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Chapter 13

Sparrow

I don’t know how long I’m frozen in place after Louis’s hasty exit. Five minutes? Ten? An hour? Doesn’t matter. All that matters is something went wrong—something I did—and now Louis is gone.

I could go out there and try to find him and make him explain, but in this state—when I’m feeling like all my insides are raw and quivering—I can’t stand to be around people.

I wash up and pull on a T-shirt and sweatpants before I sit on the couch, head buried between my knees. Eyes closed, I try to block out the world and the churning state of my heart. Not even a nature documentary would help me now. Nothing would, except for Louis coming back home and fucking talking to me. He can’t do this; it’s not fair, and I…and I…

I sob out a broken breath and wipe my tears angrily on my sleeve. I did exactly what Lilith told me to do, and she’s supposed to know what men like, so the issue has to be me. Like always. I’m getting tired of trying and constantly failing. I’m tired of everything.

I stay like this for a while, winding myself up into a panic with my racing thoughts, and just when I’m starting to get properly short of breath, the doorbell rings. It’s not Louis; Louis would just walk right in. Then who?

I look through the keyhole with a pounding heart.

It’s Ravi.

I crack the door open. Before he has time to open his mouth, I warn, “Louis isn’t here.”

“Oh, I know,” he says, something stiff in his usually carefree expression.

I open the door fully. “What’s wrong? Where’s Louis?”

“We’re going to go meet him.”

Ravi points to his car, and I put on my shoes and follow him, my worried heart making me ramble.

“What’s going on? Has something happened? Where are we going? Where’s Louis? At Moe’s? Did his shift start?”

“You’ll see,” Ravi mutters.

He’s oddly silent as we roll down the street. We pass downtown and Moe’s Den and end up in the outskirts of the city, where the roads are rougher and the houses sparser. The car bounces over an abandoned railway and finally stops outside what looks like a motel. The red-and-blue neon sign says “The Outpost.”

“What are we doing here?” I ask warily.

I don’t know if my worry decreases or increases when I see Louis’s bike in the parking lot, but I can’t help my relief when the man himself walks out of the motel.

“Louis!” I jump out of the car and run to greet him, but his expression stops me in my tracks. His eyes are dark, his mouth downturned, and even though I’m right in front of him, he’s barely looking at me.

“Welcome to your new home, kid,” he says, gesturing to the motel.

“W-What?” I stutter, the world crumbling under my feet. I feel dizzy and sick. This is some sort of joke, right? It must be. He can’t be serious.

“I told you; you living me with me was just temporary. You’ll be fine out here—better than fine, and you’ll be safe. Ravi said he’ll drive you to school and back.”

“I didn’t, but okay,” Ravi says with a shrug.

I look up at the looming brick building. It looks like an industrial warehouse, with some of the windows barred and trash littering the edge of the parking lot.

“Louis…I don’t want to live here.”

Louis grits his teeth, his canines catching the gleam of the neon sign. “Maybe not, but you’re going to live here anyway. It’s better than your dorm, at least. Everything’s paid for already—two months in advance.”

“But…but…Louis, please!” I grab his arm. He can’t do this to me!

“I’m sorry,” he grits out, refusing to meet my gaze. “I can’t let you stay with me anymore. I can’t take care of you.”

“Yes, you can!” I protest. “Of course you can. You make me food, you tuck me into bed, you…you…” You touched me. You made me come. You like me. Please tell me you like me.

Tears burn behind my eyes, but there’s no use in letting them spill. It won’t change Louis’s mind anyway, and I’m running out of ideas, running out of things to say. Running out of everything.

“Ravi will get your things tomorrow,” Louis says.

“Oh.” Seems like he’s absolved himself of any responsibility, and I don’t even know why. That’s the worst part. Being rejected and abandoned by him is bad enough, but he refuses to let me fight for the right to know. He wants to drop me off like a stray dog he regrets he adopted in the first place? Fine. But I won’t show him my tears, even though all I want to do is cry. I’ve cried enough, and my tears never stopped Aaron from hurting me, so why would they stop Louis?

