Burn (Brothers of Ink and Steel #2) (15 page)

He wraps both his arms around my shoulders and chest. “You have to stop.”

“She didn’t even leave anything for me … nothing … because I was nothing!” I break down in his arms.

He holds my weight. “Quinn, you were everything … you
are
everything. She was just too blind to see it.”

I fold in against him and we collapse to the floor in the middle of the mess I created.

“HOW? I only wanted a letter! I only wanted her to talk to me!” I lurch forward and shout a guttural, wild cry, consumed by the agony I’ve held inside of me all of my life.

“I’m so sorry.” He holds me tighter, but he’s crying because of my pain.

“How can I be all grown up and still crave her love so fucking much? Still want her to want me?” I rock back and forth in the safety of his embrace. I know Liam, he won’t let go. “I haven’t grown up at all … not really. I’m still that unwanted, unloved little girl, begging for her mommy to make it all better.”

“Just because she doesn’t love you,” he tries to whisper calmly in my ear between his own sobs, “doesn’t mean you’re not loved. You’re irreplaceable.”

*****

January, 2005

Quinn

“Where’s Liam?” I ask Randy as I shuffle into the kitchen.

“He ran to the store,” he tells me. “Something about the fight tonight and needing protein.

“That’s right, it’s Saturday,” I say, wiping the sleep from my eyes.

Liam and I have been hiding out in Randy’s basement off and on for the last couple of months. Liam’s tried to find work all over the city and was able to pick up some temporary odd jobs that paid under the table, but most people won’t hire underage kids without proper identification or school permission papers. It’s almost February and the money he’s made hasn’t been enough to get us someplace warmer, so now he’s going to resort to the illegal street fights to earn funds.

I don’t like the idea at all, but he thinks it’s the fastest way. Two bus tickets and money for food and lodging, and when we get there, we can figure out the rest—that’s what he says.

I pour myself a cup of coffee and sit down at the table, grateful Randy’s mom is at work.

“Have you been to one? Of the fights, I mean?” I sheepishly ask Randy, who I don’t think will tell me anything. He doesn’t like me much; I think he’s mad that I talk Liam out of fighting as much as I do and because he spends so much time with me.

“Every one Liam’s been to.” He’s typing on his laptop and keeps his eyes on his task.

“What are they like?” I peer up over my cup.

Liam is more than vague when I ask him what goes on, and he’s made it clear I’m
not
accompanying him there.

“Imagine the city’s rival gangs and mafia underlings in one seedy place, pushing monster-sized wads of cash back and forth between them and raising their angry fists, yelling at the opponents like their life depends on how they fight,” he says, undistracted.

“Does it?”

Now Randy’s gaze lifts over the laptop screen. “Fuck yeah, it does. But I don’t think Liam wants you knowing everything that goes on there.”

“I won’t tell him.”

He pushes the laptop out of the way so it’s not between us.

“Most of the time they hold the fights in the old warehouses near the river, down by the railroad tracks. I’ve seen as many as five hundred spectators show up at one time. They tape a circle in the center of the floor to suffice as a ring. Some guy stands in the middle and introduces the first set of fighters—there’s usually six sets. After the first six sets are finished, the winners then fight each other—a best of the best,” Randy explains.

My heart rests a bit in my chest. “That’s not
so
bad.”

He laughs. “The spectators are on the ground floor where the fighters are and make a nearly impenetrable human wall. If a fighter tries to get out of the ring, they push him back in, and not without getting a few of their own hits in on the unfortunate bastard. Oh, yeah, and there’s no tapping out. You’re either left standing, which means you won the set, or you’re knocked out, which means you lose, and you’re dragged out of the ring and left to the mercy of the crowd.”

I’m horrified.

He continues, “These guys aren’t big on mercy, plus they’re all pumped the fuck up on adrenaline and drugs, and they’d just as soon stab you as push you off to the side.” He shrugs. “Not to mention, if they had money on you and you lost? They’re pissed.”

“Have … people died?” I stammer.

“What the fuck do you think?”

I nod.

“That’s why I go. If Liam gets knocked out, I make sure my ass is right there, ready to grab him,” he says. “He’s been lucky—he wins a lot—so when he does get the shit pounded out of him, the guys are more lenient. Not that he hasn’t been knife slashed or had his ribs broken by a few angry assholes that put in their shots while I was dragging him.”

Randy studies my expression. “You’re going to tell him, aren’t you?”

I shake my head but wonder if Liam might have a death wish. Is there really no other way to survive and get out of here? We could hitchhike. Hell, we could walk!

“You know, Quinn, I like you,” Randy begins, but the nasty glint in his eyes betrays him. “You’re a nice girl. But Liam is seriously bad news. He already almost got you arrested because of the fight at his foster home, and truth is, he runs in dangerous circles. These guys he fights for are heavy fucking hitters. Liam told me about Vince and how he tried recruiting you.”

At the sound of Vince’s name, my blood chills.

“Liam’s never fought for him or any of the other local gangs. He’s good enough to get to fight for the mafia guys.”

“Mafia in Minneapolis?”

“Don’t be so naïve, Quinn. They come from Chicago and Detroit to show off their best street fighters—usually recruited from their local gangs.” He scrapes his chair back, and the sound makes me jump. Randy walks over to the fridge and grabs the carton of juice.

I watch him guzzle it down as I sit, dumbly silent.

He wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “Liam’s only been fighting for the past year and likes to think of himself as an independent, but the mafia guys like him, so they ‘contract him’ for their teams. But the way loyalty runs in these circles, he’ll have to choose a side and color sooner or later. He keeps saying no, but tensions are only getting higher, so it’s really just a matter of time.”

