The only time I hear from Misty anymore is when she’s in trouble, and she needs me to bail her out. And as her older brother, I don’t have a choice. I’m all she’s got.
She has no one.
The state failed her, though no one admits it.
She’s one of eleven foster children in a group home setting in Saint Charmaine, and the foster parents don’t give a rat’s ass what she does. She stays out late and comes home looking like death, and they don’t question it.
As long as they pass their inspections and visits, that’s all that matters.
Meanwhile, they sit back and collect all the benefits they need. Money meant to give her food and shelter, she doesn’t even see. She shouldn’t be as skinny as she is, and she shouldn’t be wearing hand-me-down clothes from the Sears juniors department.
Misty told me once she spends most of her time at her best friend, Sierra’s, house. Her father, Rick, creeps me the fuck out, but Misty said he’s like a daddy to her. And she used that word. Daddy. Like she’s a fucking kindergartener.
Rick’s missing a couple of teeth, and his daily uniform consists of holey jeans and wife beaters, and the dilapidated shit hole he calls home leans to the left, and the paint peels from the siding in thin, curled strips. The yard is more dirt than grass, and the roof sags in the middle. Can’t take care of his shit, but at least he keeps my sister fed and minded, which is more than anyone else in Saint Charmaine has ever done for her.
Misty sent me an SOS text this afternoon when Demi and I were coming back from getting ice cream. The text was our secret code word: FEBRUARY. February was the month we were taken from Mona’s care and separated, and as a code word, February is our way of saying, “I need you. It’s an emergency.”
I’ve always told her to say the word, and I’ll come running. No questions asked.
And that’s what I’m doing.
I pull off on an exit, heart pounding, and head toward Sierra’s house.
I know exactly where it is, because I’ve dropped her off there before when she begged and pleaded and cried for me not to take her back to the foster house. She claimed two of her foster brothers were bullying her, making her show them her tits and trying to sneak into her bedroom at night. She claimed she sleeps with the dresser in front of the door, at least when she’s there, but most of the time she sleeps at Sierra’s.
I guess it’s the lesser of the evils.
I filed a complaint with her caseworker once. Evidently her claims were unfounded, because she was never removed from their care and life seemed to go on for the caregivers and all involved.
But the thought of anyone touching my little sister like that makes my blood boil. The first time she told me, I got black-out angry. I wanted to kill those motherfuckers, and I would have had Misty not stopped me.
She said going to them and threatening them would only make it worse, and I certainly didn’t want to do that for her.
By the time I pull up to Sierra’s house and fly out of my truck, all I hear are screams. People yelling. Male and female.
The slam of a door rattles the windows on the front of the crooked house. Clanking and shattering and stomping sounds grow louder as I approach. Rick’s truck is parked outside, the driver’s side door partially ajar like he was going to go somewhere and changed his mind.
Or like he was grabbing a shotgun from behind the truck bench.
Fuck.
“Misty!” I bang on the rickety screen door and then walk in. I don’t have time to be fucking proper. “Misty, where are you?”
The house smells like chemicals, and my eyes burn the second I step in. After a few breaths, my lungs burn too.
“Royal!” The stomp of Misty’s feet down the stairs pulls my attention in that direction. She flies into my arms, her cheeks damp with tears, her bleach blonde hair pulled in every direction, and her clothes ripped and torn. The swelling on the side of her face tells me that fucking bastard hit her.
“Shit, Misty. What’d he do to you?” I brush the hair from her face, and her dark eyes fill with tears. “I’m gonna kill him. I’ll fucking murder him for hurting you.”
“Who the hell is in my house?” Rick’s voice booms from the top of the stairs. The tinny clinking of his belt as he fastens his torn jeans is all I see from my angle.
Rick’s a big man, and each step he takes makes the stairs creak and crack and the handrail lean.
“You just come in my house?” Rick spits when he talks.
“What’d you do to Misty?” I fire back.
She stands behind me, taking fistfuls of my shirt and holding onto me for dear life.
“You fucking hit my sister? My fifteen year old sister?” I ask. “Answer me, asshole.”
“Ain’t none of your damn business, son.” Rick pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and flicks the top of his lighter open, flashing a smug, yellow-toothed grin as he lights up. “What, you think you’re the fucking po-lice? Busting in my house, demanding to know what the hell me and my girl are doing in the privacy of our own home?”
My stomach deadweights. I’m going to be sick.
“You . . . are you touching my sister?” I turn to Misty and she stares down at the dingy, matted carpet beneath her feet. “Fuck, Mis. Tell me you’re not screwing Rick. You’re fifteen.”
Misty may have seen and done more things than most adults in this life, but she’s still a goddamn child.
Rick takes heavy steps toward us, brushing his shoulder against mine and grabbing my sister by the arm. I reach for him, pushing him off her, and he shoves me hard enough that I land on top of a nearby coffee table. The thing collapses beneath me, shards of broken glass embedding into the palms of my hands.
I’m cut, bleeding, but I don’t feel it.
All I see is red, and I want to fucking murder that motherfucker.
Rising up, I brush the beads of glass off my clothes and move by the front door where Rick is messing with Misty. He grabs her ass, giving it a squeeze, and she adjusts her torn shirt, trying—and failing—to cover up a little more.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” I say.
Rick spins to face me, peering down his bumpy nose and sneering. He takes a drag off his ashy cigarette and blows the smoke in my face.
“Yeah? What are you gonna do about it?” Rick laughs. He hooks his arm around her shoulders, and she hunches down, pleading for help with her dark-as-midnight eyes. Rick kisses her forehead and laughs. “We’re in love. Your sister loves me. And she needs me. Ain’t that right, babe?”
He lifts her lanky arm, the one she’d kept hidden and pressed against her body since the moment I walked in.
It’s covered in track marks.
And now it makes sense. Rick is her supplier. He got her addicted, he’s feeding her addiction, and he has complete control over her.
I have to get her out of here. I have to get her out of Saint Charmaine. She’s coming back to Rixton Falls with me. I’ll beg and plead with Robert and Bliss to take her in if I have to, but she can’t stay here.
She’s going to die here.
I have to save her.
I’m the only one who truly gives a shit about this lost little fifteen-year-old.
“I said,” Rick nudges Misty. “Ain’t that right, babe? Tell your brother you love me.”