“How did she know what?”

“How did she know your window opened, Carmine? Because it’s my house, and I didn’t know!”

Carmine turned back to the window. Oh, shit. “Where is she?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

His father stared at him hard. “Why?”

Carmine blanched. Why? “Because it does. You’re a lot of things, Dad, but . . . Christ, this? I didn’t think you were this fucked up!”

Vincent’s eyes narrowed. “Do you have something to say?”

“Yeah. Nothing’s gonna bring her back.”

Vincent’s calm mask slipped. “What?”

“You heard me. It’s not gonna change anything! She’s still gone!”

Those words broke something inside Vincent, severing his tenuous grip with sanity. He grabbed his gun and aimed at Carmine’s head.

“You won’t shoot me,” Carmine said. “I look too much like her.”

Vincent’s hand shook, confirming it. “Stay away from the girl.”

He meant it as a threat, but Carmine only felt relief. It meant that Haven was still there, somewhere . . . but he had no intention of keeping his distance from her.

Time went by torturously slow for Haven as she held her position in the dark bedroom. Her muscles ached, nothing alleviating the tension. She cried until exhaustion took hold, sleep whisking her away.

A noise startled her awake later, the pain explosive the moment she opened her eyes. She faintly saw a form lurking in the shadows, her brow furrowing when she made out the sorrowful green eyes. Carmine knelt in front of her and wiped her tears before running his fingertips across the duct tape covering her mouth. “La mia bella ragazza, I’m sorry this happened to you.”

She studied him, her head tilted as if it would help her understand.

“It’s the anniversary of, uh . . . fuck! Why can’t I say it? It’s the day my mom . . .” He trailed off, leaving her confused. None of them spoke of Carmine’s mama. Haven didn’t even know her name. “I wish I could let you go, but he’d kill me. No, he’d kill you. He told me not to come near you, but I had to know you were okay. But, Christ, look at you! What’s wrong with him?”

He tucked some of her hair behind her ears, his fingers grazing over the duct tape once more. “I’ll be back in the morning. Stay strong, tesoro. I’ll never let anything like this happen again.”

“Are you awake?”

Haven’s eyes opened at the sound of Dr. DeMarco’s voice the next morning, his tone not as callous as it had been yesterday. Squatting down in front of her, he peeled up the corner of the duct tape and ripped it off. She winced, her lips throbbing like the beat of a drum.

Dr. DeMarco freed her from the restraints, and she rubbed her burning wrists. She sat there after he left with her head slumped forward, wiping her nose on her shirt as she flexed her limbs, trying to get the cramps out.

After a few minutes, Carmine knocked and stepped in with a glass of water. He knelt beside her. “You should drink this.”

She took the water and tried to smile at his generosity but couldn’t manage it. Everything hurt.

Carmine held out a small yellow pill. “Take this. The kids at school would eat this shit like candy if they could. It’ll take away the pain.”

She took the pill and swallowed it, her voice gritty as she whispered, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Do you think you can get up?”

Carmine held his hand out to her and pulled her to her feet, but the moment he let go, her knees gave out. He cursed and snatched her before she hit the floor, his grip firm as he pulled her into his arms.

His face softened as he carried her to his room and placed her on his bed. Confused, she lay as still as possible as Carmine disappeared into his bathroom, returning with his arms full of first-aid supplies. He dropped it all on the bed beside her and sat down, a washcloth in his hand. “I need to fix you up. You don’t want any of this getting infected.”

Carmine washed her cheeks, the cool cloth feeling good against her skin. He brushed it across her mouth, being extra gentle, and washed the dried blood from her wrists. Haven did her best to ignore the pain, keeping her attention on his face, strained with concentration.

The pain receded as the drug kicked in. “You’re good at this.”

He smiled. “Now, this I’ve been doing my whole life.”

9

Carmine paused beside the bed and stared down at Haven, her face nuzzled into his pillow. He smiled unconsciously at the sight of her as he sat down. “Do you wanna talk about what happened?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she whispered. “I survived. That’s what I do. I’ll keep surviving until I don’t survive anymore.”

“So, you’re saying you’re a survivor?”

Her cheeks flushed. “Yeah, that didn’t sound smart. I think I need a thes—uh, one of those books with words.”

He laughed. “A thesaurus?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll get you one if you promise to use it.”

“Okay, I will.” Recognition flickered across her face as her smile fell. “You’ll have to read it to me, though. I can’t read.”

“Truthfully?”

She hesitated. “I can a little bit. People taught me, and I picked up some from closed captioning when my mistress watched the television . . . so I guess you can say I watched some television, too.”

