Page 35 of King of Desire (Kings of Las Vegas #2)

Ava

“Now I lay me down to sleep,” I softly whisper, since Cassie and I are pretending to be asleep, despite the raging fight happening between our foster parents just outside our door.

At fourteen, we’re way too old for this kind of kiddie prayer, but the air is charged with danger, and I just need to do something.

“You never fucking shut up, woman!” Al, our foster father, screams at the top of his lungs. “I’m so fucking sick of you and your stupid ideas!”

“I pray the lord my soul to keep,” Cassie says back, our hands reaching across the narrow space between our twin beds.

Al is a mean drunk. We know the kind. Cassie and I have been in four different foster homes in the last two years. Two together, and two apart. “And if I die before I wake,” I add, drawing in a shaky breath.

“I pray the lord my soul to take,” Cassie finishes, her eyes closing as a single tear leaks from her eye.

I tried to tell her not to put that petroleum jelly into Al’s slippers. Al and Judy are two of the few foster parents who would take us together. What’s more, even though Al yells a lot, he wasn’t like my last foster dad who touched me whenever he could, giving me the creeps. I’ll take Al any day.

But Cassie has always pushed buttons, and she hit one today. Coupled with the fact that Al came home drunk, he’s ready to fight, and he definitely wants us gone.

As if to voice my thought, he screams, “I want them fucking out!”

“But the money they bring in,” Judy answers back, sounding small and weak in comparison.

“You can keep Ava, she’s not a fucking problem. But Cassie…” I hear the slippers hit the wall as he throws them. “That little shit has got to go.”

I squeeze Cassie’s hand tighter as the door flies open.

Cassie and I met at a group home, where we were the two youngest kids. My mom had just died and hers might as well be dead, she’s always strung out, that’s what Cassie says.

We stuck together because the older girls were mean, and twice, when they stole my stuff, it was Cassie who snatched it back for me. One was my mother’s locket, the only thing I have left of her.

I’ve got it around my neck now.

Al stands in the doorway, backlit by the hall light. “Get your fucking stuff, girl.”

“It’s the middle of the night, Al!” Judy cries, appearing behind him.

He turns, raising his hand. It comes down across her cheek with a crack, his backhand hard enough to send her crashing into the far wall. Cassie screams and scrambles from her bed into mine, hiding behind me as Al stalks into the room.

Tears are rolling down my cheeks now too as I flop over and then roll in a ball around Cassie. I squeeze my eyes shut, like closed eyes will keep the hit from happening.

Al grabs me by the scruff of the neck and yanks. My head snaps and for a second, I think it might break. Pain radiates through my head and back as I scream in pain and in fear.

But he doesn’t snap my neck. Instead, I fly through the air, landing on Cassie’s bed.

He leans down over Cassie, smacking her face hard. “You think that was fucking funny?!” he screams an inch from her face. Her hands are wrapped around her head, her knees drawn up to her chest.

But she doesn’t cave.

“It was hilarious!” Cassie screeches back, instead.

I hear the next hit, the force of it ringing through the room.

“Al!” I cry, but I’m frozen in fear, not able to move as he hits her a third time.

“Get your stuff and get the fuck out,” he says in her face but she’s not moving.

“Cassie,” I half whisper, half sob. “Cassie.”

He spins on me, his face twisted in rage. “Shut the fuck up or you’ll be next.”

I shrink back down in her bed as Al storms from the room and slams the door behind him. I wait for a second, two, to make sure he doesn’t come back in the room.

Then I’m off the bed. “Cassie?”

She gives a low moan and a little of the tension in my chest unwinds. I jump back on my bed, wrapping her in my arms. “Oh, Cassie, tell me you’re all right.”

“Someday, I’ll make him pay,” she says, blood dripping from the corner of her mouth.

I squeeze her tightly. I wish she wouldn’t bait our foster fathers like that. It’s going to be a terrible time, getting put in another place together. Maybe I can beg Al tomorrow to let us stay. But it’s probably too late.

If we have to leave, we have to leave. Cassie is my only family now, and where she goes, I go.

I push up, trying to assess her bruises in the dark. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him?—”

She grimaces, turning over, away from me. “You’re a good girl, Ava. It’s not your style.”

My heart seizes in my chest. Does she wish I’d fight for us more? Guilt makes me curl away. “I’d do anything for you.”

She doesn’t answer as she wipes away more of the blood dripping down her chin.