《Stories So Small, They Must Be True》


 Lie With Me

    I did not know how her mind worked. I do not want to know still.


    She was pinching her cheeks, demanding her blood to give them a rosy hue. Using the mirror on the back of the passenger¡¯s seat, she pulled out a strand of hair from her braid, then stuck the tip of her forefinger in her mouth. I scrunched my face when she wrapped it around the strand of hair, but admitted to myself that the curl which rested against her forehead did look adorable.


    And that was what she was going for, wasn¡¯t it? Adorable. Innocent. Not at all the eleven-year-old girl who ordered the seamstress to make her an outfit of a ¡°Starving scholar. Diamond in the rough. Make it girly, but hold the pink.¡± Her voice never wavered like a child¡¯s should, confident in what she needed to wear for the event. She waved the disgruntled seamstress and disturbed assistant away with a face of annoyance. She knew she could not pull off ¡®Intimidating Mastermind¡¯ for at least a few years.


    I chuckled, I recall, standing near the door waiting for my turn to be measured and poked. I thought it was merely the attitude of a tomboy rebelling against society¡¯s backwards standards. I was partly true, but mostly wrong. She wasn¡¯t rebelling. She was hungry. Starving. But without the reach to grasp what she craved. But she was a little girl, the symbol of purity and innocence.


    The girl absolutely did not have late night talks with a financial planner, a cup of strong coffee in their grips, discussions fanatic with their whisper-shouts and excited hands. I shivered, my breath fogging the limo¡¯s window, remembering the first night the man visited.


    He looked bored. Reasonable since he was going to talk money to an eleven-year-old who probably just wanted to get as many stuffies as possible. An hour later, that same man stumbled out of the room, dazed, like he had seen the sun for the first time in his life. It was hard to forget, as in I will never forget it. I won¡¯t forget it for as long as I live, and I had many years to spare at the time.


    I was only two years older than the girl next to me, a ripe thirteen-year-old boy who starred in his first movie. A movie about the book she wrote, where she watched child actor after child actor stride in, shuffle in, and strut in, until her uninterested stare landed on me. A blessing or a curse, I cannot tell you.


    They can¡¯t be serious, I had spat in my head at the sight of her when I entered the room for the audition. An eleven-year-old girl in charge of who was going to be in a multi-million dollar production? She was probably going to pick the bluest-eyed pretty face and leave the more inconsequential roles to the adults. The ones who were supposed to be in charge, thank you.


    Oh, if it was possible to hit one¡¯s past self, one¡¯s destructive and stupid past self. I would go to that foolish child right now and smack him good and proper. ¡°That¡¯s your future, you¡¯re insulting,¡± is what I would probably say, or something of the same vein, because she was. I simply could not see it yet.


    There was quite a storm of gossip when she first entered the set. Actors, cameramen, and the director all leaned their heads closer to get a good look at her and her pretty, sparkling dress. Whispers circulated like blood, clotting and flowing at will, about how a girl so young, so bubbly, so cute, could write such a heartbreaking series of short stories of abuse, loss, and death.


    The blood flowed faster and bubbled over when they speculated how that girl also contacted a publisher all by herself, sent a whole manuscript of the first story through the mail with her phone number attached, and became a millionaire while people thrice her age were rotting in the streets. The answer was easy if a brain was present¡ªadvertising.


    She picked the most renowned publisher because she knew agents could see the goldmine that she was. A little girl with the ability to write that well, tell such mature tales that could bring full-grown men to their knees? The money printed itself, hopping right into their wallets. The movie deals also walked themselves, banging on her door and begging on their knees to give their studio the rights to her beating heart.


    And that¡¯s what her book was, her still-beating heart. The blood drained from her wrist, turned to ink, and written with a sharp quill sculpted from frozen tears.


    ¡°You¡¯re thinking. It¡¯s not good to think before you walk a red carpet.¡±


    ¡°And what would you know about that?¡±


    ¡°Being full of nerves and chitters is never a good state to be in, let alone in front of thousands of people.¡± She talked like an old woman, bitter and full of spite, but equally full of knowledge. A seemingly never-ending well of comebacks and tricks.


    She should have been talking about crushes, glitter and unicorns, and cooties from the aforementioned crushes. Is eleven young enough to still be talking about the taste of glue? Because that would be more natural than whatever mature gospel left this small child on my right side. It was enough to drive anyone insane. It sure as hell drives me up a wall.


    ¡°Just nervous, is all. Aren¡¯t you?¡± My voice was too tight. Relax it, I berated myself. There has never been a day where I was not anxious around this girl, stepping around her like she was a lioness about to come for my throat.


    I correct the previous description of myself. Ripe implies being ready, and I was not at all ready. She showed me that.


    ¡°Of course, but I¡¯m going to save all that silly energy for when the driver opens our door. Rather nice limo.¡± Talk like a normal child for the love of God. No child acts like that, talks like that, even her. In theory.


    I read her short stories, every horrific word to get into character. While it was never confirmed that she used herself as inspiration for the bloody and bruised protagonists of each sad tale, the care she put into them read more like empathy than sympathy.


    I remember shuddering and dropping the thick book at the¡­ I believe it was the fourth story. A young girl hanging from a tree, the words ¡°Told ya¡± carved into both her bloody arms. A savage accusation to her guilty father and morbid encouragement for her hysterical mother. The detail that she put into describing the body, the blue and purple face, the crows gouging her eyes out overnight, the bloated weight of her straining the creaking rope. It was too much for a boy who just came to terms that he would one day die.


    None of the protagonists were much older or younger than her. ¡°Write what you know,¡± after all.


    There were three more stories after that, and I read all of them. And then I read them again, turning pages with wet fingers and quivering lips. Then again. And again. Again. At first, it was to understand the main characters¡¯ pain. Get inside their heads so I could be them, if in a more ¡®masculine way.¡¯ All the protagonists in the stories were young girls, and I was a boy. All the auditioning actors were young boys, because, well, Hollywood. But then I wanted to know more about the name on the cover.


    It felt invasive, like I was reading the diary of a dozen dead girls. Like they were people of this world. Flipping through the grotesque book with the plain cover as each child told me how they died in the most gut-wrenching ways, not a detail missed.


    I was not, and am not, a big reader, but I must have read that book twenty times before the audition, bruises under my eyes with how deep my obsession became. And I did eventually realize that the little girl in the pink, fluffy dress, the one who would decide the fate of fifty-three boys, was the same girl who wrote my fixation.


    It conflicted me, studying her from afar while pretending to read my lines, because I still did not know if she was one of my heroes or the monster under my bed. This was the being who transplanted images of young children hanging from trees in my head, and beaten by her guardians, siblings, and peers. All wanting to tear the skin from her bones like ravenous wolves. Or crows.


    ¡°Hmm, yes, very nice. I¡­¡± I coughed into my hand to hide its tremble. ¡°I¡¯ve never been in one before.¡± Do not twiddle your thumbs, you idiot!


    She caught my flinch and adrenaline-shot hands and smirked. ¡°Neither have I.¡± It was the same face she held when she saw me perform, trying to mimic the cocky smirk of a child who faced death in the comfort of their own home. A child who sold her still-beating heart.


    I slowly raised my hand towards her, mouth agape. Then I thought better and pulled back, away, and wrapped my white tuxedo jacket tighter around myself.


    That¡¯s what I was wearing, a white tux with a baby boy blue bowtie. Revolting. She wore something a bit more tasteful, a purple shirt and a torn denim jacket, with leggings and a deep green skirt. Her hair was in a braid. Fake but high-quality white flowers decorated whatever spaces they could fit but not fall out of. She even had a flower crown on, with flecks of gold and silver on the flowers, instead of being beautiful on their own. The stylist must have been good at her job, because she finished the outfit with the black army boots the girl was currently amusing herself with.


    It was the only normal thing I saw her do up until the point we went into the limo for the red carpet, something that was not a show. She stomped in puddles and jumped onto tree stumps as soon as she put them on with an evil giggle and a shimmy. The child put the boots through their paces, joking that she was ¡°just breaking them in!¡± before going right back to testing how much they could take before they gave up and split at the seams. With luck and what must have been lots of elbow grease, they now looked to be in perfect condition, leather gleaming.


    More ¡°bratty princess¡± than ¡°diamond in the rough,¡± but I guess it was a challenge making a child look like anything other than a child. My shoulders loosened a fraction of an inch before jerking back up at her voice.


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°You have a question.¡± It wasn¡¯t a question. I hated that.


    ¡°No.¡± My voice cracked.


    ¡°Yes, you do. Spit it out.¡± Hers did not.


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me what to do.¡±


    ¡°We will probably never see each other again, so might as well.¡± She had a point. If this movie had not been my big break, I would have probably spent my childhood on kids¡¯ vitamin commercials.


    Taking a deep breath, praying to whatever deity would hear me out for strength, I turned to her with my entire body, working around the seatbelt. That got her attention, because she did likewise, either unaware or uncaring that I towered over her. Bored, always bored unless in front of crowds. Then she was an angel.


    ¡°Why me?¡± I shook my head with a breathy chuckle, still unbelieving of my position. One of the most anticipated movies that year, and I was the star. ¡°Why did you choose me for the role?¡± There were a handful of named child actors there, causing some auditionees to throw their scripts to the floor and storm out in a huff of curses and choked-back sobs. I did not, though, and I held the tear-stained papers to my chest, discreetly rocking back and forth.


    Her eyes. The most demented part of her. How they hardened and softened like chocolate, but never with any of its gooey warmth. The few adults who met her more than once cowed at her expression. Floundered away from her, avoiding the unnatural sight being pulsed into them.


    The only other time I saw the same stare was the handful of times my grandfather talked about the time he served. Cold, unforgiving, and calculating a thousand things at once, a thousand memories. Not even my father had that look, and he also served¡ªalbeit for not as long¡ªand killed a man when he broke into our house. Shot him dead right in front of me, then yelled and cursed at me to go back to my room.


    ¡°You were the best for the job,¡± she answered, easy as rain falls.


    ¡°But why?¡± I begged now, placing my hand on the middle seat, trying to lean in further like she had all the answers. She acted as if she did, conducted herself with the stiff grace of a ¡®starving scholar.¡¯


    She tilted her head, studying me from head to toe. The cold part of her stare melted away, slagging off the bitter taste of dark chocolate and leaving more of the milk and sugar. ¡°We¡¯re kin.¡±


    What fucking eleven-year-old uses the word kin!


    ¡°No, we¡¯re not.¡± My eyebrows furrowed, and I leaned back. Our annual family reunions were big, too big, with every first cousin, second cousin, and fifth cousin twice removed. Godparents, family friends, etc., etc. She would be to at least one of those, and I would have had no choice but to be dragged over and introduced.


    ¡°You misunderstand.¡± She shook her head like I was a toddler who didn¡¯t get that the cylinder goes in the circle hole. ¡°We aren¡¯t blood-related, but¡­¡± She reached her hand out, meeting me halfway in the middle seat.


    ¡°You¡¯re like me.¡± She smiled and laughed a little when I tilted my head.


    My eyes widened when her meaning clicked, and I ripped my hand away. I closed the damaged appendage with the good one, rocking a bit. Forward-back-forward-back, trying to mimic a mother¡¯s gentle waves. It had no effect, though, because I was never conditioned to associate soft rocks with comfort. I twisted away, staring at nothing through the tinted window, the flashes of cameras looking like shooting stars. The air conditioning seemed to blow stronger, flittering through my jacket and right into my skin, into my bones.


    On Christmas day, cousins challenged one another to see who had the muscle to crack open the most walnuts, and I always lost. At first, it was because I was too young, muscles loose and flimsy like noodles, inside chubby arms. But then it was because I never had the energy. Then it was because my fingers were more bruised and bloodied than not. My pained squeals annoyed the Aunts, and so they tossed me with the smallest of us, a toy for their entertainment. It was how I got into acting, because small children are never evil, and their laughs rang like bells when my voices and faces made them shriek.


    She took the rejection well, brushing my unsaid insults to the side, and looked out her own window. She studied her reflection, flicked her hair just so, and pinched her cheeks more.


    ¡°They don¡¯t want us.¡± She paused and, when she saw she had my attention, went on. ¡°They don¡¯t want abused, but resilient. They don¡¯t want the talented, but at what cost? They don¡¯t even want the broken, but repaired.¡± She took a shuddering breath, the first sign of unease I had seen in her, and drove her point home.


    ¡°They want to see abused children walk it off like nothing happened, because ¡®that¡¯s what children do.¡¯ They endure horrific things and walk it off because ¡®they¡¯re children.¡¯ So strong, yet so weak. So smart, yet so stupid. They don¡¯t want to think about what we remember. What we remember them doing to us, and what they ignored. They want liars.¡± She spat the last sentence out.


    The girl sighed with the weight of a thousand stories. ¡°And we¡¯re going to give them what they want. We¡¯re going to give them liars. We¡¯re going to watch this mockery of a movie we made, and we¡¯re going to steal the reward and do what people like us do. Survive. Then,¡± her grin was full of crooked teeth, a black hole in the smile where one fell out. ¡°We¡¯re going to do a lot more than that.¡±


    A mockery was right. The movie I starred in, the movie from the book she wrote, had a happy ending for all the girls. They all escaped their situations because of luck or the kindness of strangers. None of her stories had something as mundane as a happily ever after. The most one could get was the hope that the father, brother, sister, or bully got their just desserts after the last page. It¡¯s what made them so popular. Each ending felt like an accusation and an apology.


    But she knew what the director and co-directors and their lawyers were going to do with it when she placed her signature on the endless contract, to the delight of their beady eyes and wet, stretched mouths. She had to¡¯ve, and I still cannot answer why. She never tells me anything.


    She showed me the palm of her hand, straining for me. Stretching close, closer, too close.


    ¡°Lie with me.¡±


    Thrilled screams bursted through the window, too loud to not be allowed entrance. She jolted while I almost hit my head on the roof, and she chortled behind her hand. It sounded like a bell¡¯s.


    ¡°Showtime.¡± She grinned and drew her hand away, dusting off invisible lint before undoing the seatbelt with practiced ease. She was excited. I was about to hyperventilate.


    The driver opened her door first, and she leaped out with a squeak¡ªa blasted squeak! She landed in front of dozens of cameras and hundreds of flabby, gaping mouths.


    It was a wonder why she did not just play her own characters, because she was a fabulous little actress. The girl giggled, rubbing her arm up and down with a nervous smile. She gave small, little waves to the crowd, and then skipped ahead across the red carpet, velvet ropes the only thing between her and the horde. That, and the muscular, properly dressed guards. All to the world a happy, perfectly sane child.


    A sane, happy child, who did not have a broken soul stitched together with old glue sticks and stained ribbons. Who did not have the intelligence to save herself and her mother, getting her maternal grandmother to open an account to put all the money from her book into, where her father could never hope to touch it. Buying a house in the same grandmother¡¯s name and spending a ridiculous amount of money to make sure that only she would stay with her mother and not her two other siblings. He could keep those two. Just like he could rot in hell.


    So I listened in on the discussions with her financial planner. Whatever, she hasn¡¯t sued me yet.


    A pause in her step, then she looked back and, with another squeak, ran to me with her arms in front of her, grasping my hand. She tugged at it, and her eyes¡­


    Lie with me.


    Time slowed down, lights going at a snail¡¯s pace, little orbs of yellow and white all around. It gave me time to watch all the flabby mouths stretch and spit, cameras click-click-clicking with the force of their owners¡¯ thumbs or pointer fingers.


