“Ren.” She acknowledged him with as friendly a smile as she could muster. She didn’t look long at the people with him. Not for the first time she wished there were an easier way to determine whether they were just getting-high friends or if one was a dealer—not that it mattered. When people were high, they could be unpredictable. When they weren’t high but jonesing for whatever they used, they were worse.
Her brother complicated things by dabbling with too many drugs and therefore too many circles of druggies. Today, though, there was no need to guess what they were using: the sickly-sweet smell of crack filled her
kitchen the way the scents of home-cooked meals once had.
A skinny girl with lank hair grinned at Leslie. The girl was sitting astride a guy who didn’t seem to be high at all. He didn’t share her pinched look, either. Without looking away from Leslie, he took the pipe out of the scrawny girl’s hand and put the girl’s hand on his crotch. She didn’t hesitate—or look away from the pipe he held out of her reach.
He’s the one to fear.
“Want a hit?” He held the pipe out to Leslie.
“No.”
He patted his leg. “Want a seat?”
She glanced down, saw the skinny girl’s hand moving there, and started to back away. “No.”
He reached out as if to grab Leslie’s wrist.
She turned, ran up the stairs to her room, and closed the door against the laughter and crude invitations that rang through her house.
Once she was ready for work, Leslie slid open the window and slung a leg out. It wasn’t a huge drop, but when she landed wrong it hurt pretty badly. She sighed. She couldn’t waitress with a sprained ankle.
I could go back in, just run down the stairs and out.
Carefully, she dropped her bag to the ground.
“Here goes.”
She sat with both legs dangling from the window, then twisted so her stomach was on the wood and she was facing the house. Slowly she backed out, bracing herself with her feet on the siding and gripping the wooden window frame with her hands.
I hate this.
She pushed off, bracing herself for the impact. It didn’t come. Instead she was caught in someone’s arms before she touched the ground.
“Let go of me. Let go.” She was facing away from the person who held on to her. She kicked backward and made contact.
“Relax.” The guy holding her lowered her gently to the ground and stepped back. “You looked like you could use help. It’s a big drop for a little thing like you.”
She turned to face him and had to crane her neck to see his face. He was an utterly unfamiliar older man, not grandfather old, but older than most of the people who hung around Ren. He had a different look, too. Heavy silver chains dangled from both of his wrists. His jeans were faded and ripped in the calves to reveal the tops of scuffed combat boots. Tattoos of zoomorphic dogs covered his forearms. She should be afraid, but she wasn’t: instead she felt still, calm, like whatever emotions churned inside had ceased to connect with the world around her.
She motioned to the tattoos on the man’s arms. “Nice.”
He smiled in what seemed to be a friendly way. “My son did that. Rabbit. He has a shop—”
“You’re Rabbit’s dad?” She stared. There was no family resemblance that she could see, especially when she realized that this meant he was also Ani and Tish’s father.
The man smiled wider still. “You know him?”
“And his sisters.”
“Look like their mothers. All of them. I’m Gabriel. Nice to meet…” He scowled then, causing her to step backward and stumble—not in fear, not even then, but in wariness.
But his scowl wasn’t directed at her. The creepy dealer from the house had stepped around the corner. He said, “Come back inside.”
“No.” She collected her bag from the grass where it had fallen. Her hands shook as she clutched it and tried not to look at the dealer walking toward her or at Gabriel. Fear surged. Delayed and dulled as it was, it still made her feel like running.
Is Gabriel here to see Ren? Rabbit never talked about his dad; neither did Ani and Tish. Is he a drug dealer too? Or just an addict?