Page 26 of Only the Small Bones (Slow Burns & Tragic Beginnings #1)

Malcolm

Asher turned paler and paler every day, and he slept longer too. One of the guys in charge of us tossed a wristband in the room and ordered him to put it on after I’d pounded on the door yelling for a doctor. It helped a little, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was wrong with him.

They fed us oatmeal and water for breakfast every day. The nasty kind with no flavor that my grandpa liked. I made sure Asher ate all his and a small portion of mine. He complained about it, but listened when I told him it would make him feel better.

I set Asher on his feet, rubbing the shoulder I’d banged on the floor of that basement. It didn’t hurt much anymore, but holding him up to the porthole every day aggravated it.

“Am I darker now?” he asked, feeling around his face.

“Not really, but how do you feel?”

“Better?” He said it with a question mark at the end. I hoped the vitamin D from the sun would help. Other than sunlight, the only other things I had handy were the food they brought us, and the cold pails of water they refilled a couple of times a day. I’d wet a washcloth and lay it across his forehead while he napped.

“How does your stomach feel?”

“Better.” He sounded more confident this time. “I don’t think I’m gonna throw up again.”

“Good.” Voices trickled in from outside our door. I crept over to it, pressing my ear against it. As always, I couldn’t make anything out. The steel was too thick.

The bolt on the door groaned, and I rushed over to where Asher stood, shoving him behind me. He peeked around me when the door opened, and I pushed him back again.

The man with the grim face stepped in, scrunching up his nose as he removed our bathroom, switching it with a clean bucket. I was sure the room had an odor Asher and I could no longer smell ourselves. You got used to stench when forced to live in it. My grandpa used to say that about our neighborhood.

He refreshed our pails of water and dropped another stack of clothes onto the floor before removing the pile of dirty clothes from yesterday. Asher had vomited all over them. Next he brought in the bowls of oatmeal and bottled water. He was always alone.

“When can we go home?” I asked. He wouldn’t answer. He never did. The door slammed shut again, the bolt sliding into place. I waited a whole minute to be sure he wasn’t coming back before allowing Asher to step from behind me.

“I’m not hungry,” he said, flopping down on his sleeping bag. Neither was I, and I didn’t have the strength to force either one of us to eat right then. I laid down next to him, staring at the brown water stain on the ceiling.

“How many days now?” Asher asked.

“Four.” We’d been using the sunrises to keep track of the days we’d been on board. Asher had a hard time remembering, and I didn’t know if it had anything to do with him not feeling good, or him being six.

“Your mom should be close to finding us then, right?”

I’d told him she would do whatever it took to find me. “Yeah, she should be.” I had to keep hope alive for one of us, because mine was steadily slipping.

“And you really think she’ll let me live with you?” He sounded excited but also unsure.

I rolled toward him, the purple smudges beneath his eyes worrying me.

“Yeah, and she’ll love you and worry about you just as much as she loves and worries about me. She loves kids.”

Asher smiled at that. “Where will I sleep?”

“Well, we moved into a bigger apartment, but it’s still small. There aren’t any spare bedrooms, but you can have half of my room.”

“You’d share your room with me? Like we were brothers?”

“Yeah,” I shrugged. “Why not? I’ve always wanted a brother. And we can paint your side any color you want, and you can pick out your own bed too. And we’ll take you shopping for sheets and clothes.” My mom would take him in, that much I knew. What I didn’t know was if she could afford all the other promises I was making. She had a better paying job now since she finished school, but she said she had one more degree to go before she started making the big bucks. I’d have said anything to make Asher feel better, though. Plus I had some left over allowance we could use.

“I’ll paint my side gray.”

“Like the color of storm clouds on a rainy day.”

“Right.” Asher nodded in approval.

“Did your mom used to say that to you?”

“Yeah.” His eyes filled with tears. “I’m starting to forget her. I don’t have any pictures of her to help me remember. They all burned in the fire. All I have is her violin.” He shot up. “Her violin!” He started hyperventilating, scrambling to his feet.

“Hey,” I got up as well. “What’s wrong? What happened to her violin?”

“I-I don’t have it. It’s gone,” he cried. “It’s the only thing I had and it’s gone.”

I hugged him, his tears soaking into my shirt as I thought of something to say to calm him down. “Did you leave it somewhere? Maybe we can find it.”

Asher pulled back, hiccupping. “It’s under my bed. I always hide it under my bed.”

“At St. Joseph’s?”

“Yeah.” He nodded frantically, tears falling to his chin.

