Page 125 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

Up and up they go.

It’s a high place, their home.

Nothing like the houses Riley sees in his books.

No warm living area. No cosy kitchens. No bedrooms where children are tucked in. This place is vast and cold, concrete and broken glass. Only the areas that are lived in have been improved.

They walk until Riley starts to feel genuine fear from being so high up. He catches a glance of the world outside at this height and sees lights in the distance. He sees tall buildings.

A town.

A city.

People.

‘In here,’ Troy says out of habit, reaching back to pull Riley away from the window. He guides him into what looks like a storage room.

At the back is an open door that leads up a narrow staircase. Troy’s bedroom is a large, spacious circle with another door on the other side. This room is far nicer than Riley’s even though it smells of Troy so overwhelmingly that Riley can’t help recoiling at first. Thankfully, there’s no sex smell, but his father’s sweat, skin and breath linger as though an entire bottle of cologne has been spilled. Riley casts about, seeking a window, but he quickly despairs when he realises there isn’t one.

Oh no.

Please.

All the good he has in the world is a windowsill to sleep on.

The moon to touch his skin.

The cool, clean air that sustains him.

His eyes fill with tears as Troy sets down his things and then goes about swapping his own. ‘I’ll get the rest later,’ he says, still talking to Riley like he can hear him. He opens the adjoining door, gesturing inside. ‘Bathroom.’ He makes a face, waves for Riley’s attention and then says the word again with exaggerated mouth movements. ‘Bath-room.’

Riley is trying not to cry.

‘This is better,’ Troy says. ‘Safer.’

✴

Riley has no clue where Troy moves his own things to. He doesn’t care.

The loss of his broken window cuts deeper than any pain he’s suffered this summer. There’s a tiny air vent in the high ceilings of both the bedroom and bathroom, but no windows anywhere.

That first night, Riley cries himself to sleep.

He’s lost without the night sky and the varying creamy curls of moon he loved to see coming over the trees like a friend meeting him in the dead of night.

The bed is comfortable and spacious, but it still smells of Troy.

The room itself has potential to hold more books.

There are no spiders in here.

Riley puts Bunny beneath his bed to keep him safe.

The bathroom is huge and it means Riley doesn’t have to creep around at night to avoid creaky floorboards when he needs to pee. He just cannot bear the loss of his sky, what very little he had of it to begin with.

As the days pass and summer begins to fade, Riley’s hatred towards Troy festers like an open wound. Angry, red skin trying to heal around splinters. There’s no one he cares about except for Zachary and even then, only because he might help Riley get free soon.

Troy brings Riley one book a week.