Burn Girl (24 page)

Tonight, I poked his stomach.

“Mom's sick.” I spoke directly into his ear and he batted at me like I was a fly.

“Tired … leave me alone.” He groaned and turned to face the back of the couch. His bare back was covered with skulls and snakes and other scary tattoos.

I poked him again. “Mom's not waking up.”

“Go away, girl. Don't make me tell you again.” He mumbled into the cushion.

I stood and watched him, afraid to poke him one more time. But I couldn't go back to Mom. She scared me more than Lloyd right now. After a while, he turned over again and opened his eyes.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long,” I said.

“What time is it? Go back to bed.”

“It's nighttime,” I said. “Mom's sick. Please go see.”

He stretched his arms above his head and yawned, then swung his legs around and sat up. I grabbed his hand and pulled with all my might.

“Come on. I'll show you.”

He stumbled after me, still holding my hand. I pointed to Mom on the bed. “She won't wake up. I shook her real hard.”

Lloyd seemed suddenly very awake. He ran to the side of the bed and kept saying, “Sarah, Sarah,” over and over. He stuck two fingers in her mouth and scooped something out onto the bed where she had already thrown up.

He put his ear very close to her nose, then lifted her off the bed. Mom's arms flopped backward, and I was afraid he'd bump her head going through the doorway.

“Get your shoes,
mija
. Now!”

I put on my fuzzy slippers. When I went back into the living room, Lloyd had already gone outside, but he'd left the front door open.

“Wait for me!” I ran as fast as I could to catch up to them.

He was at the car, trying to fit Mom in the backseat, but her arms and legs seemed to be in the way. I pushed around him to try to get in after her.

“No, get in the front,” he said.

“I can't. Mom says I'm too small for the seat belt.”

“Now, Arlie!”

Lloyd grabbed my arm and hurried me to the other side of the car. One of my slippers fell off, but he wouldn't let me pick it up. Once I was in the car, he slammed my door and went to his side.

“What's wrong with Mom?” I began to cry because I'd never seen Lloyd scared. “Where are we going?”

“Your mama needs a doctor. Just shut up while I drive.”

I tried to look around my seat to see if Mom was awake yet, but Lloyd pushed me back.

“Don't look,” he said.

He wouldn't let me hold his hand so I made myself into as small a ball as I could. My face was wedged near the door so that I could almost see Mom in the backseat. I smelled throw-up.

I turned around and looked out my window. There were so many lights and so many sounds for the middle of the night. I watched the freeway lights whiz by until my tummy felt sick.

When Lloyd turned the car too fast, Mom rolled partway into the floorboard. I tried to look again, but he pushed me back.

The car came to a stop.

“Stay here,” Lloyd said.

He opened the backseat door and pulled Mom's legs until she was almost all the way out. He then lifted her over his shoulder and carried her to the hospital entrance that had sliding glass doors. Carefully, he lowered her to the ground, his hand behind her head.

Then he got back in the car.

“What are you doing? You can't leave her on the sidewalk!” I pounded my hands against the glass. “Mom! Mom, wake up!”

A man and a woman rushed out of the hospital. They wore light blue pants and shirts, and white shoes. The woman pointed at our car as Lloyd drove away. The man was touching Mom.

“Stop crying. We couldn't stay.” Lloyd gripped the steering wheel and leaned into it like a race-car driver.

After we'd gotten back onto the freeway he said, “How about we stop for doughnuts, huh? Krispy Kreme opens at three a.m.”

“I'm not hungry!” I yelled. “We have to go back for Mom.”

I cried until my throat hurt. Then Lloyd finally held my hand.

“If we stayed at the hospital, they would have said your mom was not a good mom and then the police would come and take you away from us. You want that to happen?”

“She is a good mom,” I said.

“Not tonight,” he whispered.

“I want to see her.” I kicked my feet against the dashboard.

“She'll probably be home tomorrow or the next day,” he said. “They just need to make her well.”

I wanted to cry again.

“Can I please stay at Rosa's?”

