Soul Screamers Volume Two

  “Sabine...”

  “Houses have yards. This is a parking lot.”

  May as well have a barbed wire fence or a metal detector at the door; the effect would have been the same. Everyone knew about Holser House, and the Holser girls. Whores, junkies, and thieves in training, biding their time till they turned eighteen and were officially booted from the Texas Youth Commission with a sealed record and a prayer.

  “It’s only for six months,” Navarro insisted, and I rolled my eyes at his optimism. Six months was the minimum stay, maximum to be determined by the director. “Better than the alternative, right? You can wear your own clothes and go to public school when the semester starts. And when you turn sixteen, they’ll let you get a job, if you’ve been playing nice.”

  But I would only be there when I turned sixteen if I decided not to play nice. So much for optimism.

  I turned to look at him as my fingers curled around the door handle. “Can I go in alone, or am I still under escort?”

  He gave me a strict, parole-officer frown. “There’s paperwork....”

  There was always paperwork. You can be sure you don’t really exist when you’re known by a case number, instead of a name.

  “Sabine, do not run away from Holser. This isn’t prison, but you’re still in state custody. Running away is considered escape, and you do not need an escape charge. Next time it’ll be Ron Jackson.”

  The Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex. Navarro says it makes the detention center look like kindergarten, and four days in juvenile detention was plenty of time for me to remember that I hated orange jumpsuits and institutional food.

  “I didn’t run away.” I’d just missed curfew. By seven hours. Evidently a grievous violation of my parole, even without the additional status offense—underage drinking.

  “David reported you missing.”

  That’s because my foster so-called father was a dick. “Whatever.”

  Navarro sighed. “Look, Sabine, I’m trying to help you. I had to call in a favor to get you placed here. They don’t usually take violent offenders.”

  “I’m not violent,” I insisted, but Navarro only rolled his eyes. We’d agreed to disagree on that one.

  “If you don’t take this seriously, there’s nothing else I can do for you.”

  He wanted to help me. He might even have believed me if I’d explained about missing curfew. That Jenny was out of town, and I didn’t want to be alone with David, because he might decide to do more than look, and if that happened, I’d have to hurt him. Then I’d be in Ron Jackson for sure. With the actual violent offenders.

  Because even if Navarro believed me, the rest of the system wouldn’t. They’d never take the word of the troubled teen parolee over the upstanding foster father, because then they’d have to admit that their system didn’t work, and a broken system was better than no system at all. Right?

  “Promise me you’ll stay here. Just ride it out for a few months, then you can go home.”

  Assuming the Harpers would take me back. Not that I cared about them, but another new foster home meant yet another new school, and then I couldn’t see Nash...

  But I refused to follow that line of thought.

  “Promise me, Sabine.”

  I looked up, meeting his dark-eyed gaze, studying him for the millionth time. “Why do you care? For real. You’ll still draw a paycheck even if I choke on my well-balanced, state-mandated group dinner.”

  Navarro exhaled again, and the weight of the world slipped a bit on his shoulders. “I don’t want to see you waste your life.”

  That was a lie, yet very close to the truth. He wasn’t afraid I’d never reach my full potential—he was afraid that he would fail me. Or one of his other girls. That he would drop the ball, and one of us would wind up dead.

  Oddly enough, his was a fear I’d never felt the need to exploit. At least, not while I was the one benefiting from his efforts.

  “You ready?” Navarro asked.

  I opened the door and stepped out of the car. Fort Worth was sweltering, even at 10:00 a.m. on an early June morning. Navarro slammed his door and circled to the back of the car, where he popped the trunk and lifted out my two suitcases. I took one, then followed him inside.

  Holser House felt sterile and blessedly cool after the blinding heat outside, and my sweat quickly gave way to chill bumps. When my eyes adjusted, a long white hallway came into focus, the tight throat of the beast that had swallowed me whole.

