Page 64 of Tainted Love

Elijah closes in but he doesn’t touch her. “The second bounced right off your lower thigh here.” He points at the black and purple bruise, tracing a line above her kneecap with a steady finger. “Whoever did this was very sloppy. This wasn’t planned. It was a crime of passion, as they say...”

Lucy’s face drops. Elijah waits for her to speak but quickly looks over at me. There’s a tension in the air and we all felt it the second we stepped into the room.

“Lilah—” He snaps his fingers at us. “Ninth grade. You twisted your ankle beating up that the Sullivan kid.”

She grins. “I remember…”

I furrow my brow. “So?”

“Gramps got her crutches,” he continues. “She used them for three days and they’ve been stashed in the garage ever since. Go see if you can find them.”

I look at Lucy. “I don’t—”

“Please?”

He widens his eyes, gesturing silently at me. He’s not going to get anything useful out of her with me lingering over his shoulder, but I don’t want to leave her alone.

“I’ll help,” Lilah says, sharing a quick nod with her twin. She tugs at my elbow. “Come on.”

I keep my eyes on Lucy. We make eye contact for a split second before she purposefully looks away again. Darkness grows in my gut but if she doesn’t want to see me then there’s not much I can do about it right now.

“Fine,” I say. “We’ll be right back.”

I walk downstairs quietly with Lilah, hoping to hear what they’re saying upstairs but Elijah is too smart for that. He keeps his voice steady and pleasant, like a suave, young doctor on television. My little brother has always been better at talking to people than I have — especially women, but I always gave Lilah credit for that one. She trained him well.

Lilah plows through the front door and manages to make it down to the grass before exploding. “Who the hell is that?!”

I pause, studying her amused eyes. “She’s a friend.”

“You don’t have friends, Dante.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Since when?”

I step around her toward the garage and she follows close behind. “I met her in Chicago.”

“Right, I figured,” she says. “Why the hell isn’t she still there?”

“Because she needed my help.”

I reach the garage and bend over to grip the handle. I tug at the door, but it barely budges off the ground.

Lilah sighs and slides her small fingers next to mine. “Move. You never could get this open.”

She brute forces it, pulling it open and sliding it back with little help from me.

“So, how long have you been dating her?” she asks, wiping her palms on her jeans.

“We aren’t—” I pause. A lungful of dust and mold greet me as I step inside the old garage. “It’s not like that.” I flick on the light switch, happy to see it still gives off enough light to navigate the stacks of old boxes lining the center. “She got into some trouble…”

“Cut the vague crap, Dante,” she says. “Why did you bring an outsider to our safe place?”

“Because it was a better option than leaving her there to die.”

“Still vague.”

“Lilah, I will explain everything later. Will you please just help me find the crutches?”

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