Hide with Me Read online

  I would not live like that, like a starving animal. I decided to believe in more. I got what I wanted because I demanded more, deserved it. Cars, boats, infinity pools, beautiful girls, and beautiful books, my own private library full. And two actual pet wolves. Mente and Corazón. Mind and Heart.

  Wolves live and hunt in packs. It takes a pack to bring down prey. Yet there is no pack without a leader. I got my name, Lobenzo, the Wolf Cub, because at eighteen I was the youngest boss but also the most ferocious.

  A wolf has forty-two teeth, each specialized for tearing or stabbing flesh, shearing bones.

  I always offered the choice.

  Be one of my teeth.

  Or be crushed by them.

  CADE

  I knew the girl thought it was a mistake telling Mattey. But I trust him like he’s me. I’ve known him my whole life.

  I also knew Mattey thought it was a mistake trying to help her by ourselves. God knows what this girl was hiding, but I’d be damned if I was the one who was going to turn her in. I don’t tell people’s secrets. They are secrets for a reason.

  “Holy . . .” Mattey’s voice trailed away and his eyes went wide when he saw the cut. Of course they did. He’s a gentle kid, likes to draw pictures, watch his dad work. I think I’d only ever heard him swear like that maybe once before, when there was a huge brush fire right across the freeway from our houses.

  Mattey shook his head. “Uh, yeah. Because calling me instead of 9-1-1 was a good idea how?”

  I turned to reassure the girl. “He can fix it.”

  Her cheeks were caved in, and her ribs quivering under her skin made me think of when a bird hits a window.

  “Right, Mattey?” I asked.

  “You didn’t tell me it was this bad.” Mattey tried to collect himself. “I mean, I guess the good news, from what I can see, is that no organs look damaged. The cut’s long, but not deep. I think . . . we can take care of it?”

  He said it like he had to convince himself more than us.

  Mattey drizzled iodine across the wound to clean it, the bright rust color making it look even more gruesome. Hunter came over and put his head on the girl’s feet, and for a second she almost relaxed. But when Mattey started dabbing at the edges of the cut to clean it, she reached out in a panic. I grabbed her hand, and she clenched so hard my fingers went white.

  “Have you ever done this before?” she whispered to Mattey.

  “Sure,” he said, staring with extreme focus as he started the stitches.

  “On a person?”

  Mattey glanced over at me. “Um, yeah, actually, a few times. Not this bad. But . . .”

  I cut him off. “It ain’t his first rodeo, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said with a long, shaky breath.

  The girl’s face twisted in a grimace at the pressure of her skin being pulled back together. As the needle went in, a tiny whimper came out. Then, when he connected it to the other side, she let out a loud cry.

  “Shh! Here, have some of this.” I grabbed the bourbon I’d snuck from the house and tipped it to her lips. She sputtered at first but then managed to swallow.

  “Sorry,” Mattey said. “I should have brought some numbing stuff, but I didn’t know what was what in a hurry like that with no one noticing.”

  The girl had made herself go still as stone.

  “Cade, I need your help,” Mattey told me, and I pinched her skin together so he could connect it with the stitches.

  “Not too tight,” he told me with authority, “or you can damage the tissue.”

  I knew then that he really could do it. It was messy. But it was working.

  THE GIRL

  Rip. Seethe. Teeth clamped together. The stitches weren’t as bad as the stabbing. Hiding was better than running. But my mouth went raw from gritting my jaw, and for those moments, healing seemed worse than hurting.

  Mateo was leaning so close over me I could feel his warm breath go in and out. He was working hard. I watched Cade watching us and read in his face that he thought his friend was doing a good job. It was the only gauge I had. Cade wiped off my forehead and put some ice on my throbbing eye. He gave me more booze. I counted time with my inhale, exhale, as that needle went in, out, in.

  And then, finally, Mateo sank down to sit on the ground. “You’re done.”

  “How does it feel?” Cade asked.

  “Awful. Better.”

  “I think you’re going to be okay,” Mateo said proudly.

  I tried to settle into the burn, the steady heat of the pain.

  “Now what?” Cade asked him.

  “She rests,” Mateo answered. Then he pointed back at me. “You rest. I mean it.”

  “Wow. You did it,” Cade said.

  “I still think she needs more help,” Mateo tried again.

  “I know.”

  “For real.”

  “Yep.”

  They looked at each other for a minute.

  “This is stupid. We’re being stupid,” Mateo protested.

  “Yep,” Cade said again.

  “Then . . . ?” Mateo threw his arms up in the air.

  “Thank you,” I interrupted softly, and they both turned and stared at me like they weren’t sure I was really there and this had actually happened.

  “You’re welcome,” Cade said to me.

  “And you’re crazy,” Mateo said to him.

  “Come on, Mattey,” Cade softly said. “You’re not going to tell. Right . . . right?”

  “Do I ever tell?” Mateo answered him and then turned his attention back to me. “You really don’t want to go to the hospital?”

  “Really,” I said.

  “Can I ask why?”

  “No.”

  “Ugh.” Mateo made a frustrated noise and pulled at his own hair.

