Blood to Dust(12)

I climb down to the basement, two stairs at a time, and find her exactly as I’d left her—tied, blindfolded and sitting in the corner. She drags a bloody finger on the wall, right next to another line of blood.

She’s counting the days until Camden’s arrival.

Her head snaps up the minute the door locks behind me and her posture straightens. She scrambles to her feet, her chin lifting in defiance.

“Who is it?” she demands, her voice sharp and entitled like Mrs. Hathaway’s. Unlike Mrs. H, though, God’s girl doesn’t sound desperate. If nothing else, it makes her slightly less annoying.

“Dinner,” I grunt, throwing the plastic container to her feet. The basement is mostly empty. Irv and I have nothing to our names and when we rented this shithole, it barely offered the basics of two beds and an old, saggy couch.

But there’s a rotting wooden table in the corner that’s been here since before I moved in and a few carton boxes where we store our useless shit. Nothing that could serve as a weapon. Clothes, books, some old family albums Irvin keeps of himself and his crew. That kind of stuff.

This means Silver Spoon sits on the floor, sleeps on the floor, and considering the long hours I’m out of the house, she’ll probably pee on the floor soon. She only gets one bathroom break, and after Irv slapped her when she first arrived, I gave him the Don’t-Come-Near-Her talk. Just to make sure he took the warning seriously, I stomped on his foot. He’s been limping ever since.

“I’m thirsty,” Country Club announces through blistered lips.

I go upstairs and fill her a bottle of tap water. When I hand it to her after untying her wrists, she drinks the whole thing in one gulp and wipes her mouth with a satisfied cluck of her tongue.

“Shower,” she demands next, then adds a little question mark at the end of the sentence.

I already figured out that she wants me to think she’s some kind of damsel in distress. But her mask is as unbelievable as my Guy Fawkes one. It’s full of cracks.

She’s not weak, she’s strong. Even worse, her strength shines through, blinding every f*cking person in her vicinity. There’s nothing submissive about a girl with fire in her eyes who seeks revenge. Thin-skinned people don’t go around laughing in the faces of people who hit them. This chick is a holy f*cking terror. She acted like the warehouse scene was some kind of big, fat joke.

What have you done to deserve this, Blondie?

“Eat first,” I order, turning to climb back upstairs.

“Then sit with me. I really need to hear something other than silence.”

Having been in segregation, I know exactly what she means. When the silence is so loud, you want to tear the place down until the pain of bleeding fingers shout your screams for you. But the truth is I don’t owe her shit.

And I definitely shouldn’t play into her game.

“Got plans.”

“Please.” Her tone is anything but begging. “You have the outside world all day. All I have is you. Ten minutes is all I ask. We’ll eat and then you’ll go.”

Ten minutes won’t kill me, I guess. And whatever shit I’m dealing with right now, her problems are a hundred times bigger. I sit at the far corner of the room, opposite from her, and rip my brown paper bag open.

“Thank you,” she mouths. We eat. God’s girl’s pretty disorientated. Trying to eat a salad while being blindfolded is a bitch. She stabs her plastic fork—I make a mental note to take it away when she’s done—in the air, around her thighs, anywhere other than the plastic bowl before giving up altogether. Then she starts eating with her hands.

“Tell me about yourself,” she says, munching on lettuce.

“This is not a blind date,” I growl.

“Technically, it is.” She grins at the pile of leaves sitting on her lap, her eyes still wrapped in the black cloth of what used to be my shirt. I don’t humor her.

“You know, I majored in English Literature at UCLA.” She pops a cherry tomato between her lips. They’re the best kind of lips. Her upper lip is thicker than the lower one, creating a natural pout.

“Good for f*cking you.”

“The best life to live is the one people will judge you for.” She brushes her upper lip with the tip of her tongue. “Dance with your demons, love carelessly. Selflessly. And most importantly, love yourself, even at your worst.”

Wow. She’s so f*cked up. And nuts. I kinda’ dig it.

“Did Ink hook you up with some dope? Are you f*cking high?”

“It’s a part of a poem I wrote in lit school. It was published in the campus newspaper.” She pats the inside of her bowl.

I wanna get up and tell her to forget about the whole thing, but my ass is still rooted to the floor, because I shouldn’t be intimidated by some rich kid.

“Let me guess,” she rasps, “You graduated from the School of Hard Knocks?”

“Nope. Dropped out of that one, too. I’m a failure through and through. There’s not even one competent bone in this body.” I bang my fists on my chest like a gorilla.

She’s laughing at my lame joke—it sounds genuine—and I notice her hands caressing the walls of the black bowl again. She’s finished her salad but is still hungry. Of course she is. She hadn’t eaten all day. Reluctantly, I scoot to her side and place my fries in her hand. I can raid the kitchen later. A small beam tugs at her lips. “Thanks. So why Guy Fawkes?”