Brighter Than the Sun (8 page)

Because of the renewed violent tendencies, I begin seeing Dutch more and more. As the vision in my dreams grows older, as Dutch ages, so does my interest. It ages. Becomes more visceral. More carnal. She is amazing, this creature I created. She is proud and strong and tenacious. She sticks her neck out too often, though. Sometimes she almost gets it cut. Since saving her from the perv who kidnapped her when she was four, I’ve had to come through for Dutch a few more times.

One of her classmates tried to run her over with an SUV. That was one of my more showy displays. The massive vehicle is shooting toward her with the pedal to the metal. She turns just in time to see me step in front of it and knock it into a store window.

The guy is arrested but not for attempted murder, because Dutch doesn’t tell anyone he was coming for her. She doesn’t understand why he did it, but she can feel his pain as much as I can. Doesn’t fucking matter, though. Attempted murder is attempted murder. He should have gone down for that.

But life goes on. Then one night Earl comes home drunk and angry. He is always drunk and angry, but this night, he can barely stand. He storms into our room and starts yelling at us to clean the apartment. We haven’t been here long. We only just left a small garage where we were staying in exchange for fixing up the house and doing some yard work. But Earl never actually did a fucking thing, and the lady kicked us out. He’s been mad ever since.

Whatever set him off tonight, though, must have been a doozy. He is furious. He’s in a filthy beater and dirty boxers. He grabs my shirt and jerks me off the sleeping bag I’m on. Kim is already awake and huddling on the mattress in the corner. Her knees up to her chin. Her hands over her ears.

She’s shaking her head. Praying he is just pissed and really does want the apartment cleaned instead of something else. Her prayers go unanswered.

He shoves me into the kitchen. The harsh yellow floods my vision and I miss the first swing. It lands on my jaw and knocks me back against the wall. He smells like a sewer, and I gag when he leans into me. Fondles my cock through the sweats I’m wearing.

I’m not in the mood for his shit, so I elbow him. His head jerks back and I scramble away, but he grabs my hair. Pulls me to his chest. Wraps an arm around my waist.

“It’s you or her,” he says, his breath hot and noxious.

He lowers his hand. Slips it under my waistband. But I’m not drugged and I’m not tied up. I think about killing him. It would be so easy, but what would happen to Kim? Would they take her away from me? Of course they would. We aren’t even related. I have no claim to her.

I decide not to kill him, but no way am I just going to lie there and think of England. I hit him. Hard. I’m pretty sure I broke his jaw, but he is too drunk to realize it. He wraps a meaty hand around my throat, knocks me against the wall, and hits me over and over, his fist like a boulder.

My immediate concern is air for my burning lungs. I claw at the hand around my throat, but he hits me again. My head whips back and slams into the wall. I go limp, but only for a second or two. I try to block his punches, but when I open my eyes, my gaze locks on to something outside. Something just beyond our kitchen window. I focus for a split second, just long enough to see a girl standing on the sidewalk, looking in. I glare at her, suddenly furious that she is seeing this. That anyone is seeing this. Then Earl hits me again.

We fall to the floor and I know it’s over. He’ll get his way like he always does. Like he always has.

Through the fog, I hear the kitchen window shatter. I blink back to consciousness and look past it to the girl standing on the sidewalk outside. Half her face is covered with a scarf, and a hat hides her hair.

She yells something about calling the police, and Earl is up in a heartbeat. I take the opportunity to run. I go toward our bedroom, but Earl is right on my heels.

Kim screams at me. “Run! Get out!”

So I do. Like the coward I am, I run for the door. Earl trips and is no longer breathing down my back, but I don’t slow down. I crash into the hall, past the other apartments, and out the back door, where I stumble into a chain-link fence behind the building. I use it to leverage my weight—wrapping my fingers in the links as I navigate the uneven, frozen terrain barefoot—and manage to make it to a Dumpster. Which is appropriate, given the circumstances.

I fall onto all fours and try to calm my racing pulse. Dry heaves pump my stomach for several long moments, but nothing comes out. My breaths are ragged and wheezy, the air in my lungs struggling to get through my burning throat.