  “It’ll be fine,” Cade said. “You stitched her up good.”

  “I hope?” Mateo responded, and turned to me with an agitated sigh. “I guess you’re lucky Cade found you. And you’re even luckier I do what he asks.”

  “Look, I think she should see a real doctor too,” Cade defended himself. “But clearly that’s not something she’s willing to do.”

  I caught a funny look in his eye. This guy knew about being hurt. He knew about hiding things.

  Mateo pressed his lips together. “Someone attacked her. I think we should tell the police.”

  “No police,” Cade snapped. “They’re all corrupt.”

  “Gunner’s mom isn’t.”

  “Whatever. The sheriff still works with the rest of them,” Cade grumbled. “Anyway, thanks, Mattey. For everything. You’re the best.”

  Mateo wasn’t winning this one.

  “Fine . . . for now. Please, though, call me if you change your mind about all this and need help,” he said, like he was really hoping we would. “I’ll come back in the morning to check on you, okay?”

  Mateo looked back and forth from me to Cade.

  “This is not smart,” he said one more time.

  “If she’s worse tomorrow, we’ll figure something out,” Cade said.

  Mateo nodded uncertainly before darting out the old door. The light in the barn was almost gone. It cut through the slats of wood in milky gray thorns. That last bite of gleaming before day ends always seems to whisper sadness. Everything that happened. Everything that didn’t.

  “Okay, Jane Doe,” Cade sighed. “You gonna tell me anything about anything or just hide in my barn till whenever?”

  Till whenever the soonest was I could leave . . . or was I far enough away? How long does a person have to run before it’s safe? My eyes felt like they were smoking. My throat, past choked. The fight that welled, that got me here, was dry.

  “Who messed you up like this?”

  Why was he asking again? He had to
know I wouldn’t say.

  CADE

  I hated to leave Jane Doe by herself, but I had to get back to my house and check in before all hell broke loose. I left her with blankets, some crackers, water, and painkillers. I needed to be in bed when my dad checked or it would get ugly.

  Thank God for Mattey. I don’t know what I would have done about the girl otherwise. He always bailed me out. I reached up and touched a bumpy scar at my hairline. That was the very first time he’d stitched me up. He’d gotten better.

  As I stepped lightly up onto our busted front porch, I glanced back at the cornfields, wondering where the creep who did this to the girl was. Far away? Or somewhere nearby?

  Turning the front knob as quietly as I could, I snuck into the house. I made it all the way to the top of the stairs when my dad woke up from his chair.

  “Boy? That you?”

  “Yeah, Dad,” I said without stopping, hoping he wouldn’t get up, but his footsteps lumbered behind me.

  “Where the heck you been?”

  “Went for a run.”

  He took one look at me and had me up against the wall. “Bull. You get in a fight?”

  “No.”

  “Tough guy now, starting trouble?”

  “I didn’t get in a fight.”

  “Why you bloody then?” he slurred.

  I looked down at my shirt, stained from carrying the girl.

  “Hunter killed a rabbit and rolled in it. I got some on me.”

  My dad looked at me suspiciously.

  “Was that before or after you drank my whiskey?”

  “I didn’t drink your whiskey.” I pushed his hand off my throat and tried to duck out from under his arm.

  “Let me smell your breath.”

  He got up close to me and lightly slapped at my cheek. And then again. Over and over.

  “Come on, boy, lemme smell your breath.”

  “I didn’t drink it.”

  I tried to sound unaffected, but my adrenaline was starting to kick up.

  “Where is it then? Huh? Where’s my bottle?”

  I’d left it in the barn.

  “Damned if I know what you do with your booze.”

  “Don’t mouth off at me.”

  My father gave me a look of disgust and took a step closer. He towered over me.

  “I’m not mouthing off. I don’t know where it is. That’s all I’m saying.”

  My father frowned and blew out a sour sigh.

  “You must have drunk it,” I took a risk and said.

  He stared at me, eyes all distant and squinty.

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  Good. He was calming down.

  “I’ll look around for you, okay, Dad?”

  “Okay. You do that.” He let his arms drop to his sides and backed away. “You know I’m just lookin’ out for you. Don’t mess up your chances, Cade. You get kicked off the football team, that’s it for you. You’re worth nothin’.”

  Even after he left the room, my body stayed tense. I sat on the edge of my bed, clenched my fists and my jaw till my fingers and my head ached. “Lookin’ out” used to mean showing me how to change the oil in my truck, gut a fish, start a charcoal grill. It was teaching me to tell time, tell a joke, tell the truth. It was throwing a football around out back.

  He used to come to every one of my games. At dinner we’d talk about how to run the plays better, rolling our eyes as my mom insisted I was already perfect. She somehow always had food stuck in her hair or to her shirt from the frenzy of what she considered cooking. My dad would tell her it was good, and then when her back was turned, he would make a gagging face. There was never a question that we’d eat what was on our plates. Didn’t mean we couldn’t laugh about it. There are only so many things you can make with ground round and potatoes, chicken thighs and rice. When we had beans the majority of the week, I knew we were almost out of money till the next harvest.

