Page 13 of The King (Masterpiece Duet 1)
She would call Daddy bad names for leaving her in this shithole trailer park. And then one day she put a needle in her arm and went to sleep. I had to spend three months in a group home, keeping my head down and hiding the bruises from the other kids.
Then they found Daddy. I know he isn’t perfect but he’s the only person I have left. Tears trail down my cheeks, but I don’t know if I’m crying for myself or for Damon, who traded himself for me.
“You saw him, Penny?”
I look down. “He’s tall. And his voice—it’s strange. Like water.”
Daddy’s face falls. “Oh God. I’m so sorry.”
Maybe it’s mean to let him think the worst, but I need him to change. The debts and the gambling, those are his needles. And I don’t want him to go to sleep, not like Mama did.
I don’t want to sleep either.
And I stay awake long after Daddy snores, the pain medicine keeping him comfortable. The shadows of trees press against my window. Somewhere out there is a lake. Somewhere out there is a boy who knows how to hold his breath longer than anyone should. How did he learn that?
What is he learning now?
I’m so sorry, Daddy said. But I’m the one who’s sorry.
Because Damon Scott traded himself for me. He’s the only reason I’m safe.
And I’m the reason he’s not.
Chapter Six
It gets easier to pretend as time goes by. My mind applies itself to finding an appropriate percentage to get wrong as easily as it did counting cards.
Daddy kept down a job long enough that we could move into the west side from the trailer park. The apartment was smaller than the trailer, but this way I could visit my friends after school. As it turns out, people like you when you keep your mouth shut and get average grades.
I was almost popular, but no one knew who I really was.
Damon Scott’s name became a part of the city’s dark culture, mostly in whispers, always linked to money or women or both. No one really seemed surprised that he had gone into the family business, that he traded in sex and violence. Even I wasn’t surprised, knowing what had happened, but I did mourn him. He could have run away, if it hadn’t been for me.
Then again, he’s a grown man now, wealthy in his own right.
He could run away now, if he wanted to.
There must be something he likes about that life, something dark and sharp he’s addicted to. We all have our own needles. We each rack up our own debts.
Sometimes Daddy would slip. Bills would pile up, only for him to dig us out again. When we got close to getting evicted I would count cards, but only once. Then twice. He was as scared of Jonathan Scott as me, so he understood the risk.
And I had my own addiction. Stolen moments in the Mathematics section of the high school library. Fractals drawn on my school notebooks, filled in with little hearts and smiley faces so that no one would suspect anything. No one ever did.
Once Mr. Halstead asked me to stay after physics, where he told me that I wasn’t living up to my potential. He seemed so sincere, so kind, that I actually agreed to come to after school study sessions with him. But when he put his hand on my leg and breathed against my neck, I knew he didn’t really care about my mind.
It wasn’t anything special about me that they liked.
Only that I was a girl in the west side. We were only used for one thing.
And then there was Brennan. He had a crooked smile and a motorcycle, so all my friends thought he was a great catch. I could see the appeal, from an academic standpoint. His muscles were sharpened from working in his father’s garage, his confidence an attractive quality. I hoped he never found out I went out with him for his books. Automotive Wiring and Electrical Systems. Advanced Automotive Fault Diagnoses. Not my ideal form for numbers to take, but I read them with the same secret fervor that my father bought lotto tickets, both of us desperate for a fix.
“What are you reading, babe?”
I slammed shut his book on hybrid vehicles and slipped it under my open book from Calculus class. Technically math, but it had less to teach me than See Spot Run. Brennan’s a nice guy.
Nice enough I hope he never finds out I’m using him for his books.
“Studying,” I tell him, rising up to kiss him.
He’s sweaty from working. Their house is next door to the garage. “You hungry? I’ll shower and then we can go somewhere.”
“I have a shift at eight.” I work at a sad little diner, making five bucks an hour serving barely heated food and stale coffee. It’s better than most jobs a fifteen-year-old girl can get in west Tanglewood.
