Page 66 of The Games We Play

Her laughter fills the kitchen. “Yup.”

I feel better after sharing some of my burdens with Kasey, even if it didn’t yield any answers.

When I get to school, I realize I was right. The excitement levels in my class are at all-time highs.

“Did they cut your arm off?” Harry asks, and I lift my brace.

“Seeing my arm is still right here, I’m thinking no.” The class giggles at my answer.

“Can you shower with it on?” Shanice asks.

Thema eyes Shanice. “It will get wet. That’s a stupid question.”

I wink at Shanice. “I can cover it with plastic. And Thema, we don’t need to use the wordstupid, okay? The coolest thing you can do is to ask questions. It helps us learn.”

Dylan is being unusually quiet. Once I’ve calmed everyone down, I go to his desk. He’s moving gingerly in his seat, wincing. “You okay, Dylan?” I ask quietly.

Fear blooms in his eyes. “I’m fine.” He looks down at the activity sheet I set, but I can see his hand is shaking. Two of his fingers are swollen and splotched with a purple bruise. A straight red line runs across his knuckles.

“Oh, Dylan. What happened to your fingers? Do they hurt?”

“No.” His voice is laced with panic, and a single tear leaks over his long eyelashes. “It was an accident. An accident.”

There’s a vibe. It’s a cold one that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand, and I know he’s been hurt again. “Let’s get you to the school nurse and see what she can do to make your fingers feel better. My arm hurts, and I have to be careful too, but this brace makes it hurt less. Maybe she can make something like this for your fingers. And you don’t need to write anything today.”

He immediately drops the thick crayon.

After making sure my class is covered, I drop Dylan off with the nurse and head to the principal’s office to speak to Chris. As principal, he’ll be able to advise. “Knock, knock,” I say, tapping on his door.

He glances at his watch. “Is it quick? Because I need to be with the fourth graders in three minutes.”

“Dylan Shires again, I’m afraid. Two painfully busted fingers. With a welt across them that makes it look like they were slammed in a drawer. I’m no doctor, but they look like they could be broken. I keep praying this is all something absolutely innocuous and the parents are remiss in not getting it seen to. But it never is. We need to get a rush on getting Dylan protected.”

Chris looks at me. “Shit. Poor kid. I just want to pack him up and take him home with me.”

“Same. It’s hard to look him in the eye right now because I don’t feel like I’m doing enough.”

“I’ll follow up with the child protection investigator. They have our detailed observations, but he may have dropped through their net. Sadly, it happens. Leave it with me to make that call now; just make Dylan as comfortable as you can.”

I walk out of the office, and while I know it’s against protocols during my teaching hours, I grab my phone. I need a hug so badly I can barely breathe, but I do the next best thing and call Spark.

“Little chick,” he says when he answers, his voice rough with sleep.

“Hey,” I say, and lean back against the cool wall.

“You okay?”

“No. Dylan was hurt again, likely by someone in his family. It just hurts not being able to make the wheels move faster.”

I hear the sheets rustle as Spark moves around. “You got a sensitive heart, which is bound to make it hurt more.”

Forcing myself to breathe, I inhale slowly and focus on his words. “Yeah, well, this sensitive heart wants to walk over to Shires Repair Shop and slamhisfingers in a drawer so hard they bleed and break. See how he likes it.”

“His dad works over at Shires?”

“Owns it. Always bugged me because the sign is missing an apostrophe. Now I want to burn it to the ground, except it pays the bills for his family.”

“I know one thing for sure, Iris: Karma takes no prisoners. People get what’s coming to them.”