Page 6

Chapter 5

Sparrow

Sometimes I just need to walk. And walk. And walk. After Louis threw me out this morning, I’ve been out all day, wandering the roads of downtown Springvale, the suburban neighborhoods, and even up some of the mountain trails I meant to check out sooner.

The sky is covered by a layer of mist and clouds, and a wet drizzle clings to the air. In the small town in Arizona where I spent the last six years of my life, the sun used to scorch the roads and sear the grass yellow, even at this time of year. Three weeks haven’t been nearly enough to get me used to the sun’s absence.

I put one foot in front of the other, hands in the pockets of my long parka, the soft cotton of Louis’s oversize shirt pressing in on my chest. I don’t suppose I’ll have a chance to give it back to him now. I’ll keep it as a memento, I guess. A souvenir of a life that could have been.

Darkness falls as the day passes, and my feet lead me back to the campus grounds. As soon as I open the door to our dorm room, I’m greeted by Lilith’s stern voice.

“Where the hell have you been?”

I barely know the answer to her question myself. Time has passed without my thinking and without my feeling. I get this way sometimes—weird and unwired, wandering without thought as to where or who I am. It’s a small reprieve and a state I sometimes wish I could conjure on command.

My mouth feels dry and my throat thick and aching. I haven’t eaten since breakfast. Haven’t had anything to drink either.

When Lilith sees the beginning of tears in my eyes, she frowns, but the prickly tone of her voice remains the same. “Why are you just standing there? Close the door.”

I scuttle into the room and do as she says.

“Well?” She turns back to her desk, where she’s got all sorts of makeup laid out in front of a big mirror with an intricate stand swirling with lace and bats. “Where were you last night?”

I kick my shoes off and sit on my bed, knees up to my chin. “I got really drunk.”

“Really?” Her voice peaks with interest. “How?”

“Some guy, he…he gave me liquor.”

I watch myself in her mirror as Lilith traces her eyes with bold eyeliner. She’s so pretty. Her makeup always looks flawless, and the few times I’ve caught her bare-faced, she’s looked beautiful too. She dyes her long hair religiously with black box dye anytime the slightest blonde roots peek out by her temples, and her nails are always long and painted the same color as her eyebrows: black.

“Oh,” she huffs. “So you slept with him?”

I shake my head. “No. Louis saved me.”

“Louis? Louis who?” She gets a distant look in her eyes, then she snaps her fingers. “Oh! Louis Carter? Shit.” She pauses applying makeup to throw her head back in a laugh. “You know what he does for work, right?”

“No.” And I don’t really care. All I care about is his voice, his eyes, his hands…

“He’s an enforcer for the Black Claws MC. Know what that means?”

I shake my head.

“Thought so.” The tilt of her mouth turns mocking as she traces her lips with dark-purple liner. “He beats people up for a living. When he’s not a bouncer, of course, but sometimes he beats people up then too.”

“Oh.”

“Oh? That’s all you have to say? Pretty fucked up, don’t you think?”

“I guess.” I can imagine it clearly in my head—Louis’s huge hands smashing into someone’s jaw. Someone bad, someone like Eric…He could punish people…People who’ve hurt me. People like Aaron.

I shake my head to rid myself of the thought. Louis wouldn’t want to do anything like that for me. He doesn’t even want to see me again, and why would he? I sucked him off, sure, but he’s probably got people lining up to do that for him—people who’d do it way better than me.

“So.” Lilith pops her lipstick back into its socket. “He fuck you?”

Heat rises to my cheeks, and my heart does a weird flutter in my chest. I haven’t wanted anyone to have sex with me for a long time, even Aaron. But Louis…yeah, I’d let him fuck me, but he didn’t even try—not even when we slept in the same bed. He could’ve just rolled me over and had his way with me, and I would’ve been helpless to stop him.

When Aaron did similar things, I didn’t want it, but Aaron wasn’t gentle, the way Louis would be…Louis would take his time to stretch me open with his fingers first. He’d use lots of lube and get me hot and ready for it the way Aaron rarely bothered with. Then he’d nudge the head of his cock against my entrance, get me used to the feel of it first before taking his pleasure in me, his massive hands clutching my ass…

“Well?” Lilith asks.

