Page 13 of Fire Fight

When the guards were bored, they’d bait us to fight each other. I learned to defend myself from the larger, wilder boys’ practiced fists, then how to put my height and reach to advantage, to put my full force behind a punch.

One fight ended with me in hospital, unable to get an MRI because of a steel plate in my head. An injury so old I can’t remember it. But it explains my chronic headaches, now worse thanks to the concussion that prompted the scan.

Three months of hell, then I came to live with my father. A transition that didn’t go smoothly even if he mouthed the right platitudes.

But at least when it gets too much, I can drive away and sleep in my car. I doubt he even notices when I’m gone.

I drag a chair to the head of her bed. Cadence’s lashes are long, curling at the ends where they’re paler. Almost white. Her hair would do the same if it weren’t dyed into a monotone blonde, cheap and brassy.

In the relaxation of sleep, her plump lips form a smile of utter contentment. I sit closer, my breath puffing across her skin, fluttering those lashes until her nostrils pinch together, a bogeyman entering her dreams.

My lips tease against her ear, whispering, “You’re going to pay, Cadence. I’m going to twist you inside out until you’re screaming, little girl. I’ll strip away everything you enjoy.”

But she’s gone somewhere she can’t hear. Her lips curve back into a smile.

I unbutton the top two fastenings of her sleep shirt, watching as goosebumps spread in a ripple across her skin. Her nipples pebble with the cold, the darker areolas visible through the thin fabric, the material rising and falling with each breath.

My eyes trace the shape of her concave stomach. I gorge on the sight of her long, slim legs, barely covered by a pair of tiny shorts. They’re parted slightly, one leg straight, the other at an angle, knee gently bent.

My fingertips buzz with the need to touch her, and I pull back, heeding the temptation like a warning.

She’s not waking anytime soon and there are more secrets hidden in her room than those covered by her inadequate attire.

I start my search at her wardrobe, pawing through the clothing on display. Most of the hangers hold pieces of school uniform, with a few basic dresses behind them. The shelves are stacked with new clothing, labels removed—probably courtesy of Emily—but not yet worn.

Nothing of interest. A few pairs of shoes battered enough to show her previous poverty, laces tied around the soles.

I move to her schoolbag, finding a few odds and ends, keepsakes maybe. A set of keys that have blackened with disuse, a stuffed toy that’s bald with wear.

Her exercise books are full of doodles. Song lyrics decorated with daisies and hearts. The rhymes are basic enough to make me retch. Her maths books have complicated lists of her workings, the scribbles and cross-outs making it easy to see where she went wrong, and a quick scan tells me most of them are wrong.

Pretty and pretty-dumb. The classic combination.

Books form a line-up at the back of her desk. A range of mass market paperbacks, their covers feathering at the corners. Tabs of a dozen different colours are dotted through the pages, marking out lines and scenes. I open one and the description of throbbing tentacles on dildo duty makes me roll my eyes.

A whore just like her mother. I tuck the book inside my jacket pocket to read later, just to be sure.

No phone. I check the desk drawers, but she hasn’t touched them.

Her discarded clothes lie in a heap beside her bed. There’s a hamper in the bathroom and I toss them in there, then hook my pinkie finger through the skimpy fabric of her panties, stretching them wide to release their scent.

They go into my pocket as a service fee, nestling against the book.

The cabinet holds a half empty tube of lip gloss and over-the-counter painkillers—ibuprofen, paracetamol. Another foil of pills sits without packaging on the lower shelf; the bottom row a darker colour that identifies them as birth control.

A wave of the same rage I felt earlier in the day recurs and I grip the vanity edge to steady myself, unsure where the anger stems from. The prescription is in her name, nothing dodgy.

I slide the cabinet door across, not worrying that it bangs.

“If I was a phone, where would I be?” I sing in my off-key voice as I walk back into the bedroom, scanning her face for signs she hears me, seeing nothing.

The next most obvious place is under her pillow, and she seems an obvious-place type of girl.

Bingo.

Except it’s locked.

Lifting her hand gives me a moment’s pause, but she’s truly out like a light. I press her thumb to the device, and it clicks open.

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