Lucy and I have been following instructions as best we can, but that doesn’t stop the workers from shouting at me to shut up and sit down when I try to explain that Lucy’s afraid of loud noises since the explosion, and she’s scared because kids are banging on the tables. I can’t stop them from grabbing Lucy’sarm and wrenching her back into her seat when she tries to run and hide, and that’s even worse. It makes my blood boil seeing people hurt Lucy.
I hate them all. I hate this place so much. Most of all, I hate what it’s doing to Lucy. She’s even skinnier than when we arrived two weeks ago, and there are dark shadows beneath her eyes. I know she only heard me crying out because she was lying awake, unable to sleep.
I bury my face in her hair and breathe in deeply. She smells like the cheap soap they give us here, but she’s still Lucy. Letting out the breath in my lungs in a deep, slow rush, I feel my heart rate slow and some of the terror ease.
Lucy is the only good thing I have. I can’t stand to see her suffering in this place.
“Tell me something about you,” she whispers, stroking my hair.
I lift my head and check the beds around me. The other six boys in this room are all fast asleep. I relax back down and rub my cheek against hers. “I like you here with me.”
I don’t know why, but holding Lucy feels so different to when I used to hold Lily. When Lucy’s in my arms, I never want to let her go.
“Give me a real answer. I need to know all about you if you’re supposed to be my brother.”
“That was a real answer.” I think for a moment, trying to remember important things I should tell her that my sister would know. “Things have been hard since Mom died. Cancer. It was horrible seeing her like that. She didn’t look like Mom anymore. Dad lost the plot afterward. He stole drugs from his ambulance job and got fired, but he still needed drugs, so that’s why we were always at that horrible house.” The words taste bitter in my mouth. I’ve never said any of this out loud before. “Lily was in denial about everything, so there was just mewatching them both thinking, this is a nightmare, I’m the only one who knows it, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
Lucy’s fingers trail through my curls, gentle and soothing. “Now tell me something that makes you happy.”
Her touch makes it easier to breathe. Easier to think about something other than flames and screaming. My eyes drift closed. “The hope that things can get better. What about you?”
Her fingers thread through my curls in a steady rhythm. “Quiet gardens,” she says softly. “Bees humming over flowers. Warm sunshine and cold soda. An afternoon so peaceful and lovely that the whole world and all its problems fall away.”
I open my eyes and look at her. In the darkness, I can just make out her face. “I want all that for you. I’m going to make it happen.”
Her beautiful brown eyes, that have seen too much at her young age, grow troubled. “Damiano. I’m afraid people are going to figure out you’re not really my brother, and when they do, they’ll send one of us away, and we’ll never see each other again.”
The fear in her voice makes my chest tighten. “They won’t,” I say urgently. “Remember what I told you? If someone tries to separate us, you tell them…” I prompt her, waiting for her to recite the instructions I gave her.
“I say,I’m not going anywhere without my brother Damiano. I want my brother Damiano.I scream it if I have to, so you’ll hear me and come running.”
“And I will run to you as fast as I can.” I press a kiss to her forehead and squeeze her in a hug. She yelps in pain, and my head lifts off the pillow. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she says quickly. Too quickly. She’s covering her ribs with her hand, trying to curl away from me.
I reach for the hem of her T-shirt, and she clutches my fingers with panic in her eyes.
“Damiano, don’t. It’s nothing.”
She doesn’t want me to see, because then I might get angry and get into trouble. But I need to know.
“It’s not nothing. Let me see.” I lift her T-shirt and search her stomach in the dark. There’s a bruise on her left ribs, a nasty shade of purple and blue. It looks like someone elbowed her or even kicked her while she was on the ground.
Fury and regret churn through me. I gently touch the spot, and Lucy flinches. “Lucy, who did this?”
“It doesn’t matter. I just wish I was bigger than them. Then they wouldn’t dare,” she whispers fiercely.
Lucy is small for her age, she doesn’t trust or like anyone but me, and she wears her dislike on her face. Some people take that as an invitation to hurt her. I can guess who it was—that sandy-haired boy of eleven or so who’s been hanging around her with a nasty look on his face. His name is Mason, or Mark, or something like that. I’ve seen how he watches her. How he smirks when she flinches at loud noises.
I kiss the bruised spot gently and pull her T-shirt down. My jaw clenches so hard my teeth ache. “I’m bigger than them. Next time, tell me, and I’ll sort them out. Promise?”
“Promise.”
Her eyes close, and she slowly drifts into sleep. I watch her pretty face for as long as I can because it keeps the dancing flames away.
I couldn’t save Lily.
I couldn’t save Dad, even though he didn’t deserve saving.