    Anger is quick to boil, bubbling into the lungs and heart in an instant, as fast as it takes to snap your fingers. It leaves just as fast, steam coming off in puffs of clouds until all that is left is a cool head.


    Hate is different. Hate seeds into the heart, roots making home in the thin tissue, and robs the body of nutrients. Grows until its vines and branches spread throughout the body. It stabs into the lungs, and spleen, and stomach, spilling their contents. Wraps around vocal chords, blood vessels, the brain stem, and each bump in the spinal cord. Then it squeezes, and it spurts from the mouth and eyes like a water fountain, thousands of red droplets required to foster the wiggling, squealing parasite. I wished I could wrap my vines around everyone and¡­ squeeze. Infect them all.


    They were buying her act. Not because she was just so good, but because they wanted to. They wanted to eat up the lie that she was a normal girl, promising to one day marry the lead singer of a boy band. Paint her nails with glittery nail polish, and add cheap, one-dollar stickers to them.


    We were going to a movie, a movie I starred in, about the book she wrote. A book where children hang from trees. A book where fathers beat their children, who then beat each other. She wrote one of her characters hiding a kitchen knife under their pillow, sure that the evil big brother would choke her to death in her sleep. Her life was right there, black ink contrasted with white paper, impossible to miss, and they still bought into her lies. Her smiles and giggles, behind her a red flag so big it covered the pale moon.


    They ignored her jumps and shaking hands when someone shouted. Her twitchy eyelids. Her cool looks and sharp temper. The bruises under her eyes from no sleep, but plenty of screams. The wicked intelligence that came from broken minds. Minds like knives, only growing sharper the rougher the surface.


    I hated them. I hated them all. I hated their cameras and their stretched mouths and aunts and uncles and fathers and mothers. Damn them all to hell, but please be so courteous as to save me a seat. I felt revulsion and fury so strong, my hands shook. My breath came out in pants. Blood flowed from my brain and fed the parasite squirming and shrieking in my heart. My eyelid twitched and red creeped into my vision. Loathing like venom, and it pooled into my mouth with a bitter sting to the tongue. Awakening.


    She tugged again.


    The shake of her head was subtle. The only indicator it happened was the tremble of her faux flowers. Not here. In the privacy of my room, where I could scream to my heart¡¯s content and punch a pillow until the rough fabric of it scratched my knuckles raw. Or with her, crying about how unfair and messed up it all was, a song she knew by heart. Until then, smile, laugh.


    Lie with me.


    I beamed at her and laughed, shaking my head at her childish behavior. In a moment of pure brilliance, if I might be so bold, I pulled out a sparkly flower in her crown and threaded it in the buttonhole of my jacket.


    The crowd choked on it. They awed and flashed their cameras with double the urgency. She played right along, giving me a squeeze around my middle, and then wrapped her arm around mine. They did not notice my lapse into murder. We walked like young love and waltzed right into the theater.


    The theater was freezing and, when we took our seats, I lifted the arm of mine up and let her cuddle up to me. The lights went off after ten minutes of boring ads and a reminder to not say anything until the official theater release. Or we¡¯d be sorry. Ooo.


    Lie with me.


    The cold was not why I secured the girl under my arm further, leaning my weight onto her like she did me. I whispered into her hair, avoiding the silver and gold crown, ¡°You are either going to be this world¡¯s savior or its destruction.¡±


    ¡°Why not both?¡±

 The Right Choice

    This ball is a farce, and my tailbone hurts. At least the property is stunning, everything dripping with gold leaf, wine purple, and velvety red. Not to mention enough marble to set a sculptor up for life. The mansion my friend invited me to is huge to the point of obscene, as no one needs a house so large that it can fit half the city¡¯s population with little fuss. I wonder as I fiddle with a silk napkin what it¡¯s like to have money to burn.


    People around me are just as bored and twice as expectant. With bated breath, they wait for the main event to arrive. The buzz of the crowd brushes my skin, raising the hair on my arm and at the back of my neck.


    Older people had migrated to their usual company, the luster of the party a pretty-face they¡¯re conditioned to. The younger folk, though, are skipping and strutting around tables and pockets of people. Especially the new-money, dressed to impress. They remind me of deer, thin-legged and hard-headed, with energy in reserves. Beautiful¡ªand ten seconds away from jumping off a bridge in fright.


    ¡°You¡¯re too young to be looking at the newbies like that,¡± a chipper voice says next to me.


    ¡°And you¡¯re too old to be listening in on my thoughts.¡±


    Nick scoffs, swirling the toothpick in his drink, the olive long gone. ¡°If I could read your mind, we wouldn¡¯t¡¯ve gotten into half of the bullshit you dragged me into.¡±


    ¡°Like a ball where a princess presents her fianc¨¦? Like that¡¯s my scene?¡± Leaning back in my chair, I interlace my fingers and rest my hands on my middle. ¡°I¡¯m starving, by the way. What¡¯s with you rich people and your allergies to food?¡±


    ¡°Ha-ha,¡± he drawled. ¡°Don¡¯t quit your day job.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d never quit bothering you, buddy. It¡¯s too fun.¡±


    Nick pushes up his horn-rimmed glasses¡­ with his middle finger.


    ¡°Love you too.¡±


    He stabs his toothpick at me, then swirls it in the air. ¡°I¡¯m doing you a favor, dumbass. What better place to get a sugar mama than a palace full of cougars?¡±


    ¡°I do not need a sugar mama,¡± I hiss at him, and the meddlesome man flinches back. ¡°I need these people,¡± I wave a hand at the flock of white hair, clothes worth more than a year¡¯s rent. ¡°To hire me already.¡±


    Nick quirks the side of his mouth, and a dimple reveals itself. ¡°Rich people love investing into their toys¡¯ projects. They consider it charity.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m no one¡¯s toy,¡± I growl with a snarl. He raises his hands in defeat and blissfully doesn¡¯t push it. ¡°How¡¯d you convince me to come here, anyway? I stick out like a sore thumb.¡± I pluck at a loose thread on my red suit, the fabric obviously cheap. I feel like a chicken in a flock of peacocks.


    ¡°My charming good looks and alluring personality?¡±


    I side-eye him. ¡°That¡¯s definitely a way to describe you.¡±


    ¡°C¡¯mon,¡± my friend moans. ¡°This is the perfect opportunity to network. There are people who would kill to be in your shoes right now. And I¡¯m not even exaggerating that much. I don¡¯t get why you¡¯re not excited.¡±


    ¡°Because, unlike those people, I still have my dignity.¡± I rest my head on the chair¡¯s back and watch a hundred identical gold watches skitter past. I hear the faint ticking of the one closest to me, and the older man attached to it catches my stare. He sneers and shoves a hand into his pocket, hiding the watch, the implication crystal clear. I bare a canine at him and he scampers off with his fellow gold watches.


    My friend smiles and waves his hands at me. ¡°See? You fit right in. Pompous jackass is so in right now.¡±


    ¡°How about annoying sidekick?¡± He presses a hand to his chest in feigned offense, adding a gasp for good measure. Warm humor trickles at the back of my throat like champagne, and I let it.


    Speaking of alcohol, I wave down a server and replace my flute with a full one, enjoying the taste of sweet strawberries and tickling bubbles. ¡°I will say, I¡¯d come back to this fancy hellhole just for this.¡± I lift the glass for emphasis.


    He snags the fragile stem of his half-full one and clinks his against mine. ¡°Amen to that, sister.¡± Nick sucks down the other half of his drink, cheeks puffing up as he swishes the alcohol around. I grimace and sip on mine.


    Swallowing down a cheek¡¯s worth of gin, he speaks around the other full cheek. By the grace of the gods, he doesn¡¯t spit out any of it. ¡°Hey, maybe you¡¯ll finally find a girlfriend.¡±


    With a roll of my eyes, I sigh. ¡°For the last time, I do not need a girlfriend. I¡¯m fine.¡±


    ¡°Fuck yeah you are, hence why you being single is an anomaly.¡± He winks at me and gulps down his full cheek. That would make it his fifth martini. I close one eye and peer into my flute, wondering what¡¯s the alcohol content of this stuff.


    ¡°Where would I have time for a partner?¡± I put an elbow on the table and rest my chin on the palm of my hand. ¡°The only thing I can have with anybody right now is friends-with-benefits. If I wanted that, I¡¯d call you.¡±


    Nick wiggles his eyebrows.


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Eesh.¡± He puts the back of his hand on his forehead, closing his eyes with a dramatic sigh. ¡°At least let a man have his dreams.¡±


    I purr, ¡°I live to crush your dreams.¡±


    He opens his eyes and frowns at me. ¡°Why am I friends with you again?¡±


    ¡°My dazzling personality.¡±


    My tablemate snaps his fingers. ¡°Oh, yeah, that¡¯s right. Never a dull day with you, mi azuca.¡±


    ¡°¡®My sugar¡¯?¡± I translate with a snort. ¡°At least try to be original.¡±


    ¡°Hey, my Spanish is ¡®caca.¡¯ Go easy on me. Pretend I¡¯m some five-foot-three red head.¡± He flutters his eyelashes, then purses his lips and makes loathsome kissing noises.


    ¡°Your head¡¯s gonna be red if you keep on talking. I hear blood makes a great hair dye,¡± I rub the side of my head. ¡°Please tell me you didn¡¯t drag me to this gilded shitshow so I could get laid.¡±


    ¡°Nooo. I dragged you into this gilded shitshow so you can get paid and get laid.¡± His eyes sparkle as he thrusts his chest out, proud of his little rhyme.


    ¡°I despise you.¡±


    ¡°I worship you,¡± Nick retorts, and I can¡¯t tell if he¡¯s joking. ¡°I didn¡¯t leave you when you kissed that girl at the homecoming party¡ª¡±


    ¡°Ah, freshman year of high school.¡± I shake my head. ¡°Worst possible time to tell the whole damn world you¡¯re limp-wristed.¡±


    ¡°¡ªI¡¯m not ditching you now. C¡¯mon,¡± He makes a wild gesture with his hands. ¡°What¡¯s the worst that can happen? A pretty rich lady tells you no and talks shit to her friends? You don¡¯t care about these guys¡¯ opinions, anyway. Who knows? You might find someone who wants to cover you in silver wrapping paper and ship you to their vacation home in Crysti.¡±


    I glare and stab a thumb towards the glittering crowd. Another man covered in a ridiculous amount of rings, necklaces, and not one, but two watches, walks by. ¡°The only time these richies give a shit about people like me is when they need a tax write-off.¡±


    ¡°In case you forgot, sis,¡± he points a finger at himself. ¡°I¡¯m one of those richies.¡± He tries to flag down another server, only to be ignored in favor of an old widow.


    My stomach chooses that moment to grumble, and I swear I can feel my blood sugar dropping by the second. I tug on a sleeve then rub my eyes, the black gloves oddly soothing. ¡°No, you¡¯re worse. You¡¯re daddy¡¯s money and too stupid to do anything with it.¡±


    Nick scoffs. He tries to sip out of his glass, scrunching his face when he realizes it¡¯s bone dry. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m so stupid that I brought you to this instead of, I don¡¯t know, a model.¡±


    ¡°Pfft! Ha! What model would tolerate your annoying ass?¡±


    My friend uses his empty glass like how a king his scepter and aims it at me. The lonely toothpick clinks against the rim. ¡°A smart businesswoman model who doesn¡¯t bitch about the opportunities I drop into her lap?¡± He raises a brow, lips pursed, and spins the delicate glass neck of his martini between his fingers. The toothpick now bounces and twirls with the speed and grace of a ballerina as he jostles it around.


    ¡°Touch¨¦,¡± I relent. Yet another man, younger this time, runs past us and I blink at his ridiculous outfit. Like every other man who¡¯s run past, he¡¯s dripping with gold and precious stones. He¡¯s wearing a suit of vibrant purple, and it looks positively cartoonish with his¡­ are those snake skin boots? Good gods, they are.


    ¡°Hey,¡± I spin a finger in the air, stare dancing around the domineering crowd. The relentless noise and sheer heat emanating from the groups of bodies fills my lungs like molasses. I swallow around the sticky lump in my throat and say, ¡°Don¡¯t you feel¡­ underdressed?¡± Nick almost always wears vibrant, goofy patterns. Somehow, they suit him, even though he stands out like a scarab beetle in a jar of rollie-pollies. Now, though, he borderline fits in with how ridiculous everyone else looks. Unlike him, though, their gold-plated clown suits do not become them. Not at all.


    His brows climb higher and I swallow down a comment about how his face is going to stay that way if he keeps it up. ¡°Since when do you care about dressing up? It took me twenty minutes just to get you to put on the gloves I gave you. You would¡¯ve come here in tennis shoes and a T-shirt if you had it your way.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not talking about that.¡± I spin my finger faster this time. ¡°Look around. These guys look ridiculous. And I mean more so than usual.¡±


    Putting down his empty glass, Nick sighs and takes in the room. He blinks. He sees what I see. ¡°You¡¯re right.¡± My friend puts an arm over the back of his chair and strains to look behind him at another group who are peacocking to the servers paid to smile at them. ¡°That¡¯s weird. Father said this wasn¡¯t going to be that big a deal.¡± I give him a look. ¡°Bigger than usual. Royals get married all the time, what with all the cousins and whatnot. Everyone here looks like they dunked themselves in glitter and rhinestones.¡±


    He grins, his eyes wistful. ¡°Hehe, remember that group project we did in art class? With Miss Nickelson?¡±


    I smirk, then puff my cheeks to hold in a laugh. A poster board smothered in gold and silver glitter. Pipe cleaners twisted into eldritch-looking reindeer with plastic pink gemstones for eyes. ¡°Last time I ever let you lead a group project.¡±


    He sticks out his tongue. ¡°That¡¯s because you ¡®have a tendency to see your fellow classmates as inconveniences instead of help.¡¯¡± Nick turns up his nose and talks in a fake snooty voice. He picks his glass back up and swirls it around like it¡¯s a wine glass and he the all-knowing patriarch.


    ¡°You are not quoting Principal Leon at me right now.¡± I lean over and whisper, ¡°he got arrested for embezzlement the year after we graduated.¡±


    ¡°I like to call it ¡®The opportunistic investment of one¡¯s self.¡¯¡±


    ¡°I worry about you sometimes.¡±


    ¡°Sometimes? I need to step up my game.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m going to hurt you, Nick.¡±


    ¡°Harder, mommy.¡± I swing at him from across the table and nearly knock over an innocent candle. He jerks his chair back before my fist lands, though, cackling. Another group of young men stampede past our table. They race towards the staircase, likely trying to catch a glimpse of the Princess and her fianc¨¦ before everyone else. All of them, young and old, have the desperate air of bachelors as they leave whimpering mothers and sisters behind. A perfect opportunity for a businesswoman to strut in and pitch a few ideas to them.


    I smile at my friend, and the corners of my eyes crinkle. As much as I hate to admit it, there are people who would kill to be in my place. Lucky is not strong enough a word for this stroke of good fortune. ¡°Thanks for this, man. I know you¡¯re trying.¡±


    A server sweeps in at that moment and hands him a full glass of champagne, which he accepts with a sly grin. My friend raises the flute to his lips and grins at me with a nod. ¡°Anything for my favorite person.¡± He heaves a dramatic sigh deep from the belly. If only he learned how to use his breath like that when he was in choir. ¡°Such a shame I¡¯m not your type.¡±


    ¡°Keep dreaming, pendejo.¡±


    Nick winks at me. ¡°Don¡¯t tempt me, puta.¡±


    We fall into our banter with ease, ignoring the hordes of men running past every few minutes like clockwork. My friend is in the middle of reminding me of an embarrassing incident involving a calculator and a vibrator, and I am howling so much that I almost miss the blare of horns.