Lloyd didn't look at me. “Your mom and I are getting married soon. I'll take care of you.”

“I want Rosa.”

“Well, you're staying with me.”

“I don't want you,” I said.

Lloyd never answered. He pulled the car into the apartment parking lot and into our regular space, which was still empty. I jumped out and began looking for my lost slipper while Lloyd went back inside.

“Lock the door when you're done,” he said.

CHAPTER 28

Frank seemed an inanimate extension of the machines and wires anchoring him to the hospital bed. It'd been an hour since they moved him from the ER to the intensive care unit. His bandaged head immobile, my uncle lay completely still except for the subtle rise and fall of his barrel chest beneath the hospital gown.

“There's swelling in his brain.” A nurse adjusted the IV protruding from Frank's forearm. Her name tag said Amy. “He's stable but needs rest.”

She touched my shoulder briefly before leaving me and Mo alone.

“Lloyd did this. I know he did.” I held Frank's calloused hand, its strength apparent even in this frozen state.

Lloyd had gotten close enough to Mo to steal her phone. And he'd knocked Frank out with a two-by-four piece of lumber at the construction site. No one else had a reason to hurt Frank. Not one goddamn neighbor saw a thing. The city's permit officer had found Frank and the bloody piece of wood on a visit to check the progress of the house. Thank God for that.

“Cody … he's in danger too. I have to tell someone.” I jumped from the chair and headed for the door where a police officer stood guard.

Mo stopped me and led me back to the chair. “You don't even know if your stepfather's seen you with Cody, but I called James. Cody's with him. He's safe.”

I turned to the window. The glare of the hospital-room lights made it impossible to see into the dark night. I only saw my reflection and that of Frank in the bed. Until another reflection appeared behind me: Detective Monroe.

Heartbreak had a physical pain to it. “What did you do, Mo?”

“What I should have done earlier,” she said.

“Miss Betts, would you join me?” The detective motioned to the hallway. “I have some questions for you.”

Mo moved closer to Frank but didn't look me in the eye. I followed Monroe down the hall to a small waiting room. We were alone.

“Your friend said your stepfather confronted you this morning. You should have said something at the high school.” He took out a small notepad.

“I had other things on my mind. Like my uncle almost being killed.”

“She thinks you're cooking up a scheme to deal with your stepfather yourself. Is that correct?”

My best friend had crossed a line. It was one thing to be worried about me. It was another completely to blindside me like this. By telling the police about Lloyd, she'd stolen any chance I had to think things through.

“I've had a pretty rough day,” I said. “I haven't been thinking straight.”

“That's understandable,” Monroe said. “So let's start from the beginning. Tell me everything you remember. Don't leave out a thing.”

I didn't admit Lloyd had stolen Mo's phone. I lied and said he had been waiting for me at the trolley stop. The phone was my only means of contacting Lloyd, and I didn't want to risk the police tracing it. Thank God I hadn't trusted Mo with that bit of information.

“Some druggie my mom knew ran into Lloyd in Albuquerque. He told my stepfather we lived in Durango,” I said. “He knew she'd died.”

“And did he tell you what he wants? Do you have idea why he'd attack your uncle?”

I told him Lloyd wanted me to steal money from Frank, but that I didn't know why he went after Frank so quickly. I was anxious to find that out myself.

“He was high. He wasn't making a lot of sense,” I said. “I told him I would figure something out.”

“That wasn't very bright,” Monroe said.

“I was stalling. To keep him away from Frank and Mo.”

Detective Monroe closed his notepad and cracked his knuckles as if dealing with me made him beyond exhausted. His reproachful stare made me even more uncomfortable.

“What do you want from me? I'm telling you everything now.”

“I want you to take this seriously,” he said.

He had no idea how seriously I was taking it. I'd make Lloyd pay for hurting Frank, for coming back into my life.

“Well, at least we know why he's in Durango,” he said. “We'll get a description out to the police and the sheriff's department. After you say good-bye to your uncle, an officer will take you to the Mooneys' residence.”

