Free Silent by Sara Alva Page B

mine…and it was fucking unnerving. I couldn’t say why, but for just a second I felt like he was trying to call me out—like he didn’t buy what I was saying.
    But that was a stupid thought. He probably didn’t understand a word that came out of my mouth. Including the curse words, which meant I could cuss to my heart’s content around him and not be afraid of Ms. Loretta’s wrath.
    “Hey, you want a cigarette?” I held the carton out to him, and it finally drew his gaze away from my face.
    He didn’t make a move, though, so I pulled one out and gently placed it in his dirty fingers. They curled around the cigarette carefully, like they were holding a foreign object for the first time.
    “All right, now I just gotta light it up…”
    I flicked the lighter on near his hand, and he jerked back, dropping the cigarette on the ground.
    Shit, not only was I trying to corrupt the kid with cigarettes, but I was scaring him with fire.
    “Sorry. Here, let me light it up.” I picked it back up and lit it myself, then grabbed his hand again and arranged his fingers in the right holding pattern.
    His skin was oddly smooth…or maybe that was from the thin coating of dirt still on it.
    He lifted the cigarette to his face, sniffed once, then deposited it cherry-first into the ground, smashing out the embers.
    “What the hell? Why the fuck did you do that? If you didn’t want it I woulda smoked it. This one box is all I got!”
    Interestingly, Seb didn’t flinch at my outburst. So fire freaked him out, but not yelling.
    “Hey, kid…you deaf?”
    He stood and offered me his hand.
    I glanced up, confused, until the back door squeaked open, followed by Ms. Loretta’s holler. “Lights out!”
    Shit. I quickly buried both cigarettes in the ground, then let Seb pull me up.
    He was a lot stronger than he looked. Our chests almost collided, and standing close like that I could see he was actually an inch or so taller than me. Maybe I shouldn’t have been calling him ‘kid’.
    “Fine. I’ll go in tonight…but if this shit gets any worse…I’m outta here.”
    Almond eyes narrowed on me before we turned toward the house and headed inside.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 7: Not Me
     

     
     
     
    “Move it.”
    Dwayne rushed past me in the hallway, shoving me against the wall. Why the hell was he in such a hurry?
    If I went any slower, I’d be going backwards.
    The younger boys were gone already—Ms. Cecily drove them to school before heading off to work—but Ms. Loretta was still there to watch my every move. She’d forced me up with everyone else to water some fucking plants and eat a bowl of cereal, and now we had to leave early so Seb could catch the short bus to his special school.
    I dawdled for a few more minutes, holding on to the impossible hope that Suzie would show up and fix this mess for me. Or my mother, maybe. Where the hell was she?
    “You best pick up your pace, Alex.” Ms. Loretta crossed her arms, standing a few feet in front of me.
    I choked back my immediate desire to counter with, or what?
    She’d have an answer to that, and it’d probably involve scrubbing, sweeping, dusting or mopping. That was all I seemed to have done in the past couple of days while Suzie worked on enrolling me at the new school. I had a sneaking suspicion Ms. Loretta had become a foster mother for the free labor.
    Swinging my backpack over my shoulder, I increased my speed only the tiniest bit. Couldn’t let her have that much control over me.
    Brandon and Dwayne were waiting for me outside the front door. I got a dirty look from Dwayne and a smug one from Brandon before we started off together, with Seb trailing a few steps behind.
    My first real trip into the neighborhood, and it had to be to fucking school. Not that there was all that much to see in this part of LA, an area unimaginatively named Mid City. I guess the houses we passed were kind of cool, if you ignored the bars on the windows and the jalopies parked