I exited my room as quietly as I could, but in the still silence of the apartment, I heard the rattly sounds of Braxton’s snores from behind his closed bedroom door.
I slipped on my boots and my coat and grabbed my school backpack from the hook near the door and then left the apartment. I had nowhere to go. But I couldn’t stay there. I could not live being leered at again.
The main door of the building opened and Claire breezed through, a flurry of light snow following her inside. I halted as she spotted me, her eyes growing wide.
“Karys! My goodness, where are you going?” She rushed toward me. “Honey, you look absolutely pallid. What’s wrong?”
The tears burst from me like a water source suddenly being tapped in a patch of cracked, dehydrated ground.
Claire wrapped her arms around me and I dropped the handle of my suitcase, letting my backpack slide off my arm, clutching at her, needing the soft arms of a motherly touch so desperately. “Tell me, honey,” she cooed. “Tell me what’s wrong? Is it Zakai again? You can’t go to him, lovely girl. He’s no good for you.”
I shook my head against the fur of her coat, the soft fibers tickling my sodden cheeks. “No,” I said, my voice drowned in tears. I looked up at her, imploring her with my eyes. “Braxton kissed me,” I whispered, my cheeks flooding with heat, though it had been him who’d betrayed me. So why did I feel such shame?
Claire froze, her brow creasing with a minimal twitch. “Excuse me?”
I leaned back, noting that the fur of her coat was now wet and smashed, the place where my face had been sticking up at odd angles the way Zakai’s hair did in the morning. I felt a clunk in my stomach at the mere fleeting thought of his name. “My uncle kissed me,” I moaned.
Claire stepped away, thrusting her shoulders back. Her eyes grew cold. “You little liar,” she said, poison in her tone. “You pretty little liar.” Her lips tipped upward but there was no sympathy in her smile. “I knew you’d have issues. I told him. How could you not? But I didn’t know you’d be downright sick.”
Hope drained from my body, leaving me bleak and lifeless. I picked up my backpack and my suitcase and walked around her.
“Where the hell are you going?” she demanded.
I didn’t answer her though. I didn’t know. I pushed open the door and walked out into the night.
As I moved through the streets, Claire’s words repeated in my mind.
I knew you’d have issues. But I didn’t know you’d be downright sick.
Issues.
Sick.
Who knows the amount of therapy that kid will need?
I felt like a walking wound. A festering sore. I was grotesque and unnatural.
Claire’s green eyes continued to flash coldly in my mind, my heart beating dully in my chest. In the desert, there was a lizard with eyes like Claire’s, just as green as a new budding leaf. It appeared docile and harmless from a distance.
But if you crossed it, it would strike.
**********
I had nowhere to go, nowhere at all. Except to Zakai. Perhaps I’d misunderstood his and Giselle’s relationship. Perhaps they were just roommates. A shiver ran through me. What if they’re not?
Karys is naïve.
I’d never once—during any part of my life that I could remember—not had Zakai to turn to. Perhaps we were . . . estranged. But he wouldn’t reject me now, not in my time of deep need. He’d thought I was well taken care of before, but once he knew I needed him, he’d never turn me away.
You know I’d do anything for you, right, Karys?
Yes. Yes.
In my rush to leave Braxton’s, I’d left my cell phone behind. I stopped at a café with Internet access and took the laptop Braxton had bought me out of my backpack, using their Wi-Fi to access the Internet. I frowned at the screen for a moment. I had learned how to use a computer well. I even understood the Internet for the most part, though there was a lot to wrap my head around on that front. But I wasn’t entirely sure how to go about finding Giselle’s address other than putting her name in a search engine. I typed it in, breathing out a quick sigh of relief when her address came up under a People Search.
Shoving the note I’d jotted the address on into my pocket, I threw my computer into my backpack and headed for the door. I felt nervous and sick to my stomach, heavy with despair over this unexpected turn in the road of my life, but I also felt a modicum of determination. I had an address and a destination.
Please, please, let me be in Zakai’s arms by the time this night is over.