My jaw throbs when I chew, and I can still taste blood from last night.
I keep my hair down over the bruise and my eyes on the gravel, because that's how you get through a morning at Ridgeway Storage.
Then the gate buzzes and three bikes roll in, loud enough to shake the office window.
Kade: Dara. Turn around.
Kade's gray eyes go straight to my jaw and stop there.
Kade: Who the fuck did that to your face?
Dara: Nobody. I fell.
Rhys: Bullshit. You fell on a fist?
Bode doesn't say anything. He just looks at my jaw, then at the office door.
Bode: That's a handprint, Dara. Not a fall.
Arlen: Boys. This is private property.
Arlen comes out with his coffee, smiling at them like they're old friends.
Kade: So is her face.
Arlen's hand closes on my jaw, right over the bruise, and he turns my face so all three of them can see it.
The pain goes white behind my eyes. I don't make a sound.
Arlen: Look at her. Cries over a juice box, then runs her mouth.
Arlen: Stupid bitch can't even keep a kid quiet.
Arlen: Go on, Dara. Tell them how clumsy you are.
He slaps me. Not hard enough to put me down, hard enough to split my lip again.
Blood comes warm on my tongue. I leave it there.
Arlen: Tell them you fell.
My mouth opens, because that's what my mouth does.
Dara: I fell.
It's my fault anyway. I gave Cal the juice box. I mouthed off in the lot.
I always make him mad, and then I act surprised like a stupid fucking kid.
Arlen: You want her? Take her. She's used goods, not worth the gas.
Arlen: But the kid stays. Unit twelve till he learns some fucking manners.
Arlen: I'll leave him in there overnight. You can listen to him scream.
Kade: He's dead.
Rhys: Kade.
Kade: I said what I said. That bastard's a dead man.
Arlen laughs and goes back inside, and the door bangs shut behind him.
My knees are still weak, because I believed him. Every word.
Nobody asks me anything, and I don't argue.
I stand in the gravel with blood on my lip, and I don't say one word to save him.
I should be scared. I am scared. But under the fear there's a warm spot, and it's spreading.
Bode pulls off his hoodie and puts it around my shoulders. It smells like smoke and oil.
Bode: You're shaking.
Dara: I'm fine.
Rhys: Where's Cal?
Dara: In the office. He's okay. He's okay.
Rhys walks to the office without waiting for permission, and I let him.
These are the same men who made school a fucking nightmare. The quarry. The names they called me.
Now they're the only ones looking at me like I'm not crazy.
Kade: You don't go back inside with him. You hear me?
Dara: I have to. He'll take Cal.
Kade: Then we'll see about that. This isn't fucking finished.
Kade gets on his bike and looks at me one more time, and I don't look away.
Something in my chest that's been shut for a year takes one breath.