Page 16 of Deck the Skulls

“What happened to her?” Anatoly asked. There was only one way this story ended if Rissa kept referring to the woman in the past tense.

“She OD-ed,” Rissa said, then was quick to explain. “When I was eight, I got sick. It was bad, and I ended up in the hospital for a week. The hospital called social services, and they took me away. She lost it. She thought she’d never see me again, so she started using again.”

“Is that when your grandparents refused to let you live with them?” Zan asked.

“Yeah, they didn’t even want to meet me. My case worker couldn’t get them on the phone, so they drove me over. I was standing in their driveway when they told her to take me back to where I came from. That they had no use for the bastard daughter of a whore.”

“Who does that to a child?” Zan asked. Anatoly could feel Zan’s genuine hurt and incomprehension.

Rissa’s expression wasn’t as upset as it should’ve been. “Assholes do that.”

Anatoly would find these people and make them suffer. A quick death would be too merciful. He wanted them to hurt for every day that Rissa had to live insecure and scared. Zan sent him a worried look. The shifter couldn’t tell exactly what Anatoly was thinking, but he could sense they were dark thoughts.

“What happened after they refused to take you?” Zan asked.

“The social worker loaded me back in the car and dropped me off at a foster family,” Rissa said with a shrug. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t in foster care for long. I ran away a few weeks later.”

“You ran away?” Zan asked, his eyes wide. “You were only eight!”

Rissa smirked at him. “I wasn’t your average eight-year-old. I’d been homeless most of my life, so I knew how to get around. I packed my bag and stole all the cash and jewelry I could get my hands on. It took a few days to track Mom down. She wasn’t in great shape. She did better after I showed up, but she struggled to stop taking the meth. Looking back, I can see how hard she tried to stay sober for me.”

“Social services didn’t take you away again?” Anatoly asked.

“We tried to be careful,” she said. “It made things harder, but we managed. It helped that when they caught me, I always escaped, even the group homes. The last time I ran, I knew I couldn’t get caught because they were going to send me to one of those juvenile detention centers. Basically a kid jail.”

He could tell by her tone that being sent to a detention center had truly scared her.

“You were a child,” Zan breathed. “You should’ve been protected and sheltered.”

“It’s okay,” Rissa said. “I don’t mean it was okay that Mom struggled so much, but I learned how to be strong. By fourteen, I’d figured out how to fill out assistance forms and do my own school registration. That life taught me how to do research. That’s why I help out at Equal Under the Law.”

She went quiet for a moment. Anatoly wanted to keep her talking but was worried about asking the wrong question. He looked at Zan, and the shifter gave him a reassuring smile.

“Equal Under the Law?” Zan asked. “Are they some kind of legal aid?”

She blinked slowly as if surprised by his question. “How do you know about them?”

“You just told me,” Zan said with a quizzical look. Then he grinned and looked at Anatoly. “I think the alcohol might be taking effect.”

“Nah,” she said, her words slurring a little. “I never get drunk. I’m too careful.”

“You might not have been as careful as you think,” Zan teased. When she tried to straighten up, she almost slipped off the stool. Anatoly was quick to steady her with an arm across her back.

“Oh, hey! Why was that so slippery?”

Anatoly stifled his humor. “I don’t know, but I’ll make sure to put sticky paper on all the chairs from now on.”

“I should get back to work,” Rissa mumbled even as her eyelids drooped, and she listed sideways.

“How about a short nap?” Anatoly asked. Standing up, he carefully lifted her from the stool. Cradling her against his chest, he looked at Zan. “Do you think it would be okay to take her upstairs? She needs rest. I could put her in the bed in the spare room instead of ours.”

Zan looked torn. “The spare room is just our other room. It’s full of our stuff, and we even fuck on that bed sometimes. She could misinterpret that when she wakes up.”

“I’m not taking her back to her place,” Anatoly growled. “The rats in that building are large enough to put a leash on and walk like a pet.”

Zan snorted. “I’m not disagreeing. I don’t want her to go back there either. You know she’ll be pissed if she wakes up in either one of our beds.” Then he brightened. “Put her to bed in the second-story apartment!”

“That’s reasonable,” Anatoly agreed because he had no intention of putting her to bed and then leaving her alone. He would guard her even in her sleep.