  It would choke on me, sooner or later. Just like the holding houses, foster homes, and the detention center. I was indigestible by Texas Youth Commission and social services. Eventually, they all realized something was off about me. Fortunately most humans lacked the ability to interpret that feeling of wrongness; all they would know for sure was that I didn’t belong.

  At the end of the hall, I saw a waiting-room-style couch and the corner of a chair in the common room, flashing with the bluish-white glow of a TV screen. Though if anyone was actually watching it, I couldn’t tell.

  “In here.” Navarro opened a door on the left and led the way without touching, like all well-trained employees of the state. Care from a distance. From across that vast gulf where lawsuits breed.

  The office was lit by fluorescents and the glow of a computer screen aimed away from us, while the window was tightly covered against the Texas heat. A large woman sat behind the desk, but she stood when we entered. The nameplate on her desk read, Anna-Rosa Gomez, Director.

  “Cristofer, you’re early!”

  Navarro smiled and shook her hand. “We could come back later, if you want....”

  “Of course not. This must be Ms. Campbell?”

  Good guess. Might have something to do with the edge of my file, sticking out from under the pile on her desk, probably slid there as we’d walked into the building.

  Navarro nodded and gestured for me to shake the plump hand the director held out.

  I studied Gomez first, taking in dark eyes, the firm line of her jaw, and the patient, steady hand waiting to grip mine. She looked decent enough. But you can never really know a person until you’ve seen what scares her.

  I set my bag down and took her hand reluctantly, bracing myself for the sensory onslaught.

  A white wall. A tall, amorphous shadow. The darkness coalesces as I cower, lost in her terror. The silhouette becomes a man holding a bat. The shadow arm rises, and I recoil. I know this horror. It has dozens of variations, and I’ve felt them all.

  The shadow bat swings, and I flinch. Shadows have no substance, yet the first blow breaks my arm. I scream, awash in pain. The second blow fractures my skull. The hits keep coming, breaking bone after bone, but there are no words. No explanation, because I don’t deserve one. He is mad, and I am there. That’s all the logic there is.

  Then there is only darkness.

  Time lurched forward again, but I could only stare at the director with her hand clenched in mine, her fingers warm against my suddenly chilled skin. “Sabine, are you okay?” she asked, wariness peeking from beneath her mask of concern. I’d made her uncomfortable two minutes into our relationship. Might’ve been a new record, but one I was sure I’d soon break.

  The things that make most people’s blood run cold make mine burn with anticipation. They light a fire deep in my soul, which can only be quenched by a long drink of their fear, left vulnerable during the dream phase of sleep. But Gomez wouldn’t want to know that. She couldn’t have understood it, even if I’d told her.

  “Yeah. I’m good.” But she wasn’t. She was terrified he’d beat her to death, if he ever got paroled. She was probably right.

  I pulled my hand from hers and dropped my gaze to keep her from seeing the lingering horror. The reflection of her own fear. If she thought something was wrong with me, she might change her mind about taking me, and there were no other residence spots open. It was Holser Not-Really-A-House or Ron Jackson, and I would not go to jail.

  Not just for
breaking curfew.

  “Have a seat.” Gomez sank into her own chair, and I dropped onto one of the two chairs facing her desk, one foot on the cushion, hugging my own knee. Navarro sat next to me. “I have your file here somewhere....”

  “On the bottom,” I said, and Navarro glared at me. I ignored him.

  “Yes, thank you.” Gomez opened the folder and scanned the first page. “Says here you pleaded guilty to breaking and entering four months ago...”

  That was less than a month into my time at Jenny and David’s, and less than a month after I’d met Nash. But a month was plenty of time to decide that being near Nash was worth putting up with David.

  “I didn’t break,” I insisted, keeping the rest of it to myself. “I just entered.”

  “Sabine...” Navarro warned, and I rolled my eyes. The details might not matter to them, but they mattered to me.

  “Look, the back door was open, and I only went in to grab Tucker’s bat.” Unfortunately, the state of Texas considered that proof of my intent to commit a crime.

