Sticks and Stones (13 page)

Jack hadn’t been seen for two days and Sandra had barely talked to Danny between his late-night haunts and even later-morning awakenings. She considered calling out to him as he exited the car. But the problem was that Danny wasn’t alone.

The moonlight caught on the girl’s glossy lips. They looked swollen and her cheeks looked flushed as she giggled and stared at the old house like it was some kind of grand adventure. She was pretty, and Sandra felt something sick gather in her stomach.

Danny had brought a girl home.

He’d brought her
here
.

Lem would’ve boxed him upside the ears.

Sandra just curled her legs tighter, watched as Daniel swung one arm over the girl’s shoulders, steadying her as she weaved on her dark high heels. Her skirt was short and cute and a little daring. She looked like a nice girl but Sandra already hated her; hated the nails that wrapped around Daniel’s wrist, hated the lips that grazed his cheek, the eyes that glittered coyly, dark and wanting.

They reached the steps and Daniel boosted her up onto the first step they’d made out of plastic milk crates and planks of wood. Sandra did her best not to move.
Silent and unseen
. Nothing new.

“Wait,” Danny said as she reached for the doorknob, lips almost on the back of her bare shoulders. “Wait.” Like he was finally thinking clearly again. “We can’t go in there.”

“What – why? I wanted—”

Sandra didn’t get to hear what she wanted because Daniel crashed his mouth to hers, pulling her against him hard, her head bent down and legs ending up wound around his waist, leaving one of her stylish blue pumps behind as Danny pulled back from the steps and slammed her against the wall. The girl gasped and Sandra froze even more than before.

They were
so
close.

She should get up, she knew. Move and walk away before things got out of control. But then the girl would see and Danny would see and—

Daniel’s eyes slid sideways, met Sandra’s and his lips curled up into a grin as he pulled his mouth away from the girl’s neck, teeth flashing white. The girl moaned, twisted fingers into Daniel’s messy hair and he lowered his head back down, near the top of her breasts, still looking right at her.

Sandra swallowed hard, closed her eyes, listened to the hot slick of his tongue and mouth, the hard pants and moans of the girl. Her body felt like an electric wire, nerves too raw and exposed and not in a good way.

I hate you
, she thought.

The girl made a shuddering little sound and Sandra’s eyes cracked open, caught Danny’s gleaming on her, the way he moved let her know what he was doing now, a slow surge of hips that the girl seemed to love.

I’d
notice if someone wasn’t looking at me
, Sandra thought. Even three sheets to the wind, she’d notice.

Fabric grated against the wood siding, grass a soft noise underfoot and, this time, Sandra did turn her head away. The girl wouldn’t see her now and Danny already had. Her knees felt locked to her chest, acid burn in her throat.
“Yes, yes,”
the girl whispered, moaned, and Sandra almost crushed her hands to her ears. Her anger burned thick through her veins as Danny hummed back.

Somewhere, far away where the town lights lit up the sky, a dog barked, the sound echoing into the distance as another hound replied.

When they were done, Sandra heard the girl step back to the grass, giggling softly when Danny returned her shoe. She wobbled and hugged him around the middle as he led her back to the car, across the weeds and spotty grass and dust-dry gravel.

Sandra doubted the girl noticed him looking back toward the house, or noticed his smug and satisfied grin.

Their voices carried low and soft, and Sandra’s knuckles stung at her sides, pressed closed and tight and fingers aching from the urge to lash out.

When they were gone she pushed herself up on shaking legs, climbed up the milk crate steps, and disappeared inside, into the house and into her room, locking her bedroom door.

She was through with this.

Sandra wrapped herself in her blankets, curled up like a cocoon, thinking:
Fuck you, Danny Sloan
. Him and Jack both.

With or without them, it was time to start living again.

Chapter Thirteen

“Get up.”
A fist pounded on the bedroom door.

Sandra flinched out of bed, still caught up in her blankets and nearly falling all the way to the grainy floor. It wasn’t dirty, not with how many times she’d swept and mopped, but she could still feel the gritty film of old dust and wood beneath her toes as Jack thumped against the door one last time.

