Chapter Thirty-Seven
Riders on the Storm
It’s my last night as a Daisy, and I can’t sleep for two reasons. One, I’m afraid the girls will use this chance to confront Poppet and me before we’re officially promoted. Second, because it sounds like the freaking apocalypse has descended upon this clapboard house.
The thunder rolls on top of us like a great ogre stomping his feet. Rain pelts the roof, and I watch a brown stain in our ceiling grow wider and then drip onto the hardwood floor. Poppet is completely out, and I don’t want to wake her. But I hate storms. Despise them. They remind me of the night my father slipped away and the world crashed into the sun. When storms tap-danced through Detroit, Dizzy used to let me bring a blanket into his room and sleep at the foot of his mattress.
Like a dog, I realize now.
I pace the floor, dip my big toe into the dripping rainwater. My mind is already where it wants to go, and at a certain point, I feel disconnected from it. So I roll my head and then my shoulders and shoot one last glance at Poppet.
Can I trust she’ll be okay alone?
I peek into the hallway and don’t hear anything above the storm’s fury. Glancing over my shoulder, I remember the way Poppet launched herself at those Daisies. I smile and cover my mouth to keep from laughing.
Then I pad down the hallway in hot pursuit of my lost mind.
I find it on the first floor. Dipping my head inside the Carnations’ entertainment room, I watch the toy train roll across its tracks near the ceiling. The lights are off in the room. The girls have swept away the balled napkins and soda straws. But that train still chugs around the room unperturbed.
I smile at the sight.
When the thunder crashes again, I startle and make my way to the kitchen. Twice, I start to turn back, to find my bed and chase elusive slumber. But on the third try, I find my courage.
The door to the basement opens easily in my hand, and I tiptoe down the cool stairs. The lavender gown Poppet lent me brushes the floor, and my hair slides over my shoulders and down my back. I bite my lip when I reach the bottom, desperately wishing, above anything else, that I had thought to wear a wig. I’m too exposed. Too vulnerable.
Cain rolls over on his mattress.
His eyes meet mine.
He doesn’t move as I inch toward the chain link wall that separates us. My fingers curl over the metal and I cling to it, my legs shaking beneath me. What am I doing here?
Thunder rattles the walls, and Cain rises like the god who summoned it. He strides toward me, one bare foot in front of the other. His eyes are dark in the dim light creeping through the window. They flash with the lightning, shadows thrown across the room, across his face. He stands a breath away, looking down at me. He is enormous.
Large as a storm cloud.
Large as a tornado.
I take in every part of him—his shaved head, his powerful shoulders, the bulge of muscles beneath his white T-shirt. His skin is smooth and tan, his lips full. This close, I can see the slightest sprinkle of freckles beneath his eyes. They seem like a false sense of security. Make him seem harmless, when I know that’s a lie. Just look how I’m reacting when a wall separates me from him. He’s like a caged animal down here in the dark, and though electricity shoots through my fingertips, I want nothing more than to release this beast and see if I am nuzzled or destroyed.
Cain’s fingers slip through the links until his hands rest on mine.
He holds my gaze until I can feel him in the very back of my mind.
We stand like that for several moments, my heart beating like a wild, unpredictable thing, and him searching my face like there’s salvation to be found there. Finally, he nods toward the door that stands between us and strides toward it. He unlocks the thing and throws it open.
He doesn’t invite me inside, but he doesn’t need to, either.
I go to him.
He watches as I walk to his bed and sit, folding my leg beneath me. Though his sheets are rough and his pillow hard, goose bumps rise along my arms. He stands across the room, head down, chest rising and falling quickly.
When several seconds pass and he hasn’t moved to sit next to me, heat blooms in my cheeks and along my neck. I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have come here. He doesn’t want company, and he’s too kind to say so.
With my face burning, I start to push myself up. That’s when he speaks.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Domino.”
I freeze. “So don’t.”
He raises his head. “If you knew the things I’ve done.”
I tug his blanket around my hips. “Tell me.”
He lifts his head and lets it fall back, breathes out like he’s been holding his breath for three hundred and sixty-five days. And one to grow on. “I killed my brother.”
