I stuffed Brandon’s phone in my pocket. “Goan to check my traps, me.” I rose and headed outside without a look back.

Best I could do would be to leave this place. Sick of being pitied.

I’d just reached my makeshift pier when the cell phone rang. The caller ID read: Greene. I was tempted to answer it, but let it ring instead. This time she left a voice mail. I played it.

Evie’s voice was shaky. “Hey, Brand, I hope everything’s okay. Starting to worry.” She didn’t know we’d lifted the phones! “Last night, about our conversation . . . we got interrupted—when you went off to save the day for me. And I just wanted to tell you my decision.” She paused.

Decision? I’d heard her and Brandon at her locker talking about this upcoming weekend. She was supposed to let him know if she would stay the night with him.

My eyes widened. If she would sleep with him! I didn’t breathe as I waited for her to continue.

“My decision is . . . yes. I’ll spend the night with you next weekend. I . . . I’m . . .” She’s what??? “Um, call me. At home.”

My heart felt like it’d stop.

Then fury welled inside me. Goddamn it, Brandon had won again! I almost threw the phone in the bayou.

_______________

Clotile found me that night, nursing a bottle of Jack Daniels and pacing the shack, blood from my arm soaking through a towel.

She pulled the cloth aside and whistled in a breath. The slash had opened the flesh all the way down to the bone. “Eck! What the hell happened?”

“I had me a fucked-up day.” Starting from this morning—my exchange with Maman, and Evie’s message—all the way to the shit storm at sunset.

Vigneau had come to minutes ago, staggering away from the house, leaving a good many of his teeth behind. Evie had left not long before. . . .

Clotile raised her brows. “Looks it.”

When Maman muttered drunkenly from the next room—“Jonathan”—I wondered if I’d lose my mind.

I gazed down at my sister. “I’m strangling here.” Earlier I’d gotten on my bike to go somewhere—anywhere away from this shack—but I hadn’t been able to throttle the motorcycle with my injured arm.

“You can tell me about it on the way,” Clotile said. “I stole ma mère’s truck. Taking you to Doc’s. Come on, you.”

I’d been to Doc’s enough, back when Maman’s beaux had gotten rough with me and I hadn’t been big enough to fight back. For years, the man had taken care of any injury I could see. For anything I couldn’t see, I went to the parish emergency room. Head. Ribs. Kidney.

Driving to Doc’s was a luxury. I used to have to walk an hour each way.

I wasn’t relishing the stitches I’d need. But if I couldn’t ride my motorcycle . . . “Ouais. Let’s go.” Bottle in hand, I followed Clotile out.

When I spied footprints in the mud, I winced. Why hadn’t I helped Evie? I’d never treated a fille so bad.

Clotile and I climbed into the truck, and she didn’t waste any time, skidding out, then flying down the highway. She didn’t care for her good-for-nothing mother, and she damn sure didn’t care about the woman’s truck. “Who cut you?”

“Vigneau.”

“I hope you did him one better.”

I raised my bottle, took a slug. “Mais yeah. But if he goes to the cops, are they goan to believe I was defending Maman?” I hadn’t just violated the terms of my parole; I’d committed the same offense. “I tried not to fight that fils de putain.”

In the program I’d been forced to attend, they’d emphasized getting the hell away when a fight was brewing. I’d tried to wake up ma mère and get her out of the house, but she’d been blind drunk—’cause she was upset over me.

Over me becoming like her.

I adjusted the towel. Blood kept soaking through the material. “And then . . . Evangeline Greene showed up.” Wearing the diamond necklace Brandon had given her.

No matter how many times I’d listened to her phone message over the day, her answer to Brandon always remained the same.

Yes.

All afternoon, I’d felt like a sickness had stolen over me. I’d walked around in a daze—mindlessly checking my traps, starting dinner, right up to my fight with Vigneau. And then she’d appeared, looking so damned beautiful.

Clotile cast me a shocked glance. “Showed up at your place?”

I nodded. “Inside. She saw the whole fight. Saw ma mère.” Who’d been passed out in bed with an empty bottle nearby.

I’d gazed around my home, seeing it through Evie’s eyes. Then I’d read her expression. She had . . . pitied me.

My skin had burned from shame, like fire licking at me. I’d been choking on it.

I still was.

Clotile asked, “Why’d Evie come?”

“She wanted her things back.” For some reason, I held off telling Clotile about Evie’s drawings.

“Like those sketches? Lionel told us she drew crazy stuff.”

Then her secret was out. I shrugged.

Clotile slid me a look. “And I’m sure you calmly escorted her out after returning her things.”

“Non. I was yelling at her, and she was backing out onto the porch. She fell on the bad step and busted her ass in the mud.” She’d screamed that I disgusted her. “I threw the pages of that journal out into the yard.”