Sticks and Stones (19 page)

Chapter Nineteen

They were
in rusty number fourteen. The motel was scummier than most and Danny lifted Jack out of the backseat with his hands fisted in his brother’s bloodied shirt.

“I can walk,” Jack protested and struggled. He slumped toward the ground and Danny slung his arm around his shoulders, keeping him upright.

He was dumped on the bed farthest from the door. The bedspreads were an alarming shade of pink. Danny went back to get their bags and Sandra found a clean towel in the bathroom, wet it, and crouched beside Jack. He looked horrible, like a survivor of an illegal boxing match. His eyes were so swollen that he jerked when she touched his knee.

“Doing alright?”

“Just dandy.”

Sarcasm. Good. “Hold still.” Gently taking his chin, Sandra dabbed at the corner of his mouth. She wished they had a plastic cup he could rinse his mouth into. His teeth were still completely red. “Your mouth still bleeding?”

“Don’t think so.” His tongue worked. “Kind of hard to tell.”

Sandra nodded, and then realized he probably couldn’t see and patted his arm instead. The way he moved away told her the rest of him wasn’t feeling so good either. For a moment, her throat closed down and she had to shut her eyes.

She started when Jack tangled his fingers in her hair. “I’m fine,” he said.

Sandra shook her head, but softly said, “Sure you are.” She left the damp towel in his hand when Danny reappeared with their gym bags and found him a big shirt and some clean boxer shorts.

He fought, of course, when Danny tried to help him out of his clothes.

“Would you stop that?” Jack swiped one hand, actually managing to catch Danny’s shoulder this time. “I’m not fucking three years old – I can undress myself!”

So Danny backed away and Jack hissed as he bent his arms and stretched his shirt and all around did a pretty bad job of it. Sandra ended up grabbing the hem of his shirt, pulling it and stretching the collar around his mangled face. Jack put up a whole lot less of a fuss with her. His chest was already mottled black and blue. Nothing was broken but it didn’t look so good – looked awful like Danny’s nose, like the both of them, all battered to pieces.

Sandra spent ten minutes muttering about boys before Jack would take the painkillers. And then they got him into bed with his boxer shorts, missing the shirt, and let him fall away, skin feverish and flushed and hair plastered to his head. Sandra felt gone, far away and slow, like she was the one only half aware, cocooned by blankets and pain and a haze of drugs and worry.

She rubbed her hands over her face and sighed.

When Danny breathed, his nose made an odd, whistling noise. He still had blood on his shirt, on his chin, and all the places Jack had smacked and leaned against. Jack began to shiver and Sandra stripped the quilt from the other bed, tucking it around him, even though she wasn’t sure it would make a difference.

“How’s your face?” she asked quietly. Danny’s brows went low, crinkled, bruises making him look like a raccoon. Him and Jack, what a pair. Sandra stared at him, found it hard to meet his eyes.

She would’ve shot him. She would’ve.

When he settled onto his bed, Sandra went into the bathroom, washed her face, tried not to think, and got ready for sleep. He was still awake when she came out, but he never said a word, not even when she crawled in beside him.

In her dreams, Jack and Danny slipped farther away. A house fell down, Jack strangled a girl, and Danny killed another killer.

Their eyes were black. And so were hers.

Sandra woke, got ready, and helped Jack back into the car.

She thought about the gun.

~

They moved two cities away. Danny and Sandra looked for jobs and they rented a real-honest-to-God house. It was a small thing, hardly big enough to stand up in, never mind live in with two towering men.

Danny came back from his search with a mechanic shop’s business card tucked into his front pocket. He still had bruises, a red mark right over the top of his nose that was sure to scar, and Sandra didn’t bother asking what story he’d sold to pull that off. She got a job as the new barista at the coffee shop down the street, evening-night shift from five to twelve. Danny was usually home by then and the two boys would stop by, Jack limping along, settling into a table all to themselves along the back wall. They’d watch her and the customers and make no friends in the way only they could. Sandra was the only night worker, starting right after the extremely short training period where her trainer had spent more time popping gum than actually teaching her. Not many people came in and there were little cue notes stuck behind the counter in case anybody ordered something insane, like a triple-something or other, double double with foam.