“No.” As I shift my legs, I’m reminded of the cum still lining my underwear. It feels stiff and uncomfortable, but for some reason, I don’t feel like taking a shower just yet. “I gave him a blow job though.”

Lilith throws her head back and laughs. “Oh my! I didn’t know you had it in you. Naughty, naughty,” she adds with a twinkle in her eyes.

Thrilled to have caught her interest, I let out the giggle that bursts up my throat.

“Maybe you’re not that boring after all.” She throws me a punch on the shoulder so hard I almost fall back on the bed. “Maybe we can have fun. Pick up some guys together, you know.”

My gaze falls. “Oh. I don’t think so.” I don’t want guys . I want only one guy.

She rolls her eyes. “You’re one of those, are you? You get attached as soon as a man smiles at you and doubly attached when they fuck you. Don’t you know there are plenty of fish in the sea? Fish who aren’t enforcers with blood on their hands.”

As soon as she says it, I imagine Louis with his back turned, his bulging muscles flexed with his hands at his side, dripping with blood. I imagine him pummeling his fist into the devious face of Eric Fletcher, and then into Aaron’s unsuspecting, vicious mouth until their faces are unrecognizable, bloody masses of pulp.

I realize I’m smiling, and that Lilith is staring at me with a strange expression. I take my time analyzing it. She looks…both surprised and a little disturbed, but there’s recognition there too.

A frown forms a crease between her perfectly filled-in brows, and she asks, “Who hurt you?”

Too many people to count. I could tell her the truth, but what’s the point? It’s weird with Lilith; I never quite know if she’s making fun of me or not, but it’s best to err on the side of caution and not give her ammunition if I can help it.

“Louis didn’t hurt me.”

“Yeah,” Lilith snorts. “I damn sure hope that big oaf didn’t hurt you, or he’d have to answer to me.” She pumps her mascara wand up and down and coats her eyelashes with thick layers. She looks older with makeup on. Meaner. “Anyway, you’re on your own tonight; I’m going out.”

“But…don’t you have that big test on Monday?”

“Who cares? I only applied to get my mom off my back, and you’re just here to escape your foster home, aren’t you?”

I was so nervous on my first day at the campus that I blabbered about all kinds of personal stuff—stuff I now wish I’d kept under wraps. I didn’t know Lilith back then; I didn’t know what she was like.

I’m no stranger to people making fun of me. It happened constantly in middle school, and high school was even worse. My arrival to Madame Sylvie’s home and thereby a new high school marked a new beginning of tormenting classmates. I spent every recess alone, in fear of them finding me. Every day felt like going out to war, and my only refuge was to come home into Aaron’s arms. He’d stroke my hair and whisper sweet things in my ear before he’d turn me around, bend me over, and—

“Hello?” Lilith snorts, and she’s right in front of me now. “I just asked you where my hairbrush is.”

“Oh,” I say, startled by her proximity. “Over there?” I point to the windowsill.

Lilith shakes her head. “You’re so fucking weird.” She finds the hairbrush in a drawer and has a few goes at her bangs. Then she takes hold of my jaw and winks at me, dark-purple lips shiny with gloss. “You’re lucky you’re cute,” she says before she struts out of the room in her obscenely high platform heels, leaving me alone to stew and wonder.

If Lilith finds me cute, maybe Louis did too?

After taking a reluctant shower, I change my pants and put on a hoodie, but I keep Louis’s shirt underneath. I need every sense of safety and comfort I can get, however foolish. I always do.

I spend the rest of the day studying for the term’s first homework assignment. I applied on a whim for the philosophy class, and although I’m not uninterested in the subject, my goal was simply to get into college in the first place, not lay the groundwork for my future. Up until a few months ago, I didn’t have much of a future.

I had Aaron. I had a roof over my head. But that was about it.

