You Are Mine Little Sister (by Syra Tucker) novel Chapter 166

RALI

It was too cold.

Not the kind of cold that wind makes, but the kind that blooms under the skin, bone-deep, as if the body knows it doesn't belong anywhere.

I had a sweatshirt on, the one I'd stolen from some stranger's backyard. But it felt thin as air. I folded myself smaller in the corner, my arms hugging my ribs, my eyes scanning the crowd for a weak link. Someone careless enough to lose a wallet.

Fifteen minutes later, I had one. It pressed heavy against my pocket as I walked out of the local restaurant. The owner didn't notice me take it. Hopefully, no one did.

I found my way to the busy train station, hating the brush of shoulders, the jostle of arms. Maybe it was because I stank terribly, or perhaps, I saw everyone as the ghosts of the ones I'd lost.

Dead.

The cleaner was dead.

Claudia was dead.

The other one was shot in the head.

Josephine was shot in the chest and ribs. Dead.

"Hello, ma'am?" A tap on the counter startled me. "There's a queue behind you, please. Can I get your destination?"

For a second, her face blurred. When it clicked back into focus, she was frowning.

I glanced around to realize it was my turn to be attended to.

The clerk gave me a weary look. "Are you alright?"

I wanted to say yes, the way people gift-wrap pain, but today the words tasted like pennies and wouldn't pass my teeth.

My eyes drifted up to the plastered board of destinations.

"Torontea" I pulled my eyes down. "I want to go there."

I once overheard from a conversation that Torontea was very far from here. There was nowhere I'd rather be if not as far away from this place as possible.

"Okay. Can I see some ID, please?" Her fingers clattered the keys of her computer

"I... I don't have any."

She sighed. Her fingers stilled. "Ma'am, I can't process your ticket if you don't have—"

"Please." My eyes glassed over when they met hers. "I really have to go. Please."

She gave me a long look stacked with doubt.

"What's your name?" Her fingers resumed working.

I licked my lips. "Helen."

Blade and his people might come look for me here. If I used my real name, it'd be easy for them to trace me.

An hour later, I was seated in the corner of the train, ready to leave. Relief kept its distance. For all I know, Blayne's men could storm the doors and pull me back into hell.

I'd thought about the police, but that road was dirtied with Blayne's hands. He had strings everywhere, and I'd dealt with enough people to know the world was too corrupt and rotten.

This time, I was my own savior. No calvary. No miracles. Just me.

The train juddered alive and peeled away. I watched the empty seat beside me and imagined Josephine in it. I imagined her laugh, the way she tucked her hair behind her ear. Regret crowded in. Maybe we shouldn't have split in the church. Maybe somehow—just somehow—we'd have made it together if we had stuck together.

He finally did, his eyes wide with shock, like he'd just realized I might actually bite.

"What the hell's going on here? Davis, what're you doing? Are you tryna chase my customers?" An older woman shuffled into our space, grocery bags cutting into her wrists. A white scarf was tied over her gray-streaked hair.

She appeared like someone in her early sixties.

"Nah, mama. She looked hungry. I was simply tryna offer her some food."

The woman's eyes skipped from my flat wornout shoes to my face in one swipe. "You tryna offer her some food like you contribute to the business. Your mama and I do all the work, yet you come out here, playing savior, feeding girls with my broth, huh?"

"I—I don't want anything," I lied quickly, pinning my eyes to the floor. I'd already put a lot of distance between the boy and I.

"Well, lady, I might not like this young man over here, but you sure look hungry. Where you from? Run away ‘cause you got yourself pregnant? Don't lie, I've seen that face before."

I shook my head.

"Hmph." She gave me another accessing look. Somehow, I felt better it was her and not a man.

"Well, you look hungry enough to eat your own shoes. And they already look half-eaten. I just made a pot of broth—real broth, not the watered-down mess we sell the customers. Come in if you've got the sense."

My eyes flicked to the Davis guy. There could be more of his kind in there. "I—I think I'm fine."

"Fine? Girl, you look like a broom with legs. My broth could raise the dead, and you standing there like you'd rather faint." She scoffed. "Anyway, if you say so. Davis, go away. Let the lady be."

She started walking off, going round the corner, her bags knocking against her knees.

Davis gave me a look that sagged between pity and embarrassment, then slunk off.

I didn't have any reason to trust the woman, but I was starving. Besides, she didn't have a dick. Nothing she did could be worse than what the men at Blayne's parlor already did to me.