Pretty Broken Things - Melissa Marr Page 0,47

“If you know where she is, can you tell her I’m looking for her? I can leave you my”—I pull out a pen and grab a business card from the store to write on—“numbers and email and . . . please?”

She accepts the card I extend to her.

“Thank you.”

She says nothing as she drops it in the trash.

24

Michael

The screams wake me. My first thought is that they’re not human. The next is that they’re coming from within the apartment.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please.” Tess is standing in the middle of the room. Her head is bowed, turned toward the bathroom. “I know better.”

“Tess?”

“I’m sorry. Don’t make me leave.”

I don’t see anyone else here; now I’m fairly sure that it was Tess who screamed. “What’s going on? Is someone here?”

She ignores me, staring toward the bathroom. “I can do it. I can. I’m good, Reid.”

“What?”

I walk to stand in front of Tess. The touch of my hand on her shoulder is enough to make her start screaming again. I flinch backwards. I’ve never heard a scream that comes close to this, not even in a horror film. It’s not a sound that any person should ever make—and it was my touch that did it.

She’s cringing away from me, crouched on the floor, shrieking. Nothing in my life has prepared me for this. I’m not sure a person can prepare for this. When she stops shrieking, I drop to my knees and crawl toward her. I don’t know what else to do. I can’t touch her if that’s how she reacts, and she’s not answering me. I’m not sure who she is answering, who this Reid is.

“I can do it,” she repeats between gasps. “I will.”

“Tess!”

“Please! Just don’t make me go home.”

“Tess, can you hear me?”

She stares, and even though her eyes are open and she’s speaking, I’m not sure she’s actually awake. I’ve heard of night terrors, but I thought they were something only children had. Maybe it’s a psychological break of some sort? Either way, I try to talk to her as if she were in either a nightmare or a hallucination.

“You’re in New York, Tess. Reid’s not here. Reid’s not here, Tess.” I sit on the floor in front of her, filling her entire field of vision.

For a moment, she doesn’t react. Then she frowns. “Michael?”

I nod, relieved. I can’t call the police, an ambulance, but I can’t just write this off as a nightmare, either. What do you do when someone loses their grip on reality? I push away my worries and reassure her: “I’m here.”

She stares, shakes her head, and insists, “You need to go. Reid doesn’t like it when I talk to people. I can talk to the pretty girls, but . . . he won’t want me to talk to you.”

My relief disappears as quickly as it had come. Anger flows in, despite my attempts to be kind, and my voice is harsh as I tell her again, “Reid’s not here, Tess.”

She looks away, and that’s it. She’s gone. Her moment of lucidity passes. She’s whimpering again. “Where is he?”

I’m not prepared for this, not prepared for the parts of Tess everyone warned me about. I don’t know who Reid is, but I know this is the secret she’s been hiding. Reid is the reason she didn’t want to leave New Orleans. He’s behind her scars.

A domestic violence case isn’t nearly interesting enough for my book. The thought comes unbidden in the moment. I thought she was my sparrow, my start of a story that would prove that I’m more than a one-book-success. Domestic violence, though? That story has been written too often. Despite how heinous it is, it doesn’t shock readers anymore. I’m not sure it even shocks people when it’s real.

“Come back to bed, Tess. Reid’s not here. It’s just us. In New York. We came here for a holiday.” I keep talking as I take her face in my hands and make her look at me. “Reid isn’t here.”

Again, she stares at me in confusion before replying, and I almost wonder if the whole thing is an act—until I recall those screams. I cannot even begin to fathom what would cause a person to make such a horrible noise. I think back to the scars that twist through the tattoos that cover her body. The scars were there before the ink.

“Don’t touch me,” Tess says softly. “I still have their blood all over me. People will ask questions if you go