Ink and Bone(68)
“Bring her back,” Momma said, in that stony voice she had. “You’re a bad girl, Penny. You scared your momma.”
Bobo stood and yanked her to her feet, his grip an icy garrote.
Something big welled up from inside her, a sob of rage. “My name is not Penny,” she shrieked. All the fear and rage that she’d kept buried exploded. “Penny is dead.”
Bobo stared, wide-eyed with surprise.
“Penny can’t find peace until you let her go,” she yelled. Her voice was so loud, and all the other sounds around them, even that strange whispering went quiet. “She’s trapped here even though she doesn’t want to be because you won’t let her pass.”
People always thought that the dead haunted the living, but she knew now that sometimes it was the other way around.
Momma stood, white and stiff, her hands clenched into hard fists. Bobo still held Abbey tight, though she struggled now, trying to get free as Momma moved closer.
Momma drew her hand back and slapped Penny hard across the face, then drew back her hands to her mouth. Penny saw stars, felt the hot sting on her face, the ache in her jaw.
“I’m sorry, Penny,” said Momma. “I’m so sorry.”
Sheer hatred pumped through her. She spoke slowly but loudly, some blood spilling from her mouth warm and salty. “I’m. Not. Penny. And I want to go home.”
Momma stared at her and long moments passed. Still the air around them was blissfully silent, until she started struggling against Bobo’s strong hug.
“Put her with the others,” Momma said to Bobo.
“Momma,” said Bobo, pleading.
But Momma started to walk away. “I won’t do it, Momma,” said Bobo. “I don’t want to.”
Momma stopped in her tracks and turned around, her face ugly with anger.
“She doesn’t love you,” the girl said, rage pulsing. It was so big, so monstrous, like it couldn’t fit in her body. She didn’t even recognize the sound of her own voice. “She never did. She only loves Penny. You don’t have to do what she tells you.”
Momma moved in close to them, and Bobo shifted away, still holding on tight to her. She tried to drop her weight so that she could slip out of his arms, but still he held her, his grip strong as chains.
Then Momma had sandpaper hands on her wrists and started pulling. “Give her to me,” she said, yanking her away from Bobo.
She dropped to her knees, and Momma, with her tireless, sinewy strength dragged her across the ground while Penny screamed and fought, using every ounce of power she had in her. Digdeepdigdeep.
It happened so swiftly, the shift of shadows. Penny wasn’t even sure what she was seeing at first. Momma seemed to freeze, stunned. Her arm dropped like a doll’s arm, falling limply to her side. Bobo held the flashlight aloft, the lens turned red with blood. He brought it down again, hitting Momma with a revolting crack across the head. Her head snapped to the right with the blow. It was almost comical, like cartoon violence. Then the old woman dropped to the ground, slumping into a stiff-legged seat. Bobo moved in fast knocking her flat. Then he sat astride her, hitting and hitting again.
An inhuman sound escaped him, a horrible wail of rage and misery.
Moooommmaaa!
The girl—not Penny—lay still, staring, her heart hammering. Then she got up and ran. She didn’t even notice that it had started to snow.
TWENTY-ONE
Rainer could tell, just by the way she got out of bed, that Finley wasn’t quite awake. Awake, she moved quickly, walked so fast that he almost couldn’t keep up with her, all her movements purposeful and swift. But when she was like this, she moved slowly and deliberately. She sat up, her white skin glowing.
“Fin?” he said.
She stood naked, the perfect curves of her body painted from the light washing in through the curtain from out in the shop. In the darkness, he couldn’t see the art on her skin, just her dark silhouette. She dressed, and he watched as he quietly pulled on his own clothes.
“I’m coming with you,” he told her.
“Okay,” she said easily.
That was the other thing. When she was like this, she never argued. If she’d been awake, she would have told him that it was time for her to go. And if he tried to stop her or go with her, she’d get mad. Tell him that he was trying to control her, not respecting her boundaries, being a Neanderthal. He didn’t get it. Did girls want you to take care of them and protect them, or not? Girls want what they want in the moment, his dad always said. The next moment they want something else. You just have to give it to them and not ask too many questions. That’s the trick to getting along with the ladies. So far, Rainer hadn’t seen anything that proved his father wrong. “All right, baby, whatever you say.” That phrase right there is the key to my successful marriage. Rainer’s parents, unlike the parents of most of his friends, had been happily married for thirty years. So there must be something to that.
Rainer had first seen Finley in high school detention, though he’d heard about her before that. Freaky Finley they called her. Or Finley Firestarter. He wasn’t sure why she had those names. But there was something different about her, those dark, bottomless eyes, that cool half-smile she wore, like she was in on a joke that no one else was getting. Rainer didn’t believe in love at first sight—until he saw Finley.