Page 19 of Burned in Stone
Twelve. Faces blur together now—Mom’s dealers, their friends, whoever she owes. They give me pills to make it easier.“Just relax, beautiful boy. Won’t hurt if you don’t fight.”The drugs make everything hazy, distant, like it’s happening to someone else. Sometimes I wake up and don’t remember. That’s worse than remembering.
Thwack. Thwack.
Fourteen. I come home from school and find her on the bathroom floor. Not passed out this time. Just... gone. The junkie she was partying with is slumped against the tub, too high to notice me rifling through his pockets. Forty-three dollars and some change. I grab Mom’s purse—another twenty—and climb out the bathroom window. Never look back.
Thwack.
My arms burn but I keep swinging. Same as I kept running back then.
Fifteen. Hollywood Boulevard at two in the morning. Some producer-wannabe in a Tesla slows down, window sliding open.“You hungry, kid? I got a warm bed and a hot meal.”His smile makes my skin crawl. I know what he really wants. What they all want. The lotus tattoo on my ribs covers the scars from the night I said no to the wrong person. Three guys, one knife, and me learning that pretty faces make you a target, not a person.
Thwack. Thwack.
The bag rattles on its chain. My knuckles are screaming.
That last winter nearly killed me. Sixteen, a hundred and forty pounds of bones and bad decisions, bleeding out behind a dumpster because I’d stolen from the wrong dealer. Thought I was smart, thought I was invisible.
I wasn’t.
But Bones was smarter. Found me choking on my own blood, ribs cracked, face so swollen I couldn’t see. Should’ve left me there. Another dead runaway. Another statistic.
Instead, he threw me over his shoulder since I weighed nothing.“You’re too pretty to die in garbage,”he’d said. Like it was a joke. Like I wasn’t already dead inside.
Thwack.
The chain holding the bag creaks. My fists are numb now. Good.
The MC gave me purpose. Structure. Brothers who saw more than a face to exploit or a body to break. Stone sent me back to school—said I needed an education more than I needed to patchin. Turned out I was good at math, even better with money when it wasn’t disappearing into my mother’s veins or someone else’s pockets. Duck taught me bikes. Hawk taught me how to fight back instead of just running.
And now Mercy’s running. From someone. From something.
That phone call tonight, the way she said stop calling me. That wasn’t annoyance. That was desperation. That was someone at the end of their rope, fraying one thread at a time.
She’s running from ghosts. I’m chasing mine. Maybe if I catch hers first, we both get free.
Thwack.
The bag splits. Sand pours out like blood.
“Shit.”
My hands drop. That’s when I see them—knuckles split wide, blood mixing with the sand on the floor. When did that happen? My T-shirt is soaked through, clinging to me like shame. The gym reeks of sweat and copper.
I grab a towel from the rack, wrap it around my ruined hands. The sting feels good. Real. Better than the helpless feeling of watching Mercy’s window, knowing she’s up there terrified and alone because she won’t let me close enough to help.
I don’t know if she thinks she’s protecting me or if she’s just too scared to talk. But what she doesn’t know is that I’ve already survived worse than whatever’s chasing her. Doesn’t know that broken people recognize broken people.
My phone buzzes. Text from an unknown number.
She’s still asleep. Stop worrying. - Mrs. Yu
I chuckle to myself. Old women in this town are scarier than the bikers.
Me:
Thank you.
Yu:
