Page 126 of Savior

As if she knows where my mind is plunging, Mama stands and beckons me toward her, opening her arms for another hug.

“Come. Help an old woman cook dinner, yes?”

She doesn’t need help.

I do.

And she knows it.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

SLOANE

The sounds of the night surround me. There is laughter from a couple as they snuggle closer into one another as they see me leaning against the storefront. I know what I must look like.

Mom’s entertaining again; who knows how long the party will last? I’m unkempt, hungry, and afraid to go home. I don’t want to have a run-in with any of her Johns.

Not again.

The last time, she’d barely kept one of them from raping me. She thought he would’ve gotten my virginity. She said as much when she tugged him off and threw him out—wanted me to praise her for doing what was decent. All because she let him go without collecting what she was owed.

So then, I owed her.

It’s always that way with her.

With her kind.

The narcissistic.

“They need to clean this area up,” a passerby tells her husband. Loud enough that I could hear her, but veiled enough to make shame stretch inside me.

I helped at the shelter downtown today. It doesn’t pay much, but it’s a job. There aren’t many places that’ll allow a street kid to work, not when sometimes you don’t look the best, smell the best, or have the best clothes.

This world is materialistic on its best day. Downright fucking rude at its worst.

A throat clears, and the hand waving a sandwich before my face is one I know well.

With a gold pinky ring on his stout finger, Giovanni looks down at me with an annoyed glint.

“How many times do we have to do this, kiddo?”

I snatch the sandwich from him, too hungry to argue over the gesture.

“I’m not dancing. That’s how she started. I won’t do it,” I answer sternly.

“Yeah?” He crouches down, coming at eye level with me. “And what happens when winter shows up? When your teeth are chattering, and your bones ache? When your belly is hungry and your soul is weary? The streets aren’t the place for you, beautiful.”

His words echo through the chambers of my heart, making the lining feel too thick to beat. “And I’m meant for a stage? That’s what you think?”

I sink my teeth into the sandwich, ripping a massive bite off and chewing the best I can.

Reaching into his pocket with a sigh, he tugs out a water bottle.

“No. But I think you’re meant to survive—at any cost. I can see it in your eyes, kiddo. You just need a place to kick off from, somewhere to start your journey.”

I swallow, uncapping the water and gulping it down. I don’t think I realized how thirsty I was before.

Pity grows in his eyes like a rose beneath the sun’s rays. I can’t stand to see it.

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