“Okay, so it’s hidden, it’ll still be there when we get back.” I realized I didn’t know where he was from. I just assumed we’d all been snatched from the same area. I knew from the girls’ college t-shirts they attended school in the city. But where was Asher from?

“They’ll throw my stuff in the trash if they think I ran away. Or one of the other boys will take it.”

“They won’t think you ran away,” I brushed his rebellious curls off his forehead.

“How do you know?” He swiped at the moisture on his cheeks.

“Do they know how much you love your mom’s violin?”

“Yeah,” he frowned.

“So the moment they find it they’ll know you didn’t run away, because you’d never leave it behind.”

He thought about that for a second, shivering through his heightened emotions. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“Yeah, it is,” I agreed. “Where’s St. Joseph’s anyway?”

“In Brooklyn.”

“Hey, that’s where I live.” We smiled, the first smile we’d shared. I poked his cheeks. “You’ve got dimples. Nice.”

Asher blushed, clearly flattered by my approval. We sank to our sleeping bags again, sitting crossed legged in front of each other.

“So, how’d you end up with your mom’s violin? And do you know how to play it?”

“It was in the car. We were driving home from one of her shows. I could smell the smoke from down the street. There were lots of people outside in their pajamas, and I could hear sirens far away. My mom yelled for me to stay put while she ran inside for my nonna. They never came out.” He continued before I could say sorry. “I was learning how to play. We hadn’t gotten very far in my lessons. But I still practice what I know.”

“Can’t wait to hear you play.”

“You won’t like it. I’m not any good.” He reddened. I hated that he felt embarrassed, but I was happy to see some color in his cheeks.

“Well, then we can both get better at playing our instruments together.”

“What do you play?” he asked, curiosity lighting up his gloomy gaze.

“The piano. I’m better than “okay” but I’m no virtuoso. I will be one day, though.”

“Uh, vir-too… what?” Asher scrunched up his face at the word. I chuckled.

“It means I’m not exceptional at it. Or not really, really good yet,” I amended when he frowned at that word too.

“Oh,” he blushed again.

“I’m just being a know-it-all.” I downplayed my smarts. “I learned the word recently, and now I use it every chance I get.”

Asher coughed into his hand. It continued for a few seconds.

“Feeling okay?”

“Yeah,” he replied, laying down. I leaned over to rest the back of my hand across his forehead like my mother did when I was coming down with something. His skin felt cool. I took it as a good sign. “Do you have your own piano?”

“Yeah. My mom got me a hand-me-down one for Christmas a few years ago. The church was planning on throwing it away. She only had to pay for the delivery and tuning.”

“Is it in our room?” Asher asked with a tired smile.

“Yup. It’s an upright, so it fits against the wall. And there’s plenty of space for your mom’s violin.”

He stared at a stain on his sleeping bag, his mind seeming far away. “Does your dad live with you?”

“No. I never met my dad.”

“Me either.” He sighed. “What will we do when we get home?”

I didn’t know if he believed all the things I told him, or if he saw our talks as a fantasy that kept his mind occupied. I meant everything I said, but either way, I indulged him. It kept us both hopeful, and gave us something to look forward to. Without hope, we had nothing.

I leaned back on my palms, pretending to give his question serious thought. “We’ll have dessert for breakfast, and dinner for lunch. We’ll do everything backward and have nothing but fun for at least two whole weeks.”

Asher’s eyes and smile widened with excitement. “We’ll have double chocolate fudge cake!”

“And for lunch my mom will make my great-grandma’s famous jambalaya! I never met her, but her recipe is good.”

“Do you think she’ll make me chicken tenders and fries? That’s my favorite.”

“She’ll make you whatever you want,” I promised. “And we’ll watch The Never Ending Story all day. I never get enough of that movie.” The book was better, but we’d have fun watching the movie together.

Asher yawned. We hadn’t woken up that long ago. “I can’t believe you’re gonna keep me. I can’t believe I’ll have a brother. Malcolm and Asher forever,” he whispered.

“Malcolm and Asher forever.”

He closed his eyes, and for several minutes I monitored his breaths, how loud and how often they came. I listened to his newly developed cough too.

I sighed once I believed he’d fallen into a deep sleep, shoulders slumping as I covered my face with my palms. I let myself be weak, let myself worry and be scared for a little while, because pretending to be strong took a lot of effort.

“Malcolm?” Asher breathed. I straightened, clearing my expression of the terror I felt inside. “What else will we do when we get home?”

I searched for something to say, pushing past the pain and sadness clouding my mind for something to keep him cheerful. “We’ll start on our Christmas lists. We’ve got to give my mom and grandpa time to shop now that it’s the two of us. And no Happy Birthday/Merry Christmas gifts either. You get a gift for each occasion. I already know what I’m getting you.”

