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Prologue

Sparrow

I was fourteen the first time it happened.

I’d just moved into a new foster home—the latest in a line of many and one I hoped I wouldn’t have to leave in a while. I hated moving, but this time, I was glad to move. The twin boys in my last foster home would never stop teasing me—they used to pull my hair, steal my stuff, call me names. They used to wrestle me down on the couch and spit in my face.

I held no illusions that this foster home would be different, but I hoped. I always hoped.

The first morning in my new home, Madame Sylvie poured me a glass of OJ before she hurried off to work. Straight from the cupboard, it tasted lukewarm and overly sweet.

A boy emerged from the hallway. A boy with short blond hair and the lightest eyes I’d ever seen. Green? Blue? Gray? I couldn’t tell, and I tried not to stare as he took in the sight of me.

“You’re the new one, huh?” He had a broadness to his shoulders and a sharpness to his face that I had yet to achieve. I knew I looked young for my age, but maybe he looked old for his. Still, he couldn’t have been more than a year or two my senior.

“Y-Yes,” I said, cursing my voice for the stutter I’d tried my damnedest to get rid of.

The boy’s sharp features grew attentive as he sat down at the opposite end of the table and tilted his head. “Don’t worry, you’ll like it here. Madame isn’t so bad, but she’s particular with her stuff, like the dishes and the bed, so don’t do anything until I’ve shown you how, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I’m Aaron.” He held out a hand, and I took it. When I didn’t immediately reply with my own name, he raised a brow. “And yours?”

“Sam,” I blurted out, too distracted by the feeling of his skin on mine.

Not letting go of my hand, he stroked the roof of it with his thumb. “Whoa, your hand is so soft,” he said with a chuckle. “And your hair is so long, like a girl’s.”

“I-I’m not a girl.”

His forceful grip on my hand tightened as he yanked me further over the table and reached to stroke my shoulder-length brown hair, fingers sliding over my scalp. “Have you always had hair like this?”

“I wasn’t born with it, no,” I said, a suspicious tone to my voice. People always commented on my hair but never in positive terms.

Aaron just smiled at me, his freakishly light eyes searching all over my face. No one had ever looked at me in that way. I didn’t know if it was flattering or unsettling, but I didn’t care.

When he let go of my hand, I smiled back at him, and a strange warmth filled my chest.

In the following weeks, Aaron showed me everything—from how to make the bed, to how to wash the dishes, to how to talk to Madame to avoid her wrath. He told me about the other children in the foster home: little Anna, who was mute, and Holden, who kept to himself a lot, as he was almost eighteen and was soon to move out.

Most of the time, Aaron and I were alone in the house, except for when he had friends over. I’d stand in the doorway and gaze longingly at him as they played video games, too shy to ask if I could join.

At dinnertime, I’d almost forget to eat my food, too busy sneaking little glances at Aaron between bites.

I tried to make a joke once—a pitiful attempt really—but Aaron threw his head back and laughed with abandon. I smiled up at him, a giddy surge in my chest that was wholly new. A strange feeling but a wonderful one. When he was done laughing, he lifted his hand to stroke my hair. Eyes glittering, he twined a lock between his fingers, knuckles brushing my heated cheeks.

We shared a room with Holden, who stayed at his girlfriend’s house more often than not. At night, I lay awake, smiling into the pillow while my heart raced in my chest.

I had no idea what was happening to me; all I knew was that it felt good, and feeling good was a welcome rarity.

One day, I took an afternoon bath. The house was eerily quiet, and I leaned my head back against the porcelain with a sigh.

“Sam?” The knock on the bathroom door nearly made me jump out of my skin. “Is that you?”

Aaron’s voice. I relaxed somewhat because unlike the other foster kids (who ignored me), my classmates (who teased me), and Madame (who merely tolerated me), Aaron had always been nice to me so far. Too nice. The kind of nice that made heat rise to my cheeks and my heart beat wildly in my chest.

“Yeah, it’s me,” I called back.

Before I had time to say anything else, the door opened, and Aaron stepped inside.

I yelped and wrapped my arms around my legs, the water splashing over the sides of the tub. The bathroom lock was prone to jamming, so I’d left the door open, but I sure hadn’t expected him to just walk right in!

Aaron laughed. “Don’t worry. We’re both guys, aren’t we? I just wanted to check on you.”