    An older lady, her neck studded with rose gold and black opals, shushes us with a shake of her head. Nick and I stare at each other, then at the grand staircase, perfectly in sync. It isn¡¯t every day one sees royalty, after all. Not one who isn¡¯t behind a TV screen.


    ¡°Ladies and gentlemen,¡± the announcer calls through the speakers after the horns have their fun. ¡°I present to you, for your viewing pleasure, our soon-to-be bride¡­ Princess Sierra of The Golden Isles!¡± Uproarious applause meets the statement, yet it goes in one ear and out the other. I¡¯m still picking my jaw off the floor.


    ¡°¡®for your viewing pleasure¡¯?¡± I mutter to my friend, eyes wide. ¡°What the fuck, dude?¡±


    He jerks his hands up, his face matching mine. ¡°Don¡¯t look at me. My father said this was just going to be an introduction, not a¡­ an¡­ um.¡±


    ¡°Auction,¡± I hiss. The men standing in front of the dais are all but drooling as they wait for her. They pack themselves at the base of the stairs like sardines, and I doubt all those sweaty bodies smell much better. I don¡¯t understand how they can stand it. My stomach rolls at the thought of being in there, crowded from all sides by heat and wet and loud.


    Men are rarely the shining stars at affairs like this. It is the women who don far more precious metals and gems to show how ¡®well¡¯ their wealth nourishes them. This time, though, it is the patriarchs and future patriarchs who show off the family riches. An eager attempt to show they can gift a princess with the princess-treatment.


    It clicks why everyone is so dressed up. All the alpaca wool suits and silk ties, thick blood diamonds and pure-gold wrist watches. The men are birds of paradise, shaking their lustrous, freshly preened feathers at the other males. Baboons, pounding their weak fists against padded chests, vying to prove who has the biggest, reddest ass.


    The King and Queen, along with any other sponsor, have invested a treasury¡¯s worth of money into this. In response, the contestants met them coin for coin in jewelry, colognes, and clothes. After all, no sacred jewel or alpaca wool scarf could compare to the prize that is a princess attached to their arm, bound with a circlet of gold around her finger. A living trophy.


    A chorus of Ooos and Ahs sing as the Princess steps from behind a pillar and reveals herself to the world. Even from here, I can tell her face is flushed, no doubt from the announcer presenting her as a ¡®viewing pleasure.¡¯ My friend and I gape.


    Nick eyes me. ¡°Lookie there, a five-foot-three red head.¡±


    I mumble, dazed, ¡°More like five-foot-six.¡±


    ¡°Still shorter than you.¡± My head nods before I can think better of it.


    The Princess truly is beautiful. Stunning. Thousands of shimmery scales shape her strapless dress, the low neckline mere inches from being scandalous. Long, golden gloves cover the entirety of her arms, and the nimble fingers hold a variety of rings. Her ring finger is pointedly empty.


    She holds her hands in front of her, a soft smile on her face as the rings catch the chandelier¡¯s hundred lights. Her hair is a complicated mess of braids, held up with gold pins crowned with what I swear are real pearls. A blood-red curl falls from her hairdo and tickles her nose. The Princess¡¯s face scrunches a bit and my heart aches.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    They turned her into a work of art. A thousand fragile pieces forged with fire and emeralds, sewn together with a meticulous hand. And the crowd beneath her is too busy barking and howling at her to appreciate the work. The Princess cowers from her place on top of the stairs. Guilt curls in my stomach from my staring and I tear my eyes away.


    My friend points a finger into his mouth, pretending to gag. His eyes, though, are sad as they check on the Princess being hounded by the bachelors. I pick up a polished spoon and stare into my own eyes, finding the same sorrow. Angling the spoon, the glossy metal reflects Princess Sierra. Her arms are wrapped around her middle, and fear twists her face into something truly heartbreaking.


    ¡°She¡¯s scared,¡± I say, and place the spoon back down.


    Nick leans forward, placing his forearms on the table. The corners of his mouth turn down as he picks at his cuticles. ¡°Princesses aren¡¯t supposed to be scared,¡± he whispers. No. They¡¯re not.


    He yelps when I stand up, the chair scraping along the pretty tile. The chair¡¯s legs gouge scratches into the swirling marble. Shame. ¡°What are you doing?¡± Nick asks, catching my flute when it teeters.


    ¡°What¡¯s it look like? I¡¯m helping her.¡±


    ¡°How the hell are you¡ª¡± The carnal hollers of a hundred men drown out the rest of his sentence as I march toward them. I blink and I am suddenly standing at the edge of the crowd. Gold, black, and silver shift in a dizzying display, like a herd of prissy, ravenous zebras. Bile rises to the back of my throat and it burns.


    I should not want her. The Princess is everything I despise in the world, inlaid with enough money to feed the forgotten children of The Golden Isles for a year. A living statue of superiority. She has the air of innocence, despite appearing as old as me, encased in the bubble wrap of private tutors and planned meals. If we were to meet at a party or at a bar, I¡¯d eat her alive.


    Yet there is a softness in her eyes. An echo of a feeling I knew all too well once upon a time, surrounded by inherent expectations. Kindness turned to heartlessness when those expectations were not met. Finding out that unconditional love did, in fact, have conditions. Before my heart gave way to the cruelty of that callous repetition and I smothered the fear and pain. Replaced it with cold fury. Wielded it like a knife.


    The beasts stand in wait. They growl and hope they can drop the pretense and simply snag their prize before a contender does the same. As my feet carry me towards where the stairs are, I look for any guards. I¡¯m no royal, but this seems to be the absurd and crass behavior these richies pretend to be above, let alone subject a sheltered princess to. There should be guards dragging these fools by the scruff of their neck like naughty schoolboys. Thrash them around until they limp back to their mothers, lesson learned.


    Instead, the well-dressed guards stand back, arms crossed, uncaring. Four stand at the doors the Princess entered through. The message is loud and clear: the Princess can either run to the greedy arms of the best mate, or be torn apart by the crowd until one of them wins. They will allow no scenario where she runs to the safety of her rooms. Her parents. Her home.


    Fuck that noise.


    Swallowing down the bile like the nastiest cough syrup, I throw my body into the swarm. A well-placed fist here and a foot there clears the way, as the only metal these people have is the metal on their wrists and lapels. In five minutes, I fight my way to the front of the crowd. My hand latches onto the staircase¡¯s railing, and I pull myself the rest of the way. A young man, more of a boy than anything, squeaks out of my way, eyes as big as the twin moons outside. ¡°Get lost,¡± I hiss at him, and he obeys without hesitation.


    He trips over the leg of an older man and, like dominoes, half the swarm falls to the ground in a heap of arms and legs, gold and silver. I press the knuckles of a clenched fist to my mouth to stifle a laugh, but someone doesn¡¯t. I jerk my head up.


    There she is, a hand over her mouth as she giggles at me and the mess I made. Her bubbling laugh is a ringing contrast to the chaos of indignified bodies below her. I grin stupidly and shrug a shoulder.


    ¡°Cute laugh.¡± And that¡¯s the first thing I say to a royal. Holy hell. Abort mission. Abort.


    The Princess laughs again and bites a painted bottom lip. Her makeup suits her, letting the sharpness of her cheeks and her plump bottom lip shine. Her emerald eyeshadow highlights her light brown eyes. Gold eyeliner and a soft blush frame it all. All of her.


    I¡¯m staring. I know I¡¯m staring, but I can¡¯t tear my eyes away from her own, which shine honey in the bright lights. To prevent further humiliation, I say nothing else. My legs carry me the rest of the way up the stretching staircase. I pause a few steps below her and offer my arm with a raised eyebrow.


    She takes a hesitant step down, then stops. We both hear it. Silence. As deep as the green of her dress. The Princess looks up and all the blood drains from her face at whatever greets her. I refuse to turn, though. The prickle of a thousand eyes undressing me, skinning me, is enough.


    I don¡¯t care what a thousand strangers think of this. If they want to play their games, fine. They can gawk and squawk till the cows come home when their ¡®fun¡¯ bites them in the ass. Don¡¯t hate the player, hate the game.


    My hand reaches out to her, and I tap the tip of her gloved finger with my own. ¡°Princess.¡± She sucks in a gasp as she jerks her stare back at me, a deer in the headlights. ¡°It¡¯s okay,¡± I whisper. My pointer finger wraps around hers, and her warmth seeps through the fabric of my glove. Like lava, it crawls and flows through the cracks in my skin. Uses my veins as highways. The heat melts some of the ice encasing my bones, my heart. Not every speck of crystallized water, no, but enough. Enough that breathing felt¡­ easier.


    I breathe in a lungful of air and taste the sweet, minty fragrance of her perfume. ¡°It¡¯s okay,¡± I repeat, head foggy. The thought of sirens enters my mind, and I wonder if this is how sailors disappeared. Not diving into the waves for the siren¡¯s song, but the promise of her eyes, the color of whiskey on a winter¡¯s night, and scales the shade of seaweed. After all, if she was beautiful, the gods must have crafted her for them. Entitled to her beauty, they dove right into the sea, only to drown from their own hubris.


    ¡°I-I¡­¡± She covers her mouth with a hand, eyes falling back to the silent crowd. ¡°I can¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°You can,¡± I assure her. My hand stays where it is. An offer, not a command. She can rip her hand away from mine if she so chooses. I hope she doesn¡¯t, though. One dog barks at her, demanding she let go of ¡®that bitch¡¯ and come to one of them. How audacious one has to be to command a princess, I have no idea. Frankly, I don¡¯t want to find out.


    The Princess¡¯s eyes dart to the man who yelled at her. The pointed tips of her gloved fingers dig into the soft skin of her cheek. Honeyed eyes dissect her surroundings. Hundreds of judgments and demands whisper at her, and they order the royal back to her cage. A prison cell made of bricks of silver and palladium, where chains drip from her neck in rose gold links. Meals prepared with the purpose of keeping her ¡®perfect¡¯ for as long as possible. A king sized bed, wrapped in sanitized silk sheets.


    I can see the hate in her eyes, and it burns like ice. Burns with the desire to fan that hate into an inferno and melt the precious metals down to molten slag. And I thought she was gorgeous before.


    The Princess¡¯s fingers interlace with mine, then her hand slips from my hold and brushes against my wrist. Her fingertips trace a pattern on hidden veins, as light as a feather. She rubs the cheap crimson fabric of my suit between her fingers, and I cringe, a blush staining my cheeks.


    For fuck¡¯s sake, it sounds cheap. The polyester of my suit insults the expensive silk of her gloves. It crinkles like a candy wrapper¡ªor maybe that¡¯s only in my panicked mind.


    I flashback to Nick offering to have a suit tailor-made, fitted perfectly to my body type and with a far better fabric. It could even be in red, he said. It wouldn¡¯t be alpaca wool, but it¡¯d be better than the plastic I smother my sensitive skin in. I told him to piss off, and that I didn¡¯t need him to dress me up like a doll, pride stinging. Gods, I¡¯m an idiot.


    A soft smile blooms onto her features, and it soon opens into a toothy grin. Her smile reveals two adorable dimples and a crooked front tooth. Another layer of frost thaws off my heart. My chest puffs out as her hand rests on the crook of my arm. More of her heat seeps into the rime lining my veins. I bow my head and say, ¡°My lady.¡± I have no idea what to say to royalty, but that sounds right. Right?


    She giggles and places her other hand over the one resting on my arm. ¡°My lady,¡± she whispers back to me with a huffed laugh. We walk down the staircase, and it widens as we descend. I resist the urge to scoot to one side of the steps and grab a railing. We are walking right down the middle and the image of slipping and taking her with me repeats on a loop in my head. Princess Sierra floats down while my steps clop, the hard sole of my boots not a help.


    ¡°Princess Sierra, is it?¡± I say under my breath. The last thing I have cared about was the royal family and all its dramatic dullness. Prince What¡¯s-His-Name got all of my peers¡¯ attention, way back in school. All the girls would gossip about how they wrote letters to him. Tagged him on their socials, dying to catch the heir¡¯s eye and become a princess, like in their childhood books.


    I thought they were silly. Not for falling in love with a pretty face and a sweet smile, though. But for deluding themselves into believing that someone so high up would ever ¡®lower¡¯ himself to a commoner. That was the real fantasy in all those old stories.


    The Princess nods, and her Adam¡¯s apple bobs with a nervous swallow. I cover her hands with mine and rub my thumb across her knuckles. ¡°It¡¯s easier after the first time.¡±


    ¡°First time doing what?¡±


    ¡°Walking with a woman, arm-in-arm.¡±


    She narrows her eyes. ¡°Women do that all the time.¡±


    I squeeze her hands. ¡°Not like this.¡± The Princess¡¯s lips firm an ¡®O¡¯ shape. She nods as her eyes water. Her tears sparkle like diamonds, beautiful and rare, yet I¡¯ve never hated diamonds more than at this moment. Never have the precious stones looked so hideous and wrong as they do clinging to her eyelashes.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay.¡± I clutch her hands tighter. One of her rings presses the imprint of its stone into my palm.


    She shakes her head. Her eyelashes flutter as she blinks away the visible signs of her pain. ¡°No, it is not.¡± The Princess rests her head on my shoulder. ¡°And it will never be okay again.¡±


    I can¡¯t help a grin, morbidly nostalgic. ¡°Ya know,¡± I brush a stray lock of her cherry hair away from her eyes and behind her ear. ¡°I told myself just that when I came out. Did it in the worst possible way too: kissed a girl in front of everyone at a party. Thought the ¡®good vibes¡¯ would, I don¡¯t know, sweeten the news a bit.¡±


    ¡°I am assuming it did not go well.¡±


    ¡°Pah!¡­ No.¡±


    We finally step off the staircase, and it¡¯s like the world around us fades away. The horde stumbles away from us, and a thousand voices whizz and buzz around like a swarm of mosquitoes.


    We pay no attention to them. I¡¯m far too focused on her. She¡¯s far too focused on me.


    My neck tickles with her breath when she asks, ¡°What happened?¡±


    Nick jumps up from his seat like it¡¯s on fire, and he stabs his pointer fingers toward stained glass double-doors nearby. Outside the glass panes, snow carpets the grounds. The entire scene is a white canvas with bold black shadows in the shape of dormant flora. Not a soul seems to be out.


    I gently tug at the Princess¡¯s glove and jerk my head to the doors. She gets the hint and we head for our escape. A young man¡ªI think he¡¯s the same one from before too. Hard to forget that ¡®salmon¡¯ tie with silver stars¡ªsqueaks as he jumps off our path. She repeats her question, not noticing my friend as we pass him and his still gobsmacked expression.