  Every now and then, they got one right.

  Navarro sat up straight, looking like he’d like to choke me. “Remember what we said about your right to remain silent? That applies even when you’re not currently under arrest. Ms. Gomez has all the facts she needs.”

  I shrugged. “She has the facts, but she doesn’t have the truth. Don’t you think she should know what really happened, if I’m gonna live in her ‘house’?” Especially considering she’d never really know what I was. Neither of them would. They’d probably never heard of a mara.

  Navarro sighed, then waved one hand in a “be my guest” gesture.

  I glanced at Gomez. “What else does it say in there?”

  She studied the file again. “You pleaded guilty to misdemeanor vandalism.”

  It was originally felony vandalism, but the prosecutor gave me a break. I was a first-time offender. As far as they knew, anyway.

  “It says you beat in someone’s taillights, fender, and rear passenger side window with a baseball bat, resulting in more than two thousand dollars in damages.” Gomez looked up at me with one brow raised. “Isn’t that a little cliché for someone as smart as you’re supposed to be?”

  What, did she have my test scores in there, too? I shrugged. “I’m fifteen. I have limited resources. Besides, I used his bat. That’s like poetic justice, right?”

  Her brow rose even higher. “Justice for what?”

  “Tucker—” In my head, I spelled his name with a capital F. “—gave me a ride home from school that day, but he pulled over half a mile from my house and said I couldn’t get out unless I worked off the gas money he’d wasted on me.” The prick had unzipped his pants and tried to shove my head down.

  “And how did you handle that?” Gomez closed the file and crossed her arms on her desk, focused on me now. She was good. She should have been a social worker.

  “I punched him in the junk, then ran all the way home while he puked.”

  I thought I saw a flicker of satisfaction on her face before the director remembered she was supposed to be firm and generally disapproving. “Did you report him?”

  “I fight my own battles.”

  “So you went back that night for his car...?”

  I nodded, though actually, I’d gone back to give him a nightmare he’d never forget, but Tucker wasn’t home. Fortunately, both his bat and his vehicle were. “That car was his weapon, and someone had to disarm him. I was doing society a favor.”

  Navarro groaned. Evidently I wasn’t showing enough remorse.

  Gomez cleared her throat and tapped her pen on my file folder. “You know, we have a system in place to deal with people like Tucker. But it can’t work if the crime isn’t reported.” She sat straighter and opened the file again. “It sounds like taking justice into your own hands was your first mistake.”

  No, my first mistake was getting caught.

  “But clearly not your last.” She spread her arms to indicate all of Holser House, and my presence in it. “You got probation on breaking and entering, and misdemeanor vandalism, which you violated last week with a missed curfew and underage consumption of alcohol.”

  I’d also taken forty bucks from David’s wallet, to pay for my drinks, but suddenly it seemed like a good time to exercise my right to remain silent.

  “You should know that missing curfew here constitutes an escape from state custody and will result in an additional charge against you. And likely a bed at Ron Jackson.”

  “So I hear.” I dropped my leg and sat up, glancing around at the plaques on her walls. “Are we done?”

  “Your foster mother has already signed the necessary forms.” And she’d left before I even got there. Not a good sign. “Mr. Navarro and I have some additional paperwork to complete, but you’re welcome to look around while we do that. I’ll give you the official tour when we’re done.”

  I stood and was halfway to the door when Navarro called my name. “Sabine...” I turned, but what he wanted to say was clear in his expression. Don’t screw this up. This is your last chance.

  * * *

  The living room—they probably called it the “common room”—was big and mercilessly bright. There were several stiff-looking couches and waiting room chairs, most facing an old-fashioned TV—the kind with a thick, curved screen—tuned to a Spanish-language soap opera.

  I stood in the doorway, watching. Trying to convince myself that this was home, at least for the next few months. Group meals, shared chores, full accountability. I can do this. Like there was any other choice.

