For a moment, my disgust fades and everything turns red. My head spins, and my chest thumps. I’m trembling, but I’m not scared.
I’m furious.
No wonder he didn’t want me to know.
No wonder he kept delaying. Distracting. Prolonging.
No wonder my parents want nothing to do with him.
My mind is flooded with every disgusting, sick, and vile assumption it can conjure, and my legs wobble as he leads me to his Challenger and opens the door.
“Get in, Demi. I’ll tell you everything.
Chapter Forty-One
Royal
{seven years ago}
I’m barreling down the highway in my truck, northbound to Saint Charmaine where my fifteen-year-old kid sister spends most of her days getting herself into all kinds of trouble.
Last time I saw Misty, she was strung out on something, showing off a homemade cross tattoo she got from one of her foster brothers. We’re not even religious, but she claimed she’d been having visions.
And the following week, I heard she was expelled from Saint Charmaine High.
The week after that, she was apprehended for shoplifting makeup and condoms from the local Wal-Mart. The store manager let her go, but she earned herself a lifetime ban from store #82746A.
She’s a lost soul, and I can’t blame her.
She’s grown up never knowing the love of a parent. Never having guidance and boundaries and expectations. Never having a family like the Rosewoods take her in and treat her like one of their own.
I know for damn sure I wouldn’t be who I am if it weren’t for the Rosewoods. They’re the closest thing to an actual family I’ve ever known.
Cranking the window, I let the wind hit my face and glance down to check my phone. I haven’t been able to reach her since I got her distress text earlier.
The only time I hear from Misty anymore is when she’s in trouble, and she needs me to bail her out. And as her older brother, I don’t have a choice. I’m all she’s got.
She has no one.
The state failed her, though no one admits it.
She’s one of eleven foster children in a group home setting in Saint Charmaine, and the foster parents don’t give a rat’s ass what she does. She stays out late and comes home looking like death, and they don’t question it.
As long as they pass their inspections and visits, that’s all that matters.
Meanwhile, they sit back and collect all the benefits they need. Money meant to give her food and shelter, she doesn’t even see. She shouldn’t be as skinny as she is, and she shouldn’t be wearing hand-me-down clothes from the Sears juniors department.
Misty told me once she spends most of her time at her best friend, Sierra’s, house. Her father, Rick, creeps me the fuck out, but Misty said he’s like a daddy to her. And she used that word. Daddy. Like she’s a fucking kindergartener.
Rick’s missing a couple of teeth, and his daily uniform consists of holey jeans and wife beaters, and the dilapidated shit hole he calls home leans to the left, and the paint peels from the siding in thin, curled strips. The yard is more dirt than grass, and the roof sags in the middle. Can’t take care of his shit, but at least he keeps my sister fed and minded, which is more than anyone else in Saint Charmaine has ever done for her.
Misty sent me an SOS text this afternoon when Demi and I were coming back from getting ice cream. The text was our secret code word: FEBRUARY. February was the month we were taken from Mona’s care and separated, and as a code word, February is our way of saying, “I need you. It’s an emergency.”
I’ve always told her to say the word, and I’ll come running. No questions asked.
And that’s what I’m doing.
I pull off on an exit, heart pounding, and head toward Sierra’s house.
I know exactly where it is, because I’ve dropped her off there before when she begged and pleaded and cried for me not to take her back to the foster house. She claimed two of her foster brothers were bullying her, making her show them her tits and trying to sneak into her bedroom at night. She claimed she sleeps with the dresser in front of the door, at least when she’s there, but most of the time she sleeps at Sierra’s.
I guess it’s the lesser of the evils.
I filed a complaint with her caseworker once. Evidently her claims were unfounded, because she was never removed from their care and life seemed to go on for the caregivers and all involved.
But the thought of anyone touching my little sister like that makes my blood boil. The first time she told me, I got black-out angry. I wanted to kill those motherfuckers, and I would have had Misty not stopped me.
She said going to them and threatening them would only make it worse, and I certainly didn’t want to do that for her.