    I clear my throat. My hand leaves hers and picks at imaginary lint on my jacket. ¡°The same depressing story, I¡¯m afraid. Friends turned out to be backstabbing jerks. Parents disowned me, and I had to move out as soon as I was eighteen. If we had the money for a conversion camp, woof. Last time I spoke to my mother was when my father died. Heart attack. She told me not to bother coming to the funeral.¡±


    She stares at me with wide, sorrowful eyes. ¡°I am so sorry.¡±


    I wave her sympathies off with a, ¡°Nah, don¡¯t be. My love for them had died far before my father did. Turns out, though, I wasn¡¯t the only gay kid in that hellhole. A couple of old dudes saw me getting kicked out of a restaurant and offered me a place to stay.¡±


    The memory warms me up and my lips quirk into a half-smile. ¡°Their names were Steve and Bob, if you can believe it. Both of them were too young to drop dead, but too old to work or clean the hard spots. I got to live off their retirement funds if I helped around the house, in the garden, and got a job of my own at some point.¡± I huff. ¡°To say I was lucky would be a drastic understatement.¡±


    ¡°Where are they now?¡±


    ¡°Gone.¡± The word tastes bitter as I open one of the double doors and let the Princess walk past me. No one follows as I walk behind her after ensuring I shut the doors tight. The clean, cold air slows down my heart rate and cools my heated skin. I have half a mind to slide something through the doorknobs, but I don¡¯t want to give the guards reason to shatter the glass and then shatter my spine. I¡¯m afraid I have a horrible allergy to broken vertebrae.


    Princess Sierra¡¯s outfit was not made with snow in mind, and mine isn¡¯t much better with the poor material. Despite that, she appears at home in the frigid air as snowflakes form a fragile tiara on the top of her head. Wish I can say the same, almost falling on my ass on a slick patch of ice. She cackles as she leans her forearms against an icy rail.


    Scraping whatever I have left of my pride, I adjust my jacket, smooth my hair back into its place, and stride to her. I mimic her pose, placing my forearms on the railing and leaning my weight on them. My chin rests in a hand as the snowflakes race each other to the ground, last one there a dirty raindrop.


    ¡°Bob and Steve,¡± I say, and pause to see if I still have her attention. ¡°Left me in their will. Took maybe a year before I had to sell the house ¡®cause no one wants to hire a gay writer beyond a ¡®Poor me. We live in a society¡¯ piece that gets paid quarter-coins. We¡¯re a wonderful sad story, didn¡¯t ya hear?¡±


    The Princess chuckles, the sound a little sad and a little sardonic. She purses her lips and turns to me. She asks, ¡°How did you¡­ How did you know I was¡­ I am¡ª¡±


    ¡°Gaydar.¡± I say, eyes playful. The Princess snorts and attempts to hide it behind a cough. She fails miserably, and she doesn¡¯t even know how cute that is. Tragic. ¡°But in seriousness, I recognized that look you had in your eyes. Seen it a thousand times. Had it myself.¡± I fill my lungs with the chilled night air, enjoying the cloud of mist which forms on the exhale. ¡°Let me guess: your parents caught you with the maid and you could either get married to a jackass stat, or be disowned?¡±


    She scoffs and places her hand on my arm. Her nails slightly poke into the fabric. Suddenly, I¡¯m not that cold anymore. ¡°Close enough. I suppose this is me choosing disownment.¡± Her breath mists with every word, and more snowflakes add to her tiara.


    ¡°Can you disown a princess?¡± I ask. ¡°You royals have a hundred rules on how to sit with a perfectly good as¡ªEr, rear. Surely there¡¯s gotta be something about chucking heirs and ¡®just in case¡¯ heirs to the street.¡±


    ¡°For a prince? Yes. A princess¡­¡±


    I roll my eyes. ¡°Say no more.¡± My brother robbed a store and my parents still cooed and defended him to the end. I kissed a girl and I¡¯m chased out of my own home. ¡°Funny how disposable we are when they can¡¯t benefit from us, huh?¡± Diamonds flood her eyes as she smiles, and sadness tinges the curl of her lips. She licks them and her tongue smears some of the lipstick.


    On impulse, I bring her hand up to my lips and press them against her knuckles. Not a true kiss, yet her eyes widen like it is her lips I¡¯m tasting and not silk. Though maybe her lips aren¡¯t far from silk, come to think of it. ¡°My place is free if you don¡¯t mind sleeping on the couch. Not quite clouds stuffed with swan feathers, but it¡¯s warm. Has a roof and four walls.¡± I wiggle my eyebrows and joke, ¡°And I make a mean breakfast burrito.¡±


    Her eyes widen as her jaw drops to the floor. She brushes a stray curl behind her ear. ¡°Really? Y-You¡¯re serious? Just like that?¡±


    With a shrug, I say, ¡°Would be far from the first time. If we don¡¯t have each other¡¯s back,¡± I jerk my head at the doors, no doubt a stunned crowd behind them. ¡°We go to the wolves.¡±


    Pain, sharp and scalding, wraps around my heart and lungs and I bite the inside of my cheek. The subtle metallic tang that follows is a good distraction against the flood of wholesome, torturous memories. My eyes sting for a second before I squeeze them. ¡°One of the things Bob and Steve told me before they died was, um¡­ to pay what they did for me forward. Help as many as I can.¡±


    I rub my brow. ¡°They saved dozens of idiots like me over the decades. All of them bleeding from the heart as well as the skin. Yet, for some fucking reason, they put me as their successor.¡±


    I put a hand over my mouth, trying to stem the flow to no avail. It¡¯s like a dam patched with bandaids, the flimsy bits of glue, gauze, and plastic giving up. Princess Sierra only listens as I dump this on her.


    ¡°I got the house, and the garden, and everything else that was left after the others picked up what Bob and Steve left for them. People I had never even met, but I never saw a dry eye when I answered the door. Then I had to sell the chairs, and the fridge¡­ and then the door.¡± I bite my cheek harder this time, and I can almost hear the skin crunch as the taste of copper floods my tongue. ¡°I¡¯m just¡­ passing it along, is all.¡±


    She strokes a spot under my wrist, and I shove down the urge to shiver at the feel of her nails grazing across the glove. ¡°You do realize the paparazzi are going to follow wherever I go, correct? And I doubt Mother and Father will send any guards. We might be okay for the first week, but they will find me eventually. They always do. They will swarm us.¡±


    Ugh, celebrity journalists. I¡¯d call them snakes, but at least a venomous snake is honest about its bite. I click my tongue, rubbing the pads of my forefinger and thumb together. ¡°Maybe I¡¯ll finally get a decent paying gig. A disowned princess is still one hell of a connection. We can go somewhere more private.¡±


    We both still. I stare resolutely at the tree in front of me. The fairy lights the gardeners covered it in sparkle like their namesake. ¡°Uh.¡± I swallow. ¡°Separate rooms, of course.¡±


    ¡°Of course.¡±


    ¡­


    ¡°Can we please forget I said that?¡±


    Her lips purse, and she squeezes her eyes. Her shoulders shake with stifled laughter while I hide my face in my hands. My groan is the straw that breaks the camel¡¯s back and she howls with laughter. The Princess holds her sides with the strength of her unladylike cackles. Tears stream down her face, though I don¡¯t mind them this time. Maybe diamonds can be pretty, in the right light.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± she gasps between hiccups. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, that was just..¡± She wipes the tears from her eyes and snorts against her will. ¡°I¡­ Gods, I needed that.¡±


    ¡°I can tell.¡±


    Another giggle escapes Princess Sierra, tired this time. Her outburst must¡¯ve drained whatever fumes she was running on. She looks at the night sky, the thousands of stars masked by the fake ones on Earth. The few dying dots are all we can see against the wall of ink, and only time will tell if those few dots survive.


    I turn my back to the railing and spread my arms along it. My eyes meet her gaze and I smile. ¡°Maybe we¡¯ll go somewhere where we can see the night sky in all its glory.¡±


    ¡°Hmm.¡± The Princess does the same, turning her back towards the railing. She crosses her arms and leans against me. She sighs, and a mist cloud billows forth. The teensy ice crystals reflect the moonlight and fairy lights, a pretty sight. ¡°Less light pollution would be nice. Fewer cars. Fewer people too.¡±


    ¡°Definitely less people.¡±


    ¡°Heh, not a people person?¡±


    ¡°Like a snapping turtle.¡±


    We both snort, then sigh. I twist my neck and check on the patio door. I freeze. ¡°Uh, Sierra. Might want to take a look at this.¡±


    She does, stepping around me far too gracefully for someone in heels. She narrows her eyes as her jaw drops. Every hundred or so man who ogled her and preened for her attention are now standing in front of the door. Behind them, at least another hundred or so people, jumping up and down to snag a peek. ¡°Honestly,¡± I quip to her. ¡°Do these people not have anything better to do?¡±


    She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. ¡°I cannot even say I am surprised.¡±


    ¡°Well, I can.¡± I wave a hand at them, my face twisted with disgust. ¡°Bunch of fucking rubberneckers. Aren¡¯t you richi¡ªUm, I thought upperclass people were¡­ higher class, is all. Had more class.¡±


    Her lips quirk, and she shakes her head. The Princess crosses her arms and taps a gloved finger on her upper arm. ¡°On the contrary, you would be surprised by how many people think you can buy class.¡±


    ¡°Now that wouldn¡¯t shock me, actually.¡±


    Indeed, it wouldn¡¯t, as I spot at least one hundred phones, half of which needlessly have their flash turned on. Apparently you can¡¯t buy shame either. Hope the door¡¯s reflection ruins all their photos.


    Nick somehow fought to the very front of the group, or maybe he was the first to stand there. His dumbfounded peers surround him. He jumps in place, aggressively waving around two thumbs-up with a grin that could light up a room. My unexpected plus-one suddenly wraps her arms around mine, and she rests her head on my shoulder.


    Nick is far happier than the crowd of men at the front of the horde. The older men glare with the promises of hitmen. The youngest sport heated cheeks and shiny eyes, like children denied their promised toy. I swear to the gods, the few older women I can spot actually clutch their pearls.


    I lean over and whisper into Sierra¡¯s bejeweled ear. A part of me delights in her pleased shiver. ¡°My, we¡¯re in such trouble.¡± I take a chance and kiss the apple of her cheek. She flutters her eyelashes and presses her cheek into my lips, which soften under her warmth. I pull away and admire her snowy tiara. I think it suits her far better than pearls. ¡°Happy Winter Solstice, by the way.¡±


    The beautiful honey of her eyes twinkle as she reaches for my hand. She bumps her nose with mine and whispers, ¡°I think they chose right.¡±

 Justify Me

    My child killed her sibling. I¡¯m okay with that.


    I remember the day she snapped. How the last leaves lost their months-long fight and fell to the damp, muddy ground. Gray painted the sky and the wind ceaselessly battered frolicking child and shivering adult alike. A thick layer of frost smothered the dead grass, the sound of it underfoot like cracked ribs.


    The wind did not promise beautiful snow days in the future, though. They promised sheets of ice which shattered bones and sliced open skin. Slick roads, glassy lakes, and all the beautiful abundance of flora and fauna bullied into the ground, or be caught in the belly of Winter. They promised heartbreak, hard times, and death.


    Fall was coming to an end. With the snuffed flame of my favorite candle, so too did my daughter¡¯s patience for her siblings.


    I did not want the first two of my babies. Newly adult, I was a na?ve teenager, and had believed my now husband when he promised we did not need a condom. I listened and well¡­ Before I knew it, before I was ready, I was a mother. All of my plans now had to be put on hold at my husband¡¯s insistence. All of my focus had to be put on our child, so gone were my plans to become a bartender for my first job. Gone were my plans to enjoy my twenties. All of it gone, replaced with a rushed white gown.


    While I had secluded myself to a shoddy apartment, separated from my parents, a screaming little girl in the crook of my arm, he went away. The man once attached to my side suddenly had business trip after business trip, with all the promised, needed money never sent. He got sucked into the pretty promises of timeshare, and never once looked back at his young wife, mother of his child, desperate for help. So, so desperate for help.


    On the few days he came back to ¡®reestablish¡¯ our relationship, child number two, my son, popped up. Of all the fucking days for my birth control to fail. I could strangle the younger me, who listened to my husband¡¯s tearful promises to be around more. He¡¯d even help around the house while I hobbled around with a heavy belly, the saint. Just keep the baby. His baby.


    And so my son was born, and his father left for another ¡®business trip¡¯ while I laid in the hospital bed. That was also the day I heard the term ¡®married single mother,¡¯ muttered by a nurse to her colleague. She didn¡¯t realize I could hear her through the door, or the colleague¡¯s click of her tongue.


    I don¡¯t know when I started hitting them. My earliest memory of my guilt was when my son was around five. I begged him so many times not to poke holes in the wall with a fork. We were renters, and I had tried everything I could think of to stop him. Hid all the forks in a cabinet out of his reach, sat him down and had several long, calm talks, and hid the stool so he couldn¡¯t use it.


    I had underestimated the strength of a five-year-old, though. He dragged a dining chair all the way into the kitchen and next to the countertop. Climbed up the sheer drop of the cabinets while I was in a much needed bath and snagged a fork. While I was towel-drying my hair, a rare smile on my face, I walked in on him jabbing holes into the wall right next to a socket. I did what I promised myself I would never do when I had daydreamed about being a parent in my teenage years¡ªI snapped.


    One spanking turned to two. Four. Eight. They just kept happening. I don¡¯t remember half the times I raised a hand towards my children. All the times I dragged them to their rooms and did not let them out till dinner. How I threatened cutting off the heads of their stuffed animals if they destroyed one more wall, stole one more thing. Said that right to their tearful faces like a monster out of their story books. The evil witch who terrorized children and chopped off the heads of beloved dollies and teddies.


    On the day I cheerfully told my oldest ¡°Good morning!¡± and she flinched, I collapsed on my knees and bundled the little girl in my arms. I remember how my throat closed around my shallow gasps for air. It felt like my husband was sitting on my chest and I could only hold my oldest tighter. Hold her close and whisper apology after shameful apology. So sorry, my precious baby, for making you fear the one person you should always feel safest with. So sorry for being unable to stifle my hopeless rage for you. I couldn¡¯t. I didn¡¯t know how. No one ever taught me how before I had you.


    A couple of pills made the anger go away. The silk pillow the little white pills provided sapped me of my fury, my fight. For the first time in months, I felt safe to be around my children, and they now tumbled and horseplayed without fear of their mother. Whenever they got into trouble, I still shouted, but the drugs dulled the sharp edges of it.


    Soon, I needed more than a couple to feel safe around my children, so two or three became a whole palmful. Each bitter, chalky tablet no more foul tasting than my own self-hatred.


    My husband encouraged the crutch, loved how ¡®agreeable¡¯ it made me. When the pharmacy denied me a refill, he got in touch with a buddy of his, and I suddenly had an endless supply.


    Bolstered by my ¡®self-control,¡¯ I told my husband that I wanted another baby. A planned one. The two were growing nicely into their independence, and money was not the ever-tightening noose it once was because his boss moved us to a much cheaper state. Better yet, he could no longer take anymore business trips because of what the boss demanded of him. I wanted to experience motherhood without the nightmare of before.


    He agreed, and part of me doesn¡¯t want to know why. During my pregnancy, I stopped taking the pills. I enjoyed life without the fog, seeing my beautiful children dance around through clear eyes. I had stretched out on the moth-eaten couch, a content lioness surrounded by her tiny pride.


    My husband was less enthusiastic since I, for now, had the energy and brain power needed to fight back his ludicrous demands of laziness. ¡°No, I will not get up and make you a glass of tea just because you don¡¯t want to pause your game. No, neither will your daughter, do it yourself.¡± He grumbled about how he couldn¡¯t wait for ¡®that kid¡¯ to be ¡®out¡¯ so things could go back to normal. I told him I might not take the medication anymore after she¡¯s born, as I felt like I didn¡¯t need it. Which was good, as that meant more money to spend on things like food.


