Blade (RBMC: Dallas, TX #4)

Prologue

O ut in the faint light of dusk, the little girl was back in my trashcan again. “What the fuck?” I muttered to myself before I walked out of the kitchen where I’d seen her through the window.

Curious, I pulled out a cigarette and lit it. She was practically hanging over the edge of the can and I worried that she was going to topple in head first. I opened the door as quietly as I could so I could catch her.

As I took a drag, I moved closer. She didn’t appear to hear me. That was dumb on her part.

“Hey!” I called out once I was behind her.

She jumped and squealed as she spun around with one of my mom’s old magazines clutched to her chest. It had been used as a coaster and God only knew what else until Mom tossed it out. It looked like there was a squished spider on the back, but I didn’t point that out to the girl.

“What are you doing?” I asked her as I narrowed my gaze on her. I sucked on the cigarette, then I blew it out over my head. “You need food?”

Her big eyes blinked as her mouth opened and shut like a fish, but no words came out.

“Can you talk?”

She remained mute.

“You a mute? No tongue?”

“I can talk!” The little thing indignantly spat back as she stuck out said tongue, I’m assuming to show me she indeed had one.

“What’s your name?”

At first, I didn’t think she was going to answer. But I waited her out. Finally, she muttered, “Sage.”

“Well, Sage, I’m Finley. If you’re hungry, I can make you something to eat.”

She glanced over her shoulder toward several trailers down the road.

“You live down there?” I asked with a lift of my chin toward the houses.

She nodded and pointed a dirty finger at the one with all the lights on.

“Your mom know you’re out here diggin’ in the trash?” I asked, trying to sound like a grownup, though I couldn’t have been more than three years older than her.

She adamantly shook her head. I knew the look that flashed in her eyes—fear. It made me mad because a kid shouldn’t be afraid of their mom. I’d only ever seen a scrawny woman going in and out, but lots of different guys. I’d never seen this girl.

An uneasy feeling churned in my stomach.

“Doesn’t your mom let you outside?” At my question, I thought she was going to cry. Instead, she simply dropped her head and wouldn’t look at me.

After a lot of prodding, I found out that her mom wasn’t letting her go to school, and she was going through people’s trash to find things to read. Like, what the fuck? My mom may have rarely been home because she worked two jobs, but she made sure I went to school.

It was getting really dark by then. “You wanna come in?”

“I—” she started before she snapped her lips closed and started to back away.

I probably should have ratted her mom out, but around our neighborhood, you kept your fuckin’ mouth shut. There were a lot of things that happened around us that people ignored.

“I’ll tell you what. Let me grab some stuff and I’ll go to your house. I can sneak out if your mom comes home.”

She twisted her lips to the side as she considered my offer. Then she nodded. “Okay.”

There were a few hot dogs left in the package in my fridge, so I grabbed those and the box of mac and cheese. It was the kind that just had the gooey cheese packet I had splurged on. I had no idea if they had milk at Sage’s, and I didn’t want to ask and make her feel bad.

We traipsed over to her place, and I started cooking. Once it was done, we ate. She kept casting worried glances my way.

“You shouldn’t smoke. It’s disgusting,” she finally muttered.

“Yeah, well, I’m older than you, so I can do what I want. Besides, your mom smokes,” I shot back.

She stiffened and stared down at her food. Then she lifted her gaze back to me and swallowed hard. “It’s gross,” she whispered.

“Hmpf,” I grunted before I got up and cleaned up the mess. I shut the light off in the kitchen as we headed to the living room.

“Don’t shut it off!” she cried out, a look of panic in her wide-eyed gaze.

“We’re not going to be in there,” I replied as I shot her a look that said I didn’t understand why she wanted to leave lights on in a room we were done in.

“Don’t shut it off,” she repeated in a whisper. “I don’t like the dark.”

“Why?” I asked in disbelief. She wasn’t a baby. I mean, she was out digging in trash cans for things to read, for fuck’s sake. That was pretty bold.

She wouldn’t answer. She simply sat there staring at me like I kicked her puppy.

“Fine,” I finally said with a sigh. “What time does your mom usually get home?” It was well and dark by then.

She shrugged.

I shook my head and walked over to the magazine she had gotten from my trash. “Let’s sit down and read this.”

Considering she hadn’t been to school in quite some time, she was quite a good reader. I found out that it was math, science, and history that she was lacking in.

By ten o’clock at night, I had her go to bed, then I locked the door on her crappy trailer and started to walk home. I’d crossed the road right before a car turned the corner, nearly blinding me with its headlights. It almost hit me as it passed, and I flipped them off as I watched them keep driving.

I paused when the car pulled into Sage’s driveway and parked. A man and the scrawny woman got out. I could hear them from where I stood in the dark night shadows.

“You can sleep in Sage’s room with her. Just remember the rules.”

“I told you I understood,” the man snapped.

In Sage’s room with her? Then I watched in confusion as he handed her what looked like cash, then they walked into the trailer. Something about it seemed weird and alarms were going off in the back of my head.

I didn’t see Sage again for three days. When I did, she was even quieter than before. But after a little while, she seemed to relax and be more like her old self.

It was late Friday afternoon when I saw her mom leaving the trailer. She walked to the corner and a fancy black car picked her up.

With a grin, I took advantage of her being gone and jogged down to Sage’s house and banged on the door. I’d stopped on my way home from my after-school job and grabbed some workbooks at the dollar store.

When she cautiously opened the door, I pulled them out of my backpack.

“I got something for us to work on,” I explained as her eyes lit up at the cheap books.

Her huge grin made every penny worth it.

So, between school and working for my buddy’s dad, I taught her what I could. I mean, I wasn’t a dang teacher, but I figured I was better than nothing.

And that’s how Sage became the little sister I never knew I wanted. At the time, I had no idea she’d turn into my lifeline.