All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(59)

“I promise, it won’t happen again.”

She waved one fleshy hand. She blew out a breath, and her bleached, frazzled hair drifted like a cloud on a breeze. “I want to talk to you.”

That phrase wasn’t good. That phrase was never good.

“You’ve really tried hard while you’ve been here, Vie, and I appreciate that. I don’t want you to think that I don’t appreciate that.”

She was firing me. Of course she was.

“And I know the other employees have appreciated it as well.”

“Sara, you don’t have to—I’ll just—”

“I’m not done, Vie.” She rested her hands—red from years of scrubbing and frying and washing and God only knew what else—on her cheeks, and her big brown eyes flooded. In a choked voice, she said, “Vie, I—”

“God, it’s ok, Sara. Please don’t cry. Really, it’s ok.”

“Oh stop it,” she snapped, and then she swallowed a sob. More firmly, she continued, “You don’t even know what I’m trying to say, so just stop it.” She paused, dabbed at her eyes, and said, “I also want you to know that I made this decision in part because of your, well, your relationship with Austin. If things were different, I’d like to think I have enough integrity to have done the same thing. But for heaven’s sake. After everything that’s happened between you and that boy. Vie, my nephew can be a bastard sometimes, but I do love him.”

“I don’t get it. You’re firing me because I . . . because I made Austin gay? Because I didn’t. He was already gay.”

“Jesus on his goddamn jet plane, boy, of course not. I’ve known that boy was gay since he was three years old. I’d say you coming around was one of the best things that ever happened, because I was afraid he’d be forty and married before he figured it out.” She blew out another breath, like someone was stoking a boiler inside and the steam had built up too high. “Vie, you come in with black eyes, with bruises, with your face split fifteen ways from Sunday and looking like you need masking tape to hold it together. You got tangled up with that Tony Galgano, who murdered those girls and would have murdered you. You don’t have a decent set of clothes, and if you think I haven’t seen you spending your money at the grocery store and walking home with plastic bags draped on your arms, you are dead wrong. And Friday night—”

I didn’t know what was happening, not for sure, but a small, animal part of me knew there was danger. My throat constricted, and I couldn’t seem to breathe. The office had shrunk, and my knees rattled against the desk and the chair pinched me in place. “Sara, it was an accident. I just—the knife slipped. It won’t happen again, please, Sara, you can’t—”

She shook her head, and tears spilled down her cheeks and muddied the thick layer of makeup. “Vie, sweetheart, there isn’t a kid in the world who deserves the hand that life dealt you—”

“Sara, don’t.” My hands scrambled across the desk. “Please, whatever—”

“There isn’t a kid in the world,” she repeated. “But a kid like you, and a hard worker, and smart, and a good, kind soul? Sweetheart, there’s not a lot of justice in the world, but I’ll be damned before God if I let this keep on.”

I shook my head. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t even think about talking.

“I called DFS, that’s department of family—”

I didn’t wait to hear the rest of it. I knew what it was, and I surged out of my seat so fast that it cracked against the wall.

“Vie, you’ve just got to talk to them. Tell them what’s going on.” Sara lumbered out of her chair, one hand outstretched. “Sweetheart”

“I told you I’m fine. I told you I can take care of myself.”

“I—”

“Did Austin put you up to this?”

“Sweetheart, you need to calm down.”

“Did he fucking put you up to this?”

Her features firmed, and she planted both hands on the desk. “You’re not thinking clearly. Sit down, please. Let’s talk about this. Vie!”

But I ran out of the office, out the front door, and out of Vehpese.





By the time I reached the edge of the city, I had a stitch in my side. Not from the distance—I loved to run, and I’d run a hell of a lot farther than this before—but because I was all cut up inside, because every breath I took slipped out as fast as it came, until I dropped onto a bench and hung my head between my knees.

It was all happening again. All of it, exactly the way it had happened before, when Gage had started asking too many questions: what’s that cut from, how did you get that burn, why won’t you talk to me? Those questions had muddied the waters, sifting and settling and accumulating day by day, building up like silt at the mouth of a river, until there was a wall between us. And once there was a wall between us, Gage had started spending more time on other things. He’d gotten cast in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He’d met that boy—Calon? Calom? Shit, did it matter?

If that weren’t bad enough, though, Gage hadn’t said anything. On good days, I told myself it was because Gage hadn’t known how, and that Gage hadn’t wanted to hurt me, and that he’d been afraid to hurt me after all the other times I’d been hurt. Most days, though, I knew the truth: Gage hadn’t told me because he’d been afraid of me. And the worst part was that Gage had been right to be afraid.