Though I hate myself for the reaction, I can’t stop the fear that boils under my skin. I don’t speak, and Cain finds my eyes.
“My father was a bastard,” Cain continues. “Everyone in Pox knew that. But no one knew it like my brother and I did. He had two loves, and neither were his sons.” Cain laughs darkly. He holds up a pointer finger. “My father loved to drink.” He holds up a second finger. “And he loved MMA fighters. You know those guys who fight in cages? He thought they were like Roman gladiators.” Cain lowers his voice like he’s emulating his father and beats a closed fist against his chest. “You boys need to be more like them. You’re too soft. You’re too goddamn soft.”
Cain drops his arm and sighs. “He started making us fight each other. Training, he called it. Said maybe his pansy boys could make him some money one day like those gladiators he saw on TV. At first we refused to do it, but my old man found ways to motivate us.”
He runs a hand over his head. “My dad wasn’t one to smoke cigars often, but occasionally he’d pair them with whiskey. So one day he’s smoking one and he got this idea to use them on us after we fought.”
My stomach turns hearing Cain’s story, and though I don’t want to hear more, I’m afraid this may be the first time he’s ever told this story. He needs to expel this memory the same way he would poison. So I remain silent.
“He let the winner of each round choose who got burned,” Cain continues. “So I fought harder, because even though I didn’t want to hurt my brother, it was my father’s hand on him I dreaded most. So I won. Over and over, I won. And each time I chose to take that burn.”
“Cain—”
He raises a hand like he needs to finish this. “One day I hit him too hard. He fell and slammed his head onto the fireplace ledge. He was dead. He was dead, and I killed him.”
Cain’s voice breaks, and I can’t stand it any longer. I get up and cross the distance between us. He doesn’t cry for his lost sibling, only breathes harder like he’s trying to prevent a breakdown. But when I twine my arms around him, hesitantly, I feel the change. His breathing slows and I hear an aching sound deep in his throat.
“Your father killed your brother, Cain. Not you.” I wrap my hands around his cheeks, force him to look at me. “Your father was a monster. You are not. Do you understand?”
He pulls his face away, and because I know how hard it is to accept forgiveness for something you’ve owned for so long, I take a different approach. Taking his arm, I guide him toward the mattress. I crawl on and he crawls behind me, keeping a river of space between us. It takes every ounce of courage I have to—gently, slowly—take his heavy arm and wrap it around my body like a blanket made of steel. Several minutes pass before he moves a touch closer.
We stay like that for a stretch, neither of us saying anything. And though I don’t prefer being touched, it’s okay with him. It’s okay.
Can I say something? Wilson asks gently from the back of my mind.
I don’t reply.
If I found Cain’s father today, he says. I’d show him what it means to hurt.
Hush, Wilson, I respond. Just once, let’s focus on recovery instead of revenge.
I’m just saying…
Cain murmurs in my ear. “Madam Karina knows what happened with my brother. The cops didn’t believe my dad when he said my brother and I were just messing around, and that him hitting his head like that was an accident. But Madam Karina said she could give me a place in her home, and that full-time work would make the cops stop asking questions about me.”
Uneasiness pulls on me like a noose. “That’s why you work for her? Because you think the cops would arrest you if they knew the truth?”
Cain doesn’t respond, so I turn and face him. The thunder sounds again, but it can’t touch me here. Not with him lying so close. “Cain, your father would be the one arrested. No one would ever blame you.”
His face scrunches. “But it was me who hurt him.”
“But that’s not what—”
“Domino,” Cain says, cutting me off. “It was my fault.”
I press my lips together and turn back around. I know this guilt. It’s the kind we want to hold on to long after the pulse is gone. So I let him have it. Cain may not want a reason to leave Madam Karina’s. He knows what to expect here, and it’s a big improvement over where he came from. It’s a big improvement for me, too. But it isn’t enough. Not for me, and not for Wilson.
Ten minutes of silence pass. Ten minutes of thunder and lightning and rain pelting the roof. Ten minutes of warmth and safety and dreadful secrets. It feels like forever before I hear Cain speak again.
“I’m glad you didn’t hurt her,” he says. “I know she probably did something awful to you, but I’m glad you didn’t hurt her.”
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.”