CHAPTER FIVE
Tierney
Age fourteen, the night before the escape
“We should wait for my brother,” Tierney said.
She watched as Lyosha poured boot polish into a Styrofoam cup, using a twig to mix it with baby oil. Fire was crackling in the hearth of his father’s office. This wasn’t the first time she’d snuck in here, enjoying the warmth and a nice plate of food, but it would be the last.
Tomorrow, she and Tiernan would be gone.
If they managed to escape, Lyosha would lose them to freedom.
If they got caught, he’d lose them to death.
Either way, this was goodbye. She wished she could tell him she’d miss him. It was the least she could do.
“All right.” Lyosha extended the tip of the twig to the fire, letting the flame catch, before pushing it back into the cup, turning his makeshift ink into soot. “Drink more vodka.” He tilted his chin toward the bottle on the desk. “The first tattoo is supposed to be painful.”
She did as she was told.
She loved Lyosha but not in the same way she loved her brother. She was never shy or flustered around Tiernan. She also could not look at her twin and see past the fact that he looked so much like her, with his burgundy hair and green eyes.
Alex…Alex was…pretty. She sometimes caught herself wanting to rake her nails through the opulent crown of his rusty-gold hair.
More than once, she found herself studying his face with rapt fascination.
The elegant slope of his nose. The perfect shape of his red mouth.
His lashes, which started out dark but were lighter at the tips.
His beauty pleased her, and he was the only boy other than Tiernan she trusted not to touch her, not to hurt her.
Which was probably foolish, seeing as the only reason she was here, in this camp, was because Alex’s father carved her mother’s pregnant belly. He had stolen the twins and left their mother to bleed out.
Foolish because she could never trust another human—let alone one with a penis—other than Tiernan after everything she’d lost here.
Still. Alex fascinated her. And if she weren’t so broken, maybe she could have actually brought herself to like him, like him. Not just as a friend but as a boy.
Taking a swig of the vodka, she let the fiery sensation burn a path down her throat, passing it to Alex, who took a sip without removing his eyes from his handiwork. He was now pouring the ink into an empty toothpaste tube, his brows furrowed in concentration.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” she asked.
“No,” he said patently. “But we’ll figure it out. What’s taking Tiernan so long?”
She knew the answer. Tiernan was making last-minute preparations ahead of their escape tonight. Stocking up on food, clean water, and gas, making sure he had the keys to the car they were about to steal and the maps to the place they were headed.
“I—I don’t know.” She forced herself not to blush.
Looking for a distraction, she trudged to the desk and pulled out the Latin book Alex used to teach her and Tiernan how to read and write.
“What are you doing?” Alex looked up.
“Looking for the quote we’ll tattoo on ourselves.”
“I already chose one for us,” he said. “Audentis fortuna iuvat.”
Fortune favors the brave. It was good but not good enough for her to etch it into her very being for the rest of her life. Tierney shook her head. “I want something else.”
Alex made a face but didn’t argue. He had a mild nature.
Different from his father’s. She flipped through the pages, keeping her tears at bay.
Every few seconds, her gaze fastened back on Alex.
It was stupid, but she was paranoid he could read her mind and know what was going on, that she was about to run away and screw him over.
He was threading some sort of needle into the motor of what looked like an electric shaver.
Her eyes landed back on the page and collided with words that struck her like lightning.
Oderint dum metuant.
Let them hate as long as they fear.
She gasped.
Alex stopped what he was doing and looked at her. “What?”
“I found the quote for us.” She recited it, holding her breath, craving his approval.
Alex nodded seriously. “I like it. Where are we putting it?”
“Somewhere everyone can see,” she said. “The side of our necks.”
Tears rimmed her eyes, and this time, she couldn’t make them stop even if she tried.
Alex scowled, setting the toothpaste tube and razor motor down on the desk. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, wiping her face quickly. “Nothing.”
“You never cry.”
She didn’t want to lie to him but couldn’t tell him the whole truth, either. She settled for something in between. A truth, mistimed.
“I sometimes get overwhelmed with what…with the things…” She hiccupped, letting it all out now.
Alex barreled across the desk, snatching her by the arm and holding her arms firmly. “With what?”
“With the things that happened to me here,” she finished softly, gaze skating down to her feet. To the shoes that were too small, too old, too torn. She’d lost a toe a few years back. And she had lost other parts, inside herself, that were much more important than a piece of flesh.
There was a part of her—not a small one, either—that wondered what the point was in running away. She could never outrun all the things that had happened to her. She could never escape the memories.
Alex knew exactly what she meant and jerked her into his body in a firm hug.
He cupped the back of her head, his warm breath tickling her ear.
“You need to forget all about those things, Tierney. Shove them to the back of your head, to a place where no one—not even you—can reach them, and you move on. You don’t have a choice.
The only way to survive is to deny what happened to you. ”
“But it’s all I can think about.”
“Tierney,” he barked, pulling away and holding her face in his hands.
Alex never barked—rarely raised his voice—so the action anchored her back to the present.
“Listen to me carefully now.” His eyes held hers.
“You’re going to forget every single thing that happened to you.
You’ll bottle it up and soldier through.
Because you’re strong. Because you’re brave. Because you’re a Callaghan, goddammit.”
“Kiss me.” The demand was guttural, coming from a place deep inside her. “I need to feel something else.”
Something that wasn’t angst and pain and despair.
“Not tonight.” He thumbed away a stray tear, then rubbed the arch of her brow tenderly. “You’re upset tonight. Tomorrow, if you still want me to kiss you, I will.”
Tomorrow I won’t be here, she wanted to scream. And you’ll hate me forever for leaving you and taking your best friend with me.
“I won’t regret the kiss,” she whispered.
“But I will.” He tucked a piece of her red hair behind her ear. “I will never take advantage of you, Tierney. But one day, when you’re strong enough…” He left the sentence unfinished.
He reached down and pressed his lips to her forehead so softly, she had the oddest thought.
That he knew they were running away, and he still let them.
Sending them off with a gift more precious than matching ink.
A tattoo of hope.