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You sniff back blood, feel it leak up your nose down your throat, thick and warm, before you hack it up and spit it onto the concrete. All the shit your body's pumping into its veins is making your hands shake, so when you try to wipe your mouth on your sleeve, you miss and get your nose, a sharp heat searing your face, making you hiss and squeeze your eyes shut, pinch your nose like you can cut off the feeling to the nerves. Hold it in place and the cartilage will reattach itself.
A car door slams shut and your head jerks up so fast you nearly crack it into the wall behind you and finish the job those guys left behind. Cops, you think, looking up to see Bailey.
He leans with his hand against the car roof, the other in his pocket.
"Get in," he says.
Everything pumping through your veins insists you can take him. You just fought off two guys, what's one more?
You shake your head and set the world spinning on its axis. Day turns to night and day and night and day. It's going to be Sunday soon at this rate. "I still have time."
Bailey pops open the door. Just before he sinks into the driver's seat, he says again: "Get. In."
It takes a while. You have to flip yourself onto your hands and knees first, which pools blood in your nose, completes the cycle to Sunday, and there goes your last chance to run.
When you open the passenger door, Bailey holds up a hand. "Brush yourself off first."
You do, and only when you're free of dirt does he let you in.
"Don't get blood on the leather," he tells you.
"Wouldn't dream of it."
The door slams shut, cutting off the outside world and sealing you in a new one, a quiet one where Bailey and you are all that exist. Your breath is loud in your ear. You sniff again, sigh, claim your space.
Bailey sits with one hand on the wheel, staring at you.
"I got time," you insist, dabbing at the crusted blood beneath your nose. "Money's not due yet."
"Avery's waiting for you at the orphanage."
Your head snaps to him. Sunday, Monday. He slides his hand over his mouth, looking you over, head to toe. What he sees must be sectioned up like those drawings of how to butcher a cow, with a price for each cut.
"Here," he says, "don't move."
"What? Don't—"
He reaches for you. You flinch but he knocks aside your flailing arm and grabs your face, his rough palm against your cheek, warm, warm like it was when you were little and covered in sticky ice cream and still just as harsh.
You have two seconds of reliving your childhood before he presses his thumbs against your nose and pushes it back into place, and then you claim your space in this life with a scream.
"Jesus! Fuck!"
Bailey turns back to the wheel but still he doesn't put the car into gear. "How many was it?"
You touch your face where he touched your face, glaring at him. "Two."
"Nice job."
You take your hand off your cheek when it gets too warm, clear your throat. Food for a famished man, praise from Bailey, nevermind the fact that he's the one that starving you. You're full, elated. How can you be mad at the person that provides for you?
"Maybe you'd have better luck selling me to a fighting ring."
"Don't try and get smart. It's not your personality anyone pays for."
You look down at your hands, idly poking at the cuts and scrapes on your knuckles. Bailey shifts his weight and digs around in his pocket, coming up with a pack of smokes. Different brand from Whitney, and this pack isn't tattered and doodled on.
"Gimme one."
Bailey turns his gaze onto you, lit from below by the fancy metal lighter cupped in his hands. For a long moment, it seems that's all he's going to do, until he pinches out another cigarette and hands it over. Both of you lean over the console while he holds the lighter for you. Close enough to notice a scar below one of his eyebrows, you let your gaze roam over his face while he remains fixated on the flame.
"Avery is waiting for you," Bailey says, thick around the cigarette. He snaps his lighter shut with a flick and sits back in his seat.
You exhale a cloud of smoke. "You said. Why?"
He leans closer to you, just for a moment while he shoves the pack and lighter back in his pocket, then he finally puts the car in gear, checks the mirrors, and pulls away from the curb.
"You're going to be staying with her from now on." The turn signal clicks rhythmically and the car glides around a corner. "Congratulations."
"What? No I'm not," you say, like that'll be enough. Bailey doesn't bother responding.
You turn away and look out the window. If you opened the door and jumped out, you probably wouldn't die, not at this speed. In a town this small, it doesn't take long to get anywhere; you don't have much longer. You never do.
Bailey reaches for the dash and turns the radio on. Some asshole crackles through the speakers, talking about the game last night, about how unbelievable it is how much money these chumps make, but you're staring at Bailey's hand, sleeve pulled back, showing the edge of a tattoo. You have one on the same arm, tucked away beneath your jacket.
Growing up, you always liked his tattoos.
There's a memory you've never been able to place, sitting with Bailey—somewhere. On the couch, maybe, in the lounge, or on your bed, in his office—either way, you're close enough to drag your fingers over the lines on his arms, tracing them like you would trace the words when you read, your fat little kid fingers marking your place. It must have happened only once, probably when Bailey was passed out and couldn't push you away. Or maybe he was just nicer when you were little.
If he didn't have any tattoos, maybe you wouldn't either. If there was any blood between you, it's like they could be something that was passed down, flowers that bloom beneath your skin the moment you turn eighteen, but tattoos are the only thing you two do share. No blood, no reason for him to look at you other than what he can cut from your flesh.
"Let me work for you."
Bailey rolls down the window and flicks the cigarette butt onto the street. Only then do you remember yours and look down at the ashes on your jeans. You brush it off onto the floor, earning yourself a glare and a smack upside the head.
"You do work for me."
"Not like—you saw what I can do back there. I can… I dunno, fight or whatever. I'm not—"
"I don't need you."
For a moment you imagine putting your cigarette out on his eye. Or leaning over the console, unzipping his pants, and showing him just what you've learned these last few months. You ignore the tray in the dash and flick the butt out the window the same way he did.
"Then let me go."
Another smack.
One more turn and the orphanage rises up from the buildings around it, like a vampire's mansion at the end of a long and twisting road, except mundane and banal. It's just the place you've lived your entire life. Until now, apparently.
And there's Avery's car, sitting by the curb, all shiny and detailed. Dark like a hearse.
Bailey's car thunks over the gutter into the driveway. He puts it in park and shuts off the engine. You expect him to get out and order you to do the same, and you will, because he says jump and you say yes sir. But for a moment, then two, both of you just sit there, listening to the engine ticking as it cools off.
There was one week, a few ago, when you didn't have enough to cover your debt. The only thing you had left to offer was your body.
There's no blood between you, nothing that should make it wrong, but you felt bathed in sludge. The offer came out stuttered and flat. Joints creaked as you shambled across the room, no sashay or coy wink in you, just a bent spine and heavy hands.
Sometimes, you told yourself, you would catch him looking at you. And maybe it's just looking but some kind of black hole in you tries to pull it in, stretch it out, make it more, but it only ends up paper thin.
He didn't take the bait. Or you.
Miraculous, really. It almost seemed a kindness. Not wanting you had been the nicest thing anyone had done for you in so long, like here was someone with morals. Here was someone that saw you as more than a hole to fuck, a body to beat, someone who cared. What came after didn't matter; in that moment he was something special.
Even now, just giving you a break in his car instead of immediately shuffling you in to meet Avery, you could just about bend over the console and let yourself get rejected all over again. Because once you walk through those doors, you won't be.
"Avery is just one path forward," Bailey says.
You lift your heavy head. "What?"
He doesn't bother repeating himself, just pops open the door and steps out. You watch him walk around the car, his distorted reflection rippling across the hood, until he reaches the passenger side and opens your door.
"Get out," he says, and you say yes sir.