Chapter Two

That had been four years ago. Four years ago he'd told her she could sleep in this one-room apartment, a place he kept that the rest of them didn't know about, for a few days. Get a shower, something to eat. Then she'd have to figure something else out for herself, he told her. He wasn't much of a dad and didn't have the slightest desire to try it again with some random whores' kid out of Humboldt.

As usual, she'd nodded. Taken it in.

He didn't make her go, though. She'd stayed on in the apartment, scrubbing it to the corners, trying every way she could to show she was grateful. It got to where she could see he liked coming back there, that it was a different place from wherever he spent his time. He wouldn't sleep there, but would open the door with his key and watch her do whatever she was doing, and maybe he'd give her something else, another task. He wasn't patient, but she liked it that way. When he taught her to do his boots right, she could tell he'd learned it in the military, and after that, no matter how much road dust he came in with, she'd made sure he could see his reflection in them when he came back. He'd come with groceries and tell her to cook, and when she wasn't much good at that—her mother had barely known how to use the stove—he'd asked her what the fuck was the matter with her. She'd learned.

It never seemed right, somehow, to sit next to him, and she'd stand at his right side, waiting for him to to need something. Somehow, when he was here like this, everything seemed to suddenly quiet down inside of her. It was like for the first time she felt right.

Only she'd be kidding herself if she pretended that was ever enough. Early on, she'd just watch the way he moved, take not of the tension in the way he sat, the way he was aware of every sound. Holding her breath, she'd touch him occasionally. His hand as she set down a plate. His shoulder as she stood there next to him. He didn't seem to notice, or at least didn't give and sign that he had, but there were these rare occasions when he'd touch her back, his hand ruffling her hair as it had started to grow in or a firm grasp on her upper arm accompanying an order. She'd wait for it, hope for it every time she saw him, until she had to admit that she wanted more than protection. She thought maybe she was restless, tired of being hidden away, but finally realized that that wasn't it—she liked it there, in their place, he could hide her away forever as far as she was concerned, but she wanted to know more than she did about what it might feel like to be closer to him. Things she'd spent most of her life trying to hide from were now the only thing she could think about.

And she convinced herself it had to be on his mind too. As the months went by, she told herself he had to be keeping her around for a reason. Maybe he was just holding back because he knew what she'd seen, what had almost happened to her so many times, and he knew she must be scared. Even as she thought that, though, a part of her knew that if it was something he wanted, he wouldn't have been held off by pity.

She waited for him on her seventeenth birthday.

She'd spent six months here, had started making a few trips around town by herself even, was starting to feel like maybe it was a place she'd get to stay. He'd left the money she'd taken off Tex all those months ago sitting in the nightstand drawer, and she tried to dole it out, superstitiously thinking that maybe when it was gone, if she was costing him something to keep, he might make her leave. As long as there was still some of that money left, she was paying her way.

But that day she'd used some of it to buy a few things to wear. She like to wear dresses now, avoided dressing in tight jeans like her mother had, tried to look like a nice girl. That night she'd tried especially hard, and pushed her hair awkward-stage hair behind her ears, tried to make herself look pretty, and waited for him.

He didn't come that night, didn't show until a few nights later, but she'd realized sometime around 4am on her birthday that she didn't need for him to remember her… it was enough that he let her remember him. That he let her wait for him. And in the waiting, she'd made herself realize what she was waiting for, admit to herself what she wanted. If it didn't make her any better than her mother, fine. As long as it was him and only him, she didn't care.

And so she listened for his bike through the days that followed, and when she finally hear it, and heard his boots outside, she met him at the door ready to give him everything. She might as well have wrapped herself up as a present, it was that obvious in her eyes. And as he stood there, looking down at her, she gathered together her courage and, standing on tiptoe, lay one hand on his chest while she reached up with the other to stroke the side of his face, silently begging him to kiss her.

She tasted blood before she realized he'd backhanded her across the room.

"You think this is what I keep you here for?" he asked, her, hauling her to a standing position by the front of her dress. "You think I'm that desperate for pussy that I'm going to keep some whores' kid tucked away? That's what you want to be?"

She found her voice. "I want to be what you want me to be."

He'd abruptly dropped her back to the ground, turned around, and walked out without another word.

Aisha shook her head a bit to clear it, reached up and touched the scar again. The Son was still in the parking lot at the side of the building, pacing and smoking. Several times he looked like he was going to walk into the building, then he'd turn around and walk back to his bike, as if in disgust. She wasn't sure what he was there for, but she wasn't going to take any chances.