Scarred

Chapter 1-3

I stay behind the counter while the regulators eat; keeping an eye on the time as I wipe out the coffee and tea pots, refill the salt, restock the ice. That I save for last, I’m not looking forward to it—I have to climb up on one of the bar stools, haul a bucket of frozen cubes above the soda jerk, dump it in the unit and lean over into the cooler to settle the chunks.

When I’m up on the stool and have to bend down for the bucket, I hear the first wolf whistle. One of the regulators says I have a tight ass, someone else says he wants to sink his teeth into it, tear me open and eat me up and that starts the laughter again. I’ve heard this talk before. I have scars, too, in places I’d rather not think about, from men like these.

When I dump the ice, the sound covers their talk but only briefly. Then I’m leaning into the cooler and I can feel them staring at me. I hear more laughter, the scrape of a chair pushed back from a table. Now it starts.

I think of my da telling me I’ll get by, the sharp sting of his aftershave still poignant in my mind after all these years. Here’s where I disappear.

Coby’s voice cuts through the laughter like a knife, surprising me. “Sit down.”

“Aww, Coby,” one of his men starts.

Silence. I straighten up, turn around slowly on the stool, unsure of what’s happening. A young boy stands halfway between the tables and the counter—a nondescript kid with a shock of yellow hair that begs for a comb, watery eyes that remind me of puddles and a chipped tooth like a fang in the front of his mouth, that I see when he licks his lips.

He’s dressed like the others, dirty jeans and a ratty leather jacket, the sleeves torn off and thrown away long ago, and he can’t be but seventeen, if that. But he carries a rusty blade in one hand and his other curls into a fist. He’s gauging how far away I am and trying to figure out if he’ll be able to bring me down before Coby can stop him. I don’t know why Coby would do that, what he’s planning for me himself, but if it keeps this punk away…

“Ravid,” Coby warns.

The kid takes another step toward me. I catch the way Tarn looks at Coby two seconds before the room explodes around us in a rush of men. Tarn wraps one thick arm around Ravid’s neck, pulls back until I’m sure it’ll pop and the knife the kid wields clatters uselessly to the floor as he claws at Tarn, struggling to breathe. One man dives for the floor, knocking Ravid’s legs out from beneath him, another pins his arms down, a third sits on his legs to keep them from lashing out.

Only Coby remains seated, still chewing his burger with a thoughtful expression on his face. He glances up at me and I’m not sure if that’s the hint of a smile or not. I don’t know what it is I see glistening in his eyes, but my legs are like water, ready to run out beneath me, and I sink to the bar stool gratefully. Do I thank him? Does he expect something in return?

I’ll find out soon enough. When Ravid stops thrashing about, the men help him up, joking and laughing as they dust him off like this isn’t the first time things have gone this far. Tarn ruffles the kid’s hair, tells him to stop thinking with the wrong head, like he’s one to talk.

Ravid glares at me balefully,. He still wants to take me on. I see the lust smoldering in his eyes and have to turn away so he won’t see just how terrified he makes me.

I can handle men. I know how to close my eyes and vanish from the things they do to me, leave my body behind like a hollow shell and let them do with it what they please. I can deal with fists and nails and teeth, and I’ve had to put up with cigarette burns before, broken beer bottles, razor blades once, so sharp I almost didn’t feel the cuts they left until I saw the blood well up beneath the skin.

But that knife he’s carrying, that scares me, and the way he ignored Coby, that terrifies me, because these regulators answer to their leader if no one else. Look at Tarn, he gave up on Delia when Coby told him no. None of McBane’s men will touch me, they know he won’t go for it. If Ravid’s not listening to the guy in charge, chances are he’s the type to take no prisoners, and there won’t be enough of me to stitch back together again once he’s through.

The regulators file out into the night, their laughter trailing behind them. Tarn keeps a strong hand on Ravid’s back, keeps him from turning around at the last minute and rushing me. The only one to stay behind is Coby—I figured as much.

He waits until the door closes on the last of his men before he pushes away from the table and stands, not looking my way. I watch him approach the counter, digging in his pocket for a battered wallet, the leather held together with rubber bands to keep things from falling out. Not that there’s much inside—he opens it up on the counter, riffles through the few bills in there, frowns slightly and asks, “What’s it gonna be?”

I’m surprised he’s paying. Most regulators try to talk me into giving them a tab, which I try not to do because that’s an open invite right there to come back and that’s the last thing I want. But it’s quiet in here now, the noise from his men trapped outside beyond the window panes, and he hasn’t raised his voice at me, hasn’t touched me, and there’s something to be said for that. Another time and place, he might be just a normal boy on the other side of my counter, paying for a meal.

