“Shh.” Eva peered through the slats as the voices drew nearer. Although we couldn’t make out the figures themselves very well, I did catch a glimpse of my camera, and realized too late that we’d left it and our clothes on the dock.
“Please, Jack.” The voice was familiar, and after a moment I placed it as belonging to the older Walker brother, Dane. “Lenny’s a good kid. He just needs another chance.”
“Anotherchance?” Jack’s voice was low, and terrifying.
“I thought you would understand that.”
“Chances go to those who deserve them,” Jack roughed out. “Not to those who brag about their exploits.”
“Len wouldn’t hurt her—”
“He sure ran his mouth off like he did!” Jack’s voice, usually so warm, went hard and cold with anger. “You think Izzy would lie to me?”
Eva gasped.
“No,” Dane said softly. “No, she wouldn’t.”
The color drained from Eva’s cheeks.I don’t want to be another thing my neighbors talk about,she’d said.
And now she was anyway.
I found her hand under the water, a knot forming in my throat. Gone was the giggling girl I’d run off the dock with. Gone was the pleasure she’d worn like the sun in the grass. This was the girl I’d seen in the Honey Shoppe, scared to be seen. The coating of slime on the dock’s underbelly washed her in a sickly green,droplets streaking down her cheeks. My heart tugged as I thought of Lenny Walker pushing her against the counter. How many times had something like that happened and no one noticed? How many second chances had he already wasted?
“Dane,” Jack said wearily. “This isn’t who you want to be.”
The words might as well have been an arrow straight to my own conscience. I’d made the wrong choice. I should have been the one to tell Jack what had happened in the Honey Shoppe.
There was a painful beat of silence. “I know,” Dane finally said, sounding defeated. “But Jack… What am I supposed to do?”
“What you do for any other assault, Deputy,” Jack said flatly. “Report it.”
Dane’s voice was raw, young. “He’s my only family left.”
The words hooked something deep inside me. Sometimes I couldn’t chase away the panicky feeling that I was all alone in the world, that the heart of my family, myonlyfamily, had walked away from me without so much as a glance back.
The monster pulsed inside my chest.“You have me.”
When a shadow fell over me, I squinted through the slats, trying to get a better look at the men on the dock. The rustle of fabric and clasping skin made it sound as though Jack had drawn Dane into an embrace. “You have us.”
Dane let out a shaky, humorless laugh. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this shit anymore,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “You’ve done so much for us already.”
Under the water, a fish brushed my calf as it swam by. The slimy touch sent an unpleasant current of feeling up my leg before my deadly touch sucked the life from the creature.
“I don’t know what to do with him, Jack.”
“Yes, you do.”
Eva’s grip on my hand was starting to hurt. She had her eyes fixed on one of the dock floats, and I watched a tear slip down her cheek.
Jack’s voice was firm. “Show him how to be a better man.”
After Jack and Dane retreated, Eva and I hurried out from under the dock and quickly dressed, eyes on the trail they had taken. I lifted my Minolta from the dock and slung the strap over my shoulder. Had Jack, on seeing the camera and our discarded clothing, put two and two together? My stomach twisted at the thought. I wasn’t sure I would’ve survived his discovery of his daughter and me under the dock in nothing but our skin.
“Are you okay?” I asked Eva.
“No.”
I took a breath. “Did you tell Izzy?”