“I’m up!” she called out and listened to him walk away; story of her life.

She grabbed the only hair band she had left, pulling on a faded blue shirt and jeans with holes in the knees. They hadn’t done laundry in a week and her pants had grass stains on the hems. The dirty light of the window hit her in the eyes. It looked too damned early. The sky was still pink.

“What?” she asked, when she got downstairs, combing her hair back with her fingers and jumping over the third step to avoid the creak that seemed to fill up the whole house.

Jack had a piece of bread in his hands and Daniel was busy drinking a glass of orange juice. He didn’t look over and Sandra didn’t try to make him, sure her mouth was showing just how unimpressed she was, all pinched down tight. Jack’s shoulders straightened a little, like he thought she was irritated at him and was getting ready to do battle, chin tilting up in what Sandra recognized as his new habit, pretending more was okay than it ever really was. When she didn’t say anything, he relaxed and frowned over at his brother.

“We’re taking you shooting,” Danny said.

Sandra rolled her eyes and made a face at his back. Jack scowled at his brother and headed for the door. “Why would I want to do that?” She grabbed an apple off the counter and followed Jack to the door anyway, Daniel trailing after them both. He wedged a bit of wood into the frame to keep it closed as he stepped down onto the milk crate and wooden plank stairs.

“Dad should’ve taught you long ago,” Jack muttered like he wasn’t really thinking, and Sandra heard Danny’s steps falter, felt her heart do the same. Somehow Jack had gotten the keys and he slipped behind the wheel before Daniel could get them back.

Sandra was left standing by the car’s back door, not sure she should even get in.

Jack started to look pissy again, so she slid inside, did up her seat belt and stared hard out the window. Half the sky was still dark. The other was bringing the whole world awake.

They didn’t drive long, but the air was quiet when they stopped, the town far away on the horizon, lights blinking out one by one.

As it was, it turned out “going shooting” was just code for standing in the middle of a field trying to crack tin cans off a couple of logs.

Daniel got their guns out of the trunk, a quick gleam of silver and metal that Sandra didn’t want to think about, air so cool she wished she’d worn a jacket instead of just a shirt.

“We’ll show you how to take it apart later,” Daniel said. “How to clean it.”

Sandra nodded, and wondered if he noticed she hadn’t looked at him directly since walking down the stairs. She wondered if it bothered him, like them ignoring her had bothered her, and then Jack was steering her shoulder forward, setting her in place and telling her, “Pay attention,” and setting the gun in her hands.

It was heavier than she expected. “Don’t close your eye like that.” Jack adjusted her fingers, held them a second before moving back, hand on her shoulder again. “Keep them open. Line it up… Come on. There, you got it. Support your arm. Now breathe in. Breathe out, nice and slow…. Pull the trigger on the exhale.”

The recoil didn’t hurt, but the pop of the bullet felt awful, left her nauseous, made her think of Lem and the holes in his chest.

“Good first try,” Jack told her, grinning faint, one hand still on her shoulder, closer to her shoulder blade. “You’ve got to loosen up, take more time. Make sure you feel steady, take careful aim before you pull down. Let’s try it again.”

It might’ve been the most Jack had said to her all at once in a whole month.

The bullet missed. Sandra thought it soared somewhere overhead. Her hands didn’t shake, but her insides flipped all about, fish in her belly, as Jack adjusted her aim once more.

“You’re showing her wrong,” Danny said, suddenly at her side, and Sandra had to clench her jaw to keep from jerking. She never wanted to move fast with a gun in her hands. You never pointed it at a living person, not unless you wanted them dead; she knew
that
.

Jack grumbled, glared, but moved back – let Daniel step into his spot.

“Spread your legs a little wider, the same as your shoulders. Lean forward a little. Not that much. Just a bit. You’re shorter than us; you need to find your center of gravity, stop the sway from side to side.” She felt this was said more toward Jack than her, but she listened, heart nearly stuttering to a stop when Daniel placed his hands on her hips, angling her whole body slightly off to the side.

