“Howdidyou get that scar, Mr. Decanter?” she asked. “Do tell.”
Jon had always looked like a little worm of a human. As a child, he had never had a redeeming quality to him in Eve’s young eyes. Nothing had changed. His face pinched, his shoulders tightened with rage, she knew that despite every effort he was most likely employing, the memory of their last meeting was replaying in detail in his head.
He didn’t want to answer Maria, that much was obvious.
But Maria wasn’t a woman used to being disappointed.
Her voice lowered into a command that might have alarmed Eve had it been under different circumstances.
“How did you get that scar?”
Jon’s hand twitched. A smile clawed its way upward from his frown. It was as fake as a sociopath could make it.
His words came out bitter, regardless of the form of his mouth.
“Eve gave it to me when we were kids. She said it was a warning, and that, if I ever so much as showed my face in front of Darius again, she’d make sure it was a face no one would recognize after that.”
Maria whirled around, full focus on Eve. The surprise affected her entire body. She was nearly dancing in delight.
“Eve!” she exclaimed. “Look at you! How vicious! Maybe I should have hired you instead of this one. Who knew you had it in you!”
It was true, and it wasn’t completely true.
Eve had, in fact, tracked the kid Jon down and threatened him. But the scar on his face had been an accident. After doctoring Darius’s back and her hand, they had decided to not tell anyone about the incident. It hadn’t been for Jon’s benefit, but for fear that the incident would get their parents to reevaluate their living situations. That, because they had been left alone so much, something would need to change. Darius had a godmother out of state; Eve could have gone to a summer program at the school. Or, if their parents hadn’t decided to shuffle them off somewhere to be safe, there was always the possibility that the two of them spending so much time together would have been frowned on.
So little Eve and Darius had kept the assault and its brutality to themselves.
But that hadn’t meant Eve had let Jon off the hook.
She had gotten him out of his house that night and made it sound like she would tell the adults if he ever tried to get near them again.
That had got Jon mad.
He had lunged at her. It was only good luck on her part that his grandmother’s backyard was uneven and covered in dirt. He had slipped and fallen. Eve, knowing this was the only advantage she would get, had jumped on him.
Only a few minutes later, with blood covering her hands, did she realize that a rock had embedded in his cheek. Instead of pointing this out to him, instead of panicking, instead of going for help, Darius’s scream of pain had echoed in her mind, and she decided to get herself one more advantage.
She had pushed the rock into his skin.
Not a lot but enough to makehimscream.
Then, she had threatened him with those vicious words.
As an adult, Eve knew that she had been wrong to do it. That there were better ways to avenge violence.
But there was nothing she could do to change it.
So she did as she had done and leaned into the idea that she had caused the scar on purpose.
“Yet here you are,” she said now. “Despite my very clear warning.”
Jon let out a sound that was between a growl and a yell. He sounded possessed. Maria seemed to enjoy it all the more. She actually clapped.
“Wow, you just have to love small towns,” she said. “They really are like soap operas. Everyone has some kind of tawdry back story. Surely there’s something you want to add before we end this episode, Detective Williams?”
She started to turn back around, but Eve was faster.
“Maria,” she called out, quickly, “do you want to know one more secret first?”
