“Good. She will. When she does, give her Carl’s name and address and any information you have on Liam.”
Dixie watches me closely. “Okay. I will. And I called the hospital and Carl was moved out of intensive care into a regular room. He’ll be out this time tomorrow or the next day.”
“Where’s the kid?”
Dixie blanches like I’ve hurt her somehow. “Liam. His name is Liam. He’s staying right next door actually, with my neighbor, Mrs. Lawson. She’s nice. A little eccentric and maybe kind of crazy about her cats, but she’s a sweet lady. He’s safe there. And her cookies are probably better than mine.”
She smiles and the tension weighing on my chest lightens somewhat.
“Good. That’s good.”
“So . . . how long do you think Carl has been abusing him?”
I chew my food slowly in an attempt to put off answering.
Right here is the crux of everything that separates my world from hers. She looks at everyone and sees the light in them, the good, the potential. Whereas I see only darkness. The bad. The danger.
“Probably since he was born, Dix. Carl Andrews basically runs the local crack house.”
Dixie pales. “Seriously?”
I nod. “Yeah, babe. Seriously. And by runs, I mean he lives there. It actually is his house.”
Her brow wrinkles as I continue, explaining as gently as I know how to.
“Crack den is a more appropriate term because it isn’t much like a house or a home at all. On the outside maybe. On the inside, these places are gutted. Sparse furniture, usually filthy, and crack pipes and strung-out junkies typically litter the floors and fill the corners.” I stare at my hands while I finish because I can’t bear to see how much pain this is causing her to hear. I’m tainting her worldview, casting my dark shadows on her light. “People come and go. Some looking for a fix, some looking for revenge if they feel they got sold something less than acceptable quality, some so high they don’t even know what they’re doing there, it’s just become a beacon they end up at because they’ve been so many times.”
When I finally look up, she’s shaking her head. “No. No. His house can’t be like that. He has a kid. Surely someone would . . .”
But here I sit, right in front of her. Living proof that someone might not.
Ever.
Dallas and Dixie’s grandparents did the best they could to help me, to keep me fed and clean and safe once I was hanging out with their grandkids. But before that, there was no one. I lived eleven years in a filthy, foodless, Hell on Earth. I guess it says something that I survived it, but I’m not sure what it says.
“Seeing what we saw, seeing Carl hitting him like that . . . hard. It just . . . it triggered something in me. Kid barely flinched. He was used to it. Expecting it. It brought back . . . memories.”
When I look up, it’s Dixie sitting there with her eyes closed. Tears stream silently down her face and I return my gaze to my busted hand. “I know,” she whispers. “It triggered something in me, too, Gav. If you hadn’t stopped him, you would’ve had to pull me off of him.”
“I just lost it. I didn’t mean for it to go that far. I just wanted to stop him.” The center of my chest aches. I wish she hadn’t seen any of it, seen Carl hurting a child she cares about, seen me losing control the way I did. But there’s not much I can do about any of that right now.
“I’m glad,” she chokes out after a few seconds of quiet. “I saw the way Liam was cowering in terror. I’ve seen the way he is. Skittish. Afraid of everyone. Now I know why. I’m glad you did what you did.”
Her approval catches me off guard. She’s literally the most harmless person I know and here she is sounding bloodthirsty and honestly glad. “It’s still not okay,” I say. “We should’ve just called the cops. It’s not the way I should’ve handled it in front of you or the kid.”