Page 12 of Dirty Gambit

Adopting children was a hobby to those people. They flipped in and out of fashion like those purse dogs. Besides, Jessie didn’t need a family. She had one. The other kids in the system weren’t so lucky. She wouldn’t let Jessie live that life. She wouldn’t let her suffer the way Lena had. It was only a matter of time before the Westwick family decided they didn’t want some Mexican kid with drugs and alcohol addiction in her blood and no real hope for a future. Lena had gone through it so many times in her past that it had become a permanent fixture in her makeup. It always happened just when she had begun to get comfortable like the cosmos couldn’t stand the thought of her being happy.

Didn’t matter now. She hadn’t been a ward of the state in over a year, a year which society had forgotten her the minute she’d been released. No one had bothered to be there once her file was closed. There had been no one to sit her down and give her options. No one ever gave foster kids options. They’d been given a shitty life from day one and would no doubt die a shitty life and no one would notice.

That wouldn’t be Jessie, Lena vowed. Jessie would have a great life. Lena would make sure of it, no matter what she had to do.

On the other bed, Jaxon shifted, no doubt his arm was falling asleep. The cuffs rattled, a grating sound of metal on wood as he tried to adjust his position.

His barely concealed grunt of pain pricked at her. Sure, he hadn’t been the nicest person since it all began, but could she blame him? She had pointed a gun at his head, at his family, that alone would have sent Lena into a fit of murderous rage, even though, aside from Jessie, she had no family. She had Pablo and Marie, both were like siblings to her in a sense, but like most foster kids that got lumped together, the bond had been forged out of pure necessity. They had been each other’s salvations through leather belts, starvation, and dark closets. And those were on good days.

She hadn’t always been alone. Somewhere out in the world, there was a man and woman who had helped create her and Lissa. She only had vague recollections of them, mostly yelling, lots of glass shattering, and the odd, sweaty palm across the face, but they did exist. She’d been eight when foster care finally stepped in and took her and Lissa away. She remembered standing by the police cruiser, clutching her sister’s sweaty hand, not crying as people screamed and more things broke inside the dilapidated house. Lissa, a tiny thing with clumps of unwashed hair around a tear-streaked and dirty face had sobbed for their mother. Her filthy, stuffed rabbit Thomas was hugged to her chest, as wilted and infested as the day they’d found him in the neighbor’s trash. They’d both been in their pajamas, both barefoot, not because they’d been taken from their beds, but because those were the only types of clothes they’d owned.

Lena had always been tall for her age and scrawny from lack of food and stress. Dark rings had permanently tattooed themselves beneath her eyes and deep hollows had been carved into her cheeks where most children were still struggling with their pudge. Her scalp itched like the devil that entire time from the lice, fleas, and bedbugs. Her skin was littered with their tiny marks. But she had kept herself from scratching; her mother had hated when they’d scratch themselves, or complained.

“I want to go inside,”Lissa had whimpered, big, brown eyes bloodshot from weeping glittered in the late afternoon.“I want to see Mama.”

Even at eight, Lena had known they would never be returning to that place. Robby Heuton’s parents from down the block had been taken away by the cops in the middle of the night. Some woman in a suit had packed Robby into the back of her car and no one ever saw him again; everyone in their neighborhood knew what it meant when parent and kid were separated.

It was a blur of foster homes, names, faces, and her life in a single suitcase after that. After the thirdtemporaryhome in the span of a year, they’d separated Lena from her sister.

“It’s just for a little while,”they’d assured her.

Lena had believed them in the beginning when she’d been allowed visits and got to spend an hour with her sister once a week. That went on for about six months before Lissa was transferred out of the province to some farmhouse in Calgary. It was letters and phone calls after that, but even that had only lasted a short time before Lena had been transferred to a new place and her worker got switched. The new one cared about the children in her care about as much as a new homeowner did with a house full of roaches. Their every breath was a hindrance, an interruption to whatever it was she did when she wasn’t ranting about how miserable and worthless each kid was. She sure as shit hadn’t bothered with little things like returning phone calls or lifting a finger when told about the foster father who would creep into Lena’s room late at night. But she hadn’t wasted any time marching Lena to juvie when she’d stabbed the guy in the eye with a Barbie leg.

Lena exhaled into the silence of the room, retracting the images from her mind and shoving them into the dark recess of her brain where she normally stored things she didn’t want to think about.

Rising from the chair a second time, she went to Jessie’s side and tucked the blanket more securely around the girl. She brushed a stray curl off her brow before straightening. She wandered quietly to the grimy window overlooking the parking lot and sat once more.

That’s where she remained until the sun smeared against the filthy glass. She rose only then, stretching her stiff muscles and rubbing the grit from her eyes. Yawning, she reached behind her and removed the clip restraining her heavy curtain of hair. The tendrils spiraled around her shoulders and down her back in thick, curly waves. She moaned in relief of the pressure as she arched her back and dug her fingers through the strands to massage her scalp where the clips had left an indent. A headache had begun to form at the base of her skull from lack of sleep for the last two nights in a row. It would be another three nights before she would allow herself to relax, but that was a later problem.

Pushing away exhaustion, she turned towards the room and froze.

Jaxon lay awake, watching her with those hooded, magnetizing eyes. His expression was skeptical with just a mild hint of annoyance and curiosity.

Lena quickly dropped her hands and stared back at him.

“I have to pee,” he told her in the way of greeting. “And no, I don’t want a bucket.”

Lena would have laughed if she had the energy for it. “Then you’ll just have to hold it or pee yourself.”

His growl filled the room. “You can’t just keep me chained up like this forever.”

Lena moved to the opposite side of the room and snatched up the ice bucket from where he’d pitched it the night before. “It won’t be forever. Only three days. Then you’re free to go.”

“Let us go now!”

She returned to his side of the bed, bucket hugged to her midsection. “There is no us here, Jaxon. You’ll be free. Jessie stays with me.”

Swinging his trouser-clad legs over the edge of the bed, Jaxon sat up, his green eyes narrowed. “I’m not going anywhere without her.”

Too tired to argue, she held out the bucket. Jaxon stared hard at her. When it became apparent she wouldn’t budge on the subject, he snatched the bucket and tossed it on the bed.

“I’ll hold it,” he muttered.

Lena shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Quietly, she moved to the suitcase she’d set beneath the dresser and hauled it to Jessie’s bed. Careful not to disturb the baby, she set it on the mattress and unzipped the top.

From inside, she withdrew a pair of black tights and a gray t-shirt for herself and a yellow dress for Jessie. She had no idea if the dress would fit, but she’d seen it at the store and it had been on sale. She held it up and tried to judge her size choice. She’d gone 4T, just to be safe. It looked a bit big, but it would fit Jessie for a little while at least.

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