“I know how to take a bath,” I muttered, the heat on my face having little to do with the fumes of the water. I hugged my arms around my scrawny torso, knees up to my chin.

“Yeah, but do you know how to clean yourself properly?” He gestured with his hands. “Come on, stand up.”

“But—”

“Do as I say.”

There was a new sharpness in his voice—an authoritative tone I was hopeless not to obey. Usually, no one even noticed me, if not to tease me about my looks or my stuttering. Never had anyone paid rapt attention to me like Aaron, and the novelty of it had me both thrilled and a little scared.

I took hold of the sides of the tub and rose slowly, taking care not to slip on the slick surface underfoot. The cold air clung to my skin, and I longed to get back into the heat of the water.

“There you go,” Aaron said. “Stay still, and I’ll help you get clean.”

He pumped a few squirts of soap into his hands and reached for me, slick palms wandering over my shoulders, my chest, my stomach, and between my thighs. His movements were rough but careful, and he gave my chest more attention than the rest of me. The feeling of his thumbs sliding over my nipples made me gasp and shy away from his touch.

“Turn around,” he said, something breathy in his voice.

“Aaron …”

“Do as I say. I need to make sure you’ve cleaned yourself thoroughly.”

I turned around. His hand slid down the small of my back, down to a place where no one had ever touched me before.

My voice raised in alarm. “Aaron…”

He withdrew for a moment to pump more soap into his hand, and when his touch returned, his fingers were slick and cold. I squirmed at his touch. This felt different. Strange. Way too private, but I didn’t have it in me to protest.

“Yeah, you’re clean.” His belt buckle clinked. “Come here. Step out of the bath.”

“But …”

“Just do it. I need to get a better look.”

I did as he told me, stepping with shaking legs onto the floor, shivering and dripping with water.

His hand pressed on my shoulder blades. “Bend down a bit.”

I hunched over the lip of the bath, and Aaron grabbed hold of my hips, positioning my backside until it tilted uncomfortably upward. He pumped the soap again, and there was a slick sound as he did something behind me. Then a sudden stinging pain when he pressed something blunt against my…

“Aaron…Wait—” My voice cut off in a wail. It burned! It hurt so much, and my eyes filled with tears, pain and shock rendering me unable to move.

“It’s okay,” Aaron gasped. His hands gripped my hips, and I in turn gripped the edge of the tub, holding on for dear life as he rocked back into me. “Holy fuck, that’s tight. Much tighter than with a girl.”

It burned, yes—it burned like nothing else—but there was another feeling there too: one of being noticed, of being seen. At least he wanted to be close to me. At least he saw me, the way no one else did.

The span of time slipped from my mind along with the tears falling from my nose into the cooling water. Drip, drip, drip…

“You’re so small and weak, like a bird,” Aaron mumbled. “Like a little sparrow.” His soap-slick hands slid clumsily over my hips as he moved quicker now, hips staggering. “You like this,” he gasped into my ear. “I’ve seen how you’ve been watching me. You want to be my girl, little Sparrow.”

I gave a pained noise in reply—not quite an agreement, but not a protest either.

“Oh fuck, I’m gonna…” A gasp, a spasm of his hips, and then he pulled back with a surprised chuckle. “Damn, that was quick.” He rested his hand on my flank as he caught his breath.

Then he pulled his pants back on and left.

I stayed for a long time in the same position. Pinching my eyes together, I kept panting, kept gripping the bathtub edge, kept gasping through the burning sensation in my backside. And I was cold. So cold.

That night, Aaron climbed on top of me in my bed and gripped my face so hard my cheeks squished together.

“I’m going to tell you something now,” he hissed, “and I’m only telling you once. No one can know about what happened today. Not even Madame. You hear me?”

“Aaron …”

“Stop mumbling.” His freakishly light eyes looked crazed as he shook my head from side to side, fingers digging into my cheeks. “Who are you going to tell about this?”

“Nobody,” I whispered.

“Good little Sparrow.” His voice grew softer, and he let go of my face as he leaned down to kiss me, his hands in my hair, his breath on mine, his tongue tickling the inside of my mouth.

Before Aaron, no one had ever even looked at me twice. No one had ever even hugged me.

I was fourteen, and it was the first time anyone saw me as more than dirt under their boot.