The boys didn’t always stop by, but they were always there to walk her home, Jack wincing the whole way. The people that came in didn’t cause problems and there were the regulars who got to know her name. Frank and Betty. Haldon. Sandra liked making up stories for them. It was surprising how much she learned by just being behind the counter. That’s how she knew Frank and Betty weren’t married, but they were seeing each other despite the rings on their fingers. They weren’t sleeping together, not yet, but it was only a matter of time. Haldon always followed them into the shop, twenty minutes to the dot.

Private investigator, for sure. That, or he was sweet on Betty. But that was doubtful. He was rugged and intense in a way that reminded Sandra of the boys. His coffee was always black, no cream and no sugar, and how Frank and Betty hadn’t noticed him following them by now, she had no idea.

Jack kept a special watch on Haldon.

It made Danny worry as well. Not Sandra. She knew. Haldon wasn’t so bad. And as long as no one paid him to investigate them, he didn’t particularly care if Jack came in covered in bruises and spitting blood. He’d been in some fights back in his day. Besides, he’d already figured out they were brothers and that the younger one still had some growing up to do.

And her, well … she didn’t even register on his radar. She was cute and unimposing, quiet and polite. She didn’t try to force any of that frou-frou drink crap on him and that was just great.

Sandra secretly kind of liked him a lot.

When she was at her job, she didn’t have to think. She didn’t have to worry about the boys and the future and about how her dreams just might be right. For just a little while, she could pretend she was normal and all was right with their world.

When she wasn’t at work, and it was those days where Jack was aching and stomping and grouching around the house, Sandra would escape to Alan Rashim’s garage. Danny’s boss didn’t mind and, even if Danny wasn’t so thrilled about her walking five blocks through one of the worst parts of the city, Alan always treated her respectfully and was good to his workers, and Sandra was glad Danny had found work there. The radio was always on, softly playing Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, and Patsy Cline. Alan had pop he was willing to share that reminded her of old things, smaller towns and barbershops and tiny corner stores. They had to use a bottle opener to get the metal lids off and the glass was always cool between her palms.

In the shop, Danny never asked why she was worried. He never pressed her for answers, just let her sit, slumped next to the wall or by the car he was working on, sitting on top of a pile of nearly clean rags or cardboard. The only other man who worked there spoke about as much as Danny, which meant nearly never at all, and Sandra could often get lost in the quiet, breathing in air that smelled of oil and grease and orange cleaner.

Sandra thought about telling the boys about the things she saw in her dreams – but she’d seen what came of changing their future. In her head, she counted signs.
One. Two. Three. Four. Fivesixseveneight
. She watched Jack and Danny shed pieces inside her head, little by little, until there wasn’t much left to them. It was almost funny how very much not different they’d become. After all, feral dogs remained feral dogs – they just get angrier.

Sandra watched … and she noticed as Jack began to disappear at odd times of day. He talked to Danny and suddenly they were both sneaking away. As though she wouldn’t notice. They stopped sitting in the coffee shop and they were late at night to pick her up.

Then, one night, she saw Harvey Davis. Grey-haired and blue-eyed, Sandra recognized him from her nightmares. He was a kidnapper and murderer. And Jack had found him. Maybe he’d recognized something in the man, something that was a bit like himself.

It was possible Jack and Daniel thought about her when they saw him watching the girls.

Maybe they thought of Lem.

They followed him. In her dreams, Sandra saw the day where they would see him take a bleached-blonde girl. She’d get hit from behind, fall unconscious and land in his arms. He’d put her in the trunk of his car. And Jack and Danny would come home messy, blood on their knives and their hands and Sandra had to swallow back bile just thinking of it.

Sandra followed Danny to work and tried not to let her worry show.

In her first dream, Jack and Daniel had done something bad, and then something else, and then something even worse until they weren’t much like themselves at all. Something bad done for the sake of something good didn’t make things right.

