The alleys tended to be warmer, the wind less cutting in the mostly-enclosed spaces. But after what had happened last year, Cesca hadn’t been able to sleep in an alley. She hadn’t been able to sleep at all for weeks, and the fact that I’d failed to protect her against the one thing I’d promised she would never suffer was a pain I would never escape.
It didn’t matter that it took three grown men to hold me down and use me while the other two touched her. It didn’t matter that I’d barely been able to move by the time they were done.
All the sacrifices. All the times I’d bent over and done what I needed to do to put food in her belly every night. All the times I’d been beaten bloody while she escaped.
It all came down to one night of helplessness with five men who’d proven just how broken the world was. Just how little hope there was for humanity and how many people needed to be wiped off the face of the earth.
The clouds in the sky rolled by quickly as the wind picked up its pace, the first drizzle of rain falling against my forehead as I turned to look up at them. The sky darkened, settling the choice of what to do with the money.
We’d go to the motel for the night and enjoy the rare luxury of a bed beneath our bodies. Things were getting better. I didn’t have to use my body to feed us, not since I’d gotten old enough to run drugs, and the work paid better. In a year, I’d be sixteen and able to get a real job, find an apartment, and give Cesca a safe place to sleep without fear of reliving her worst nightmare.
I turned into the park, heading toward the trees lining the back of it, which gave us a hint of shelter from prying eyes. Anyone who wandered too close would still find us, but people who merely passed by would never know about the two homeless kids making a home out of the all but abandoned playground. It was as safe as we could be without a roof over our heads.
All of that was about to change.
I smiled as I ducked under the trees, rounding the back of the largest tree trunk to the spot where we’d made our bed. The garbage bags filled with the odd clothing we’d collected over the years sat next to the tree undisturbed. The torn backpack Cesca used to collect bottles and cans from around the city during the day rested beside them.
Cesca’s pale hand lay next to it, her palm facing the sky as light drops of rain pattered against her skin. I froze mid-step, stumbling over our bags and dropping to my knees at her side.
Her face was turned away, her eyes closed peacefully, as I brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek. Her sleeves were rolled up to her bicep, her arm held out straight to where her palm faced the sky without so much as a twitch.
I grasped the syringe, pulling it out from the crook of her elbow slowly and tossing it to the side. The faint signs of track marks surrounded the new one, a tiny pinprick of blood welling at the wound.
“Cesca,” I sighed, leaning down to touch my forehead to hers. I couldn’t afford a place to live, let alone rehab, and she wouldn’t want to be separated from me long enough to go, but I couldn’t babysit her all hours of the day to keep her from using.
Her face felt cool against mine, making me tear off my hoodie to lay it on top of her while she slept. My fingers brushed against her cold skin as I took her wrist in between them, old paranoia rising to the surface and making me check for a strong pulse.
I felt none, my brow furrowing as I shifted my fingers along her wrist and tried to find that steady strum. My own heartbeat echoed in my ears, a mockery of everything I couldn’t find in Francesca.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Is that still mine?
I’d give it to her in a heartbeat, without a second thought, if it meant she’d just open her eyes.
I threw the hoodie off her body, placing my hands on her chest and pressing in. Her chest didn’t move. There was no rhythm against my palms or rise and fall of breath in her lungs.
There was just nothing where her heart should have beat.
Mine cracked down the center, splintering as I stared down at her lifeless face and finally really understood.
She was gone. The entire reason I existed. My sole purpose in life.
Just gone.
“Cesca!” I yelled, placing my hands on her shoulders and shaking her. The hand that had stayed curled up on her stomach dropped to the side, a green butterfly falling to the grass beside her body as I stilled.
I picked it up with trembling hands, my vision blurred by my tears of rage as I tried to understand. She’d been getting better. She couldn’t fucking leave me. Not like this.
“Wake up,” I begged, pushing her hair back from her face again and clutching the butterfly in my hand. “Please wake up,” I whispered again.
I sat there with her, the edges of the butterfly pendant cutting into my palm as I squeezed it in my grip. Fury rose along with my grief, along with the sense of being completely and utterly alone in this world. There wasn’t a single person who fucking loved me. No one who would choose me and stay.
There was only suffering and regret and the scars that went along with them.
I was better off dead.
My feet carried me where my brain didn’t know to go. Brick buildings lined the streets, people standing around and chatting as though the world hadn’t shifted.
As if it hadn’t lost someone who was far too good for all the ugly in it.
Tony grinned as I walked up and put my hand to his throat, pressing him against the bricks with a strength I didn’t usually have. Life on the streets kept me thin enough that, even with my abnormal height, it didn’t take much to subdue me.
But he allowed me to feel like I was in charge, raising his hands as if he was innocent. “Did you spend it all already, Paolo?” he asked, sneering down at me. “It certainly wasn’t on a bath.”
“Who was it?” I snarled, leaning further into his face. I towered over him, feeling inhuman in a way I never had.
It was because there was no longer a heart beating in my chest, nothing but the robotic pumping of blood. A body without a soul, a boy without fear. I had nothing left to lose.
“Who what?” he asked, still laughing and not understanding that his life hung in the balance.
“Who gave my sister heroin?” I roared, watching his eyes widen. He swallowed, seeming to come to terms with the fact that something had gone very wrong.
“Man, did that stupid fucking bitch take too much? I swear, these cunts can’t follow simple instructions these days,” his buddy said, laughing from the sidelines until I released Tony and rounded on him.
“Was it you?”
“Yeah, it was me. She sucked me real good for it, too,” he taunted. “She’s probably flying high right now, but she’ll come back down. Tell her to come see me when she needs more.”
“She’s dead,” I said, pulling out the knife I kept tucked in my back pocket. The steel gleamed in the dim light as rain dripped onto the blade in the seconds before I plunged it into his stomach.
His blood was viscous, covering my hands and staining them red as I twisted it and pressed harder.
Deeper.
I withdrew it as the others around us shouted, then stabbed him three more times in quick succession before Tony got his hands on me and pulled me away. “You stupid little shit,” he growled, throwing me to the ground and kicking the knife away from my hand.