I rushed back into the hospital room. I had no intention of leaving Frank's side. And I definitely wasn't going anywhere with Mo.

I leaned over the side of the bed and laid my cheek against Frank's chest. The rhythmic pounding could almost drown out the beeping machines. By closing my eyes, I shut out the sterile, gray hospital room and the slackness in his features. I imagined him standing in the trailer's kitchen with his stupid apron on, cooking dinner and teasing me about Cody.

“The doctors are doing all they can,” Mo said.

“Why don't you just leave?” My friend had betrayed me and I didn't need her to comfort me.

“We're both leaving. The police are taking us back to my house. You can be as mad as you want. I told you I'd do anything to protect you.”

I stepped away from Frank and leaned against the cabinets near the bed. I needed water and food, but I couldn't focus enough to make any decision. Even breathing felt like a chore.

“I don't need you to protect me.” I rubbed my temples to stop the throbbing.

“Then I'm protecting myself,” she said. “I want you around. I want Frank around. In the last few weeks you've been different …
happy
. I want that back, for both of us.”

My brain had no room for Mo's excuses. Instead it niggled at all that had transpired since Lloyd had made his demands. Why hadn't he texted?

“He didn't even give me a chance,” I said more to myself than to Mo.

“Who?”

“Lloyd. He went after Frank almost immediately.”

“You're questioning the logic of a drug dealer? Did you think he'd keep his word?”

“I could have fixed this if you hadn't messed things up,” I said.

“Me? You think I messed things up?” Mo's chest heaved as if she would explode. “I'm so tired of your bullshit. Face it, Arlie. You're the reason Frank's here.”

“Get the fuck out!” I yelled at her.

“You keep forgetting you're sixteen years old,” she shot back. “You've handled things on your own for so long that you've lost a grip on reality. You can't fix this.”

Her shrill voice carried through the glass wall and to the nurses' station. It wasn't two seconds before the officer on duty and nurse Amy burst into the room.

“Be quiet this instant or you're both out of here, do you understand?” Amy's harsh command hung between us.

The officer surveyed the scene, tugged at his collar, and exited as fast as he could. The door clicked behind him.

Like a mother hen, the nurse pulled us toward her and into a huddle of exhausted emotion. “Girls, you've got to respect that this is a hospital and this is the ICU. People are seriously ill. You can't raise your voices.”

Amy released us and softened her tone. “You've got five minutes and then you'll have to go. Understand?”

I broke away from her and went to Frank's side. He lay so still that I couldn't help but think of him as lifeless. The image of another funeral drove spikes of panic into my heart.

“Arlie … if anything happens … you know, to Frank …”

“No. Don't say it. You can't say it.”

Frank couldn't leave me too. It just wasn't possible. He had to wake up. He had to finish our house.

“Your stepdad is unstable. What makes you think he won't kill you when he finds out you can't get him the money? Arlie? Are you listening to me?” Pale and exhausted, Mo no longer raised her voice. She'd sensed I'd shut myself off.

I hugged my uncle and stood up. “I need to use the restroom and splash some water on my face. Then we can leave.”

Mo nodded and went out into the hallway, giving me the chance to contact Lloyd.

I lowered the lid of the toilet and sat down.
Don't make him mad, Arlie. Remain calm
. My shaking hands almost made it impossible to tap out a message.

I thought I had more time. Why'd you hurt Frank? I typed.

When my cell phone rang, I fumbled for it and lost my grip, sending it bouncing onto the tile, screen side up. Mo's name and number appeared.

“You could've killed Frank, you bastard.” So much for remaining calm and not pissing him off.

“I followed you after breakfast. You went straight to the motel, then to your uncle. I saw you outside the school.”

“But I didn't tell them anything.” I whispered in case Mo came back into the room. “They were worried that I hadn't shown up to school. Everyone is being extra careful now that—”

“That I'm in town.”

“We could still meet.” Detective Monroe's warnings tapped at my consciousness, but all I could think about was the chance to see Lloyd.