Penny turned on the chair, making it spin on the pedestal to face the therapist. “What do you mean?”
“Anything. Maybe they ... argue. Or perhaps you’ve noticed things aren’t always as they seem as they come and go. Have you noticed any criminal activity—”
“What?”
Penny wasn’t stupid. Like every other teenage girl in America, she also had access to the internet. She knew who Naz and Roz were, where they came from ... their family’s legacy in the criminal underworld. The few exchanges she had—mostly with Naz—about the undercurrent of the mafia side of things made it clear she shouldn’t concern herself with something that didn’t involve her.
They weren’t above board. But they also weren’t bad people. Not the kind of people who hurt her, anyway. Penny was very black and white in that way. Things either were or they were not.
“I’m asking,” the therapist said when Penny remained mute in the chair, “because your caseworker is concerned that your current residence might not be the best place for you considering some of the recent actions and notes from your school. She wanted me to bring up these issues with you and see how you felt.”
“You mean, how you feel,” Penny returned. “Because that’s what it boils down to here, right? What you think and feel about me. It goes into your little notes there—” she waved at the notepad in the doctor’s hands “—and then you pass it on to the caseworker who I barely even see and can’t remember her name. And then she comes around occasionally, to tell people who take care of me what they’re doing wrong all because she read some bullshit written on paper. Right?”
She had a scary realization, then. One that took her breath away and hurt worse than even the memories that chased her daily. These doctors and her caseworker, they could take her away from the only people who ever cared. People who helped her ... who protected her without asking for anything in return.
People who loved her.
People she loved.
Because she did.
Love them.
“Penny—”
“If they try to take me away from Naz and Roz,” she told the therapist, “it’ll be the last thing the state ever does to me.”
She had another thirty minutes on the clock with Dr. Tangler, but it didn’t make a single difference to what she did next. Standing from the chair, Penny snatched the coat hanging off the arm and headed out of the office even as the therapist called out behind her. She didn’t stop walking until she was outside and sitting in the passenger seat of Naz’s new Roadster.
He looked her way, brow raised when he said, “That was too fast. What happened?”
Penny pressed a hand against her heart, willing the organ to slow down and stop hurting. “She asked questions ... about you, and Roz.”
‘What kind of—”
“Nothing good.”
Naz dragged in a sharp breath. “You mean like ... business? The family?”
Penny only shrugged, muttering, “Said the caseworker brought it up and suggested she mention it to me. Like they want to look into the home and if it’s the right place for me or not. Are they going to remove me from—”
“No.”
“But—”
Naz reached over and grabbed Penny’s hand with his own. It was the first and only time the man had touched her, but instead of pulling away like she would for anyone else, there was stability in the action. Comfort.
“Penny, you’re not going anywhere unless you want to,” he said. “Do you hear me?”
Water had welled in her eyes, making everything a bit blurry. Still, she met his dark gaze as she asked, “Promise?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay.”
But even through the tears that she was trying to hold back, Penny could see Naz wasn’t happy. She knew it wasn’t because of her, but that didn’t make the situation any better.
“It’s going to be okay, right?” she asked.
“You focus on you ... whatever you need, getting better, just focus on you.” Naz shrugged, adding, “That’s all Roz and I ever wanted you to do. We’ll handle the rest.”
But how?
She decided it was better not to ask.
INTERLUDE: 1.
Present Day ...
“HEY, Penny.”
Whether it was the shock of someone saying her name, or just the fact that they had managed to sneak up on her in the forest behind Naz and Roz’s property, it still earned a reaction from Penny. She hadn’t heard the approach from her left until the new voice joined a silent conversation she’d been having inside her head while the memories raced for attention in her mind.
Despite her years of training to stand calm and steady no matter the situation, she let out a yelp and fell backward when she stumbled over an exposed root of a tree. The white strands of her hair made a curtain over her eyes as her palms hit the ground to catch her fall from turning into something much worse.
A quiet, child-like laugh rang out in the forest. The sound was almost musical and a total contrast to the way her heart thumped loudly in her chest.
“Sorry,” her new companion said, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Penny didn’t bother to get up, or even fix her hair. Instead, she pushed sideways and came to sit right on her ass, so she could stare directly at the guest who had joined her in the forest. He was maybe three and half feet tall, not quite four, if that. Dark hair. Soul-deep eyes. She found familiarity in the softness of his boyish features. Even the way his grin tilted a little more on the right side was a smirk she had seen time and time again.
She didn’t need to ask his name.
She already knew.
“Cross,” she said.
The boy shrugged. “Well, everybody calls me little Cross when they think I can’t hear. I don’t like that very much. But since Grandpapa doesn’t like being called Senior, I have to deal with it. Or that’s what he said.”
His words were clear. His sentences, smart. For his age, anyway.
“And you are, right—Penny, I mean?”
She stared at the boy, blinking as if he might disappear in the next minute. She was still trying to figure out why in the hell he was even in the woods. Where were his parents? Was this something he did on the regular?
Hell ...
Penny hadn’t seen his face since he was six months old. Not once in all the years since she left had she even been graced with a picture of the boy as he grew. She always wondered, of course ... did he keep his father’s features, or change to look more like his mom?
She missed a lot.
About him.
His first steps.
Those first words.
Even his first day at school.
“You don’t talk?” Cross asked. “Ma says you were always quiet.”
She swallowed hard, knowing what she needed to tell the boy because she wasn’t even supposed to be here in the first place. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not—”
“Yeah, you’re Penny. I have pictures.”
So sure.
And true.
God.
Penny dragged in a quick breath. “You didn’t scare m—”