Page 58 of There I Find Rest

Of course she didn’t have hands, so he set her carefully down on the floor and allowed her to pull her hands out from underneath his arm, but he kept his arm around her waist.

To his surprise, she put her hands on the container and held it.

“Just hold up.” He pulled out some cheese, some meat, and stacked them on top of the container of fruit. “Mayonnaise and mustard?”

“Whatever,” she said, but her voice was much more subdued, and it didn’t have the venom of before.

“All right. Both.” He set them on top of the fruit. Then he grabbed a loaf of bread from the drawer where they kept it and a knife from the silverware drawer.

“Now, follow me,” he said, like he hadn’t let go of her waist and put his hand in her ragged hair.

“Let go of my head. I’m not a dog.”

“You bite like one,” he said, looking again at the marks on his arm which were turning purplish red, except for the few drops of blood from the place where she’d broken the skin.

“Shut up, Rich Boy.” But again, her voice was much more subdued, and he could miss his guess, but he thought she was drooling. The kid must be starving.

He would’ve liked to take her out to the courtyard, where they could sit in the sunshine, but both his mother’s office and his dad’s office faced it, and while his mother’s blinds would be closed, he wasn’t so sure about his dad. His dad wasn’t as predictable and was as liable to be sitting out there working with his music playing as he was to be in his office.

So, he carefully opened the kitchen door, walked around the corner, and started down the steps to the basement.

Chapter 22

“What? Do you have adungeon down here or something?” the kid asked, and Rodney figured that the bravado in her voice was to hide her actual fear.

“That’s right. I’m putting you with all the other brats I found out in the garden snooping around.”

“Yeah. Because you’re so tough,” she sneered.

He ignored her, figuring she had every right to be scared and knowing she was covering it with big talk. He didn’t know what her story was, but he was going to get it. He almost laughed, because if he used the food as a bribe, he was pretty sure he could get her to admit anything.

’Course, it might not be the truth. Sometimes when his parents were demanding answers from him, he told them what they wanted to hear instead of what the actual truth was.

It might be better for him to try to be her friend.

Except, he didn’t want to be nice to her for pretend. He wanted to be nice for real. Whatever she was, she was filthy, skinny, and he felt bad for her. Although he was still a little mad about his arm, which hurt.

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