The seconds ticked by at half the speed of my thoughts.
“Why weren’t you affected?” I wondered aloud. “He did try it on you, didn’t he?”
“He tried; I definitely felt it. Little did he know…” Chubs tapped his forehead. “Steel trap. Nothing gets out or in.”
I had a fleeting thought that what he was saying could very well be true, and that it might even explain why his was the only head I had managed to avoid slipping into, but we heard a loud shuffle of steps on the path, and everything else flew straight out of my head.
Olivia and another kid came stumbling in, one of Liam’s arms over each of their shoulders. His face was turned down, and I could see where mud had caked into his hair. The rain had started about an hour after we had left him.
“Lee,” Chubs was saying, trying to get him to rouse. “Lee, can you hear me?”
We helped them lay him out on the futon. It was dark enough in the room that I didn’t see the extent of his beating until Olivia set a flashlight lantern down on the floor beside him.
“Oh my God,” I said.
Liam’s face turned in my direction, and for the first time, I realized he was actually awake—his eyes were swollen shut. I let my hand fall on the arm hanging off the side of the futon, and moved it so it was across his chest. The breath escaped his lips in wheezing sighs. There was a thick layer of gummy, dried blood caked around his nose, his mouth, down to even his chin. Daylight would reveal the rest of the bruises.
“He needs antiseptic,” Chubs said, “bandages, something—”
“If you two come with me,” Olivia replied, “I’ll walk you to the supply room. No one will be out to bother us.”
“I’m not going to leave him,” I said, still crouched beside Liam on my knees.
“It’s all right.” I barely felt Chubs’s hand on my shoulder as he brushed by.
The screen door creaked open and shut behind us; I waited until I heard the shuffling footsteps of the other kid follow them out before I looked back down at Liam’s face. I moved my fingers, feather-light across his face, as gently as I could. When I came to his nose, he let out a sharp hiss, but he didn’t try to twist away until I brushed his swollen split lip.
I don’t know if I had ever cried as much as I had in the past month. I had never been like the other girls in my cabin at Thurmond, who cried every night, and then again every morning when they realized their nightmare had been real. I wasn’t even a crier as a kid. But there was no way to hold them back now.
“Do I…look as pretty as I feel?” His words were slurred. I tried to get him to open his mouth, to make sure all of his teeth were still there, but his jaw was too tender for me to touch it. I leaned forward to press my lips against where my hands had been.
“Don’t,” he said, one eye just barely cracked open. “Not unless you mean it.”
“You shouldn’t have gone after him.”
“Had to,” he managed to mumble out.
“I’ll kill him,” I said, anger flaring up inside of me. “I’ll kill him.”
Liam started to chuckle again. “Ah…there she is. There’s Ruby.”
“I’ll get you out of here,” I promised. “You and Chubs. I’ll talk to Clancy, I’ll—”
“No,” he said. “Stop—it’ll make things worse.”
“How could things possibly get any worse?” I asked. “I messed everything up for you. I ruined everything.”
“God.” He shook his head, mouth twisting into a shadow of a smile. “Did you know…you make me so happy that sometimes I actually forget to breathe? I’ll be looking at you, and my chest will get so tight…and it’s like, the only thought in my head is how much I want to reach over and kiss you.” He blew out a shaky breath. “So don’t talk about getting me out of here, because I’m not leaving, not unless you’re part of the package, too.”
“I can’t go with you,” I said. “I won’t put you in that kind of danger.”
“Bull,” he said. “Nothing’s going to be worse than being apart.”
“You don’t understand—”
“Then make me,” Liam said. “Ruby, give me one reason why we can’t be together, and I’ll give you a hundred why we can. We can go anywhere you want. I’m not your parents. I’m not going to abandon you or send you away, not ever.”
“They didn’t abandon me. What happened to them was my fault.” The secret had slipped out of me like a long exhale, and I’m not sure which of us was more surprised by the admission.
Liam settled into silence, waiting for me to continue. It occurred to me then that this was it. This was really the moment I was going to lose him. And all I could think about was how much I wished I had kissed him one last time before he started fearing me for what I was.
I leaned my head down on the cushion beside his. In a whisper, because I wasn’t brave enough to say it any louder, I told him about going to bed the night before my tenth birthday, about how I woke up expecting my usual birthday pancakes. About the way they locked me in the garage like some wild animal. And when that story was over, I told him about Sam. How I had been her Chubs until I wasn’t, until I was nothing at all.
My throat burned when I was finished. Liam turned his face toward mine. We weren’t even a breath apart.
“Never,” he said after awhile. “Never, never, never. I am never going to forget you.”
“You won’t have a choice,” I said. “Clancy said I won’t ever be able to control it.”
“Well I think he’s full of it,” Liam said. “Listen, what I saw in the woods, when you…”
“When I kissed you.”
“Right. That…that really happened, didn’t it? What he—what that asshole—did. That happened to you. He kept you there, frozen, like he did to me.”
Yes, but also no. Because a small part of me had wanted Clancy to do it. Or had he only made me want him, played my emotions with a single touch? I nodded, finally, my insides still squirming with revulsion at the memory of his skin against mine.
“Come here,” said Liam softly. I felt his fingers’ light touch run along the crown of my head, feather-soft as they came down to cup my cheek. When I lifted my face, he met me halfway and kissed me. I was careful not to touch his face, only his shoulder and arm. When he pulled back, I seemed to follow, my lips searching for his.
“You want to be with me, right?” he whispered. “Then be with me. We’ll figure it out. If nothing else, I trust you. You can look inside my head and that’s all you’ll see.”
His warm breath spread over my cheek like another kiss. “Mike worked it out. He’s going to try and find a way to sneak us out, and then you, me, and Chubs? We’re gonna hit the road. We’re going to find Jack’s father, we’re going to find a way for Chubs to reach his parents, and then we’re going to talk about what we want to do.”
I leaned over and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “You really don’t hate me,” I breathed out. “You’re not scared—not even a little?”
His battered face twisted with what I thought was supposed to be a smile. “I’m scared to death of you, but for a completely different reason.”
“I’m a monster, you know. I’m one of the dangerous ones.”
“No you aren’t,” he promised. “You’re one of us.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
CHUBS RETURNED A FEW MINUTES AFTER Liam faded into a restless sleep. He stirred again when we began cleaning the cuts and gouges on his face, reaching for my hand at the first touch of stinging antiseptic. When I felt his grip began to relax, and saw his eyelids flutter shut again, I finally released the breath I had been holding.
“He’ll live,” Chubs said, seeing my expression. He was stuffing away the rest of the supplies in my backpack. “He’ll have a wicked headache in the morning, but he’ll live.”
We took turns sleeping, or at least pretended to. My body was thrumming with anxious unspent energy, and I could hear Chubs muttering to himself, as if trying to work through the night’s events.
And then came the sound of feet slapping against the concrete steps of the cabin once more, and we gave up pretending altogether.