I winced, but he wasn’t wrong. “You think Billy’d do something like that?”
Levi’s mouth twisted. “Billy’s a fucking psycho when he’s high. His dad’s just like him. When my real dad died, people thought it was an accident. But everyone knew who set the fire.” He looked up, and for a second I saw past the teenager to the old man’s eyes beneath.
“You miss your dad?” I asked, careful.
He snorted. “Yeah, I guess. He was okay until he got sick. Then he was just tired all the time.” He picked at a scab on his hand. “After that, it was just me and Viv. She’s not… it’s not like you think, Sheriff. She’s a crazy. She’s…” He trailed off, looking for the right word.
“Lost?” I offered.
He considered, then shook his head. “She knows exactly what she’s doing. She just thinks no one’s watching close enough to see. She wants the image of the perfect little family and she’ll do anything to get it, even keep me around when she’s not really my mother. That’s why I’m here, you know. I’m supposed to be lost cause to bring you back so you can save me from myself, you being a law officer and all.”
“Is this about the drugs she said she found on you?”
“There were no drugs. Never have been. Viv made that up and then told the school so they suspended me. Made me look like a rebellious teen and her look like the concerned mother figure.”
I chewed on that. “You want out of there?”
He blinked, and I could see the calculation running behind his eyes. “Wouldn’t say no. But I don’t got anywhere to go.”
I leaned back. “You ever think about emancipation?”
He grinned, showing teeth. “Don’t need a piece of paper to be on my own. Been that way since sixth grade.”
“Is that why you’re here now?” I asked. “What made you finally talk?”
He looked out the window, where the reflection of the station sign flickered in the glass. “Saw you and Ransom. The way you didn’t back down when Viv went nuclear. I never seen anybody do that before. Not to her.”
I felt my cheeks flush. “You’re braver than you think.”
He laughed, but it was a raw, animal sound. “That’s not what the teachers say.”
“Teachers don’t know shit,” I said, and meant it.
He was quiet for a minute. I let him sit in it. Then, almost too soft to hear, he said, “I knew I was gay when I was ten. Maybe earlier. I tried to tell my dad once, but he didn’t hear me. He was already dying, I think. And after that, it wasn’t safe. Not with her.” He looked at me then, and it was like staring into a mirror: all the years I’d spent hiding, all the times I’d bitten my tongue and let the world roll over me.
“I get it,” I said. “But you’re safe here.”
He grinned again, this time sadder. “Not if she finds out what I wrote.”
I nodded. “We’ll keep it tight. No one will know.”
He looked at the ceiling. “You know she used to watch you? Like, drive her car down the street after dark and sit there with the engine running? She’d just stare at your house. Sometimes she’d sit for hours.”
That made the hair on my arms stand up. “You’re joking.”
He shook his head. “She thought you were up to something. She wanted to see if you had a lover that would come or go. She went ballistic when she saw Ransom staying at your place. I tried to tell her to knock it off, but she said it was her duty to protect the community from ‘perversion.’” He rolled the word in his mouth like it tasted bad.
I closed my eyes, felt the cold wash of dread. I’d thought Vivian Hardesty was an asshole, a pain in my side, but this was another level. This was obsession.
Levi kept going, like he needed to get it all out before he lost his nerve. “She used to say the worst shit about you. About Ransom, too. When I saw the spray paint on the shop wall, I knew who said those words first. I could hear her voice in it.”
I swallowed. My jaw was so tight it ached.
He saw the reaction, and for a second he looked guilty. “Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to fuck up your day.”
“You didn’t,” I said. “You did the right thing.”
He nodded, but didn’t look convinced. “You think the McKenzies would take me in?”
