“Nope.” There’d be no system for them. If the Braydens didn’t land the Doe siblings, Jo and Thaddie would be separated.
Docs had diagnosed her with scary-sounding disorders and disabilities; Thaddie was in the ninety-ninth percentile of everything good.
Her eyes and skin were jaundiced. Thaddie was pink-cheeked and bright-eyed. Every time she pulled down her hoodie, more of her hair would fall out. His was curling down.
Inside and out, she was as bad and defective as Thad was good and perfect. The only thing the siblings had in common was the color of their eyes—hazel irises with blue flecks.
“If you come to our house, it would be for good.” MizB looked fiercer than Jo had ever seen her. “We’d never let anyone take the two of you from us. We’d be a family.”
Jo’s opinion of the woman rose a notch. Still she said, “Are we done yet? For fuck’s sake, woman, feed us.”
MizB glared, but she did unpack the basket. “You need to be in school.”
“It didn’t take.” Jo couldn’t read. Kids caught on. Her awkward attempts to make friends had turned into scrapping, a pastime she preferred to do outside of a structured environment.
Jo had Thaddie; nothing else mattered.
In a kiddie bowl, MizB mixed pieces of chicken with mashed potatoes. Thaddie grew still, eyes locked on the grub. His stomach growled; Jo’s chin jutted. Mental note: Steal more gas station chow between baskets.
Wait . . . When they left for the Keys, there’d be no more baskets.
He was clambering for the high chair before the woman had even sprinkled cornbread crumbles on top of the chicken mash. She wouldn’t hand it over till he’d accepted a kiddie spoon from her.
“Like we taught you, Thaddeus.”
“We?” Jo snorted. “Two hands, ten fingers. What’s he need a spoon for?”
Once Thaddie was shoveling food into his piehole, MizB started back up again. “Mr. B. and I lie awake at night worrying about you two out here.” She and her hubby lived in the burbs. Ginormous yard. The woman had shown Jo on a map, then withheld barbecue until Jo could recite the address.
If MizB knew a fraction of what went on in these streets . . .
But Jo saw all.
The local gang lord was the worst. The street people called him the Wall because of his steroidal build, but also because he liked to screw his prostitutes from behind; in other words, your back was always up against him. Jo nicknamed him Wally.
He hung with a pair of brothers named TJ and JT. Because cleverness. The hookers named the older brother Knuckle behind his back since his dick was the length of a finger from knuckle to knuckle. The younger brother didn’t even merit a body-part nickname. The fourth crony was called Nobody. In other words: “Who did it?” “Nobody.”
Girls went into Wally’s crib one way, and after screams sounded, they stumbled out different. Whatever those four were doing in that house took the fight out of girls. Which was unforgivable.
Jo worshipped fighting. She dreamed about being a comic-book superheroine—just so she’d have an excuse to mess people up. With no superpowers on the horizon, she’d launched a one-girl guerrilla war, kicking the ant mound and running.
She’d started out small. Stick of butter underneath the door handle of Wally’s car. A little breaking and entering to slather his toilet seat with superglue. Then sand in the Monte Carlo’s gas tank.
She could stomach the risks, but she had a kid to think about. So why couldn’t she stop herself? It was as if some instinct was forcing her to target prey, stalk it, then hurt it.
She’d struck a much bigger blow last night, putting a stop to Wally’s revolving door of bad. She grinned.
When a car rumbled down a nearby side street, her grin faded. Waaaay too hot. She could feel the dragon’s breath.
“Come stay with us, Josephine. Just try it out,” MizB said. “There are only so many times I can watch you leave here before I do something.”
Jo went motionless. She gave the woman the same scary stare she’d given that dickwad foster dad, the look that got him to yank his hand away and back off. “You report us, and I’ll bust Thaddie out just like I always do, and I’ll take him so far away you’ll never see him again. We clear?” You’re already gonna do that, Jo.
How would MizB react? It’d probably break her. Which Jo didn’t care about. At all. Jo’s job was looking out for number one.
“I have no doubt. That’s why I stop my fingers from dialing Child Protective Services every day.”
“I am his mom,” Jo said, even as Thaddie shoveled the woman’s grub into his mouth.