I hear someone coming, but it’s not him. I know the sound of his footsteps. On carpet. On wood. On gravel. The footsteps I hear are lighter, and there are two sets of them. They stop near me. I can feel concern wafting off them, and it’s the last thing I need. Their compassion. Their pity.

I look up, but they have a light focused on me and I can’t see past it. I glare at them. At her. She got his attention. Now she needs to get the fuck out of Dodge. If she thinks he won’t kill her because she’s a pretty girl, she’s sadly mistaken. I’ve seen him kill a man for a lot less than a broken window. The man wanted me. A broken boy. But not for the same reason Earl wants me. I’ve realized years later that he wanted to save me from Earl. He got too close, though. Asked too many questions. Pried a few too many times. And paid the ultimate price.

But this girl is just standing there. As though a rock through our window and the threat of a phone call will stop him.

I raise a hand to block the light. They think it’s to block the light they are holding, so they lower it. It’s not. It’s to block her light. I’ve never seen it with my real eyes. It’s blinding and brilliant and beautiful. I turn and spit out the blood that filled my mouth in the few seconds we’d been checking each other out, then look back at my two saviors.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

My ears are still ringing, but there is no mistaking the soft lilt of a feminine voice. Of Dutch’s voice. It’s just like in my dream. Or what I thought were my dreams.

I try to stand, but the earth moves under my feet. Dutch jumps forward to help me, but I back away. Livid that she is seeing me like this. At my most vulnerable. At my most whipped.

“We have to get you to a hospital,” she says.

I spit again and start down the narrow passageway between the apartment building and the business next door. I’m shaking and she thinks it’s because I’m cold. She follows me with her sister, Gemma, who is clutching on to Dutch’s jacket sleeve as if it were a life preserver. She’s shaking, too. Partly from the cold and partly from fear. At least she has the sense God gave a gerbil.

“Look,” Dutch says. “We saw what happened. We need to get you to a hospital. Our car isn’t far.”

“Get out of here,” I finally say, trying to keep the crisp edge of pain out of my voice. With effort, I climb onto a crate, grab hold of a windowsill, and try to see inside. Kim is still in there. Just because he’s never hurt her before doesn’t mean he won’t start now. When he’s this mad and this drunk and this volatile, the only wrong move I can make is to underestimate him.

“You’re going back in there?” Dutch asks, appalled. “Are you crazy?”

“Charley,” Gemma whispers to her, “maybe we should just leave.”

Naturally, Dutch ignores her. “That man tried to kill you.”

I throw her my best scowl from over my shoulder before turning back to the window. “What part of ‘get out of here’ don’t you understand?”

She waffles, unsure of what to do. She decides. It’s the wrong decision.

“I’m calling the police.”

I whip around. Leap from the crates. Land inches in front of her. With just enough force to let her know it’s there, I place a hand around her throat and push her back against the brick building.

For a long time I only stare. A thousand thoughts hit me at once, the least of which is the fact that she is real. Flesh and blood. Dutch. Her light soaks into me. Begins to heal me instantly. I begin to calm. To slow my breathing. To clear my head.

I don’t know what to think, other than the fact that she is more beautiful than I ever dreamed. She is real. And she has seen me. The real me. I have no robes to hide beneath now. No cloak. She has seen how I live.

I don’t think she realizes it’s me. Does she know that I’m real? Maybe she thinks like I did. Maybe she thinks I’m a dream. A figment of her imagination. Something to help her cope with the reality of her existence. Or maybe she thinks I’m the boogeyman from under her bed.

No. She is stronger than that. Stronger than me. She faces reality with both fists raised while I cower in a closet. She is so much more than I will ever be.

I don’t want her to see me like this. Covered in blood and whimpering like a little bitch. I have to get rid of her and make sure Kim is okay. I’ll go back inside if I have to. I’ll snap his neck if I have to, and I have a feeling a part of him knows that. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t dare touch Kim.

Either way, first things first: I have to get rid of the angel standing before me.

“That would be a very bad idea,” I say at last.

“My uncle’s a cop, and my dad’s an ex-cop. I can help you.”

I scoff. Toss in a little sneer for added texture. Then do my best to intimidate her. To let her know how unwanted her offer is. “The minute I need the help of a sniveling brat from the Heights, I’ll let you know.”

