Rebelonging (Unbelonging, Book 2) (15 page)

Downtown was supposedly on an upswing, with
young professionals and hipsters moving in where others had left.
In my few recent visits, I'd seen some of this firsthand. But then
there were the parts I would never visit, places where pizza
deliveries required an armed guard, if they delivered at all.

Today was a weekday, and it was still light
out, so there were parts of the city that wouldn't be too bad. But
other parts, they weren't good at any time.

The cars on the highway were an interesting
mix. I saw late-model Cadillacs and even a couple of Lexuses, along
with too many Fords and Chevys to count. Cars, trucks, SUVs. Some
old, some new. Way too many were beat up or rusted around the
wheels.

Motor City or not, Detroit was hard on cars.
All of Michigan was. In the winter, rock salt fell in torrents from
giant trucks that rumbled through snowstorms, dropping their
payloads onto the slick pavement.

All winter long, the battle went on – the
salt trucks on one side, snow and ice on the other. Caught in the
crossfire were all those cars, screwed no matter who won. Either
they'd slide, or they'd rust. Most did both.

It was early November. We'd see snow before
the month's end. I was sure of it. My tires were bald, and my
battery was iffy at best. If winter never came, I'd be a happy
girl.

We spent a few minutes on Woodward, and then
turned off on some side street, and then another, heading deeper
into the guts of the city. I saw boarded up shops and burned-out
buildings, and houses that looked like no one had lived there for
decades.

"Welcome to Zombieland," Lawton said.

He had a point. I saw stately brick buildings
with overgrown shrubbery and broken windows, burnt-out shells of
others, and charred roofs falling over the brick-and-mortar remains
of once-majestic structures.

The streets were nearly empty, with random,
beat-up cars parked haphazardly along the curbs and almost no
traffic at all. For such a large city, it was eerily quiet.

"Zombieland," I said. "Or a war zone."

"Yeah, and we lost."

I looked around. "Where is everyone?"

"Moved, holed up inside, still asleep. Hard
to say."

The further we drove, the worse it got. I saw
boarded up-buildings covered in graffiti interspersed with bare
fields of tall, scraggly grass and scattered tires. Telephone poles
leaned at odd angles, and vines crept into the missing windows of
vacant buildings.

Then, it got worse. The large, majestic
structures gave way to tiny homes, some burnt, some boarded up, and
others missing patches of siding and their front doorknobs.

"Is this where you grew up?" I asked.

"Almost," he said. "It's a few blocks up." He
gave me a sideways glance. "We're gonna stop. But don't roll down
the window, and don’t open the door."

"Trust me," I said. "I wasn’t planning
to."

When we rolled to a stop a few minutes later,
we were in front of a narrow, two-story brick house with a covered
front porch.

Lawton flicked his head toward it. "My
Grandma's house."

He made a noise that probably was supposed to
be a laugh, but didn't quite make it. "Nicest one in the
neighborhood."

I glanced around. Actually, he was right. The
home wasn't any larger than the neighboring houses, but it was
definitely nicer, like someone not too long ago had actually cared.
It had white shutters and a matching porch, peeling in places, but
noticeably fresher than its surroundings.

"She loved that house," Lawton said, his
voice quiet.

"Is she, uh –"

"Still alive?" Lawton shook his head. "No.
She died a few years ago. I grew up here though."

"Just you and your Grandma?"

"Sometimes my Mom lived here too. But most of
the time –" He shrugged. "She was off doing other things."

"Like what?" I asked.

He gave another bitter laugh. "Drugs, mostly.
My Grandma, she was a school teacher at St. Mary's. She always said
she should've done better, especially with Mom being her only
kid."

He looked off into the distance. "But I
dunno. Mom was just wild, I guess."

"Like mother like son?" I teased, trying to
lighten his mood.

"No." His gaze snapped in my direction. "I'm
nothing
like her. She
never
looked out for us, never
gave a shit one way or another what happened to us when she was off
doing fuck-knows-what."