    The frozen rage he bored into me misted the air in my lungs, and I held my warm son snug to my chest. The young boy whined and cuddled closer, wrapping a tiny fist into my shirt. Blissfully unconscious and unaware.


    A few months after that, my youngest was born. My husband then left over two hundred dollar¡¯s worth of food to rot on the countertop while I was asleep in our bed, recovering from labor and then being forced to shop for groceries just a week after birth. Almost a month¡¯s worth of food, gone, and I downed five pills in one go to starve the fire fattening underneath my breastbone.


    To worsen matters, he got fired from his job not a week after that. I heard rumors, of course. The few of his colleagues who came over before my husband lost his job couldn¡¯t resist letting a few things slip, boastful as they were about ¡®ripping off the boss.¡¯


    He refused to tell me how he got himself sacked. When I brought up the rumors, asked how exactly he ripped off his superior, and if I was about to be married to a felon, he stormed towards me. He shoved his face into mine. His nostrils flared, his pupils the size of a period. ¡°Go ahead,¡± I had told him, calling his bluff. ¡°Do it.¡± He raised his hand, and I didn¡¯t move a muscle. ¡°Do it.¡±


    At the last second, he folded. Lowered his arm and made himself scarce. Cuddled himself to his controller and played whatever shooter he wasted our shriveling funds on. He assured none of his children, nor his wife, that everything would be okay. Didn¡¯t pick up a newspaper and search for a new job before we became homeless. Simply hoped that a friend of a friend would pull some strings and get him a new job.


    Someone was looking out for us, or at least my children, because that¡¯s exactly what happened. He remained a timeshare salesman, which I despised. The new job paid pennies where his old one at least paid dimes, but he brought in enough to feed us. At least, after I buried myself in newspapers, scissors in hand, to cut out all the coupons, an infant snoozing on my lap.


    We still had to move somewhere smaller, and my new baby was without a crib and had to share the couch with me. I refused to share a bed with my husband, as his indoor chain smoking smothered every curtain, blanket, and sheet in a thick layer of nicotine. I could barely breathe through the tar layering my lungs with every breath, and I feared what such an environment could do on my little baby¡¯s developing lungs.


    I barely remember her so young because of the pills. At least for the older two, I could remember most of their childhoods with clarity. Birthdays, Halloweens, and Christmases, with them usually in the cradle of my arms by day¡¯s end. With her, my youngest¡­ most of it was¡­ gray. A splash of her laugh, a streak of her happy squeals, but not much else.


    I hate seeing the few pictures with myself during those years, my dead eyes staring through my daughter as she grinned at the cake¡¯s candle, but I don¡¯t have a choice. Those photos are the few clear images I have of my daughter growing up. They quickly became the few sources of her smile.


    The years soon revealed the obvious truth, that she was her siblings better. As soon as she took her first steps, spittled out her first string of sounds. When she grew old enough for her mind to truly turn and her eyes to fully see, her stare wielded a fierce intelligence I had not seen before. That I remember, the strokes of her brilliant mind.


    Jealousy is a disease, and both of her siblings fell deathly ill with it. When they first held her as a baby doll to play house with, they were as gentle as a deer with her fawn. As she got older, though, it was like they sensed it, her superiority. Nail imprints soon littered her doughy skin, no matter how many times I scolded them.


    She was three when her brother threw her right against the wall, my oldest laughing along with him. After I returned from the hospital, I almost screamed myself hoarse about how they could have killed her, but they didn¡¯t care. The two children only stared back with guiltless, cold eyes. My patience shattered, and I banned them from holding her. The pair were so green with envy, they matched the healing bruises they had beaten onto her skin.


    My older son and daughter differed in how they mistreated their baby sister, though they both left their mark. Her older sister preferred mental torture. Petty insults my youngest was too young to ignore, and targeted taunts which dug deep into the skin and tickled muscle. Used her as a doll for her makeup, though did her face so horribly that the little girl cried when she looked in the mirror. My oldest destroyed her toys, drew on and cut up her clothes, and picked at every insecurity she had, until the poor girl bursted into screams and tears.


    It was only when my youngest fought back ¡®too hard¡¯ did she rake her nails down the little girl¡¯s limbs and face. Twisted her arm until the younger promised to stop moving. Other than that, my oldest much preferred watching her brother thrash the little darling around.


    It was a miracle he hadn¡¯t killed her by the time everything was said and done. He certainly gave it the old college try. His list of cruelties includes pushing her in front of a car when she dared to run ahead of him, ever the nimble little fawn. He would force her to play video games with him, then placed stupid restrictions on her and her alone. When she overcame these restrictions and won the round anyway, he¡¯d punch her in the throat and stomach till she vomited. She was almost a wraith of a child because he also stole her food right off her plate, pushing a thumbnail into a delicate thigh if she tried to tell me.


    The child¡¯s starvation could only stall the inevitable, though, as she grew stronger as the years progressed. Faster as well. One time, her brother overestimated his abilities, chasing her up a tree, which she scaled like the squirrels she chittered with. He tried following, slipped on a slick patch of moss, and the boy nearly broke his neck on the tumble down. When he blearily opened his eyes and searched the leaves, he spotted his target. She rested amongst the treetops, like gravity was only a suggestion.


    The youngster was a little fairy creature, touched by Nature. She talked to the squirrels and the geese, and the animals listened. They sat far closer to her than they dared with anyone else, accepting her gentle pats. The trees cradled her small form, wrapping her in their leaves to keep her warm and dry. Baby geese waddled behind her, and fall-painted butterflies rested on her hair before continuing their journey.


    Turtles wiggled out of the safety of their pond to eat blueberries out of her palm. Foxes glided between her legs and left their kits with her, and the mothers would return to the girl curled around the tiny balls of fur. While the boy clumsily stalked her, his sister not far behind, she flew into the safety of the thicket and her friends.


    Her siblings were not her only predator, as my oldest children ensured. By the end of their smear campaign, no one wanted to associate with the ¡®mute monster¡¯ that was their sister.


    Bullies chased her through the woods in packs, my son the head of them, yet none could outrun her. Within a few minutes, the predatory children would be bent over as they gasped for air, their quarry far ahead of them. They always tried to cut her off from any trees, because no one had the stomach to follow as she went up, and up, and up to the sky. Scraping concrete and splintering bark callused her fingertips, the thickened skin rough when I hold her hand as we cross the street.


    The nature which nurtured her did not tolerate anyone hunting their imp. She would run to the protection of a resting flock of geese, and the vicious birds would wake up and attack the children for daring to touch their very large, featherless gosling. The neighborhood children screeched on more than one occasion about my child hitting them across the backside with the thin, baby branches of its parent tree, but could never explain how when she was so high above them. Foxes tracked down where the bullies lived and peed on their outdoor toys, especially the absorbent ones. The children also found out the hard way that squirrels have excellent aim.


    The trees and animals could not protect her in humanity¡¯s domain, however. When the sun set and I called her back in, she went from one hunting ground to the next. In my attempts to protect her from the nocturnal predators wearing human skin, I put her in the arms of another.


    We only had two rooms for the children. The boy got his own, while the girls shared. It made sense, putting the girls together. I felt guilty not giving them their own room, as they deserved their own space as much as their brother, but I promised myself they one day would.


    Once my youngest grew firmly into her independence, and was not so small that a strong wind could carry her away, I¡¯d get a job. Ignore my husband¡¯s pleas to collect dust at home and bring in a second income the household desperately needed. The girls would get their own room. My daughter would have a den to hide in. As I folded tiny shirts with butterflies on them, pants of sunny-yellow, my heart soared at my warm daydreams. Yes, that¡¯s exactly what I would do. Get a job and brute force all our worries away.


    My oldest daughter made me not just a clown, but the entire circus.


    Halloween is my favorite holiday. You wander around at night, chatting with neighbors while the kids chase each other around. The rare freedom of being able to chow down on sweets and scare their peers and parents breathes life into the dullest of towns. We dress up without shame, enjoy the fruits of our labor, and the night reminds us that there lies beauty in the dark. Somehow, my oldest daughter telling me how she violated her baby sister hasn¡¯t diminished my love for it.


    Experimentation gone too far. That¡¯s how she described the rape of her baby sister that Halloween night, the sun dying on the horizon. A whoopsie the gravity of she only ¡®realized¡¯ while in the middle of the act, supposedly pushing the little girl away, ordering her to go to her top bunk and sleep. She claimed she cried all night, yet I doubted that. My oldest¡¯s eyes were dry through her sobs as she confessed.


    When I asked her why on Earth she would fess up, morbid curiosity getting the better of me, she maintained her pretense of guilt. She was just so guilty that she needed to tell me so I could help her little sister and fix it. ¡°You always know how to fix things, Mommy.¡± She hadn¡¯t called me Mommy in years before that night, and my heart squeezed at the title.


    I knew the real reason, though, and no amount of tender titles could blind me of it. She had visibly relaxed when she asked if my youngest said anything and I answered no. Still, not a tear in the girl¡¯s round eyes.


    This wasn¡¯t the confession of a remorseful sinner, it was the self-preservation of a coward. She thought if she told me on my favorite night of the year, she could give me the sanitized version. Beat her baby sister to the punch in telling me, hoping I¡¯d favor her side.


    My oldest didn¡¯t ask herself why the fuck I would believe the word of a rapist. Of course I talked to my youngest the next day. My child told me everything. The darling first tried to keep certain details to herself, clutching the blackboard and dry-erase marker to her chest, because she didn¡¯t want to hurt me by describing her assault to her own mother. I told her not to, though. ¡°Don¡¯t hold back, baby.¡± Let me have it.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Her first introduction to the concept of sex was a violent video of writhing bodies. Then dozens of videos over the coming weeks. Months. Her sister showed her these videos for months before raping her. Ground down her innocence before going in for the kill.


    The child already knew where babies came from because of her documentaries. When she wasn¡¯t running with the wolves, she was fighting for her fair share of screen time to watch lionesses stalk zebras and shoebill chicks fight for the privilege to live, and those documentaries show all the aspects of bestial life. It definitely made The Talk a lot easier.


    But she had no idea how sex worked beyond fertilization. All the intricacies I needed to teach her before she became an adult. Gradually, until I felt she knew enough to learn the rest on her own safely. Gone. Plucked away like flower petals.


    Tears were a rare sight on the girl¡¯s face. Her siblings used her as a whipping post so often, she trained herself not to cry. If her eyes stayed dry, they got bored faster. My baby cried then, though. Fat tears mixed with snot and spit. A waterfall of laments I drowned in as I held her close, our heads below water.


    Her sister maimed her. Her brother hunted her. The little girl¡¯s father was apathetic at best, added to the collection of bruises on her body and heart at worst. All of that¡­ and it was a potato gun which finally drained the last of her patience like an infected wound.


    I¡¯ve learned over my years that monsters have a way of finding each other. Like they can sense from across the room how the other lacks an important part of what separates us from the dogs. Two warped life forces emulsifying into something that could resemble a human soul. Maybe.


    My son¡¯s lacking half came as a boy with kindred dead eyes. They called each other brothers-in-arms, chasing the other around with stolen knives and BB guns. I banned him from talking to the boy at first, my son already feral enough without a partner-in-crime to enable him when his sister wasn¡¯t around. When he started sneaking out, I replaced his room¡¯s doorknob with one that locked from the outside.


    On the third night, I woke up to the sound of shattered glass. I raced into his room and a broken window, an empty bed, and an abandoned phone greeted me. The sharp edges of the window shimmered pink in the moonlight.


    He, a young boy, ran out into the middle of the night without his phone, bleeding. That pissed me off more than his smashing the window or running away. If anything happened to him and he couldn¡¯t call¡­ He drove me batshit, and I despised how he beat his baby sister every time I turned my back. My blood boiled with how no punishment or plead got through his thick skull. If he were a random kid on the block and not my own, I might have very well hated him. Despite that, I was his mother at the end of the day. Something in my blood roared at the image of a patient white van anywhere near my boy.


    I talked to his friend¡¯s mother the next day. Told her about their thievery, the bullying, and how her son encouraged mine to break a window and run away into the night. Showed her the text messages from my son¡¯s phone of just that, as well as the pictures of his sliced-up hands and knees. She flipped me off and slammed the door. As I walked away, the sound of the little demon¡¯s laughter hounded my steps.


    We did not have the money to send him away, as tempting as it was. Forget putting him into therapy when we could barely afford to eat. My side nor my husband¡¯s would ever loan us money to get the child therapy as well. My husband had burned them too many times. The familial grape vine flourished with decades of vapid gossip, and we were the rotten grapes on the bottom.


    No relative in their right mind would have taken him in, nor did I want to subject anyone else to the child. He did not listen to his own mother. Didn¡¯t fall in line with his father¡¯s threats. The boy would sooner beat a relative into submission than listen to them.


    He was at the age where he was small enough for a grown man to snatch him off the street, but old enough where his fists caused damage. I boarded up the window, kept the lock on his door, and he responded by breaking it down and smashing the front door lock off. He put a fist through one of the glass panes for good measure. When he returned that day, deep slashes covered his hands, requiring a hospital trip. Hundreds of dollars¡¯ worth of damage in a single night and we had yet to replace his window.


    There was little choice after that. I let him leave. The only caveat being he needed to bring his phone, and it had to hold a full charge. When he agreed without fuss, I forced my jaw not to slacken. An ominous feeling curled in my stomach, and I had to resist asking him why he complied without so much as a whine. I studied his little flip phone, a present for his tenth birthday. I knew his dried blood caked the spaces between the buttons, the hinges. In the end, I didn¡¯t want to find out how he would react if I snooped through it again, still limping off an impressive bruise on my upper thigh.


    So he and his friend had the run of the neighborhood, and the pair utilized the other¡¯s strengths to full effect. My son was brutish while the boy was spry. He was impulsive while the boy was calculating. He was the gun. The boy was the trigger.


    The friend¡¯s father taught his son all about how to create a potato gun, but not an ordinary one. Not the practical toy you¡¯d make in a physics class for a guaranteed A. He taught a small boy how to create one capable of shooting with enough force to fracture stone, with the fewest materials possible.


    The neighborhood was a sleepy one, docile with years of little crime besides the petty theft of cocky and adventurous children. Because of that, it boasted a healthy population of hobbyists and DIY enthusiasts. There were hundreds of places to swipe a PVC pipe, a coupling, cement glue, electrical tape, and something to ignite a spark.


    When my daughter nested herself on top of a large tree, asleep as the trees sang a lullaby with their leaves, the boys went in for the kill. They stalked out of the bushes they shrouded themselves in and waited until she woke up. After her nap, she climbed across the branches. My son aimed the gun at her. A vixen saw the pair and growled, then screamed.


    The spud hit the little girl right in the gut. Her back bowed with the force, nails scoring valleys in the bark. She was halfway to the ground when she dug her nails back into the tree¡¯s armored skin, adrenaline supplying her the strength of an adult.


    Half her fingernails ripped off. A patch of skin was missing from her cheek, the naked flesh angry and bleeding, and a thousand tiny cuts designed bloody constellations onto her body, but she was safe. Then he shot her again, and she fell to the ground. Then the friend took the gun, reloaded with practiced ease, and shot her again before she could catch her breath.