  We’d been eating a lot of beans lately.

  How can you turn someone back into who they used to be? No twelve-step program can help a person who won’t even step off their own property. My dad hadn’t been into town in two years. Not since my mom left.

  I looked at my crooked bedroom door.

  Inside, the walls were cracked, the paint peeling.

  Outside, the corn was dying. A girl was hiding.

  I couldn’t do anything about the weather or the soil. I didn’t choose my mother or my father. There was no guarantee I would get a scholarship to play college ball. All I could do was try my dang hardest to be the best. My only way out. I fell asleep thinking of the girl’s bright blue eyes when I told her I would help.

  Keeping a promise is one of the only things someone can control.

  JANE DOE

  Thunder gnawed its hungry noises in the distance. I lay on top of the sleeping bag, listening to the rain come down harder and harder outside, and finally dared run my hand ever so lightly along my stitches—the little pieces of thread holding me together. I couldn’t believe that kid actually did it. Mateo. Or Mattey, Cade called him.

  Cade. Who was this guy? Would he waste his time on a stranger if he knew anything about anywhere I’d been? I popped some more painkillers and wondered how many were too many. My stomach churned. Maybe I would throw up again. The barn was hot and still. I was caught in a giant, sour exhale. Old air. Everything good about it used up. My eye pounded as if it had its own pulse, and the sewn-up slash across my middle lit up in little points of pain—match heads on my skin. But I welcomed the pain. It said, You hurt because you’re here. You are alive. You got away.

  Raff didn’t.

  Alone, out in the barn, I couldn’t help but think of him. His face, touch, voice—it rolled in with the thunder.

  I met Raff because of my last foster mom, Jessie.

  Before Jessie, it was:

  The Richardsons, who opted out of being a foster family when the stipend wasn’t as high as they had hoped.

  Mr. and Mrs. Genova, who wanted to start the process of foster-to-adopt until they found out they could have their own kids after all and didn’t want a baby and a teenager.

  The young couple Lisa and Chris, who left to teach sustainable farming in Chad.

  And, of course, the group home where I first stayed when they said my aunt Nikki was unfit.

  The longest I ever stayed in one place was when my mom first left me with her.

  The second longest was with Jessie and Tae.

  Jessie was a hot mess, but we got along. I would cook and keep track of the bills for heat and electricity and stuff. But when Tae got a pretty big insurance payment from some sort of work accident, things started to get weird. They’d always smoked pot, but now that Tae had money, he could get harder drugs. It was a couple of months after that when I met his nephew Raff. Raff was Filipino too, with the cut jaw of a model, dark, sexy eyes, and a grin that made you think about his lips for the rest of the day.

  One night when Jessie and Tae did a bunch of lines and were getting too PDA-ish, Raff rolled his eyes at me and said, Wanna get out of here? And we did. We grabbed a case of beer and drove Tae’s car out to the oil fields. By the time I had drunk two, I was laughing. Raff gave me another one, and I said it was hot in the car. He cranked the heat higher to mess with me and told me to take off my sweatshirt, so I did. Steam clouded the inside of the windshield while drips of rain raced down the outside of the glass.

  The oil pumps tilted down and up in the distance like long-necked dinosaurs eating then looking around. Raff traced the strap of my tank top and told me I was too hot for my own good. I said, Prove it. He said if I wasn’t so sweet and innocent maybe he would. Maybe I’m not, I told him. Prove it, he said back to me. And I climbed on his lap in the car and pressed against him like I’d seen people do.

  That’s when the police rapped
on the window and told us to get a move on. I was mortified, but Raff thought it was funny. When we got back, Jessie had passed out on the floor, a bottle of someone else’s prescription painkillers resting in her hand. Tae was sprawled on the couch, clearly hungover. There were open cans and empty takeout containers everywhere.

  “I’m so sick of living like this,” I mumbled.

  That was the night Raff decided we needed to get out of there and asked, Want to run away to Mexico? I thought he was kidding. But he had friends there, connections, he promised. He’d lived near the border for a while and spoke Spanish well. He knew how to make money—a lot of money. It’s not like I didn’t know what he meant. I’m not naive. Starting over has a price.

  We went.

  And for eleven sunny months, we were rock stars.

  Then Raff got shot through the head.

  CADE

  Once we were tied in the fourth quarter against Griffin Heights, and I scrambled for a first down and had this long run, but right at the thirty-yard line I dove forward and lost the ball when I hit the ground. It bounced right into the hands of their safety. I woke up the day after all embarrassed before I even remembered how come.

  Sometimes when you start out in the morning, in the first flicker awake, there’s no good or bad yet. Then . . . a feeling hits you . . . then the reason for it. That’s how it was the day after finding the girl.

  I’d set my phone alarm twice on vibrate under my pillow, to check on her during the night, and snuck out to the barn and back in the pouring rain. Both times, there she was, breathing all ragged, the outline of her body blurry in the gray light like maybe I was dreaming. It wasn’t till I got up for real the next morning that what was going on started to layer itself on me.