Carmine sat down on the ground as she took off, chasing fireflies through the yard. He laughed as she fought to catch them, the little bugs evading her grasp. Soon her laughter mixed with his, her excited cheers sounding out in the night when she managed to wrangle some into the jar. She spun and twirled, jumped and ran; all the while a smile graced her lips.
As he watched, Carmine thought she looked different from the girl he’d encountered that first day. There was no awkwardness, the tension that radiated from her a distant memory. Out in the yard, under the shine of the moon, she seemed relaxed and carefree.
* * *
Haven sat down and spread out her legs, the lush grass tickling her feet. She inhaled deeply, the cool night air a far cry from the dusty shallow breaths she forced into her lungs growing up. It smelled different here, clean and crisp. Everything was green. She’d never given the color much thought before, but she realized it was more than something to see. It was a feeling, a taste, a smell. It was the dampness of the grass and the shelter of the trees. It was fresh. It was comforting. Green was happiness.
Green made her belly rumble, and the feeling terrified her.
The few trees she saw in Blackburn were barren, deformed sticks jutting from the ground, but here they were giant umbrellas of leaves towering above her.
She stared at the jar in her lap, the half-dozen fireflies trapped inside flickering at regular intervals. She found it strange the way they blinked in harmony, a silent melody she yearned to hear. “I wonder what they’re saying,” she said, shattering the silence that had settled between them.
Carmine pointed at the jar. “I’m pretty sure this one just told that one it had a nice glowy ass.”
“And the others?”
“Ah, well, that one’s jealous, because it wanted the one with the nice ass,” he said, pointing again. “And the others are gossiping. You know—who did who, why, where, when, what-the-fuck.”
“I didn’t realize bugs were so scandalous.”
o;Christ, it’s bright in here.” Carmine shielded his eyes as his voice echoed through the silent room, but no one was around to scold him.
“First time in the library?” Dominic asked.
“I’ve been in here for English class,” he said defensively. “I even checked out a book once.”
“Which book?”
“The Count of Monte Cristo. I had to do a report last year.”
“So you actually read it?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I read the first page before I rented the movie.”
Dominic laughed but said nothing, too busy pulling up files on the computer. Carmine leaned against the desk beside him, trying to decipher what all the coding meant. “What are you doing?”
“Changing your grades for you, bro.”
His eyes widened. “Really?”
“No, but I did look at them. You’ll never make it out of high school at the rate you’re going.”
Carmine shook his head. “You have some nerve hacking the school’s servers and going through people’s records like this shit isn’t illegal. And they say I’m the one who’s gonna turn out like Dad.”
“I don’t intentionally hurt people, so you still have me there,” Dominic said. “Besides, have you seen your disciplinary record?”
“I think the better question is have you seen it, Dom.”
“You’re damn right I have. It was like reading a true-crime novella. Your permanent high school record is longer than Uncle Corrado’s arrest record, and that’s saying a lot.”
Their aunt Celia’s husband, Corrado Moretti, had been arrested more times in his life than he had had birthdays, but none of the charges ever stuck. Whether it was a missing witness, a dirty judge, or a bribed juror, Corrado always found a way out of trouble.
A reporter once dubbed him the Kevlar Killer. No matter what he was hit with, he came out unscathed.
“Uncle Corrado’s the Man of Steel,” Dominic said. “Faster than a speeding bullet.”
“Did you seriously just compare him to a superhero?”