Page 123 of Dirty Game
"Come here," I say softly, my voice still wrecked but gentle. "It's okay."
He approaches slowly, and this close, I can see finger marks on his thin wrist. Someone grabbed him hard. Sienna's discipline for this visit, probably.
"She hurt you before coming here," I observe.
He nods, matter-of-fact about violence, the way only children raised in it can be. "She said it was important I remember the message right."
"You did perfect," I tell him. "But you don't have to go back downstairs. Not if you don't want to."
His eyes—Varrick's eyes—widen with something like hope. "I don't?"
"No," Varrick says firmly. "You don't."
Dante looks between us, then pulls out what he's been hiding behind his back.
It's a stuffed wolf, worn and obviously loved, one ear slightly torn.
"This is for you," he says, offering it to me with both hands like it's something precious. "For when you're scared. Wolves protect."
I take the wolf with shaking hands, and something about this gesture… this little boy giving me his treasure. It breaks something in me.
I start crying, ugly crying, the kind that would horrify my mother if she were alive to see it.
"I'm sorry," I sob. "I'm sorry, I just?—"
"It's okay," Dante says.
He climbs carefully onto the bed, mindful of the medical equipment, and pats my face with his small hand. "Mama cries too sometimes. Usually after she hurts someone. But your crying is different. Sadder but less scary."
This makes me cry harder.
"Are you the lady who got hurt for me?"
I look at Varrick, who's watching us with an expression I've never seen before. "I got hurt because bad people wanted to hurt your father."
"Mama says Daddy is the bad man."
"Sometimes he is," I admit, because lying to children about the nature of their parents never helps. "But never to children. Never to me."
Dante thinks about this for a few moments. "Mama's bad to everyone. Even me. Especially when I remind her of Daddy."
"Is that why she hurt your eye?" I ask gently.
He nods. "I was practicing numbers. She said I looked too much like him when I concentrated. Hit me to make me stop."
Varrick makes a sound that's almost inhuman, pure rage distilled into noise.
Dante looks at him with those too-wise eyes. "It's okay, Daddy. I'm learning to duck."
This is not okay. Nothing about a four year old learning to dodge his mother's fists is okay.
"You have pretty eyes," Dante tells me suddenly, changing the subject with the whiplash timing of children. "Sad but pretty. Like winter."
"Thank you," I manage.
He pulls something else from his pocket—a handful of small toys. Cars, a dinosaur, a tiny robot. "These are my treasures. Wanna see?"
For the next hour, he shows me each toy, explaining their names and powers and adventures with the detailed imagination of a lonely child.
