear up over the horizon, into the distance and away. She was the one lost in darkness as the light swallowed them whole. It was sort of like burning, just the opposite way around, and she could never watch. She would wake with sweat on her face and soaking through her shirts, completely unhinged with her throat clogged tight.

Danny was starting to itch. She could tell, see his glances at the road, fingers twitching over an imaginary wheel. She’d wake up to maps spread over the kitchen counter, one oil-stained finger tracing over routes that could take them the fastest and farthest away.

Jack never seemed to care.

Sandra was just surprised he hadn’t somehow been picked up by the police.

He was fast, but no one was that good, and his shirts were beginning to resemble Rorschach inkblots, old blood spots darkening the fabric until Sandra didn’t even try soaking and scrubbing.

Jack didn’t try, period.

For all of Daniel’s faults, at least he hadn’t picked fights with over half the town. He hadn’t left a line of black eyes and broken noses behind.

He’d probably left some broken hearts.

She knew he’d left hers trodden in the dust.

Sandra rubbed a sheen of clear gloss across her lips, made sure she had her money and her knife, and headed out the door. She wasn’t going to the pub. She didn’t want to sit and wonder if the reason Thomas hadn’t stopped by was because of exams or tests, or something a whole hell of a lot worse.

There weren’t many places willing to let her inside without looking at her ID. But there was one. It reminded her of a saloon; old-time atmosphere, weary and worn, no dance floor, and half a dozen grungy tables full of pock-marks and scars. The lighting was dim, benches and stools tear-worn. There was a pool table in the back, taken over by a couple of quiet friends who jostled each other good naturedly as they placed their bets, forking over quarters and nickels when their bills ran out. Sandra wondered if they were regulars. She wondered if Danny had been by and given them a run for their money – had probably drained them dry.

The bartender wasn’t anything like Keith Liston.

His face was scarred like the bar, fingers thick and strong as he poured. His hair was salt and pepper gray and he didn’t smile once.

He gave Sandra a beer, eyeing her a little but letting it be. She imaged Keith would’ve had some words to say. This one just looked at her like she needed that drink. She had to be pretty bad off if a guy with half his ear missing was feeling sorry for her.

Sandra sipped, getting foam on her lip and trying to hunch her shoulders into her spine. She stuck out, even with her old clothes and ripped jeans, like they could smell the young blood in her. She didn’t belong and she felt like everybody knew it.

The beer was bitter and tasted like ashes going down.

Everything tasted like ashes.

Sandra didn’t want to know why.

The man in the corner had dark eyes and she didn’t know if that was because he’d been born that way or because he had something inside of him.

A glass thumped down, slow slosh of coke and rum at her elbow. “What are you doing here?”

Danny wasn’t angry, not really, but he didn’t give much away, either. Sandra hadn’t been able to read him for weeks. He wore his old canvas jacket, smelling of cigarettes and alcohol and girls, dirt on the elbows and a day’s worth of stubble on his chin. There was a new scar on his cheek. Sandra wanted to rub her thumb over it, that angry red line, and clenched her bottle tight instead.

Danny sighed something, brought his glass up, nearly drained it dry. Sandra’s throat felt bruised, ripped up like she’d been swallowing glass instead of beer. She pushed her bottle over. He only hesitated a moment before taking it up, using a finger to pull the top toward him. He tipped it back and ordered another.

Sandra wondered if getting him drunk was wise.

Halfway through his third beer, his hand settled heavy on her neck, a loose curl of fingers and thumb. It made her shoulders come down. Made her eyes burn. She stared down at the bar counter and hoped he didn’t see, wishing she knew how to make things right.

Sandra smelled his shampoo on his neck.

Then Sandra was falling, a rip of something like reality that scorched her skin, tore at her cheek and left her gagging blood. Her teeth sunk into the soft insides of her mouth. She felt the man’s fist again, saw the cold of his eyes as he swelled her own shut.

She made a sound, and this time Daniel was holding her close to keep her on the stool as she gripped his wrist until her fingers went numb.

“What?” she whispered.
“What?”
Because she wasn’t touching anyone or anything and the only one there was Danny and it just didn’t happen like this anymore—

“Hey,” Danny whispered into her hair, little shake to the shoulder like he wasn’t sure she was with him. “Hey, you okay?”

No
, she wanted to say. “Yes.” Her voice shook, little tremor that matched her body.

They’d sat in this chair
.
They all had
.
And
they had thought that he was nice
.

But they were wrong. And he had hurt them. She thought he had killed them, deep scaring of knuckles and rings and— This was the sort of thing she’d have brought to Lem, once, watched him take care of it from a distance, demon growing in his eyes even if it was the right thing to do. And now – what now? What did she do? She couldn’t tell Jack and certainly not Daniel because
they’d
—

“What’d you see?” he asked, voice quiet and intent, as though the bartender wasn’t looking over like she wasn’t quite right, maybe regretting that beer he’d sold her, maybe itching to see her gone even if no one else in the bar had noticed her episode.

She recognized the rings.

He’d sat beside her how many nights ago, persistent and ugly with Keith Liston getting in his way.

But he always returned to this place.

“Sandra?” Danny’s voice cut in, fingers curled close, breath in her ear and tone low-sharp. “What’d you see?” Sandra shook her head, turned her face away, but Daniel wouldn’t let her go. “Tell me,” he said, and she wanted to – oh, she did.

But she’d promised and she didn’t know what Daniel would do. She didn’t know what either of those boys would do anymore. They might as well have both been strangers.

Daniel was more like his father than he would ever believe.

She suspected he’d be pleased to hear that.

Lem wouldn’t.

“C’mon,” Daniel sighed, pulling her up off the stool with one hand and grabbing his beer with the other. He led her to the booths near the back. The light above the table was burnt out. Just shy of them, the friends at the pool table piled their winnings together, a bundle of paper bills and dull-shined coins. One kept razing the other, elbow jutting out and finding ribs. They’d both be on the floor if they were Jack and Daniel, scuffling around until they were either out of breath from laughing or had given each other bloodied lips and noses.

Danny took his jacket off, pushing her into the booth. Sandra both hoped and feared that he’d sit across from her, maybe give her some room. He didn’t. Sliding in right beside her, he pressed close enough that she could feel the heat of his thigh, feel the long-lined press of his arm as he leaned over, asking again, “
What
did you see?”

His jacket lay bunched behind them and Sandra could feel the bulge of fabric as she leaned back, sighing, “Danny…”

“Can I help?” he asked, and it sounded like a concession, like he wouldn’t press even if Sandra knew better.

“I don’t know,” she said, but her head shook
no
and her heart said
yes
. The man wasn’t here now. That was the only thing that kept her mouth shut. If he came in … she could possibly deal with him herself. Rings didn’t mean anything, when you got down to it. And just because she didn’t like someone didn’t mean he was a murderer.

Maybe he wouldn’t come in at all.

Danny was on his fifth beer, hadn’t left her side, waving over the long-legged waitress with bedroom eyes. She’d switched out with the tired mom at half past nine, and kept throwing looks Danny’s way, like Sandra didn’t exist, making her wonder if they’d gotten together sometime before. Danny could have taken her out back, pressed her to the cold brick, watched them print her skin as he pushed inside. She was coy and, Sandra bet, willing like a heartbeat.

At ten, the man came in.

Danny didn’t feel her stiffen, she was sure of it. He was looking at the waitress, considering on taking up her offer, one more beer under his belt and feeling pretty good about himself.

Sandra recognized him right away – the dark burn of hair, the sharp eyes, and gleaming rings. She wasn’t close enough to see the scars on his knuckles, but she knew they were there –
knew how they probably got there, too
.