“That doesn’t bother you?” I shriek. “Aren’t you worried about them killing him? Haven’t you tried talking him out of it?”

“Fuck no! Liam loves fighting.” He laughs. “And he’s great at it!”

Then I understand; Randy must win a nice purse at each fight. So maybe he’s not really Liam’s friend. Maybe Liam is just a cash cow and gives him status.

An overwhelming terror crawls up my skin.
I really am …
all alone
.

Liam’s words have been nice and all, but the reality is that he lives a life with one foot in with the gangs and city thugs. That’s why he wouldn’t tell me about fighting.

The omission feels like a lie. A lie that could destroy him … and destroy me too.

What did he get himself into?

What the fuck have I gotten myself into?
Months of barely surviving, at the mercy of other people for food or a place to sleep or a warm pair of boots. Now I’m hiding in a basement. Until what? Until Liam can get the money for us to go down south to Florida? I don’t want him to get money this way! I don’t want him to fight ever again!

They could easily kill him tonight!

I’m so fucking confused!

The thoughts that claw and rip through my mind are unsettling and more than disturbing. I’m so afraid for him, I feel sick to my stomach, like I’m going to puke up the coffee I just drank.

On top of that, I feel like Liam’s betrayed me. How can I trust him?

And Liam going to that fight doesn’t help us. He could die. He knows he could die! Or he could decide to go with a gang or mob from another city … they could even force him to!

I WOULDN’T EVEN KNOW!

What the hell would I do without him?

At this moment, I think I could die. It feels like I’ll die—my insides are squeezing and churning—and for the first time since finding Liam, I feel lost again. Maybe more lost than I’ve ever felt.

I want to go home. 

I want to go home so badly! That’s all I want. To feel secure, to feel my mother’s arms around my shoulders, her telling me everything’s going to be alright. I’d do anything for that right now,
anything.

“Randy, can I use your phone?”

He says he doesn’t care and goes back to the world of his laptop.

I’m not here anymore. I don’t understand the way my body feels. It feels empty—like I’m floating.

In the hallway is an old wall phone. I hold the receiver in my hand and stand close so I don’t stretch the cord too far as I dial my mother’s
phone number.

My teeth grind together as I anticipate the sound of her voice. I can’t make my heart calm down. I haven’t spoken with her for months and I’m freaking out!

I try to rehearse my words … if I can say the
right thing
…
maybe
she’ll let me come home.

I miss her. I miss my mom; I miss the smell of her shampoo, the sound of her voice … I miss the way it would feel if she would hug me.

“Hello.”

I freeze at the sound of her voice.

What if she just hangs up? What do I say to keep her on the line?

“Hello!” I’m making her annoyed by not answering back, but I have this pit in my stomach and I’m so scared.

“It’s … it’s me … Mom.”

Silence.

My eyes squeeze shut. I hate silence.

“Why are you calling me, Quinn?” She sounds put out.

“I … um … wanted to talk … to you,” I stammer fearfully. She’s not happy to hear from me, not at all.

“Talk then, I haven’t got all day,” she snaps.

“Yeah, okay. Um, I was thinking that … um, maybe I could um …”

“For Christ’s sake, what do you want?”

I push each word out of my mouth. “I miss you.”

More silence. Blistering, frenetic silence.

As it echoes and reverberates, it is swallowed into the darkness of my mind.

“Can I … come home … please?”

I had wanted to hear her voice so badly. I had wanted her to say,
Quinn, I love you so much, please come home.
But now I know it was a terrible mistake.

My very life is nothing but one mistake after another.

I’m a mistake.
I know she’s going to say it. She always says it.

“Why would I want you here?” my mother says, her voice low and harsh and serious. “This isn’t your home, Quinn, it’s mine. I should have had an abortion when I found out I was pregnant with you. You’re the worst mistake of my life.”

The darkness grows hungry, hungry for my blood and soul, hungry for every thought, good or evil, like a black hole sucking all of my matter and energy into itself—turning me darker and blacker and making me unreachable. I feel myself being pulled towards the lightless, lifeless, cavern of nothing.

My heart pounds, desperate.

How could anyone love me if my very own mother doesn’t love me?

The truth is miserable and simple: no one could.

The phone receiver slips from my hand and dangles lifelessly from the gray cord it’s attached to, like a dead body hangs from a noose.

I know what the black hole is now, it’s my death.

I’m gone. The essence that is Quinn is gone, forced away from the furthest reaches of my physical form.

It spirals into the black hole. That hole is hell. Real hell, not the biblical hell that tortures an eternal soul but a palpable hell, where the flames lick at your sanity and promise to obliterate your very existence so that there is nothing left … not even ash.

I streak from the hallway, through the kitchen and out the front door.

My feet pound the unforgiving pavement of the road. Hazily, I register the sensations jarring my legs. My physical form moves on its own … fueled by the deepest culmination of pain, rejection and heartache … there is nothing left for me here in this world.

I turn the corner.

The darkness knows exactly where it’s taking me.

My fingers grip the woven steel mesh of the highway’s overpass safety fence. I jam the toe of my sneaker into the metal hole as far as it will go and hoist myself up.

My other foot finds purchase.

My body is more than halfway up the fence. The vehicles speed down the highway below me. 

I make a final plea—that when my body hits the ground or a car, no one else gets hurt.

“
I never wanted you. You’re the worst mistake of my life.”