“Tell me.” He forced his eyes open.

“Nope.” My voice came out shaky as I watched him get sicker by the minute. “You’ll have to wait. Go to sleep, Asher,” I whispered, and when he glanced at the door, I vowed, “I’ll protect us.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea.” Asher said, fidgeting with the shirt sleeves overwhelming his small frame. He was tinier than any six-year-old I’d ever seen. “We’re too small.”

I’d watched over him while he napped, even standing in front of his sleeping bag when the man I now referred to as our guard dropped off lunch. I’d told him that Asher wasn’t feeling well and needed medicine, but he’d ignored me. So I’d come up with a plan to get us out of here.

“We have to try,” I said, slashing the air with the plastic spork we’d been given with our food. “All you have to do is stand behind the door, and after I incapacitate him, you run and I’ll be right behind you.” I kept practicing my moves with my makeshift weapon.

“I don’t know what in-com-pa-tate means.”

“It means I’m going to take him down, knock him out. Or at least take him by surprise long enough for us to escape.”

“He’s too big, it won’t work.” He shook his head, panic in his eyes. “Maybe we should wait for your mom to—”

“Hey,” I crouched in front of him. “Do you trust me?”

“Y-yes.”

“He won’t be expecting an attack. I’ll get him in the eye. He’ll fall to his knees screaming, and we’ll run and lock him in here.”

“Then what?”

“Then we’ll find the other girls, grab anything we can use as a weapon and make our way up. I saw life vests when we got on the ship. Can you swim?”

“Yeah. I learned in summer camp.”

“Me too.”

He seemed to like that. He liked that we were similar.

“But you’re not feeling well, and neither of us are at full strength, so the vests will help. We’ll put them on and jump in the water before anyone else can stop us. Okay?”

“O-okay.”

“Remember the whole plan, right?”

Asher nodded then coughed.

I looked at the porthole. Dinner usually arrived as the sun was setting. It’d be any minute now. I set the bucket we used as a bathroom near me, and waited for the door to open.

Minutes later the bolt whined, and Asher pressed himself against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut. I was grateful, because he didn’t have to see me gag on my fear. I had no time to second-guess, the door opened, and I waited for the guard to step inside before I tossed the contents of the bucket at him.

“Fuck!” he shouted, dropping the tray of food he held and stumbling back a step. I lunged for him, bringing the spork down on his right cheek, missing his eye. The plastic teeth cracked, drawing a little blood but not doing much damage. He recovered quickly, grabbing me by the arms and shoving me further into the room. “You’re gonna fucking pay for that,” he growled.

“Run, Asher!” I fought viciously, scratching and punching as he took me to the floor. I looked over to see Asher staring at us, mouth hanging open, body trembling. “Run!”

The guard glanced over his shoulder at Asher. Asher bolted through the door, and was caught by the other guard. Asher screamed as the bigger man lifted him into the air by the collar of his shirt. “What the fuck is going on here?”

The guard above me pinned me in place by the throat, drawing his fist back.

“Declan, don’t damage the fucking goods!” The man holding a thrashing Asher shouted.

Declan panted above me, his fist shaking. I tried to peel his fingers off me, my feet scraping against the floor.

“Declan,” the other man warned. Declan released my throat and stood, jaw ticking, glaring down at me, the front of his clothes covered in pee. I coughed, sucking in air and reaching toward Asher who still struggled to break free of the other man’s hold.

“Let him go, please,” I wheezed. That was the wrong thing to say. Declan looked between the two of us, a cruel smile forming on his face. He strode over to the lantern and broke it with his boot. Only the light from the hall and the remaining bit of sunlight lit the room now.

“Malcolm!” Asher screamed, reaching for me. I scrambled up and ran for him, but Declan stopped me, shoving me to the floor. He stepped into the hall, taking Asher from the other guy.

“Please, no,” Asher begged them. “Malcolm!” Fear locked my body in place.

“Let him go! No!” I charged for the door, but it slammed shut before I got to it. “No!” I yelled again, banging my fists against the steel and yanking on the handle. “Asher! Asher!” I punched and kicked at the door until my hands and feet ached. What had I done?

I screamed until my voice gave out, until it burned and the taste of blood hit the back of my tongue. Then I backed into a corner and sank to the floor, crying for all the days I hadn’t before because I’d had to be strong for Asher. I cried for all the pain he must have been going through, all the fear he had to have been experiencing. I cried because I was alone in a dark room. I cried because I was just a boy, and I wanted to go home.