I shrank back, surprised not only by his
language, but by the venom behind his words. Sure, I cursed like a
sailor, but – . No, I
used
to curse like a sailor. Now I
just cursed like…well, Lawton, actually.

His gaze softened. "Sorry."

"It's alright," I said. "You said 'us'? You
mean you and Bishop, right?"

Lawton shook his head. "No. I didn't even
know about Bishop 'til I was a teenager. We're half-brothers. Same
dad, different cities."

"So how many kids did your Mom have?"

"Two. Me and a sister."

"Where's your sister now?" I asked.

"College out East. Working on her master's in
social work."

"And your Mom?" I asked.

"Dead."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," I said. "How?"

"Overdose. Finally. Best thing she ever
did."

Even knowing more of his life story, his icy
demeanor was a shock. What kind of guy was actually glad when his
mother died? Even with my Mom, as crappy as she was, I'd still be
sad if anything bad happened to her.

He studied my face. "I know what you're
thinking."

"I'm not thinking anything," I said, "just
taking it all in."

"Let me ask you something," he said. "Your
brother. He's thirteen, right?"

I nodded.

"Well, I'm the oldest," he said. "My sister,
she's maybe three years younger than me." He smiled. "Probably
about your age, come to think of it." The smile faded. "When she
was thirteen, Mom tried to sell her."

I felt my body grow still. "What do you
mean?"

His gaze hardened. "You know what I
mean."

I blew out a breath. I guess I did, but I was
hoping that I'd just misunderstood him.

"That's when Grandma kicked her out for
good," Lawton said. "Told Mom if she ever came back, she'd be dead
before she hit the door. And Grandma meant it. She never said
anything she didn't mean. She had this old Remington. She was a
hell of a shot too. Took me deer hunting up north once."

"She sounds like an amazing person," I
said.

"She was," he said with the trace of a smile.
"She'd been a widow forever too. I never knew my Grandpa. Neither
did my Mom, come to think of it. He died in some factory explosion
a month after she was born. So I guess my Mom didn't have it so
good either."

Lawton shook his head. "Anyway, even with Mom
out of the house, I couldn't let the thing with Kara go. I mean,
what kind of man does that? And why the hell should he get away
with it? So I ask around, and I find out who the guy is."

"Then what?" I said.

"Then," he said, "I go after him."

I did the math. "So were you what, about
sixteen?"

"Yup."

"So what'd you do?"

"I showed up at his house, knocked on the
door, all nice and polite. And then, when he answered, I beat the
piss out of him. The guy was in I.C.U. for a week."

"Good," I said.

He gave me a smile that didn't quite reach
his eyes. "Oh c'mon," he said, "no warnings about vigilante
justice?"

Thinking of my own brother, I could only
shrug. I knew exactly what I'd want to happen if anyone tried that
with him.

I glanced again toward the house. "At least
you didn't kill him," I said.

"Yeah. But it didn't end there. The guy was a
city councilman. Had a wife, a couple of grown kids." His voice
grew sarcastic. "A regular pillar of the community."

"So he pressed charges?"

"Yup."

"What were they?" I said.

"Attempted murder."

My voice was quiet. "Wow."

"Yeah." Lawton shrugged. "But hey, it was
true, right?"

"You wanted to kill him?"

"Wouldn't you?" he said.

"If you really wanted to kill him," I said,
"you would've grabbed the gun. Right?"

"Maybe," he said. "Or maybe, shooting the guy
seemed too easy."

"But with what happened to your sister, I
mean, that had to count for something, right?"

He gave a bitter laugh. "Not when Mom
wouldn't testify. And Kara, she didn't even know about it. And I
was damned determined to keep it that way."

He looked out over the street, marred with
potholes and weeds. "And let's say the thing with Kara got out.
She'd be the girl who almost got molested by some forty-year-old.
School was hard enough already. She didn't need that."

"What do you mean?" I said.

"Our school? It was the worst in the
district. But it was the only one we had. And Kara and me, we got
enough shit already because of the way we talked."

"I don't get it," I said.

"Like I mentioned, Grandma was a teacher.
English mostly. And she didn't put up with any sloppy talk."

