His look was dry. “Oh, come on and use your brain. You’re really going to choose jail if you don’t like whatever help is needed? I just gave you a way out. It doesn’t matter how you can help me, what matters is that you have the chance to. I’d take it if I were you.”
“I don’t like agreeing to things without knowing what I’m agreeing to,” I squeaked out.
“Well, there’s always option three.” My eyes darted to his face. He smiled. “I can just shoot you in the head. I’ll destroy the tape, make it look like self-defense, and let my father take care of the rest.”
The room grew thick with silence as I processed what he had just said.
Finally I said, “You wouldn’t have the guts. That’s murder.”
“It doesn’t take guts to commit murder. It takes stupidity and passion. You’re lucky I’m feeling really smart right about now.”
He walked over to the light switch and turned it on. I blinked harshly at the light, feeling more on the spot than ever. Cornered desperation? Yeah, I was sure it was written all over my face, bleeding out from every pore.
I didn’t have much of a choice.
“Fine,” I said carefully. “I’ll help you out with whatever you want, just as long as you promise you won’t harm or hurt or defame my uncle in any way. My parents, I don’t care. But leave my uncle out of this.”
“Deal,” he said. He walked to me and lifted me to my feet by my shoulders. He kept his grip tight and his eyes roamed about my face, probably enjoying the eau de cornered desperation.
“Deal,” I replied.
He bared his teeth in a smile before leaning into my ear.
“I own you, Ellie Watt,” he whispered.
The words sounded just like a cell door closing.
Behind me.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Then
It had been a month since the girl had to show her gym class her scars, and in that month, the rumors had spread. They weren’t as harsh and vicious as they had been when kids had nothing to go on, but they were rumors just the same. Some people said she’d been a victim of a chemistry experiment gone wrong, like Bruce Banner before he became The Hulk, others thought that her family were Muslim extremists and she’d been punished for adultery. Of course, none of the rumors made any sense at all. Then again, neither did the truth.
But for the most part, people stopped being so mean to the girl. There was just pity instead. A lot of sympathetic looks, some hushed whispers, and the occasional person backing away from her as if she had some sort of flesh-eating disease. The girl could only assume that was some other rumor going around.
In some ways, the girl felt more at peace because the others weren’t calling her names anymore, but at other times she felt like she’d been ripped open and exposed for all the world to see. With her admission, her deformity belonged to everyone now. She didn’t have much else to keep for herself.
At least the girl was feeling confident about her photography class. She loved working with the old-fashioned film, spending the hours toiling away in the darkroom. The only thing she didn’t like was the fact that Camden McQueen was in her class. She thought that after giving him the cold shoulder for a year, he would have given up trying to talk to her and be her friend. But he didn’t seem to know when to quit and the girl was constantly dodging him.
That day, the class had their end of semester assignments due. They all had to take photos based on their interpretation of the word justification. The girl, thinking that she was oh so deep and clever, had taken photos of one of the bums begging on Palm Valley’s main street. As the class was invited one by one to put their works up on the board and explain their choices, the girl realized she wasn’t the only one who thought she was clever. Four other kids had chosen not only a homeless person, but the exact same one. The dude sure did make a lot of extra money that day.
The girl went up and made a half-hearted attempt to explain her views, saying that the bum was justified in his actions because he was homeless and poor. He was allowed to beg for money because the circumstances made it acceptable. Society had shunned him and he was owed that much.
After a few light-hearted claps from her classmates and an approving nod from the teacher, the girl sat back down and watched the rest of the assignments go up. There was another homeless fellow, a picture of a tiny kid beating on a big bully, a Great Dane eating cat food.
Then it was Camden’s turn.
All heads turned as he walked up to the board. Now nearly sixteen, Camden was taller, almost six feet. He walked tall, too, with his shoulders back and his face forward. He looked people in the eye, daring them to look back. And look back they did. He still wore his trench coat, though it was a bigger model, and while the full makeup had run its course, he favored sparkly eyeliner. He was pale, as if he was in witness protection from the sun, and his pants were a shiny, tight leather that no teenage boy could wear without getting beaten up for. That day he had on a shirt of The Cramps and the girl smiled caustically at the cartoonish coffin, making a joke in her head that he probably slept in one.