That throws her, but not for long. She sets her jaw. I’ve seen her do it a hundred times, and I want to groan aloud.

“If you go back in there, I’m calling the police. I mean it.”

I bite down, completely frustrated. “You’ll do more harm than good.”

She shakes her head. “I doubt it.”

“You don’t know anything about me. Or him.”

“Is he your father?”

This is getting us nowhere. There is one surefire way to get rid of a girl, however.

I hate to do it, especially in light of the hell I just came from. The hell she just saved me from. But I steel my resolve and make my move. After raising a hand to her slender throat again, I lower my head and gaze at her like a panther might seconds before attacking a gazelle.

She stiffens, and I have her in my snare, so I charge forward. Press the length of my body against hers. Lean in and whisper into her ear. “What’s your name?”

“Charley,” she says, fear finally staking its claim.

I pull the scarf down so I can see her better. So I can take in every inch of her face. Of her sculpted mouth.

She tries to add “Davidson” at the end, but I’ve surprised her and it comes out as one mangled syllable. Astonishingly, it sounds like the name I gave her, and I have to wonder if that’s a coincidence.

“Dutch?” I ask, scrunching my brows together.

She stares for a while, her eyes glossy from the frozen December air around us. A quake runs through her body. “No. Davidson,” she whispers as my fingers drift down and deliberately brush over her breast. She flinches, but I feel the tiniest bit of desire radiate in an arc around her.

We can’t have that.

More than a little sorry for what I’m about to do, I lean in again and whisper into her ear, “Have you ever been raped, Dutch?” I would never actually rape her. I would never do anything to hurt her. Fortunately she doesn’t know that.

She sucks cold air in through her teeth. Curls her hands into fists. Glances at her sister, who is terrified. Then she whispers a breathy, “No.”

I can feel a raging sea of emotions tumbling inside her. Swirling and clawing and fighting for dominance. But there are few emotions that will overcome the natural instinct for survival.

I tighten my hand around her throat. Force a knee between hers. Spread her legs to gain access to the most intimate part of her. Then I cup a hand at her crotch. Stroke her through her jeans. Touch her like I have the right.

She grabs my wrist with both hands. “Please stop.”

I do, but I keep my hand at her crotch.

She presses a palm against my chest and pushes softly. “Please.”

“You’ll leave?”

“I’ll leave.”

I wait a moment longer—studying her, memorizing every curve—before raising my arms and placing them on the wall behind her.

“Go,” I say, my voice more of a bark, a harsh this-is-your-last-chance warning.

She doesn’t hesitate this time. She ducks under my arm and sprints past her sister, grabbing her along the way. They hurry to put distance between us like frightened cats, and part of me wants to call her back. To fall at her feet. To finish what I started. That’s when I realize I may be more like Earl Walker than I’ve ever imagined.

15

I stay outside for the rest of the night, thinking. Contemplating the plan Amador and I had been going over for months.

Earl was going to kill me. He wanted to. He can feel his grip on me loosening, and the tighter he closes his fist, the easier I slip through. He knows I am going to take Kim and leave him. I’ve been planning it for weeks now. Years, really, but the actual plan was set in motion a few weeks back.

It’s time.

But I can’t get back into the apartment the next morning. Earl has locked me out, and I don’t dare risk waking him by having Kim sneak out of the apartment to let me into the building. She was at the window of our bedroom most of the night, watching me. Struggling to stay awake. She finally fell asleep around 4
A.M
.

I tap lightly on the window just as the sun paints the horizon a brilliant orange. Earl will be asleep for hours yet. If there weren’t bars on the window, I’d get her out and take her with me, but I’ll just have to come back for her. Amador will be waiting.

Kim raises her head, her lids heavy with sleep. She cracks the window, but I tell her to stop.

“He might wake up,” I whisper.

“You know he won’t. I’ll unlock the door.”

“No. It’s okay. I can’t risk that landlady calling the police. I’m going to meet Amador.”

She pushes her fingers through the crack. I reach up and weave them into my own.

“She’s real, Kim.”

Kim smiles. “I know. I told you she was.”