"You mean swearing?"

"Or bad grammar."

I felt myself smile. "But that's a good
thing," I said.

"Yeah, well people didn't like it, especially
other kids."

"Why not?" I said.

He looked around, taking in our surroundings.
"Wherever you live, you gotta fit in, right?"

I thought of myself at the Parkers'. Slowly,
I nodded.

"Well, we didn't fit in," he said. "It was a
problem. And the older we got, the bigger the problem."

"So what'd you do?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I learned to blend. Or when I
couldn’t, I learned to fight."

"Well, you sure learned that good," I said.
"But what happened with that councilman?"

"Officially, I was a minor. But at first, the
guy worked like hell to see me tried as an adult."

"At first?" I said. "So he changed his
mind?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"With that," Lawton said, "I had a little
help."

"From who?" I said.

"Bishop."

"But he couldn't have been much older than
you."

"He wasn't. But he was old enough."

"What'd you guys do?" I asked.

"That, I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because," he said, "it wouldn't be right. My
secrets are one thing. But his?" Lawton shook his head. "They're
not mine to be giving out. Even to you."

"I can respect that," I said. And I could.
Somehow, it made me think more of him, not less. "So tell me in
general terms," I said. "What happened with the case?"

"Plea bargain," he said. "I spent a couple
years in juvie, got out when I turned eighteen. And you pretty much
know the rest."

I tried to smile. "I seriously doubt
that."

"Wanna know something funny?" he said.

"What?"

Lawton's gaze took in the neighboring houses.
It suddenly occurred to me that we hadn't seen a soul since we'd
stopped. It was kind of eerie, actually.

Lawton returned his gaze to me. "Juvie was a
cakewalk compared to this."

"Why didn't you guys move?" I asked.

"Because Grandma had a bad hip and a pension
that barely paid for groceries. And besides, where would she
go?"

I looked around. "Anywhere but here," I
said.

Lawton gave a bitter laugh. "Easy for you to
say. When I was born, Grandma owned that house outright. But when I
got in trouble, she mortgaged everything to pay for my legal team,
sorry as they were."

"But what about a public defender?" I
said.

"That's what I told her. But Grandma wouldn't
hear of it. She said I deserved better."

"She was right," I said, thinking of the
worst-case scenario. If things had gone badly, Lawton might be
sitting in prison right now, as opposed to sitting with me.

"By the time it was done," Lawton said, "she
owed more than the house was worth."

"Oh wow," I said, letting that sink in.
"That's awful."

"And what's worse," he said, "it wasn't all
to the bank."

"Who else did she owe?" I asked.

"This local guy, specialized in high-risk
loans."

"You mean a loan shark?" I said.

"More or less. Though he didn't like to be
called that. Don't ask me how I know."

"So who owns the house now?" I said.

"The bank, probably. When Grandma died, she
still owed a lot of money."

"To the loan shark?"

"No. Him, I paid off."

"How'd you do that?"

"One day, he saw me mixing it up with a
couple of guys in the neighborhood. Said he liked what he saw,
offered me the chance to work off some of the loan."

"By fighting?"

Lawton nodded. "It was the one thing I was
actually good at. And for whatever reason, people liked to
watch."

This was totally unsurprising. All I had to
do was look at him. His body was a work of art, and he had a face
to match. I liked to watch him no matter what he was doing.

"I can see why," I said.

He turned to look at me, a smile tugging at
his lips. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," I said, hearing the breathiness of my
own voice. "Totally."

How Lawton had survived unscathed, I had no
idea. Well, actually, I did. I had never heard of him losing a
fight. And the way he moved, it was deadly poetry. No matter what
he did, he made it look easy. But the way it sounded, easiness was
a foreign concept in his world.

"So anyway," he continued, "one fight led to
another. Every time, the money got a little better. And then there
was that fight video that made the rounds." He shook his head. "I
still don't know that got out. The organizers weren't too happy
about that."

"Because the fights were illegal."

"That and taxes," he said.

"Taxes?"