“Damon, your mother wants you,” the woman’s voice says, not waiting for him to answer. “She’s in her room.”

I turn my head and look at him, pinching my eyebrows together when I notice blood trailing down his finger. The snake suddenly strikes him again, and I suck in a little breath. He’s squeezing it too hard. Why’s he doing that?

But he just stares ahead, his eyes heavy like he’s lost in thought. Did he even hear the woman on the intercom?

“Damon?” I say. That snake isn’t dangerous, right? He wouldn’t keep a venomous animal here.

What’s wrong with him?

He finally raises his eyes. “Get out.”

Jesus. What a jerk. I whip open the door and take a step. But then I stop and spin around once more.

“A cemetery,” I say. “That’s how I’d get rid of a dead body.”

He looks up at me again, his eyes narrow, and I lift my chin, shrugging. “I’d find a freshly covered grave. That way they wouldn’t be able to tell it was re-dug. Put another body in there and cover it back up. That’s what I’d do.”

And I pulled the door closed, slamming it shut on his dark stare.

I exhaled, breathing hard but standing a little bit taller.

God, he was a mess. And horrible and mean, and why did he lose it like that when whoever-that-was came on the intercom? For a moment, he looked so alone.

He’s got everything. Why’s he so angry? I’m the one who should be angry. I’m the one who’s alone. A father who doesn’t care about me and a mother who hurts and makes me do things I don’t want to do.

He doesn’t know what it’s like to suffer. To have something to be angry about.

Minutes later, as my mother and I are shown the door—empty-handed, of course—I walk down the driveway, glancing behind me one last time. Damon stands at his bedroom window, watching us leave.

The orange end of a cigarette burns brightly as he takes a drag, and I hold his stare for as long as I can, unable to look away.

Not until a tree passes through my line of sight, and I lose him.

I go home with the last image of him on that lonely third floor, the dark boy in that dark room, and I grow uneasy.

He’s not okay.

I dreamed about him that night.

And eight days later, he shows up on my mother’s doorstep. He hands her nine thousand four hundred sixty-two dollars, a Rolex, and some emerald earrings.

And he takes me home with him.

I rested my arms on my bent-up knees, running my lips over my interlocked fingers as the memory leaves me. I was twelve then, and here we were, eleven years later, and here was where I’d stayed ever since. My father let me stay, because he rarely denied his son anything, but legal guardianship had been relinquished to Marina. Just so my father wouldn’t have the tedious task of taking me to the doctor when I was sick or answering to the police if I ever got into trouble.

But I belonged to Damon Torrance.

I didn’t know why he wanted me. Not at first. And I was scared bad things were going to happen to me.

And they did.

But he always took care of me. He scrounged up what he could get his hands on around the house to buy me from my mother, who, in a perfect world, would’ve loved to not do what she had done, but the money and the small prospect that I might actually have a better life here in Thunder Bay won out.

Mostly, it was the money, though. Which was spent as easily as it was earned in no time at all. She tried to get me back several times over the years, maybe because she hated what she’d done, or maybe she just wanted to renegotiate for more cash, but Damon had what he wanted, and he wouldn’t even hear her out. Not when he was fifteen or seventeen or nineteen.

Not that I wanted him to, anyway. It could be so strange how things happen. How the people you never suspect become you’re only lifeline, and you hold onto them as hard as you can, because you have no choice. There was nothing else to keep you from falling. Falling into loneliness or despair or fear. He reached for me, and I reached back.

Within days of arriving, moving into my cubby in the tower and spending hours upon hours of being his shadow, I was captivated by him. I idolized him and wanted to be like him.

We were our family.

I looked over at the tanks, seeing Volos and Kore II basking under their heat lamps. Standing up, I walked over and removed the lid, gingerly picking up Volos and helping him curl around my hand. He should be dead already. Kore passed years ago, but Volos was hanging on. Perhaps for his master.

He rested peacefully, not moving, and I ran my fingers down his scaly skin.

After the first meeting with Damon, I’d researched his snakes on the Internet at the library and found out Volos was a milk snake and Kore was a corn snake. Both completely harmless, neither venomous.

Although what Damon said was true.

Every animal bites when it’s provoked.

Banks

Devil’s Night

Six Years Ago

“You stay with us,” David ordered, opening his car door. “You piss me off, and I’m dragging you home no matter what Damon says.”

Yes, I know. You told me twice.

We all left the SUV, Ilia and me climbing out of the back doors while David and Lev jumped out the front. The locks clicked behind us, and we headed down the hill, into the secluded section of the cemetery where the glow of the party was like a firefly in a pitch-black sky.

After David and the guys had arrived at the Bell Tower earlier, they’d put me in the car, and we’d driven around the cemetery, through the main entrance.

Puddle of Mudd filled the air, and I looked down at the party, slowing my steps, in awe of the sight. A sea of flames laid before us, hundreds of candles sitting on top of headstones, surrounding graves, and lining the perimeters of various tombs. The beautiful green lawn—black in the dark—appeared to be alive with shadows of the flames dancing across the grass.

And farther off, in the distance, blazed the bonfire, so bold and bright I could hear it crackling from here.

Someone took my hand.

I looked to see Lev standing next to me, squeezing my limp fingers in his.

I tried to pull away. “I’m not a baby,” I told him.

I needed my hand held? Really?

“Well, you’re getting into trouble like one,” he shot back. “Now, if you wanna get into trouble, I’m coming with you.”

I couldn’t help but laugh a little. He really was my favorite. Probably because he wasn’t much older than me. Only a few years.

Circling around him, I jumped up on his back, forcing him to release me as I wrapped my arms and legs around him. “Please…” I replied in his ear. “If I want to get into trouble, I only have to follow you.”

He grunted, readjusting his stance with my added weight. “Get off me, wench.”

“You don’t want to make me cry, do you?”

He scoffed, grabbing me under the knees and hefting me up for a more secure hold. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Let’s get some drinks,” David called, leading us down to the party.

Ilia lit a cigarette. “Yeah, let’s see what these rich little shits think is the ‘hard stuff’.”

“Pull up your hood,” Lev told me.

I followed directions, covering myself as we descended into the noise.

Anticipation was making me giddy, but I didn’t know if I was excited to be “out” at a party, anxious that I would see Kai here, or nervous about Damon’s last words to me. What did he mean? What could possibly shock me after everything I’d seen growing up? I didn’t want anything to ruin Kai in my head.

Yep, definitely nervous.

Groups of people surrounded us, some of the girls turning their heads and following the guys with their eyes. Not a shocker. Not only did we look like we didn’t belong here in our less-than-fifty-dollar T-shirts and no-name shoes, but the guys were clearly thugs.

David stood a little less than six feet with a stockier build, but it was the shaved head and full sleeves of tattoos which made him stand out.

Ilia was the model. Or could’ve been, probably. Blond hair, bedroom eyes, sharp nose, narrow jaw—all of which made him look like a Russian James Bond.

And Lev. Still very much a kid at twenty-one years old. Infectious smile, longer black hair, shaved on the sides, looking more like he belonged in a band than buried in Thunder Bay under mundane tasks a third grader could do.