Violet Grenade(60)

His heart kicks softly against my back. "Who are you talking about?"



       
         
       
        

"Mercy," he responds. "When I found you outside her room that night, I didn't know what to think."

I shift until I'm looking up into Cain's face. My insides feel like they're trying to tear their way out. He must see the question in my eyes, because he says, "Don't you remember? It was a few nights after you got here. I saw you outside her room."

Though I'm afraid he'll learn my own terrible secret, I shake my head.

No, I don't remember.

"You were just standing there, Domino." He licks his lips, worry folding the space between his eyes. "You had a butcher knife in your right hand."





Chapter Thirty-Eight

Mama's Good Girl

When I open my eyes, I'm in my bed. Not in Cain's bed. Not my bed on the second story of Madam Karina's home. Not even on the mattress I claimed in Detroit.

I'm in my bed at my parent's house. My father is already gone. I sense his absence like a missing foot. Like someone has asked me to walk without it for the first time and they say, stupidly, can you feel the difference?

It's light out. Sunshine pouring through my lace window drapes like a rainbow arching over a funeral procession.

"Domino, are you awake?"

My mother's voice. It comes from down the hall.

I curl into a ball and turn my back to my bedroom door. She knocks on it once before opening it.

Would you look at that respect?

She moves inside my personal space, and I clench my eyes shut. It's been forty-nine days since he left us. Forty-nine days since my father decided he wanted a new life. Mama moves closer, and I try not to breathe. Ever since he left, she's been cracking like an egg on the side of a mixing bowl, her innards running yellow down the lip.

"I got us some things when I went out." Her voice is a songbird warbling a falsetto tune.

I don't want to hear about the things she got. They won't be good things. They won't be a new green jacket with gold buttons or a pint of apple juice or body lotion that smells like grated lemon.

They will be bad things.

"Don't you want to see?" she says, sweetly. "We're so much closer to completing our plan now."

Her plan. Not our plan.

"Come on, sweetie. Don't you want to make me happy?" She pauses for effect. "We only have each other now." Her hand comes to rest on my arm. I don't flinch because, at the end of the day, she is my mother. "Who would you have if not for me?"

I open my eyes and sigh.

She takes my sigh as the encouragement she needs.

"Here, I'll lay them on your pillow." 

I close my eyes again when she leans over my frame. The mattress groans against the added weight, and then she's gone. Backing out of my room, closing the door behind her. I grit my teeth, remind myself I am brave and good and would never let a man push me around. All the things my mother has told me.

When I open my eyes, I see the gift she's left me.

Two things.

A pair of surgical gloves.

And a shiny, happy knife.





Chapter Thirty-Nine

Top Floor

The next morning I tell Cain I need to get out of the house. I don't tell him my plan to eventually leave, just that I need a break. I'm on edge after hearing that Cain saw me outside Mercy's room. With a knife. Add to that the fork I almost used as a weapon on the Daisy, and the memories of my mother, and you've got a seventeen-year-old girl who's about to blow.

I need to relax. Feel the sun on my skin without watchful eyes. Poppet said Eric would take girls into town for a fee, and it's a fee I'm now willing to pay. Cain watches me rise from his bed and hesitantly agrees to bring it up with Madam Karina.

I'm about to go upstairs when he stops me. "When are you going to tell me your secrets?"

"You mean, now that you've told me yours?"

He doesn't respond.

"I can't tell you, Cain," I say softly. "It's not like your secret."

I turn and stride up the stairs before the sun has risen. I'm not sure what Mr. Hodge or Madam Karina would think if they found me in Cain's basement, but I'm certain it wouldn't be good. When I near Poppet's and my room, nerves tick behind my eyes. I shouldn't have left her alone that long. Anything could have happened.

When I open the door, though, I find her alone and safe. She's rolling her bedsheets into a bundle and stuffing her clothing, accessories, and makeup inside. Poppet stops and looks at me when I sit down on my bed.

"Where were you?" she asks, cleaning her glasses against her yellow blouse.

I hesitate, but decide against lying. "I slept with Cain."