She wanted to push him off. Maybe punch him, too.

“You balanced?”

Not even close. “Sure,” she said, and hoped he couldn’t hear her voice shake.

“Okay then. Get yourself ready.” Another adjustment, him telling her to aim above the target and bring it down, line up the sights, and “Don’t pull the trigger, alright? Squeeze it. You don’t want to knock all your hard work off balance.”

This time the shot went to the left.

“Again,” Danny said.

When Sandra finally zinged a can, sharp crack and pop and metal thrown off the stump, she shrugged Daniel away, set her feet and raised the gun.

“You got it.”

“Guess I do.”

She didn’t let him put his hands on her again.

~

Sandra thought they had taught her to shoot because they were never around anymore. The pack protected each other, but there wasn’t much of a pack now. So they did the next best thing and left a gun in her care. She guessed they thought it’d work better than the knife she already had.

She wasn’t sure whether things were more strained between her and Daniel, or between him and Jack. Those couple of hours together tore everything to the seams. The boys took off as soon as they reached home, Jack staying just long enough to teach her how to properly clean and take apart the gun she didn’t want to own before hightailing it down the empty road, dirt kicking up around his boots and jeans as he walked to town.

The whole room smelled of metal and oil.

Sandra kept thinking she smelled blood under everything else. Gasping and falling and
bang
bang
. The metal felt alive under her hands. She thought it would bite her if she let it.

She spent an hour cleaning everything she could find, their guns as well, going over the motions in her head –
don’t
close your eyes, steady your arm, breath out, squeeze, don
’t pull…

Somehow, it felt important.

She wished it didn’t.

At quarter to five, Sandra packed the guns away, hid hers under the loose board in her room, and walked out the door.

The air was a lot dryer than it had been that morning. Everything felt quiet and the dust kicked up like it had for Jack, settling on her clothes and her face and getting in her nose. Being out and about felt great and she wasn’t waiting around anymore. The town was far enough away to stretch her legs, fifteen minutes at a fast walk, and even longer than that to reach the diner or the four-screen movie theater or one of the bars that littered the evening-rush streets.

There was a rumple of bills in her pocket and Sandra didn’t think any bar would let her in, but maybe she’d try later if she couldn’t find anything else to do. First, food. And then maybe a guy. Maybe she’d see how Jack and Danny would like that. Not that they’d know.
She
wouldn’t bring him home.
She
wouldn’t shove him in their faces or grin about it afterward, edging needle smiles under their skins.

She might not even be able to touch him.

Breathing hard, Sandra slammed into the mom and pop diner, getting a side booth where she could watch the door, listening to the steady hum of cups and cutlery hitting plates, people whispering and laughing and a couple of young kids sitting over in the corner shrieking as their dad dumped back cups of coffee, looking like he was praying hard for salvation.

“What’ll it be, hun?” The waitress looked maybe two years older than her, four at the most, eyes heavily lined with kohl, and lips a slick, natural pink. It took Sandra a long moment to recognize where she knew her from.

Suddenly she wasn’t so hungry anymore.

She was a lot angry though.

I saw
you fucking Danny last night
, she wanted to say. But it wasn’t really the girl’s fault. The boys were just like that – sucking in everyone who stepped into their path, in a good way or no.

Her name tag read
Francis
and she looked right tired.

Sandra could commiserate.

“Coffee.”

“Sure thing.” Francis smiled, and it was getting harder and harder to hate her. The kohl made her eyes darker, deep-set and droopy in an almost sultry way. “Anything else?”

Sandra shrugged, rubbed at her temple, eyeing the menu that quickly blurred out of focus. “Not right now?”

Francis hummed, leaned forward to collect the menu and gave a sympathetic smile, “Hard night?”

“No … no, I’m fine.”

That got her a knowing look, a secret smile, and a, “Know a little bit about those myself.”

Sandra couldn’t quite stop her uncomfortable answering grin, or the blush that started up her cheeks. She looked down to play with her cutlery, waiting until Francis had moved off toward the kitchen before biting her lip hard.

