Forbidden Fruit. Erica Spindler

yourself.” Santos dodged her blows as best he could, wincing as her fist caught him in the side of the neck. “Dammit, Tina, the stairs are—”

      “They’re coming…he sent them! He—”

      “He who?” Santos got a hold of her upper arms and shook her. “Tina, nobody’s coming. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Listen, they’re gone, the sirens are gone.”

      She crumpled against him, sobbing, shaking so badly he thought she was having convulsions. “You don’t understand. You don’t understand.” She curled her fingers into his T-shirt. “He’ll send them…he said he would.”

      After a while she quieted, then totally spent, went limp in Santos’s arms. He led her to a corner, to a mattress shoved against the wall. She sank onto it, curling into a ball of despair.

      Santos sat next to her, his knees drawn to his chest. “You want to talk about it?”

      Although she remained silent for a long time, something about her breathing, about the way she caught her breath every so often, as if preparing to speak, made him think she wanted to. Finally, she did.

      “I thought…they were coming for me,” she said dully, her voice drained of everything but despair. “I thought he had sent them.”

      “The cops? You thought the cops were coming for you?”

      She nodded and curled herself into a tighter ball.

      “But why?” Santos murmured, almost to himself. “You thought he sent them. Who?”

      “My stepfather. He’s a cop.” Her teeth began to chatter, and she hugged herself tighter. “He told me if I ever…tried to get away from him, he would find me. He said he would find me and…”

      She let the last trail off and Santos could only imagine what the man had promised he would do to her. Judging by her fear, it had been bad.

       Even worse than what he had probably already been doing to her. The bastard.

      Santos laced his fingers together. “I live with my mom. She’s pretty cool, but my dad was a real prick. He used to beat me. He’s dead now.” Tina didn’t say she was sorry; because she knew he wasn’t. Kids who had lived through hell understood each other without having to be told. “I guess your stepdad’s a real prick, too.”

      “I hate him,” she said fiercely, her voice choked with tears. “He…hurts me. He…touches me.”

      Santos’s gut tightened. “So, you ran away.”

      “It was either that or kill myself.” She pulled herself into a sitting position and looked at Santos. He saw by the expression in her eyes that she meant it, that she had considered death an avenue of escape. “I didn’t have the guts.”

      “Did you tell anyone about him?”

      “My mother.” Tina tipped up her chin. “She didn’t believe me. She called me a liar and a…a slut.”

      Santos swore. He wasn’t surprised by her story; he had heard it before. “How about a teacher, a neighbor, or someone?”

      “He’s a cop, remember? A real top cop, too.” She bit down hard on her bottom lip. “Who would believe me? My own mother didn’t.”

      Santos squeezed her fingers. “I’m sorry.”

      “Yeah, me, too.” She looked away. “I’m sorry I didn’t have the guts to take those pills. I had them in my hand, but I couldn’t do it.”

      “Don’t say that. I’m glad you didn’t.” She met his eyes, and he forced a smile. “It’s going to be okay, Tina.”

      “Yeah, right. It’s going to be okay. I have no money, no place to go.” She started to cry again and brought her hands to her face. “I’m so scared. I don’t know what to do.” She lifted her tear-streaked face to his. “What am I going to do?”

      Santos didn’t know, so he comforted the only way he knew how. He put his arms around her and held her for a long time, until she had cried all she could, until the room grew quiet as, one by one, others of the group left for the places they called home. Still, he held her, though he was aware of time passing. His mother would be home soon. When she found him gone, he would be dead meat.

      Santos made a sound of regret and drew away from her. “Tina, I have to go. I—”

      “Don’t leave me!” She clutched at him. “I’m so scared, stay a little longer. Please, Santos.” She buried her face against his chest. “Don’t go yet.”

      Santos sighed. He couldn’t leave her. She had no one, no place to go. His mother would have to understand. And she would—after she killed him.

      They talked. Santos told her about his life, about his mother and father, about school and living in the Quarter. She told him about her real father, about how much she had loved him and how he had died.

      Santos heard the pain in her voice when she spoke of her father, he heard the longing. For the first time, he thought of what it must be like to lose someone you love, how much it must hurt. He had been so relieved that his father was gone, he had never considered what it would have been like if it had been his mother taken from him.

       It would have been hell. He doubted he could have gone on.

      They talked longer, sharing their dreams, their hopes for the future. Finally, as exhaustion tugged at them both, he drew completely away from her. He searched her expression. “I have to go, Tina. My mother’s going to kill me.”

      Tina whitened with fear, but nodded bravely. “I know. You have to go.”

      “I’ll tell her about you,” he said, catching Tina’s hands. “I’ll ask her if you can bunk in with us for a while. I promise I will.”

      A cry escaped her lips, and he cupped her face with his hands. “Wait here. I’ll be back tomorrow.” He tightened his fingers. “I promise. I’ll come back for you tomorrow.”

      He bent and kissed her. She made a sound of surprise. It mirrored his own. He pulled away, gazed into her blue eyes, then kissed her again, this time deeply, eagerly. His chest grew tight, his breath short. Arousal kicked him in the gut.

      She slipped her arms around his neck; she pressed against him. “Stay with me. Please. Don’t leave me.”

      Santos thought for a moment of doing just that. He was already late, already in the biggest trouble of his life.

      “I couldn’t bear to lose you,” he’d heard his mother say just that night. She would think she had. She might have already called the cops, might have gone out to look for him herself.

      “I can’t,” he whispered. “I want to, but I can’t.”

      He pressed his mouth to hers, then freed himself from her arms and stood. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said. “I promise, Tina. I’ll be back.”

       Chapter 6

      Santos passed a shop that had a neon clock hung in the front window. Chartreuse light spilled through the glass, staining the sidewalk and his skin an eerie yellow-green. The clock registered just after 4:00 A.M.

       He was a dead man.

      Unlike earlier that night, Santos didn’t bother with stealth. He took the fastest, most direct route home, alternating between a jog and a flat-out run. Even the streets that were normally well-populated were deserted.

      As he ran, he thought of his mother’s fury and of how he was going to convince her to let Tina bunk in with them, especially in light of his behavior. And he thought of Tina’s mouth against his, of her fear and the way she had begged him to stay with her. He flexed his fingers, frustrated, torn between what he had done and what he could have done.

      He