Ravi sighs and reaches a hand out to me. “Let’s go inside, kid. I’ll show you to your room.”

“I can go myself,” I snap, ripping my arm away.

“I’m sorry, Sparrow,” Louis says, still with a sense of detachment. He’s frowning, but his eyes are blank and hollow, as if he can’t even see me. As if he refuses to see me. “It’s for your own good.”

“Is that what you think?” I ask, unable to keep my voice from shaking, barely recognizing myself in my fury. “Well. As long as it makes you feel better.”

Louis’s gaze drops, and his fists loosen by his sides. He looks ashamed, and he should be. How dare he abandon me like this? And worst of all, how can he say it’s for my own good? These weeks with him have been the best of my life. How the hell can he think I’ll be better off without him? But how can I make him understand all this without embarrassing myself and making a scene? I can’t.

By some miracle effort of self-control, I take a deep breath and suck my tears back into myself. Then I follow Ravi into the motel without a backward glance.

Ravi shows me my room, which is just as depressing as I thought it would be. Then he sits me down in the equally depressing lounge.

“Look, kid, I’m sorry about what happened out there,” he says, cracking open a beer. He hands it to me and gets one of his own. “Louis has been my friend for damn near a decade, and I’ll be the first one to say that he’s a bit of an asshole.”

I crawl into the seat of a mangy-looking armchair and sip my beer without giving a reply.

“Maybe I need to explain a thing or two about him,” Ravi continues. “I imagine it’ll make things easier for you. Now, you see this?” He gestures around the empty lounge of the motel. “Seeing any guests?”

I shake my head.

“This is all just a front for our club to launder the money we get from drug and weapons dealing. Crime and violence are a part of our lives, but for Louis, it’s different.”

I purse my lips and stare at the mouth of my beer. “How so?”

“Violence is his life. I’ve never seen him come alive as much as he does when he’s hurting someone. I’ve seen him knock the teeth out of guys and smile while doing it. I’ve seen him do worse things than I even want to tell you about.”

“I don’t care,” I mutter. “I don’t care if he beats people up or if he rips their heads off.”

Ravi smiles sadly. “You don’t get it, do you? He’s afraid he’ll hurt you too. He’s afraid he’ll lose control around you. It’s a good sign though,” he adds with a wink. “It means he likes you.”

“But I don’t care if he hurts me,” I whisper. As long as he takes care of me. As long as he doesn’t betray me, like Aaron did.

Ravi sends me an odd look before he shrugs and takes another sip of beer. “Well, then. What are you going to do about it?”

“Do about it?”

“You can’t sit here and mope around forever. Louis is a stubborn asshole, but he’s not beyond reason if you catch my drift.” He winks at me again. “Now, he told me to keep an eye on you, so I’ll look real stupid if you try anything.”

My eyes widen. Is he saying what I think he’s saying?

He’s right though; there’s no use in waiting for Louis to change his mind. If I want to talk to him, I have to go to him, but how? We’re at least an hour away by foot, and I’m so tired already. I don’t know if I can make it. At the same time, I don’t want to spend even one night away from him, especially not in this place.

Ravi takes a big sip of beer and gestures over his shoulder. “The restrooms are that way. There might be an exit door too, but don’t try to open it, okay? And don’t tell Louis I told you.”

Did he just…? I put a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. My few sips of beer must have given me a new surge of confidence.

“Okay, uh, I think I need to go to the restroom.”

“Sure thing, kid.” Ravi grins and crosses his legs, sipping his beer with no care in the world.

Louis thinks I’m just a witless kid who knows nothing of how things work, but I know this: I know he likes me, and I know this whole thing was just a bullshit excuse to protect himself from what he’s feeling for me. He’s the kid, and I’m the wise one. It’s time for me to prove it.