Francis returned with the coffee and a smile, and well wishes that hoped Sandra felt better soon.

“Thanks,” she said. “You, too.” She sat for half an hour before Francis came back, asked if she wanted anything else. The next time the waitress appeared, it was a new girl with blonde hair tied back with a clip, and blue eyes, verging on thirty, with dimples in her cheeks.

Sandra paid, left a dollar tip on the table and headed out the door.

The sky was dark and the air was cool again. Traffic was a slow hum, storefront lights and street lamps blinking on. Sandra dug her fingers into her jean pockets and wondered about the benefits of finding somewhere else to go. Wondered if it would be better to just walk home.

Then she remembered empty rooms and cold, gritty floors, and the silence that pressed down until she wanted to scream.

Maybe Daniel would bring back another girl. Wouldn’t that be a shock when he found out she wasn’t even there?

Turning left, Sandra walked two streets down, passing by the club with neon-signed women dancing in the windows. There was a small pub at the end of the block; they sold fries and wings and stew and wouldn’t ask for her ID unless she ordered some brand of the hundred and one imported brews they sold.

It was a little classy and exactly the kind of place the boys wouldn’t be.

The atmosphere was dark and quiet, with a slow, mellow beat on the radio, and the smell of wheat and barley in the air. No one paid her any mind when she moved up to the bar, a long line of polished dark wood, and slipped onto one of the cushioned-back stools.

The bartender didn’t look like he’d tag her, but Sandra ordered a soft drink anyway. He was older, gray at his temples and in his eyes, and reminded her of Lem. When he smiled, Sandra felt her eyes go hot and her throat go tight.

She had to nod to keep from saying something silly out loud.

The root beer left bubbles on her tongue. All the caffeine left her wired and Sandra ordered a serving of fries, watching as the place filled up, keeping her spot at the bar and playing spectator to the room through the dusky mirror on the back wall.

A football game played on the television and a group had set up nearby, cheering and yelling and getting sauce on their shirts and spilling fries on the ground.

The bartender was named Keith Liston and kept refilling her drink, making her feel better with his deep southern twang. He had laugh lines at the corners of his mouth, and the one time his fingers had accidentally touched hers, Sandra had felt nothing more than a long life of happiness and good feelings. He had a daughter up in Montana and three grandchildren waiting for him next Christmas. His wife had left him five years ago for his cousin, but he wasn’t bitter over it. Life was better off. He’d have never met the new Mrs. Liston if the old one hadn’t gone off as she had.

He wasn’t very much like Lem at all, but she liked him a whole lot anyway.

The guy to her left kept trying to buy her a beer, but Keith had already threatened to boot him out the door twice and she was pretty sure he’d be gone soon. His rings caught the dim light meanly, and he had a lifetime of scars and
wrong
on his knuckles.

Sandra wouldn’t let him touch her.

Some things you just
knew
.

“Another one?” Keith asked, and Sandra nodded, just so she wouldn’t have to leave, even though her bladder felt full to bursting already. Most the people in the pub were an older crowd, just wanting to talk and get away, or watch some football with the pals. She almost wished she had said yes to a beer, just to lose some of the thoughts in her head. She didn’t know where kids her age went in this town – the ones too young for the bars and too old for everything else.

Another five minutes, one more bad pickup line, and Sandra waved off Keith, settled her tab, and stopped by the bathroom on her way out the door.

She stumbled into someone. Or maybe they stumbled into her. But suddenly Sandra was being thrown. The air rushed in her ears, something sharp and painful in her chest. In her skull. And then she landed and all her air disappeared.

“Shit! I’m sorry!”

A large hand reached down, pulled her up and steadied her. He had caramel skin and dark brown hair.

Sandra fought the urge to throw up, room wavering as he repeated himself, laugh in his voice, sounding horrified and amused and … this man was going to die in a week. Sandra wanted to run away, erase the visions of a bad stumble onto a busy highway, a broken windshield and spider web cracks splattered with red.