Due to a couple of tumultuous years, I had to repeat two grades in high school and ended up graduating two years late. Aaron used to say I was lucky Madame Sylvie allowed me to stay in her foster home even after I turned eighteen, and I suppose he was right, but it also meant I couldn’t get away from him. He was the only one Madame truly liked and therefore let stay for as long as he wanted, even past the legal age. My only option was to seek financial aid and apply to the most remote college I could find.

So I could escape his alluring clutches. So I could be free.

I don’t feel all that free right now though. I just feel lonely.

I sit hunched over my desk with the window cracked to lessen the claustrophobic feel of the small room. Despite the clasp that’s supposed to hold it in place, the wind blows the window right open. I startle from the sound and rise to close it.

That’s when I see it.

A hand. A hand grabbing the windowsill.

No. It can’t be…

Mouth agape, I stare as a figure vaults over the windowsill and lands effortlessly on the floor.

No, no, no…My body is screaming, yet I can’t move. I can’t do anything.

“Hello, little Sparrow.”

His voice slithers through my ears and blows me open with panic-laced dread, mixed with something else I try my damnedest to ignore. I open my mouth, wanting to scream, but all that comes out is one thinly spoken word.

“Aaron.”

“You thought you could get away from me, little bird? You thought you could fly out of your cage and leave me behind?”

“You-You can’t be here.” My back presses to the wall as he prowls toward me, calm and unhurried. “How did you find me?”

“You forgot to say goodbye when you left, so I did some digging. You filled out your application on my computer, dipshit. Remember?”

“No …”

“Before pulling off a feat like that, you should’ve learned to erase your internet history, little Sparrow.” He’s too close now, close enough to touch me. “I suppose you found out about my little arrangement?”

“Yes,” I say, voice barely more than a breath.

“Who told you?”

“Your f-friend.” I pinch my eyes together as I scramble to come up with the name. “Bradley? Brad?”

“That fucker,” Aaron spits. “Doesn’t matter anyway. I’m here now. I found you. I’ve got you.”

Got me?

I shoot my eyes back open, and as soon as I do, Aaron yanks hold of me, throws me to the bed, and covers my body with his. I let out a startled yelp, face down on the mattress as Aaron hisses into my ear.

“Struggle, and you’ll regret it. Scream, and you’re dead.”

You’re dead.

You’re dead.

Dead.

The words echo in my ear, terrible in their stark clarity, and I go limp, face buried in the mattress, teary-eyed and strangely longing. I’ll never escape him, so I might as well die by his hand, but even so, I’m not struggling. I’m not screaming.

Aaron’s belt buckle clinks behind me, and he starts yanking at my pants. He’s desperate in his movements, impatient in a way I don’t remember him being before.

“This is your new home, huh?” he snarls. “You think you’re safe here? It’s so much better than Madame Sylvie’s?”

Yes, it is , I want to whine, but all I do is whimper as he spits in his hand and shoves a rough finger into my hole.

“Didn’t think so,” he says, breath heavy. “You remember the times when you couldn’t keep your hands off me?”

I remember. I did want him, once upon a time. I would come home from school after another grueling day where bullies beat me bloody, and the one greeting me with open arms was Aaron, always Aaron. He was there for me when no one else was. But that all crashed to pieces when his friend Brad told me what he’d done. How he’d betrayed me.

I thought I’d be safe from him here, a thousand miles away from our little town in Arizona, but I was wrong. I should’ve known he would never let me go.

“You need to be punished,” he grunts into my ear. “You need to feel this.” He shoves the finger deeper. “You need to feel my cock.”

There’s the sound of him spitting, and knowing what’s about to happen, I make an effort to relax my muscles before he forces his way inside with a measly glob of spit for lubrication. I yelp with pain nonetheless, eyes tearing up.

“How could you leave me?” He pulls out and plunges back inside, and I bite into the pillow to muffle the whimpered sounds coming out of my mouth. “Didn’t I take care of you?” He slides a hand into my hair, almost lovingly, before he yanks hard as he presses deeper and deeper. “Oh fuck, I’ve missed this ass. So tight, so ready for me. Mine, always mine…” His thrusts grow more erratic as he snaps his hips into me. It’s too dry to be truly pleasurable, but part of me basks in the attention that Aaron gives me but Louis did not, and my limp cock starts to fill without my permission.

