Page 87 of Saving Sparrow
The hardness returned to him again, his body going cold. I felt the drop in temperature along my now-pebbled skin. “Until he wasn’t,” he snarled before walking off.
I stared after him, waiting until he reached the end of the dim hall before calling out to him. “Sparrow!” As always, he stopped. I wondered if the desperation in my voice made him feel needed, or maybe it called to his protective instinct.
“How did your parents die?” I asked, holding my breath long after he’d answered and disappeared around the corner.
“They were tortured to death.”
Miguel
Now
“They were tortured to death.”
Those five words haunted me as I dragged my battered body upstairs. I sat on the edge of Sparrow’s bed watching the minutes tick by.
“Good question. Maybe Sparrow can give you the answer to that.”
Amelia had made it seem like she didn’t know how Elliott’s parents died. I’d assumed she was lying, and now Sparrow’s answer proved that. Or did it?
Was it possible sheknewthey died, but nothowthey died? I didn’t think so. As Elliott’s only living relative, she’d somehow been contacted to take custody of him. Wouldn’t the police, or whoever reached out, have told herhowthey died? Wouldn’t it have been in a report or something?
Maybe I should’ve dug into all this before coming here, but I’d had so little to go off, and I just wanted to get here.
What had she murmured that day? What did she say under her breath before ordering me to get the hell out of her house?
“Think, Miguel, think,” I berated myself. It was right on the fringes of my mind, so close I could touch it. I put myself back in her living room, right across from her cold gaze. I could see her lips moving, and I held my breath, trying to read them.
“Shit.” I screwed my eyes shut, trying harder, getting closer until I heard what she’d said.
“Blood. So much blood.”
Was that really what she’d said? If I hadn’t heard her then, in real time, then how could I trust my memory of what she’d said now? Andwhat did her supposed words even mean? I decided to let it go. Picking through Amelia’s lies wasn’t important right now.
I dropped my head back, exhausted but knowing my overactive brain wouldn’t allow me to go to sleep anytime soon. A bad idea came to me, and I ambled over to the nightstand containing the skeleton key.
Sparrow wasn’t in any of the rooms on this floor, and he’d likely fallen asleep by now. He looked tired enough to sleep for several days straight. I could enter the rooms along the hall, and he wouldn’t know.
As fast as my aching body could move, I pulled the drawer out and removed the taped key from the bottom.
It felt like a waste of time going into Joshua’s room, but as strange as it sounded, I was worried about him. I wanted to make sure he had everything he needed in there, that his truck was still working, for when he returned. I grabbed a mini Snickers bar from my duffel bag before venturing across the hall.
I went through Joshua’s drawers, smiling at his fire truck pajama sets. They were all Sparrow’s size. I thought about placing the chocolate on top of them but figured the chances of Sparrow seeing it there before Joshua were high. He probably changed clothes before he switched.
Instead, I stashed the miniature candy bar into a slot on his fire truck after confirming the toy still worked. Belatedly, I realized the wailing siren might have drawn Sparrow’s attention, but I shrugged off the paranoia. He wouldn’t have heard it from downstairs, and if he was upstairs for whatever reason, the toy was the least of my concerns.
Seeing all the creature comforts Sparrow filled the room with made me both happy and sad. I was glad Joshua had this safe space, but I found it devastatingly sad that this wasallhe had, and sad that Elliott needed him.
Stuffed animals filled the crib that was entirely too small to fit him inside—or any other four-year-old, for that matter. I looked at the red beanbag bed in the corner and figured he slept there, if he ever slept at all.
I walked over to the jewelry box on the dresser. No one but Elliott knew how much it meant to me; no one else understood the importance of its existence.
“How did you get here?” I whispered, turning it over in my hand. My heart skipped a beat as I read the five words engraved at the bottom.It’s just us here. Forever.
I held it against my chest, letting those words sink in before setting it down and leaving. I made a mental note to ask Sparrow about its being here.
My mouth went dry as I considered the other doors along the hall. Another reason I started with Joshua’s room was that I knew what to expect. I’d be entering unknown territory from here on out, and I worried I wasn’t emotionally strong enough to handle it.
What if one of these rooms belonged to his parents? How would I feel about seeing their things? About knowing they’d rested peacefully in there while Elliott suffered somewhere else in this house?
