By a Charm and a Curse(44)
Leslie and Sidney have a staring showdown and if I hadn’t just seen Leslie be such a badass, I’d have said Sidney would win. He’d spent years in the box, pretending to be a happy-go-lucky carnie not pitiful curse victim. But Leslie is seriously pissed. Finally, Sidney looks over at me.
“Tell her,” he says, his voice barely more than a whisper. He stands so abruptly he almost knocks the tabletop off the metal pole it stands on. As the screen door slams, Leslie speaks.
“Yes, Emma,” she says, folding her delicate hands neatly as she turns to face me. “Tell me.”
Chapter Nineteen
Benjamin
I’m cutting through the yard, taking a shortcut between two trailers, when Lorenzo Moretti moves into the gap in front of me. Shit. Where there’s one Moretti, there are two more in hiding. Lorenzo is the middle brother, the one who always seems to be five minutes away from taking a good nap. But the eyes staring at me now are sharp and clear, shining with a dark intensity. I start to back up and hear a low laugh.
“You cause too much trouble,” Fabrizio says.
I whirl around to see that he and Antonio have snuck up behind me, penning me into the narrow space between trailers. Malice crackles between them like lightning jumping from cloud to cloud, and I know that I’m in for it.
“Yeah, well, maybe if you guys weren’t always harassing the newbies…” I say. I edge toward the wall of one of the trailers, but the moment I move, the brothers do, too. I need to get out of here. Fast.
“Heard you decided to have a little chat with Leslie, roustabout,” Fabrizio says. I haven’t taken my gaze off him, and he stares back without blinking. “Then I was thinking. You clearly have a problem with us. We have a problem with your mom. Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone.”
There’s movement all around me, vultures tightening the spiral toward their prey. The air around me feels colder, the day a little darker.
“I thought, what does that bitch Audrey Singer love more than anything in the world? What would she go the extra mile to protect? And who would I like to teach a lesson about ratting out my brother?” Fabrizio grins, a flash of white teeth that feels like danger.
The first punch is quick and fast and dirty.
Fabrizio lands a kick square to my knee. My shoulder hits the packed dirt with a thud. A boot crashes into my ribs, the impact resonating throughout my body, followed quickly by a tingly numbness.
The brothers take turns kicking and punching at my legs, my gut, my chest. Fireworks of pain bloom from each point of impact, each layering over the other, until I’m in one hazy fugue of hurt. Already I’m trying to think of ways to cover up the inevitable cuts and bruises, because though I never would have thought them to be smart enough, this plan of theirs has a high chance of succeeding.
And as fast as it all began, it’s over. Dust settles around me, coating my bare arms, the inside of my mouth.
Antonio kneels on the ground beside me. More of that fine, dry dirt flurries around when he does, stinging my eyes. My glasses sit on my nose at an odd angle, and he carefully reaches to straighten them for me. “Get out,” he says.
He rises, and he and his brothers run through the gap between trailers.
I roll onto my back and stare up at the sliver of sky above me. Thready streamers of clouds fill the space, with streaks of bright blue peeking through. I watch them speed across the sky while my breathing—slowly, achingly—returns to normal. Nothing feels broken, only bruised, like I was pummeled with a meat tenderizer. After several long moments, I stand and instantly regret it.
Jesus, that was an even more horrible brand of asshole than I’m used to from those three. But I can’t waste any more time worrying about them, not when Mom’s looking for me. When I think that I can walk without wincing, I knock the dirt off my clothes and go to find her.
In front of the Airstream there’s a scattering of boxes—boxes filled with tools, with scrap wood, with anything Mom and I can call ours—littering the ground. One of the boxes props open the door, and as I approach, Mom steps out among them.
At first she doesn’t see me. Instead, she flits from box to box, mashing the lids down to secure them with packing tape.
“Mom,” I say. She doesn’t hear. “Mom!”
She straightens and pushes her hair back. Her eyes shine with harried impatience. “Get your things. Anything not in the Airstream already. We’re leaving.”
I cross the few short feet between us, palms out in surrender, hoping she doesn’t notice how slowly I’m walking. The last thing I need is for her to find out about the beating I just got. “Whoa. Mom. Why are we leaving?”
She glances around, like she’s afraid that someone will overhear us. I kind of hope someone does, that someone else will come over and help me talk some sense into her. “Whiskey. She fell.”
I nod. “Yeah, so?”
“That,” she says, going back to taping up the box at her feet, “is enough. I came back because of the charm. I came here to keep you protected. But if that charm isn’t working anymore, then there’s nothing to keep us here. If the carnival can’t ensure your safety then there’s no reason to stick around.”
I swallow. Leaving was the thing I thought I wanted. But that’s not what I want anymore. At some point over the last several weeks, my wants changed, and I don’t know a way of explaining it that doesn’t involve Emma.