Page 7 of Tango
How did this happen?
God, what do I do?
Sirens wail in the distance, so I quickly wipe the phone off then leave it on the ground beside him as I grab my bag and rush from the alleyway, ensuring my baseball cap is pulled back down low over my face.
This time, to also hide my tears.
I shouldn’t have come home.
I know it as soon as I unlock the back door using an old hide-a-key, but I had nowhere else to go. Ever since I was thirteen and Jemma and Fred Sterling adopted me, they’ve chased away every nightmare and helped me through the years of trauma I suffered while being a kid in the system. They can help me here too, right? They have to help me. Because I’m so lost. So afraid.
“Who’s there?” my dad calls out as the light over the stairs comes on. “I can hear you, and you should know I’m armed!”
I stop in my tracks—standing in the hallway that leads from the kitchen into the living room. He comes down the stairs, and the light shines on my face.
“Ali?”
No longer an adult of nearly thirty, I’m once again a child as I crumble at the sound of my nickname. “Daddy.”
He rushes forward and wraps his arms around me as I collapse to the ground. “It’s Alice!” he calls out. “She’s hurt!”
“Don’t call the police. You can’t trust the police.”
“Don’t call anyone!” he yells as my mom rushes down the steps.
“What happened?” She reaches me right as my dad is pulling me to my feet.
“I killed someone. I didn't mean to. He attacked me, and I killed him.” I shake my head. It doesn’t matter that I’m twenty-nine years old; right now, I’m a thirteen-year-old girl, and there’s a monster in my closet in need of slaying.
“Shh, baby, come sit down.” My dad guides me into a kitchen chair while my mom turns on the light overhead. It’s so bright I have to shield my eyes.
“I’m putting coffee on,” my mom says. “Grab the first aid kit, Fred. And a towel. She’s soaking wet.”
Am I? I hadn’t even noticed.
He brushes the hair out of my eyes and tucks it behind my ear, then rushes out of the room to get the first aid kit they keep beneath the bathroom counter. Seconds later, he’s returning. “Take off the sweatshirt,” he tells me.
I unzip the front and use my good arm to push it off. He wraps a towel around me, though he leaves my injured arm uncovered.
“Who did this to you?” he demands as he slowly removes the bandage over my injured arm.
I don’t even know how much is safe to tell them.
“I’m in trouble.”
“Tell us what happened,” my mom urges. In the background, the coffeepot hums as it prepares the coffee. My mom pulls a chair over and slides her glasses onto her nose. She leans in closer to get a better look.
Given she’s a nurse—and a great one at that—she’ll be able to help with my physical issues. And, well, my dad’s a therapist, so if I ever get past this, I imagine he can help me with my internal demons just like he did when I was a kid.
That’s if I survive and don’t end up in prison.
“Ramiro is dead.” It’s the first time I’ve spoken those words aloud.
“Did he do this to you?” my dad demands, fury etched in every line of his expression. “Is he the one you killed?”
I shake my head. “No. They killed him and tried to kill me, too, but I got away. Then a man found me on the bus and told me he was going to take me somewhere. I fought back, and he—he’s dead. I hit him, and he fell back into a piece of rebar.”
“Is he the one who killed Ramiro?”