This is the way it always was between us: I took what pleasures I could without shame, because what else could I do?

I wish it wasn’t Aaron holding me down. I wish for a bearded cheek scratching mine, a gruff voice in my ear, the smell of motor oil and mint filling my nostrils and a far bigger cock stretching me open…

Louis. I want Louis. But Louis doesn’t want me, and I need someone to want me. Maybe it’s my lot in life to make do with Aaron. Maybe he’s right; maybe I was wrong to leave him. Despite his awfulness, despite his cruelty, it’s better than nothing.

But then I remember what he did, and my tears of pain turn into tears of fury, and his thrusts do nothing but stoke the fires of my hate.

A keening noise tears from my throat, and Aaron interprets it as another sign entirely.

“Yeah, take it.” He yanks my head to the side and spits in my face, and my open mouth receives his saliva as if it spilled from a chalice of holy water. “You need this. You need me.”

My cock rubs into the sheets as my ass clenches around him, and…there. I shudder with the pleasure-pain of my orgasm, whine as the last semblance of my dignity is ripped away.

Aaron flips me over and jerks off between my parted legs, and with a hand on the back of my neck, he yanks me forward and sprays my face with his release. I take his cum along with my shame.

For a blessed few seconds, I lie panting, feeling nothing and seeing nothing, but Aaron doesn’t let me rest for long; he rips me out of bed, wrenches my pants back over my hips, and rubs my face clean with a disgusted scoff.

“What shit from this place do you need to bring with you?”

His words pass through me without impression, without meaning. “What?”

He looks around the room, rips my closet open, and starts shoving a random assortment of my clothes into an empty backpack.

I come slowly alive again, and I barely dare to ask, because I already know. “Aaron…What are you doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing? You’re coming with me.”

“No,” I say, swallowing against my dry throat. “I’m not.”

Aaron whips his head to me, and his smile is sharp enough to cut glass. “Why did you think I came all the way here, huh? Just to fuck your little ass and leave you covered in my cum? I’m here to take you back to Madame’s.”

“I won’t go.” Fucking me is one thing. Taking me away from my freedom here and back into my prison at Madame’s? No way. I can’t let him. I won’t.

“Yeah, you will,” he mutters, backpack in one hand and my upper arm wrenched in the other. “Let’s go.”

“No!”

“Stop struggling and shut up,” he hisses, nails digging into my flesh.

“No! No!” I struggle as he pulls me toward the window, but he’s so much stronger than me, so much bigger, and I can’t, I can’t…My hand scrambles for something, anything. We reach Lilith’s desk, and I grasp the handle of her big makeup mirror and whack it over the side of Aaron’s head. In the hit, I put all the strength I can summon, all the years of pain he put me through.

The mirror shatters into a hundred pieces around us, and Aaron crashes to the ground.

I stare at him, panting and panicked and with something biting into my cheek. I touch my face, and my hand comes away bloody. A shard of the broken mirror must have sliced my skin. I put more force into that blow than I ever thought possible. Wait…was it hard enough to…

I throw myself to the ground and check his pulse. Still alive. There’s a large shard of the mirror by his neck, and I imagine plunging it into his flesh, splitting him open the way he’s split me open countless times…But the very thought sends a piercing pain through my chest.

I can’t do it. But if I can’t kill him, what do I do instead? I can’t stay here when he wakes up, and now that he knows where I live, he’ll come after me again. But where do I go? Where can I go where he won’t dare to follow? I don’t know anyone in town…

A pair of amber eyes surface in my mind. A rough hand rinsing my mouth after I puked my guts out in his toilet. A decisive grip on my hair, and a patient voice teaching me how to suck his cock…

I do know someone; I know him .

I don’t put on a jacket. I don’t even stop to get my backpack from the floor before I leave.

Rain patters from the open window, and it calls to me. He calls to me.