    And they kept shooting her. Shooting her and shooting her and shooting her until her lungs whistled and pink foam dribbled from the corner of her mouth. She forced herself to her feet, growling like a beast, teeth bared. They cackled and fired again. The fawn wilted, and she crawled through the thick mud and slippery leaves away from them. The predators followed her with twin grins. My son walked ahead until he was next to her, then kicked her in the side.


    The entire time, she refused to scream. Besides a sharp sound from the first round, stony silence met each shot as she ran, then limped, then crawled away from them. Perhaps a grunt or a cut-off moan, but no more, not wanting to excite them further.


    As a ¡®joke,¡¯ my son¡¯s accomplice loaded the gun with nails and shot the girl right in the back, and a dozen met their mark. The metal nettles burrowed into tissue, severed veins. They scraped against bone and the little girl yielded. She screamed.


    She screamed with the force of an oak meeting the earth for the first time in centuries. The fury in the heart of a tornado. The fervor of a dormant volcano when it stirs. With enough agony, I heard her from my cozy spot in the kitchen.


    I raced to my little girl, the pain in my knees forgotten. The memories of me chasing my daughter¡¯s dying breath blurred. The sickly yellow of the trees, the burnt orange of the fall ground, and the teardrop blue of the sky mixed like watercolors.


    Black and white flashes are the only things I recall when the memories land on my daughter¡¯s battered body. They want to reveal themselves in their gory glory, but my mind shoves them back. A mercy, as the tactile echos already ghost across my skin at night.


    Her feather-light body nestled against my chest. Her broken mewl as she recognized the heartbeat of her mother and cuddled closer. The sweet smell of her mixed with copper. The tacky blood caking my tank top. How it itched as it dried and flaked off my arms as paramedics swarmed my daughter. My stinging eyes when geese, vixens and their grown kits, and squirrels alike all gathered at the edge of the forest, shoulder to wing. Even the turtles had waddled from their lake.


    The trees howled with no wind, startling the paramedics and rubber-neckers. All sentinels for my daughter. All except me.


    She fought unconsciousness long enough to scare the daylights out of the paramedics, a fiery growl escaping her lips as she came to. A bud of mirth bloomed behind my ribs in spite of the gruesome state of her. The little imp has always enjoyed scaring people, though never in bad faith. Always with a smile.


    The child whined, twisted against the straps that kept her from aggravating her wounds further, and she stabbed her remaining nails into the foam cushion beneath. She hiccuped sobs as she fought against the straps, in search of her comfort.


    ¡°I¡¯m here, baby.¡±


    She turned to me, pupils dilating when she caught mine. Her eyes were viscous puddles of exhaustion as she whimpered for her mother.


    I do not know if it was the lights of the ambulance or if it was the waning moon, but her eye¡ªthe one not frozen shut¡ªreflected like shattered ice. She snarled, teeth painted in streaks of crimson. The blood didn¡¯t touch her canines. The fangs shone like icicles gleaming opal in the spring rays.


    It¡¯s obvious why she chose her brother. Her sister raped her violently over several sickening weeks, right under my nose, but my oldest was a coward. So much so, she admitted to the abuse just in case her baby sister spilled her guts.


    The boy was so stupid, though, it could almost be considered brave. He never learned, only took the punishment, waited, then did it again. This wasn¡¯t the first attempt on her life, nor would it be the last. In a sick way, he was a greater threat to her well-being than her rapist.


    He produced tears for the police, and they believed the words of a supposedly guilty boy. The officers didn¡¯t even visit the hospital and asked my daughter if she wanted to press charges, or see if a few nights in juvie would straighten him out.


    A sibling dispute which got carried away, they told me the week after, as my daughter laid beaten in a hospital bed with broken bones and crushed veins. Nothing the parents can¡¯t sort out by themselves. ¡°He just needs a few kind words and a firm hand. Have him and his sister hug it out.¡±


    I wanted to tell them to go fuck themselves and slam the door in their faces. Instead, I smiled, told them I¡¯d do just that, and swallowed down a scream as the front door clicked closed. My daughter would get no help from them. His friend, since this wasn¡¯t his first time nearly murdering someone apparently, didn¡¯t get the same merciful treatment. I have no idea what happened to him, but my son was now without his partner, the one being who might¡¯ve protected him.


    He must¡¯ve realized this too, as he rolled out the red carpet when my youngest returned from the hospital. She outright refused to use a wheelchair when the nurses and doctor asked, and opted for crutches. They were more comfortable for her to walk in, but the weakened girl had trouble getting into and out of the old car. My son, when he saw her having difficulty, raced to help her. She hissed at him, fangs bared, and smacked his offered hand away. Still, he continued to push his luck and brought her snacks and drinks, not a speck of it the girl touched.


    Her brother was always nicer after his major fuckups. Stole from her less, complimented her, and chaperoned her to places like she couldn¡¯t jump from tree to tree. Always after he knew he crossed a line. Particularly when she got that look in her eye.


    My youngest avoided acknowledging her siblings. When she had no choice but to concede that they breathed in her air too, her eyes only reflected disgust. When they went too far, though, it was a different story. The child would study them with cold, pointed fury, like a shard of ice lodged into her eyes and she used the crystals as binoculars, zeroing in on weaknesses. That was when her brother was sugar, spice, and almost nice.


    The last time I saw my son alive, it was an entire month after he almost murdered his sister. I overheard him inviting my youngest on a fishing trip in a neighboring neighborhood. Fishing was banned in our stretch of the woods, but his brilliant thought process was, because they didn¡¯t live there, no one would recognize them. If someone fussed about it, they could make a run for it and go back home. How he didn¡¯t get daily police rides baffles me.


    I expected her to refuse. Flip him off and go outside to her forest friends, as she didn¡¯t need her big brother¡¯s guidance to do either. The imp taught herself how to spearfish when she was only five with handmade spears. A necessity when winter came and the dining table was bare, and her siblings hogged every morsel they could. Ironically, while she dined on fresh fish, thick roots, and fungi, while drinking hot pine needle tea, her siblings thought they¡¯d won as they gorged themselves on cheap spaghetti.


    No doubt the girl has also wandered into the other neighborhood before, as she¡¯s explored every inch of the forest. The trees stretch for miles, the background and selling point for hundreds of houses. If there are trees to hide in and critters to play with, she knows of it.


    Against all logic, though, my youngest agreed. Nodded her head with a honeyed smile and planned the whole day with him while I listened in, speechless. I should¡¯ve known she intended for the next day to go a very different way, as she walked away from the conversation with a vicious, victorious curl in her smile, spinning her dry-erase marker between her fingers.


    Now she¡¯s delighting the police with her foul tongue.


    She¡¯s never spoken before then, not truly. Whenever she wants to convey an idea, she writes it down (how she swirls the tail of her Gs steals my heart) or makes her little noises. An assortment of growls, whistles, and chirps only I can translate through experience. Her online teacher recommended a speech therapist, and my husband snarked that if the teacher wanted her in therapy, she could send him the check.


    Now I wonder if she could speak the entire time and simply chose not to. She plays the role of orator beautifully, even with her foul tongue.


    It¡¯s deeper than I thought it would be, her voice. I always imagine it being high-pitched, like the bells on a reindeer, and as fragile as the snowflakes they prance through. Soft and sweet as mousse.


    Instead, her voice rasps like a rattlesnake. It does not ring, it tolls. She plays her vocal chords like a violinist and it lilts, twirling from note to note as she weaves a tale of a fight between siblings ending in tragedy. She was nowhere near her brother when he died, officers, as they butted heads once again.


    ¡°He couldn¡¯t resist being a little shit, sirs.¡± The two officers interviewing her chuckle under their breath. ¡°A comment here, a pointed jab there.¡± She gestures back and forth with her hands. ¡°He lured me to the lake so that he could torment me. Mommy couldn¡¯t be the referee if she wasn¡¯t anywhere near us.¡± She blinks her eyes as they sparkle with tears. The girl scratches her head. Thick, long hair falls in front of her face, and it just so happens to blanket the half where she can¡¯t hide a small quirk of her lips.


    ¡°I finally snapped when he poked one of my bruises.¡± She lifts her shirt and shows the two officers a bruise the size of a volleyball, and it covers most of her small stomach. It¡¯s still black in the middle, a poisonous purple at the edges. The men cringe. ¡°He laughed when I yelped and pushed him away. He always laughs.¡± The tears fall from her eyes on cue, like synchronized dancers.


    My youngest takes a deep breath and fidgets with her fingers. ¡°So, I punched him.¡± The older officer elbows his partner when he laughs. I¡¯m standing next to the policemen and say nothing when I notice how she lowers her head and bites her bottom lip. That¡¯s what she always does when she fights down a smile. ¡°I punched him in the face,¡± she points at her left cheek, where a yellow bruise hasn¡¯t fully healed. ¡°And then I ran away before he could think to chase me.¡±


    I vouch for her returning soon after the two had left. Barely an hour had passed when my youngest slammed the door against the pockmarked wall, tears streaming down her flushed face. I had jumped up from my place on the couch and she waved me back down. The imp climbed onto my lap and passed out not five minutes after.


    I did my part, calling the police when my son did not return as night fell and he refused to answer my texts, then voicemails, then relentless calls. The police responded on the double, and soon the whole neighborhood was combing the entire forest and behind every house in search of him.


    They found her brother at the bottom of a lake, the same one he took her to. There was a length of old, rusted chain with a thick hook at the end. At the other end of the chain, a pile of cinderblocks. Someone had wrapped the chain around his ankle, then kicked the concrete blocks off the pier and into the pitch water below.


    The boy was old enough, heavy enough, to drag the blocks the last precious meter and into the water, but not nearly strong enough to fight against the burden and swim to the surface. He died alone. Terrified and in the dark.


    I am only relieved that he didn¡¯t overpower my daughter and reverse their roles.


    Her brother, in his depraved quest to prove his superiority, ensured he would get no justice. The older officer interviewing her was at the scene when he tried to murder her. Watched firsthand how she hacked up blood, heard her agonized screams and cries. He, and the younger officer next to him after the other explained the incident, have little trouble believing that there was some leftover tension after her brother almost killed her.


    They believe every word she says, and why would they not? A sweet girl like her, with a hilarious vocabulary of creative and colorful curse words, who weaves tiny white flowers into her hair as she speaks to them about how cruel he was to her and why she just had to leave. Then she sits on the floor, criss-cross applesauce, out of breath.


    ¡°Is my big brother dead ¡®cause of me?¡± she asks, lip wobbling. ¡°Would he still be alive if I didn¡¯t leave him alone?¡± The older officer scoops the girl into his arms, and I wonder if he¡¯s a father himself. He coos and rocks her back and forth, and the younger officer next to them piles on reassurances as well. She plays them both beautifully.


    The question of my place in my children¡¯s morph from destructive darlings to cruel creatures will haunt my thoughts till I die. Did I teach them how to mutilate by spanking them? Give them a taste for torture with a pair of scissors to a teddy¡¯s neck? How much did they inherit from their father, and how much did they learn from me?


    I suppose it doesn¡¯t matter. Not anymore. Before the police found my son in a lake and my oldest confessed to raping her baby sister, maybe I could have saved them. Therapy, paid by my going back to work while I ignored my husband¡¯s pleas to stay a housewife. Let my daughter be taken into foster care, her siblings now having no human toy to maim.


    It would have been so unfair to punish her by allowing strangers to steal her away from her home, from me, but she¡¯d be safe. She could have even lived with my parents. Everyone would have been fine and I could have fixed things from there.


    There is no saving anyone now. There is no need. My youngest had handled it because I could not, and now the greatest threat to her life is a bloated corpse. Her siblings sealed their fate when they went just a step too far and turned a victim into a survivor. A child dictated by Darwin, and damned bound to win his favor by wit, not might.


    They thought her prey, but she is a predator like them. The difference is, she is a patient little lioness, while my son was merely a yapping wild dog, her sister a spineless vulture. This brilliant, broken child, with the broken, brilliant mind, refuses to be cannibalized by either of them.


    I indulge in a cigarette, the heat of the lighter cold against my skin, and take a deep breath. Blowing out the smoke, my daughter chuckles, for once sounding her young age.


    ¡°Mama, you look like a dragon.¡± Mama¡¯s sorry for not being a dragon and burning this whole place to the ground, sweetheart. I make it a point to blow the smoke through my nose in the next breath, ignoring the officers¡¯ disapproving glares, just to hear her sweet laugh once more.


    During the interview, my daughter scoots to where I am standing near the cops and snuggles against my legs. My oldest chooses at that moment to enter the room, and she thinks it¡¯s appropriate to ask when I¡¯ll cook lunch while the police discuss her dead brother. The two officers gape at her, then share meaningful looks with each other. My youngest glares at her sister with frozen eyes.


    Maybe she¡¯ll be a dear and get her father after.

 Rot

    What a curious feeling, your body rotting away.


    The first day of infection was efficient. It robbed me of my hearing so that, by day three, my eardrums could not even sense the vibrations of my fingers snapping right next to them. My sense of taste and smell shut down on the fifth day.


    Day ten, I grab an empty notebook and start writing this crap down. Day eleven sees my skin turning green and gray, my tongue almost black. The tip of my nose falls off by day eleven.


    Day fifteen and I can no longer walk, dragging bottles of water and food next to my couch to either miraculously survive this or die trying. I still write in my diary, which it now was, cursing myself for not going to the hospital sooner. My journal entry for that day reads, ¡°I¡¯m such a moron. I should¡¯ve gotten help sooner, back when I still had legs worth a shit. Never¡­ I could¡¯ve never guessed that I¡¯d fear the world so much¡­ I¡¯d just let myself die like this.¡±


    Day twenty and bits of my arms fall off, and I can tell the rot is going to spread to my chest and neck soon. Everything else will follow. Day twenty-one and I stop writing in my diary and just stay in my head a lot. I can¡¯t move my arms anymore without crying dry tears.


    On the twenty-fifth day, I shrug off my clothing, too hot, too cold, and too sensitive to bear the fabric against my peeling skin. I thought there would be more blood, but there really isn¡¯t. Just pus and brown gunk that used to be blood. Now it sticks to my body and mixes with the yellow pus like acrylic paint. If I could, I¡¯d gag.


    Day thirty sees me staring at the ceiling, wondering what horrible sin I committed to deserve to die like this. With half my body dead, somehow still alive. Then I get all philosophical and think ¡®The bell tolls for all.¡¯


    I stopped feeling pain yesterday, yet that only makes me feel worse. It means my body¡¯s given up on trying to keep me alive. I should cry, offer my soul to any god who grants me life, but I can¡¯t muster the energy to care about the inevitable.


    I want to see the outside world one last time, though. Smiling faces. The trees. The sun. Life before death takes me. Pain is no longer an obstacle, so I reach for the remote with my arm. The white of my dainty wrist bones shows through the blackened flesh.


    I turn on the TV. The black screen comes to life with a horror movie, bodies littering the street like trash, clothes billowing. It focuses on two fathers, wrapped in each other¡¯s embrace, parts of their skulls exposed as they rest in front of their daughter. The little girl holds her bear tight to her chest, her dirtied pale pink dress covered in sunflowers. She is more decomposed than her fathers, more black meat and bone than red flesh and unmarred skin. I chuckle internally at the irony of this being what pops up.


    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    Coughing up another blob of bloody spit, I wipe it away and switch the channel. My eyes squint when the same image comes up. I switch to another channel again. The same image. Now it flicks back to the barren street, zeroing in on the bloated corpse of an old woman, her eyes popping out of her head from the pressure of unreleased gases.