This close I see he’s about my height, maybe a few inches taller, and he’s my build, too, though more muscle than me, not as filled out in some places, bulkier in others. Those eyes are like silver dollars winking in the lights overhead, and the scars across his nose just add to his boyish air. I wonder who he’d be in a different world, if he’d still be this soft-spoken, this polite. I watch his fingers as he toys with the cash—he has big hands, with scuffed knuckles and scraped palms, and I wonder if they’re as deceiving as the rest of him. If they’re as soft, as gentle, as his voice when he prompts, “Sir?”

Sir. It’s the sir that makes me undercharge him, I decide, not his hands or his voice or his eyes. “Five’s fine,” I tell him, taking the offered bill and turning away. “Have a good night.”

He doesn’t leave. Instead he leans on the counter, stares at my mouth and says, “We need a place to stay.”

Here it is then, what I’ve been expecting since they walked through that door. The proposition. Let me f**k you and I’ll keep the men away from your sister, that’s what those words mean. Bend over and we won’t trash your place. I’ve heard it all before. How could I even think he might be someone different?

My voice hardens. “There’s a boarding house down the street. Kyla’s. She’s got extra rooms in the back, don’t let her try and tell you she doesn’t.”

He watches as I wipe down the counter. It doesn’t need cleaning, it’s just something to do to keep from meeting his steady gaze. He’s trying to get a bead on me, I know he is, and as long as I don’t look at him, he can’t really pin me down in his mind. Go on, I plea silently, feeling him watch my every move, the circular motion of my hand as I rub the counter, the muscles in my arms flexing. Go on, don’t say another word. You said you weren’t like everyone else, remember? So prove it already. Just say goodnight and go.

I should have known better. So he has pretty eyes, so what? So he has manners and a nice smile and a soft voice. He’s still a regulator, he’s still one of them, those men who ride through this war-torn wasteland and control what’s left.

“You don’t get my drift,” he says in that damnably quiet voice of his, and then, when I don’t reply, he wants to know, “That girl? What did you call her, Delia?” Involuntarily my hand closes into a tight fist, a gesture he doesn’t miss. “Who’s she to you?”

“My sister,” I tell him through clenched teeth. “I’ll not have your men stay the night—”

“Just me,” he corrects.

Yes, that’s what I thought. Now I look up and I see the hunger in his eyes, the lust, the need, and dammit the hell, I was right all along. I don’t realize there’s a part of me that hoped he might prove different until I feel my heart twist angrily in my chest. f**k him. “I guess I can’t really say no, can I?”

He shrugs.

No would be stupid, no would dissolve this civil discussion into a brutal rape, no would send Tarn up the back stairs for Delia and Ravid in here with his knife.

I can’t say no. That’s not even an option.

I let this kid have his way, a quick f**k and a bed, and it’s over with. He might smack me around a bit but I’m not thinking of me anymore. I’ve been hit before. I’m thinking of the girls upstairs. I’ll get by as long as I think of them.

Touching my hand, he trails one finger down an old scar that’s healed crooked along my thumb, more of McBane’s handiwork, when I made the mistake once of trying to shield myself from his blows. “I’m gentle,” he murmurs, tracing the scar. “I’ll not hurt you, I promise.”

That’s something I’ve never heard before, and the faint press of his skin against mine rouses my blood in a way I’m not sure I like. I don’t like it, I tell myself, I won’t. But when he looks at me with those mercurial eyes, I find that I can’t look away, and his hand covers mine with an unexpected warmth that surprises me.

“One night, sir,” he says. There’s that sir again. “That’s all I’m asking.”

One night. And he’s asking so sweetly, too, like there’s nothing else at stake here, we’re just two boys looking to find something together, and that’s not the way it is, not at all.

He’s not even asking, not really—I say no and this whole charade, this whole pretense, is over. He signals to his friends and they come back in, hold me down, he takes what he wants anyway. That gentle crap is just another lie.

But his hand on mine is softer than I imagined it would be, his touch is gentle, and he holds his breath as if I might actually say no after all. I stare into his depthless eyes and think I’ve had worse. A lot worse.

And it keeps Delia safe…I pull my hand out from under his and attack the counter with renewed vigor, hating the small part of me that is almost looking forward to a tender touch, s*x without pain or blood, s*x with him. “Fine,” I say, defeated.

If it keeps his men away from Delia, then fine.