  On the bright side, with twenty beds, lights out would be a virtual buffet. So many nightmares to gorge on, and with this many people to share the burden of my appetite, they’d never connect the bad dreams with my arrival.

  At least not consciously.

  Maybe I should have violated probation sooner. I’d practically starved with only David and Jenny to feed from.

  “Marina, if you don’t turn off this Latina drama shit, I’m gonna throw that TV out the window, and you with it.” A tall, thick girl about my age came in from the hall and dropped onto one of the couches on her knees, shoving her hands between the cushions. She had huge brown eyes, smooth dark skin, and deep hollows beneath sharp cheekbones. “Where’s the damn remote? I can’t take any more of this Speedy Gonzales babble.”

  “That’s Sharise’s drama,” a second girl insisted in a thick Hispanic accent, just outside my field of vision. “My show went off.”

  “Both of ya’ll shut up,” a third voice—obviously Sharise—snapped. “I’m tryin’ to learn Spanish.”

  “You’re not gonna learn to say nothin’ from this crap but ‘I’m pregnant’ and ‘I’m dyin.’” The first girl paused in her search and glanced over her shoulder at Sharise. “But you’re gonna need to know those anyway, right? That, and ‘I need another fix.’”

  “Whatever,” Sharise said, and couch springs squealed. “I’m done with all th—”

  “Hey!” the first girl interrupted, and I looked up to find her staring at me, now holding the missing remote control. “You the new girl?”

  “That’s what they tell me.” I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the doorframe.

  “Someone tell BethAnne she can come out of hiding,” she said, still studying me boldly. “We got another white girl. Looks like crime finally found the suburbs.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I kept my mouth shut.

  More springs squealed on my right, and I turned to find two more girls watching me from the second couch. “Hey, I’m Sharise, and that’s Marina.” The girl who stood and offered me her hand was older than I was—maybe seventeen?—and looked exhausted. Used up, but not shut down. She was shorter, skinnier, and darker-skinned than the first girl, and I braced myself for new fears as I took her hand.

  But all I got was a vague whisper of discomfort, like a chill up my spine.

  Sharise didn’t live in
fear. She held her personal terrors close to her heart, buried too deep to be read with the first casual contact. I respected that, but not enough to give her a pass. Secret fears were always the heartiest meals.

  Sharise shook my hand, then glanced over my shoulder at the girl still holding the remote. “That’s Elesha. She’s mean, but she’s just coverin’ her own insecurity.”

  “Yeah, and Sharise thinks she’s gonna be a psychiatrist, if she hadn’t already fried her brain.”

  “See?” Sharise lifted her brows, then shot a scowl over her shoulder. “Mean as a snake.”

  “I just say it like it is.” Elesha dropped the remote on the center cushion. “What’s your name?”

  “Sabine.”

  Elesha snorted. “You even got a white-girl name,” she said, and I shrugged. “What’d you do?”

  I didn’t have to say, and Gomez wasn’t allowed to. But acting like I had a secret would only make them more determined to figure me out. “Missed curfew and found a bottle of Jack.”

  “That’s it?” Elesha looked skeptical.

  I shrugged and sat on the arm of the couch. “I was already on probation.”

  Before they could pry any deeper, I heard footsteps behind me and turned to find Gomez leading Navarro out of her office, one hand on his arm. He stopped in the hall. “Sabine?”

  “What?”

  Navarro sighed. “Wednesday at four.” Every week like clockwork, I met with my parole officer when most girls my age were watching television or avoiding homework.

  I nodded. Then I grabbed my bags from Gomez’s office while she walked him to his car. When she returned, she gave me an assessing look, then nodded like she’d just made her mind up about something. “Okay, let’s get you settled in.”

  Gomez squeaked her way down the hall in rubber-soled shoes, and I followed with both bags while she showed me offices belonging to the assistant director and the events coordinator.

  Next came the meeting room, for all the rehab classes and group sessions. The sign hanging on the door read Substance Abuse Treatment and Prevention Education. I peeked through the window. Most of the girls looked bored.