    Spit pools in my mouth as adrenaline shoots through me, dribbling out of the rotten holes in my lips. My sluggish heart picks up speed and stutters. My vision distorts. I switch the channel again.


    Again. Again. Again.


    The fathers. The child. The street. The old woman.


    My hand shakes and drops the remote. I notice the moving broadcast underneath, red and white, flashing with the words, ¡°STAY INDOORS. DO NOT MAKE CONTACT WITH ANYONE. KEEP ALL INFECTED QUARANTINED. BURN ALL DEAD, INCLUDING CHILDREN. WAIT FOR RESCUE. GOD HELP US ALL.¡±


    The broadcast switches to a news reporter. She¡¯s older, and the circles under her eyes are as dark as the necrotic flesh running up my arm.


    Megan reporting in. Subtitles pop up across the screen, miraculously keeping up with her hurried speech. Her Adam¡¯s apple bobs as she visibly fights against the tears pooling in her eyes. I am so used to news reporters being cool in the most extreme of scenarios that her viciousness shocks me. I cannot hear her, but her venom burns with every word that pops up.


    ¡°¡ªthis bastard to hell. He goes by the name Day Ender, but his real name is Maxwell Day. A virologist, he worked at the Broken Hearts Clinic in Houston. He is the man who created this nightmare and holds the only available vaccine. He destroyed his research so experts could not recreate it. Not in time. He has demanded no ransom for it, and I believe he only told authorities of its existence to give us false hope.


    ¡°Governments all over the world are searching for him, tearing up every safe house and bunker on the map, but still no sign of ¡®Day Ender.¡¯ No doubt he is in some cozy bunker, vaccine in hand, happily watching the world burn.¡±


    A photo pops up of him then, covering Megan¡¯s face. He looks¡­ young. Either the same age or younger than me. He doesn¡¯t look like someone capable of ending the world, with his kind eyes and soft features, but he did. He unleashed this on everyone, and for what?


    As I stand up, rage overcoming common sense and the burning grip of death, a single thought repeats in my head over and over: This monster fucked us all over for nothing.


    I lunge at the screen, and that burst of energy seems to pop every internal organ, threads of rotting tissue snapping. Blood spews from my mouth and covers the TV from corner to corner. It runs down the glass and LEDs. I slump to the ground.


    Right before I can claw Maxwell Day¡¯s eyes out, my heart stops.

 Humming to Thunder

    Brr-Bmm. Crr-Crr!


    Lightning and thunder mixed with the symphony of the rain, drizzling into my fuzzy head and making it plop! onto the top of my desk.


    BMM-BRR!


    Just like that, my head shot up from the wood with a sucked in gasp. My heart hammered in my chest while I reached up to my forehead and pressed into the red lines the wood had imprinted on there. Sighing, I stared out the window closest to me. Drooping eyes watched the dark gray and midnight blue landscape of the parking lot, the rain desaturating any bright colors to match the drowned scenery. Even the trees looked defeated, their plump leaves and thick bark smothered with a slate gray.


    A glance at the clock told me it was five in the afternoon, my nap only thirty minutes long, but the storm outside choked the sun and blackened the sky. The white streaks of raindrops as they hurtled toward the ground, reflecting the light posts¡¯ rays, looked like falling stars. A closer look and I could make out the darker shadows from particularly vexed clouds. It was sleepy weather, despite the apprehension squeezing my lungs. I had to walk through that once the clock struck eight, whether I was ready or not.


    I need to leave my book here, I thought, holding my cheek with one hand, still studying the raindrops crash down to the earth in blanket after blanket of water. There was no guarantee my bag could keep the precious book safe from the assault of the earth outside, and I did not want to risk the destruction of yet another of my few possessions.


    The nice ladies who ran the library knew the drill, fortunately, so I at least had the comfort that while I was at risk of getting hyperthermia, the ladies, or teenage boy who helped organize the books, would pick it up and lock it in one of the front desk drawers.


    I blinked, and the clock read seven instead of five now. Unless exhaustion was the key to time travel, I must¡¯ve passed out when I blinked, and somehow nothing stirred loud enough to wake me back up from such a fragile sleep. Gaping, I shut the book with a solid smack and started putting up my other little things. My yellow notes, worn down pen with a broken clip, and my bag made from old T-shirts sewn together. I double-checked that my name was on the book¡¯s front cover, nodding in satisfaction when big, black, blocky letters could easily be seen against the cover art. Couldn¡¯t have them thinking it was one of the library¡¯s and go looking for it on every shelf. You only made that mistake once.


    Hopping off the chair, I walked with my head held down and back hunched over. The lightning and thunder outside yelled at me that the storm was far from over, and any hopes that it would stop before Time forced me out were futile. Zeus was pitching a fit, and he was far from tiring himself out. Better get it over with now, while there was still a slim sliver of light and the air was above freezing.


    ¡°Goodnight, sweetheart. Be safe,¡± the oldest of them told me with a grim face. ¡°We¡¯ll see you in the morning, yes?¡±


    ¡°Yes ma¡¯am.¡± I muttered automatically, the phrase so well-practiced that it required no energy on my part anymore.


    ¡°Kid, you sure you don¡¯t want me to drop you off?¡± the teenage boy asked softly while stuffing books onto the rusted book cart, concern etched onto his face like the rest of the library¡¯s flock. He casually put his back to me, but his tense shoulders gave away his worry.


    I shrank and shook my head no. No, I did not want to get into a teenage boy¡¯s car. It wasn¡¯t fair to him. He was quite nice to me and always helped me whenever he could, but the response was as automatic as ¡®Yes ma¡¯am,¡¯ and I could only hope he did not take it to heart. He was good. I knew that. In my heart, I knew that.


    Before I did another stupid thing, I turned around and ran out the cold, glass doors, waving at their shouts and cautions from behind. I caught a snippet that stuttered my walk for half a second, breath caught in my throat. Pretending to not hear it, I continued into the freezing wet air of a thunderstorm. Yet the chill did nothing to freeze the loop of what the boy had muttered while unfolding a dog-eared page.


    ¡°I want to find and kill whoever made her react like that.¡±


    Words could not emphasize enough how shivering the night rain was, and my being small and skinny did not help matters. The wind howled a constant reminder that I was walking home in the middle of the night, in a furious storm, with only my speed and size to protect me¡ªand the wind and rain hampered even that advantage. So, of course, that was the night someone tried their luck.


    The thunder never stopped, just screeched a never-ending barrage of bangs! and booms! which stammered my heart and froze the muscles in my legs like a rabbit caught in a fox¡¯s sight.


    The awareness of my surroundings had never been so dim. The only source of information was what the light posts revealed after fighting valiantly to cut through the darkness. I heard nothing over the storm. In-between the solace of the light posts, I could only make out the outline of my hand.


    The crisp night air, mixed with rainwater, tickled my nose, and I sneezed so hard my feet left the ground. I was blind in almost all senses except touch, and that became questionable with how cold my hands were. The very tips of my fingertips tingled like tiny needles of ice crystals burrowed in.


    I missed the sounds of a car. The thunder covered the tires crunching rocks and broken bottles as it rolled near. I wrote off the bright beams reflecting off the puddles as lightning and lamplight, as the rain drizzled into my ears, entered my skull, and froze to frost across my brain. I did not notice the car until I looked to my right and startled at my face.


    ¡°Shit!¡± I shouted, a fitting word for a foul situation. The click of an opening car door reached me and I did what every child does in that situation, trained by parents and taught by instinct¡ªI ran like hell.


    My vision flashed white in terror when I almost slipped and fell on the ground, the slip up costing me a precious three seconds as I scampered away from the stalking footsteps. One heavy footfall followed every two of mine, then one of every three as I sprinted towards the closest tree. The frantic chase gave me no spare air to scream, though the sheets of water would have drowned my screams regardless.


    Leaves and mud squelched underneath my feet and the shaggy leaves of bushes snagged my shirt, and bag, and skin as I ran towards safety. The trunk was long and the bark would be slick from the rain and moss, but it was my only chance.


    The storm cloaked the forest, and I stumbled and slid on roots, branches, and rotten leaves hidden by the night. The lightning had a change of heart, though, and streaked the sky in white, geometric fire, giving me brief pictures of my surroundings. Brief was all I needed, and I ran faster than I ever did in my life through the drenched terrain. The oak was close now. The branches waved me forward, reaching out and shaking.


    I was so quick on my feet that when I tried to stop, only a few meters from the tree, I slipped and skidded the rest of the way and slammed face-first into the trunk. ¡°Oof!¡± was all I gave myself time to react with before I scaled across the wet bark, slippery like I predicted, and climbed up. The moss tried to loosen my grip, but I dug my nails into the tree¡¯s callused skin.


    The wood tore at my skin and ripped my fingernails off my nail beds, yet I didn¡¯t even notice the pain. The next lightning strike flashed, and I saw the rusty gloss of my blood pouring down my thin fingers. I kept climbing, higher and higher.


    I probably weighed fifty pounds soaking wet, so the tree had no issue carrying my weight. At least until I made the rushed mistake of grabbing onto a new twig, thin with a speckling of bark. It ripped off its parent with the sound of tearing cloth. I shrieked. My hand reached up towards something, anything. I latched onto a senior branch, sobbing in relief.


    ¡°Sorry,¡± I croaked at the bark in front of me. The tree shivered, and another branch pushed me forward, up, away from the beast below.


    I screeched when the man made his presence known, knocking into the tree with a roar. He slammed his hands into the hardened and aged bark, grunting and hissing.


    ¡°Get down here, you little bitch!¡± the man snarled up at me, punching the tree when I only climbed higher, like he could cut it down through will alone.


    I panted and rested my cheek against a branch when I made it to the top of the tree, where no one, especially the brute, could reach. The ancient plant tightened its limbs around me and I heard the predator below scream in pain when a branch swatted him in the face.


    My hands shook, and a sob lodged in my throat. Tears welled in my eyes, but the haven gave me courage. ¡°Go to hell!¡± I yelled down at him. I almost wanted him to try and reach me, so I could laugh at the man as he fell back down. Fear left me drip by drip. Frozen blood melted back to liquid, then boiled as I looked down at the predator, who was still fighting the enraged tree.


    I hurled abuse at him, the vilest a small child could come up with, as the rain poured down and thunder added its own voice. How dare he insult me after he tried to attack me? He chased me up a tree and only instincts from ancestors¡¯ past saved me from whatever disgusting fantasies he wanted to act out.


    He did eventually try to scale the tree, and he did fall on his ass before he could grab a third branch, and I did absolutely laugh. He deserved it, the humiliation, the predator¡¯s continuous reminder that he could not even kidnap properly. Easily thwarted by a tree because he was a hulking, clunky moron.


    He screamed at the sky when thunder and lightning danced and harmonized, and I cackled above him, tinkling bells dwarfed by the chaos of the storm. ¡°I¡¯m gonna get you!¡± he attempted to thunder, but it was so pathetic in contrast to the real deal bellowing around us.


    ¡°Oh, really?¡± I chuckled, loud enough for him to hear. ¡°Looks like it.¡± I saw his shadowed figure reach down and pick something up, and I failed to register the danger until I saw how big it was. A huge, uneven circle attached to the line of his arm.


    I tried to jump to the next branch, and it bent sideways to catch my form as he hurled the rock. I slid on the branch, grip slipping as I ripped off leaves and tiny branches. The rock slammed against the side of my head. I was still conscious enough to feel my blood freeze again as my fingers loosened. Hear the tree branches curve and contort as it tried to grab me.


    My body fell to the ground. I did not feel it when I hit the earth. Only saw through my blackened vision rotten brown leaves and broken twigs. Then nothing.


    My last thought was, ¡®If only his aim was as bad as his climbing skills.¡¯


    I woke up in the backseat of a car. Balls of light raced from the passenger window to the back window, and the sudden bright flashes made my head pound. The back windows were partially down, letting the fresh air in, which whipped against my chilled face. I was curled up on my side and soaked through, so cold that I knew my lips must have turned blue. I drew my knees up tighter and wrapped my arms around my middle. A hiccup escaped.


    The stress of being hunted by a grown man, the pain in my fingers, and the agony in my head overwhelmed my mind. It couldn¡¯t take it anymore, and blissfully warped reality. Teleported me to the most peaceful times of my short life. In a blink, I was sleeping in the back of the car with my mother as she drove down dark roads.


    Something played on the radio; rock and roll, heavy metal, country, it didn¡¯t matter. I was so adapted to living in a car that I could sleep through anything. Mom glanced at her rearview mirror, saw my lolling head being cradled by a seatbelt, and turned the radio down. Not all the way down, so the music could keep her awake, but enough that any sudden rises in volume from solos and advertisements would not stir me.


    She lowered the window, knowing how I loved the cool night air and, boom, I was deep in sleep, where the Bum-bum. Bum-bum. of the car, the gentle swishing of the wind, and barely there lyrics of various songs influenced my peaceful dreams. I might get lucky tonight and she will drive to a random gas station and buy me a small slushie, gently opening my door, careful not to disturb me or my seatbelt hammock, and reach over to put it in the cupholder. The only gift she could afford most of the time. I will wake up when we go over a particularly large bump and a sleepy grin will plaster itself on my face at the sight of the rare treat.


    I did not even realize I was crying until I felt the wind cool the hot tears on my face. Reality hit like a throat punch and the whimper which nested itself into my throat crawled up and escaped. My lips quivered and my eyes burned as tears flowed down and pooled under my head. How predictable, I lectured myself. Finally got cocky and now we¡¯re in the backseat of some stranger¡¯s car. And I almost wished I was na?ve enough to not know what would happen next, but Mom never let me be na?ve to the horrors of the real world, and the news broadcasts on the radio filled in any gaps.


    The pain, the agony, the humiliation and dehumanization. All of it just for me, because luck ran away as soon as I was born. I only hoped that I would blackout in the middle of it, and that the man would dump me somewhere the police could come get me, and not kill me outright after he was done. I was already a statistic without becoming a headline.


    I cried what any child would cry, all faux confidence beaten out of me. ¡°I want my mommy.¡± I snarled in my torment, hate and horror squeezing my heart and controlling my body, my vocal chords. ¡°Mama. Mama!¡±


    I squeaked when the car rolled to a jerky stop, going off the road and onto the gravel. I hated that sound.


    This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    The driver¡¯s door opened. He parked right under a blinding streetlight, and I squinted my eyes against the glare. The car lights blinked on, and the calm orange contrasted comically with the morbid situation. I heard a grunt as he grabbed onto the sides of the door and dragged himself out of the car. When I saw his shadow engulf mine, I squeaked again and buried myself in my arms, choking on whimpers and sobs. The passenger door opened.


    ¡°Hey-hey-hey! Easy, easy.¡± I screamed when a warm hand patted my head. Teeth clenched so hard together, I worried they would crack like pebbles thrown violently against pavement.


    ¡°It¡¯s me. Hey, it¡¯s okay. It¡¯s just me.¡± Arms picked me up with ease and wrapped around my middle. I hid in my arms, even as he shushed and rocked me in the rain.


    There wasn¡¯t any pain. No agony or humiliation. I peaked up from my hiding place to see¡­ the sweet boy from the library.


