Slashback (Cal Leandros, #8)(20)

I’d taught him knives weren’t for playing, but I’d also taught him how to use them. I’d taught him everything I learned, not that he was the best student. Discipline and hard work were a worse nightmare to him than the monster outside. But I kept trying and pushing to make certain he did pick up some. Where Sophia dragged us, there were predators other than Grendels or movie-style murderers.

“Uh-huh.” He turned a page in his comic. “For the serial killer. He’s probably not stupid enough to kill people who live right next door, but you don’t know. Lots of people are all kinds of stupid.”

There was no arguing with that. I didn’t bother trying. But tomorrow, finding proof that this guy scraped roadkill off the asphalt for a living was my number one priority.

“Enough with the comic book. Lights out.” I waited past the grumble and toss of the comic book to one side before I reached up and flipped off the switch. I pulled up the blankets and it was time for the nightly ritual. “All right, Cal, tell me one good thing that happened to you today.”

There was an aggravated groan followed by the sound of a pillow being turned over and smacked. They were actually good pillows. New. Most everything we had was used several times over, but I’d learned that with sheets, blankets, and pillows, Cal couldn’t tolerate anything used. It was a fact I hadn’t much thought about, but found to be sadly true, most of those things came to the Salvation Army or Goodwill via family members whose relatives had died on them. And before dying on them they’d been sick on them for months if not longer. No amount of bleaching could get rid of the smell of terminal illness for Cal. With his sense of smell, which had to come from the nonhuman part of his biology, he’d vomit until he dry-heaved at a stench I could only imagine . . . not detect myself. I spent my savings on the cheapest they had at the nearest Wal-Mart.

Of course that didn’t stop him from pretending the pillows were lumpy.

Kids. I wasn’t sure I’d ever been one, but they were an interesting stew mixed of annoying and amusing. If there was a God, he was playing with fire with these recipes. “I’m listening,” I prompted. “One good thing.”

He gave a sigh so exaggerated that only an eleven-year-old could’ve pulled it off. “I didn’t get chopped up by the serial killer next door?”

“Cal.” Despite myself, I smiled in the dark. He was such a smart-ass. I couldn’t imagine the living hell my life would be when he hit his teen years. “Tell.”

There was more rustling of covers and flopping of the pillow before he finally settled down. Cal was a restless sleeper. In the morning he’d be so wrapped in his blankets he would look like a human burrito. Or the blanket would be hanging from the nonworking ceiling fan. Mornings were not dull.

“Okay. Okaaay.” There was a moment of silence, then words small and self-conscious. “I saw a mother pushing her little boy on a swing. He was four, I think. One big snot-ball, but he was laughing. It was like when you used to push me when I was little. I’d forgotten about that. Stupid kid stuff, but it was . . . fun. You know, then. It was like flying.”

One good thing a day. It wasn’t much in the face of the monsters inside and outside the house, but it was something. One stone in a protective wall that grew taller every night. “I remember. It was fun. We could still do that, you know,” I needled. “Go to the park . . .”

I wasn’t given a chance to finish. “Nik!” A serial killer next door was worth mentioning, although not worth fearing as long as you had your butcher knife. But having someone see him on a swing at his age, that was horrifying.

Smiling again, I said, “’Night, little brother.”

“You’re pure evil.” Another pillow thump, but he still said it because we always did. “’Night, Nik.”

I slept deep. I did when Sophia was gone. It wasn’t unusual for her to stay up until three or four, shouting at nothing and no one. Throwing glasses to shatter against the walls. I studied those nights and Cal read too many comic books. The quiet was nice.

When morning came, with the first ray of sun, I was already at the window. I hadn’t seen a Grendel in the daytime yet, but better safe than sorry. There was nothing but rusty cars and houses covered in peeling paint. I looked over at Cal. He was a mound of blankets. You could guess there was a kid under there, but that’s all it would be—a guess. “Cal, up. Time for a shower.”

The covers were tossed to the side and Cal got up in stages. There was the “five minutes more,” the “no,” the whiny enhanced “nooooooo” with the “go away,” and finally the “you’re rotten” followed by him sitting up with a gloomy huff of outrage and despair. This morning his pajama top was gone. I looked up instinctively at the ceiling fan. There it was. That’s when it hit me . . . what I’d seen.

The bruise.

It was just below his left collarbone, velvety black, and as big as an orange. “Cal,” I said, using enough care to keep my fingers from breaking when my hands folded into tight fists. “What happened?” Guilt instantly washed over his face and he tried to cover the bruise with his hand. “It’s too late to hide it, little brother. Tell me what happened.”

I managed to unclench my hands and sat on the mattress beside him. I cautiously moved his hand away and touched the bruise. I examined it gently with fingers as careful as I could make them. With five years of daily different martial arts training, I’d felt a cracked rib after a sparring gone wrong before. I’d know it if I felt it again, but nothing seemed broken. I knew he hadn’t fought at school. Cal had punched a bully’s teeth down his throat when he was in the fourth grade for trying to take his backpack and sneakers. I’d made sure he knew he couldn’t do that again, no matter how much the bully had deserved it. It was one mistake that wasn’t fixable. The school might call in Social Services.