He shook his head. “I still don’t understand why it mattered to that Michael guy.”

“Because smart people try to escape,” she replied. “They think they can make it in the outside world. The ones who don’t know anything are easier to control, and they needed to control me.”

He gaped at her, surprised by her sudden seriousness. “Okay.”

Haven laughed, her carefree expression returning. “Is that an, ‘Okay, I get your point, Haven,’ or is it an, ‘Okay, I’m just going to agree with you, because I don’t know what else to say?’”

She’d mocked him. Him. “You did that all fucking wrong. You didn’t even curse.”

“I don’t curse.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Why not?”

“I’ve seen too many people have teeth knocked out from saying bad words.”

“So not cursing kept you all your teeth?”

“No, luck did that. As many blows to the face I took, I should be more disfigured than I am.”

He scoffed. “You aren’t disfigured.”

“My nose is crooked,” she said, matter-of-fact. “There’s a bump.”

He squinted a bit, looking at her nose, but saw nothing wrong with it. “How’d you get this supposedly horrific bump?”

“My mistress kicked me in the face.”

He cringed. “Why did she kick you?”

“Because I scuffed her high heels when she tripped me.”

“Why did she trip you?”

“For fun? I don’t know.”

His brow furrowed. “The bitch tripped you for laughs, got pissed because she scuffed her shoe, and decided to kick you in the nose as punishment?”

She nodded. “Do you want to know the color of the shoes? You’ve asked everything else.”

His eyes widened at her sarcastic tone.

Haven noticed his stunned expression and covered her mouth. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said. “And if you wanna tell me the color of the shoe, by all means, tell me. If you’re sick of my questions, tell me to shut the fuck up.”

“The shoe was red, and I don’t mind your questions,” she said. “I can’t believe I had an outburst like that.”

He smirked. “It’s the drug. It’s why, in the past half hour, you’ve mocked me, gotten fresh with me, and confessed to me.”

“So when it wears off, I’ll be in pain and embarrassed? Probably even in trouble, too.”

“No reason to be embarrassed,” he said. “And nothing will top you escaping out my window, so I wouldn’t worry about being in trouble anymore.”

She picked at her short brittle nails. “Did I get you in trouble, too?”

“No more than I get myself in daily,” he said. “He came up here in the middle of the night and nailed it down, though, so no more scaling trees for either of us . . . until I get it open again.”

“I panicked,” she said. “I thought he was going to kill me.”

“He wouldn’t . . .” He wouldn’t kill her? Carmine wasn’t sure if he believed those words. “Why did you think that, anyway?”

“He said the same thing my master said when I saw him murder a girl.”

Carmine didn’t know what he’d expected to hear, but that wasn’t it. “You saw a girl die? Is that the worst thing you’ve seen?”

“Maybe. I’ve seen a lot.”

“Like?”

She averted her eyes. “Like my mama being raped.”

As much as those words sickened him, Carmine was immensely grateful for whatever pharmaceutical company cranked out those potent little yellow pills that made her open up. “That’ll never happen to you here. You know that, right?”

She nodded but didn’t appear to be convinced.

“Look, sex can be great between people who want it, but I’d never touch a girl unless she wanted me to. None of us would. That’s wrong.”

“Do you love those girls you touch?”

“No.” He felt bad about admitting that.

“Have you ever been in love?”

He stared at her, unsure of how to answer. “I don’t know. I’m still figuring out what love is.”

“Me, too,” she said. “It’s confusing.”

He pursed his lips in thought. Could she feel what he felt? He couldn’t ask her, though. Even if she said yes, he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t drug-induced.

Leaning back on the bed, Carmine stared up at the ceiling as Haven spoke, her words slurring from exhaustion. “Carmine? What’s the worst thing you’ve seen?”

He contemplated whether to answer. It was a story he’d never told anyone. His family knew the technical parts, the shit that made the newspaper, but he never talked about what he saw.

Could he tell her?

He looked at her and smiled when he saw her eyes closed, lips parted as she lay there, fast asleep. He would have told her, he realized. He would have told her everything.

When Haven woke up, muscles throbbed she hadn’t been aware of. The intoxicating scent of cologne invaded her lungs, assaulting every cell in her body when she took a deep breath. It reminded her of the smell of the air in Blackburn when a storm came and it rained for two days.

Haven sat up, needing to clear her head, and stretched her back as Carmine retrieved a bottle of Tylenol. He sat down and gave her the pills before grabbing a half-full bottle of water from his nightstand. “I promise I don’t have any diseases.”