    Wailing, not noticing his flinch at the piercing sound, I launched myself further into his arms. I cried harder than before, my throat tight and eyes bloodshot, my arms so tense around his neck I worried I was choking him. I couldn¡¯t let go, though. If I let him go, I¡¯d be in the back of that man¡¯s car, or bleeding out on the forest floor, or in my father¡¯s house.


    He adjusted me so that my face rested against his neck and stroked my hair, all the while muttering reassurances over the rain. ¡°You¡¯re okay. He¡¯s gone. I¡¯m so sorry. I am so fucking sorry.¡± The boy held me tighter against him, leaning over me, acting as a shield against the rain. ¡°I should have tried harder. A little girl out in the middle of a storm, God! What were we thinking, not taking you home?¡± He choked and shook his head.


    ¡°W-What happened?¡± I asked, wincing as a wave of agony rolled through my head and settled into the front of my skull. I pushed two fingers where the pain lingered and whimpered when I felt a hearty bump, caked with what I assumed was dried blood. The boy jerked his head from side to side like he was trying to fling the experience from his mind.


    ¡°I-I had such a bad feeling,¡± he said. ¡°I knew I couldn¡¯t just leave you out in the cold like that. I stayed to help the ladies out and¡­ I shouldn¡¯t have even done that. I should have gotten right in the car and followed you. Begged you to just trust me this once,¡± he said. ¡°And when I finally did, I saw him¡­ I saw that fucker drag you into his car and I¡­ I rammed into it. I rammed into his car.¡± The teenage boy adjusted me again, favoring his left hand. Craning my neck, I looked at his right wrist and, despite the darkness, could make out the deep mosaic of purples and blues which painted his wrist.


    ¡°I couldn¡¯t give him the chance to take you. It was so stupid. It¡¯s a miracle I didn¡¯t hurt you more. Hell, I might have and I just can¡¯t see it!¡± He carded a hand through my tangled hair, a small tug signaling me to show him my face. I lifted my head, and he cradled my cheek, moving my head from side to side. Squinting, he studied my eyes, trying to find something there. When what he saw satisfied him, the older boy shook his head and bawled, the tension in his shoulders loosening.


    The rain softened to tear drops as he said, ¡°He got out. He screamed and said he was gonna kill me. I-I lost it. He¡­¡± He took a shuddering breath. ¡°You don¡¯t have to worry about him.¡± I pulled him towards me and hid in his neck again, almost choking him, though he didn¡¯t protest.


    We said nothing for a while, only cried and held each other in the rain, wondering how we ended up in such a hysterical scenario. It was so quiet in the library.


    After ten minutes, both of us looked like drowned rats. I giggled and reached for his hair, and he leaned down. I tugged on his soaked locks, tangled and sopping wet from the rain, and laughed, scratchy and choked. He laughed too and shook his head over mine, splashing me with sweaty hair water, and I squealed in disgust.


    The boy chuckled while he adjusted me and himself to lean against the car, angling his face to the sky. I did the same and sighed. The droplets had warmed, and it felt like getting hugged in a pool during the summer, minus the chlorine.


    He nudged me after another few minutes. ¡°We need to get you to a hospital. That¡¯s where I was taking you because you¡¯re¡ª¡± he reached up to the top of my head and I hissed when he touched the bump. When he pulled his hand back, I saw flecks of dried blood wash off his fingers. ¡°You¡¯re hurt pretty bad. What happened?¡±


    ¡°Jerk threw a rock at my head when I climbed a tree,¡± I said, crinkling my face when I noticed how my words slurred at the end. He noticed.


    The boy growled. ¡°Damn coward. Yeah, we need to get you to a hospital.¡±


    I snorted. ¡°Oh joy, my dad¡¯s gonna love that bill.¡± With a sigh, I extracted myself from the boy¡¯s arms and attempted to stand, only to sway on my feet. The car suddenly had a twin. My stomach did a whole gymnast routine, and bright splashes of color swirled in my vision. He caught me before I could fall face-first into a puddle. I stuttered out, ¡°Welp. Th-That¡¯s not gonna work.¡±


    ¡°You got hit on the head with a rock,¡± he said like that explained everything. He put an arm under my legs and picked me up, bridal style.


    ¡°And fell off a tree.¡± He balked at me. ¡°I climbed up a tree, and he threw a rock at my head. I fell.¡± An eye twitched.


    ¡°And fell off a tree. Yeah, you need to go to the hospital. You¡¯ve been out for at least half an hour.¡± He turned around slow, placing my abused frame back inside the car with the same gentleness I saw him handle baby birds with. The passenger door clicked closed, and the boy gently sat down in the driver¡¯s seat, careful not to shake the car. Turning around, he gave me a lopsided grin. ¡°This is going to sound stupid, but do you want me to put on your seatbelt?¡±


    I chuckled, coughed, then shook my head, laying down on my right side and wrapping my arms around myself. ¡°No. Just don-don¡¯t go too fast? Please?¡± The boy nodded and turned back around. He eyed me through the rearview mirror, and the droplets collected on his eyelashes refracted the glow of the car light. A sigh left him. Twisting the key, he woke up the cranky engine, and the car shook off the water which pooled in its crevices.


    ¡°Hey,¡± he said, turning the car back towards the road. I cringed at the sound of gravel under tires. ¡°I know your brain¡¯s all scrambled right now, but can you try not to sleep? You¡¯re not supposed to when you have a concussion.¡±


    ¡°Is that what this is? A¡­ con-cooshion?¡± He frowned.


    ¡°Yeah, and you¡¯re not supposed to sleep for at least twenty-four hours. It should be only ten more minutes before we get to the hospital, though, so maybe there¡¯s something they can do so you can rest. Pills or whatever.¡±


    He grinned at the rearview window. ¡°I got one when I was your age when a baseball hit me square on the forehead. Had a black eye for a good two weeks!¡± He laughed at himself. ¡°If you want, after we get you all fixed up, I can show you the picture of it. Dad made sure to take photos of my new accessories. It was as big as the baseball that gave me it, swear to God.¡± He made a circle with his thumb and pointer finger, pressing it against his face before pulling it away from him with a silly grin. ¡°Whaahp! Thing was huge!¡± His eyes crinkled when I giggled.


    He asked if I wanted to keep the windows down, and I said yes, hoping the wind would settle my stomach and chill out the furious headache. Then we were off.


    Telling stories about his childhood, he gave me a vivid description of how stupid he was when he was younger, with an assortment of injuries as momentos. A dislocated shoulder from a parachute attempt with a sheet. A broken toe from kicking a pebble, only for it to be a buried rock he swore was as big as a tire. He got his arm snapped like a twig when he was ten because he challenged a thirteen-year-old to a fight and got thrown across the room¡ªturns out the stick of a kid was not lying when he said he was a wrestler. The ten-minute trip morphed into thirty, the closest hospital farther than he thought, but he kept me awake the entire time with tales of his misadventures.


    By the time we got there, the sky had vanished. Gone were the ashy clouds which choked the moon and her stars. When I looked up, it was a sea of blackness, like a clumsy god spilled ink all over their canvas. Too dark for shadows. Too dark to exist until the sun rose and vaporized the remnants of the storm, conquered in nature¡¯s own fight between light and dark.


    That rock really scrambled my brains because, as he picked me up again and carried me into the sterile lights of the hospital, I wondered where humans got the concept of good and evil. More simply, light vs. dark.


    Did we get it from our bloody battles, with how our spilled blood looked against a blade of grass? Or did we see how the sun fought the moon, and how the moon fought the stars, and how the stars fought off the tendrils of parasitic shadows, and wrote thousands of stories based on conflicts which existed millions of years before humanity¡¯s ancestors existed? Wars which we had no context for, so arrogantly assumed their meanings?


    As we entered the reception room, the harsh overhead hospital lights stabbed into my pupils. I cried out and snuggled into the boy¡¯s chest.


    He tried to carry me delicately, not wanting to jostle my head more than necessary, but worry had him jogging when he saw the nurse at the reception desk. ¡°She¡¯s hurt,¡± he said in a rush. ¡°Someone threw a rock at her head and knocked her out of a tree. She¡¯s slurring her words. I think she¡¯s seeing double. Are you seeing double? Hey, are you seeing double?¡± He patted my back and rocked back and forth, coaxing a nod from me. I opened my eyes and the light above me split into two.


    I shut my eyes again, keeping them so, and he did me the favor of making sure no one touched me unnecessarily. He told the nurse, ¡°She doesn¡¯t like being touched by strangers¡± when the older woman reached out to comfort me. He answered a lot of questions.


    ¡°No, I¡¯m not her brother.¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m not her guardian. I just work at the library she hangs out at.¡±


    ¡°She told me some jackass chased her up a tree and threw a rock at her. She fell down. I got there before he drove off.¡±


    ¡°Uh, sorry ma¡¯am. I¡¯ll watch my language.¡±


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t know where he is now. Yes ma¡¯am, we¡¯ll wait.¡±


    Then the police came.


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t know where the guy is now. I told the nurse that. Yes sirs, I know you¡¯re just being thorough.¡±


    ¡°No, I wasn¡¯t there when he went after her, but I saw him try to put her into his car.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure that wasn¡¯t her father. Was that dic¡ªer, that man your dad? No, it wasn¡¯t him.¡±


    ¡°No¡­ I-I don¡¯t know where he is now. I screamed at him and he tried to swing at me¡­ I swung back. He¡­ He got into his car and drove away.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I followed her. She¡¯s a ten-year-old girl walking in the middle of a thunderstorm. What was I supposed to do?¡±


    ¡°What the hell? No! I didn¡¯t do that to her! Look at her! Would anyone cuddle up to the person who tried to smash their brains out and do God knows what else?¡±


    ¡°Yes sir, I know you¡¯re just covering all your bases. Sorry, sir. I just¡­ She¡¯s like a little sister to me. She¡¯s walked to the library all by herself since she was little¡ªwell, littler. I practically saw her grow up. She used to call me ¡®Boo Choo.¡¯ I don¡¯t know what she was trying to say, but it was adorable.¡±


    ¡°Book.¡± I jumped into the conversation, interrupting his nervous rambling, now snuggled into his side while the nurse tried to examine my head wound on the hard bed. ¡°I was trying to call you ¡®Book,¡¯ because you always helped me find my books.¡± The boy shuddered and sniffled, the questioning affecting him more than I thought it would. I followed his arm, wrapped around my shoulders, and put my hand over his larger one. It helped when Mom did that for me when I was upset.


    He snorted through his tears, which made an interesting sound. ¡°That¡¯s freaking adorable.¡± The police officers and attending nurse gave their own short chuckles at the nickname before the questioning resumed.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t get a good look at him. Way too old to be dragging a little girl into his car. Bigger, around my height¡ªI¡¯m 5¡¯9¡±¡ªwhite, either black or brown hair, same with the eyes. He didn¡¯t look dirty.. Dark clothes, either black or dark blue. He wore a baggy jacket and what looked like grey sweatpants.¡±


    ¡°I work at the local library, sir. That¡¯s how I knew to follow her. She came that morning and left while it was still storming. I should have insisted, but she¡­ she hasn¡¯t really acted the same around me since she was around six. I didn¡¯t want her to be anymore afraid of me than she already was. Why was she nervous around me? Uh¡­¡± He coughed into his hand, and it wasn¡¯t a fake, uncomfortable cough. We were both probably going to have quite the colds after this was said and done with.


    ¡°My dad¡¯s a jerk.¡± I answered, short with the cops. I was cold, tired, and in a lot of pain. To say I was not in the mood to be poked and prodded at in any way was putting it lightly. ¡°And he slapped me last time I was nice to a boy. Kid was crying, and I gave him a flower and, well, my father saw.¡±


    The boy cursed and spat poison under his breath. ¡°You¡¯re ten-years-old. What the hell is he worried about? Should be proud to have raised such a great kid, but no.¡± He continued his tirade as the police scribbled my words down onto their notepads. They tried to question me further, but I stayed silent. They took the hint and turned back to the boy.


    ¡°She¡¯s ten-years-old. Her birthday is February 1st.¡±


    ¡°She comes in and stays from open to close. Eight AM to eight PM, sir. Ten AM to Six PM on weekends.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s been going to the library almost every day since she was four.¡±


    ¡°She walked there by herself, rain or shine. We did report it. The police didn¡¯t do anything because they said she was ¡®clearly safe.¡¯¡±


    ¡°We did everything we could. We have rules, but she was the exception to almost every one. We have these mini private rooms, where you can have loud study groups, and meetings, and whatnot. We have a rule saying you can¡¯t sleep in them, because they are almost always in use. We let her sleep in them whenever she wants. We rarely allow food or drink, but we encourage her to bring snacks. We give her ours a lot of the time. She¡¯s so skinny. We don¡¯t allow people to check out books without a library card, but she would need a guardian to sign the papers and so she just has to promise us that she¡¯ll bring them back. She always does.¡±


    ¡°Yes sir. Yes sir, we¡¯ll tell you if there¡¯s anything else. Yes sir.¡±


    The nurse lady finished giving me the last stitch and said I was good to go, rubbing a thumb over my cheek as she complimented how good I was while she shoved a needle and thread through my skin. I just needed to stay until tomorrow morning to keep an eye on me. The boy had to leave.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, young man,¡± the nurse said, careful not to raise her voice and aggravate my headache. ¡°But I¡¯m afraid only family can stay.¡±


    He jolted and held me closer. ¡°I¡¯m not leaving her alone. You¡¯ll have to get the cops back in here.¡± The nurse, to her credit, just laughed and insisted he needed to leave. Family only.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you hear?¡± I mumbled against his side. ¡°He¡¯s my brother. He stays.¡±


    She tsked and clicked her tongue, and I heard her tapping her shoe against the tile. With a sigh, she gave in. ¡°Fine, but you will not cause any problems. Do you understand, young man? I¡¯ll bring you both some water and a pudding cup, but you may not roam the halls willy-nilly. Bathroom breaks only, got it?¡±


    ¡°Yes ma¡¯am.¡± He laid down on the bed and put my head on his chest.


    ¡°Ah-ah.¡± she scolded. ¡°You on the chair. She needs that bed to herself.¡± She stood there for a minute before clicking her tongue again. ¡°And I¡¯ll give you both some clean clothes. Wait here.¡± A squeak and reverberating clack of her shoes told me she exited the room in a hurry, likely having other patients who needed attention.


    I whined, but since I did not want to cause a disturbance that would end up with me being alone when (if) my father came, I let him get up and off the hospital bed. As a compromise, he scooted the chair as close as possible and laid his head down on the side of the bed.


    ¡°Did the nurse say to stay awake?¡± I whispered.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think so,¡± he whispered back, stretching his hand and flattening my stringy hair. ¡°I think you shouldn¡¯t risk it, though. I¡¯ll ask her when she comes back. Promise.¡±


    Moaning, I curled into a ball, an increasingly familiar position, and tried to stay awake. It was difficult, my brain telling me that a nice snooze would cure me of my pulsing headache, but not wanting to find out the consequences if I caved in and released myself from reality.


    I thankfully did not have to wait for long. The nurse, paranoid and wanting to get us into something warm, checked on us only after five minutes with two pairs of pants and shirts. After the nurse helped me put on the white clothes, him pacing outside the door with squishy shoes, the nurse gave us the all clear that I could, of course, sleep and that I needed the rest.


    She did not need to tell me twice. Before he even sat back down, looking like an altar boy in all white except for his muddy sneakers, I was out like a light. The last thing I heard was the boy gently humming, the thunder and rain howling in tune.