She’d seen what came of trying to change it. She’d seen herself taking it into her own hands. She’d seen herself gunned down. She’d seen another black-eyed human catch wind of them and turn it into a game, twisting them in his twisted spider webs until they either joined him or broke. In almost every dark future, Danny slashed his own wrists. Jack drank himself to death, and countless deaths would follow them before their fall, turned into righteous apostles as they burned a whole country to the ground.

The wretched rarely thought they were wrong.

She had seen every possible outcome and there had only been one future where her boys hadn’t become killers. Their eyes didn’t go black and they didn’t hunt human beings and they didn’t do evil things. And neither did she.

All because of a gun they’d taught her how to use.

“Come on,” Danny said, slapping dust off his jeans and leaving grease stains behind. His voice made her blink.

“Done?” she asked, voice rough.

“It’s five.” Danny smiled, sweet and small, and it almost broke her heart. He held a hand out and she gripped it tight. Her legs were numb, half-asleep, and she stumbled, getting more grease on her shirt.

Danny looked more content in this place than Sandra could ever remember seeing before. He used his hands and they weren’t worried about money and Jack wasn’t coming home with other people’s blood on his knuckles.

They said their goodbyes to Alan and Rangley and headed outside. The sky was clear and the air was hot, so humid that it felt like breathing in wet paper.

“No work tonight?”

“No,” she whispered. Daniel’s fingers were sweaty against hers. The house had air conditioning and she couldn’t wait to get inside. Most days it felt like a whole other world, cool air and her and the boys, her and her worry, them and the television as the sun went down and the fuzzy light painted them in shadows of blue.

Their neighbor, Mrs. Gertie, sat on her front stoop and Danny waved. There were kids playing down the street, makeshift goals and a worn red ball. It made a hollow thwack with every hit.

It sounded a lot like her heart.

The house curtains were shut when they arrived. Dark and silent, a short stretch of hallway sweeping out before them, and Sandra made an inquiring noise, almost rousing the energy to call for Jack. But she already knew. He was gone. A shiver worked its way down her spine, goose bumps on her skin nothing to do with the sudden cool. “He’s not home.”

Danny eyed her sideways as he passed, “Guess not.”

The floor was cool on her bare feet, catching at her damp heels and toes as she followed him, caught up to him in the living room, watching as he pulled his dirty shirt over his head, leaving a smear of oil on his skin.

“Where do you think he went?”

He shrugged, just one shoulder, brushing past to get to the bathroom hamper.

“Do you think he’s okay?” She hated how small and tight her voice sounded.

Danny startled her by reappearing. He nodded and put a hand on her shoulder. He pushed a little, getting her to move so that he could get into the bedroom without shouldering her out of the way. Sandra watched as he pulled on a clean shirt and a pair of sweats. They were loose and hung low on his hips. She would’ve blushed, once upon a time.

He stood a moment, considering, and she wondered, if she hadn’t been there, would he have gone to join Jack, watching Harvey Davis and plotting a way to stop him for good? His mouth hitched up, but it wasn’t a smile, and he made his way to his bed. Him and Jack shared a room and Jack’s bed was all a mess. Danny’s was made with hospital corners, but he wasn’t too careful when he flopped down. Sandra crossed the room and slipped down beside him onto the navy sheets.

His skin was warm and he shifted when she pressed against him. She wanted to bury her face in the hot curve of his neck, whisper
sorry
and
don’t
go after him
and
did you know this would happen
, the day you decided to teach me how to shoot
that gun?

How did you tell someone you’d dreamed of killing them?

Sandra closed her eyes.

In her sleep, there was a man. His first wife died. It was an accident but it didn’t look like one. She’d fallen down the staircase and he was so afraid. Who would believe he was innocent when they knew the problems they’d both had? So he bleached the stairs. He cut up her body and buried her in the swampy shallows just outside of town.

He got married again. Lisa Bellows sure was beautiful.

He loved her a lot.

Except this time it wasn’t an accident. She’d blackmailed him. So, really, it was okay, because he was only protecting himself. Right?

And this one now … well, he was just tired of her. Of her expensive tastes and cutting words. Of her cold shoulder. And when she came home tonight, Xavier Stancliff was going to take her up the stairs and push her down. And if that didn’t work he’d take his hands, put them around her neck and
twist
until—