I sat in Chase’s lap on the fainting couch, my back against his chest, his arms around my waist. My legs rested in Galen’s lap, where he rubbed my feet gently. Cassidy sat on the floor next to me, his hand gently holding mine as it hung limply. Aric sat across from us in a chair, looking peevish. Any woman in the world would have killed to be where I was right now, but I was thoroughly, abjectly miserable.
“I can never go home again,” I whispered. Tears flowed freely down my face. For once, I didn’t care who saw. My heart was in pieces, and nothing could put them back together again. “I can’t. Every time I walk through that door, we get mobbed by those… those things. And now I’ve brought the mob down on them too.” I wanted to sob. I wanted to scream and cry and punch a hole in a wall. But I couldn’t. I’d stuffed my feelings for so long, they couldn’t come out even when I needed them to.
“We’ll make this right. We have to.” Galen’s voice was gentle but firm.
I shook my head slowly. “It’s just… it’s just me. It’s always been like this.” I sniffled wetly. “I can’t have nice things.”
“Of course you can. They’re still there. We’re still here.” Cass squeezed my hand. “You’re not losing anyone.”
I bowed my head. “I’ve never done anything but lose people, Cass. My whole life, I’ve been losing people.”
“What happened to your parents…” Chase began.
I cut him off with a bitter laugh. “They were just the beginning.” I ignored the knot in my stomach, the one that always kept me from talking about my life. “You want to know about losing people? Let me tell you about losing people.
“My first placement, they didn’t care to learn my name. Called me ‘new kid’ until I thought it was my name. I was four. When I wouldn’t answer to Arysia anymore, my social worker, Rosa, took me out of the home. Then, there was the psycho bitch who beat me for being ‘a creature of darkness.’ I was a depressed five-year-old kid. Rosa yanked me out of there after six months of that. The next house, the Johnsons, yelled at me if I made noise. Any noise. Even talking. That’s when I started to learn to hide in the shadows. Better to be invisible. They shipped me off after a year and a half with no warning, just cram my stuff in a trash bag and away you go.” I saw Galen and Chase exchange a look I couldn’t read. Probably pity.
I didn’t care anymore. I kept going. “The next house. Mary and Terese. Damn them, they loved me. They loved me so much, they wanted to adopt me. And I loved them too. They gave me my own room, they gave me space when I needed space and love when I needed love. So they filed the papers, paid the money.” The tears gave way to sobs at last. “And the judge. The fucking judge said no. Because Terese was trans. Bad influence, he said. They were the first good influences I’d had. Rosa came to the courtroom and took me away.” I ugly-sniffed. “They gave me my purple backpack, so I wouldn’t have to carry my things in a trash bag ever again.”
That look again, this time between Galen and Cass. Fuck it. I couldn’t stop even if I’d wanted to.
“After that, I gave up hope. The next house, the foster parents’ kid beat the shit out of me for being a foster kid. Surrendered. Next house was crowded enough that no one noticed if I came or went. So I went. I went out a lot. Rosa pulled me out of the house when I got busted for being downtown at midnight by myself. I was eleven. The next family was decent. They even acted like they liked me. But I was too far gone to let them in by then. They tried to get me to focus on schoolwork, they tried to get me into sports, but after my taste of freedom at the last house, I kept sneaking out and getting into trouble. They gave up.” Cass shot a look to Chase. I was ready to snap at them, but my mouth kept going.
“Next house was a foster mill. Lots of kids. Puberty decided to hit, and one of the kids got handsy with me. I broke his wrist.” I laughed bitterly. “For some reason, I lost interest in boys for a while there.” Chase’s arms tightened around me. I heard a rumble in his chest. Galen gave my foot a squeeze. Cassidy caressed my hand. Well, I’ve gotten past that bit of trauma at least…
“Next house, elderly couple. Esther and Walter. They were sweet. They were kind. Then, Walter had a heart attack. Esther was struggling to take care of him. I tried to help, but Rosa pulled me out of the house.” I sighed. “Fucking Rosa. Next house…”
“How many houses were there?” Aric asked.
I started to snap at him, then realized he was serious. “About one a year, it averages out. Always the new kid in school.” I snorted softly. “That gets old fast.
“Next house is where it gets a little better. That’s when I met Kitty.”
“Was she… is she your foster mom?” Cass asked quietly.
I snorted. “I wish. No, my foster parents when I was fifteen actually paid me to leave them alone. I was wandering the streets of Southie at ten o’clock one Thursday and I heard music. Some bar called McKinnett’s. I tried to sneak in, but the bouncer busted me. So I went into the alley and listened in through the back door. The waitress popped out to throw out the trash and recognized me from school. That was Missi. She’d just started working there.” I chuckled and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “She snuck me in through the back door and stashed me in the storeroom so I could hear better, made me promise not to sneak any liquor. It became my regular Thursday night. Of course, Kitty caught me after a couple weeks. Instead of getting pissed off or throwing me out, she let me stay. I think she realized I had nowhere else to go and no one giving a shit about me, so she decided to fill the position. She’d talk to me about school, about my foster parents, about the bands at the pub, anything she could think of to get me talking.
“When I got bounced to my next foster home at seventeen, I kept sneaking out to McKinnett’s. I lucked out and stayed in the same school as Missi, so I had one friend. Kitty kept an eye on me, and I’d swing by to say hi to them both any night I could sneak out. Which was most nights, really. They didn’t give much of a shit.
“Then, my birthday rolled around. I got woken up at six in the morning by the mom, Heather. She told me to pack my shit and get out. When I went to pack some clothes, she said no, leave those. The next girl is your size. Just the stuff you came with.” Chase growled. Cass gasped. Even Aric looked a little taken aback. “Out the door with a granola bar and my backpack. I didn’t have a cellphone, didn’t know Rosa’s number. Not that she could have done much for me. At eighteen, you’re out of the system. No checks coming in, no foster parent wants you.
“So, I wandered around, trying to figure out what to do. I was terrified. I wound up slumped next to the dumpster at McKinnett’s, feeling like the trash that had gotten tossed out anyway. Kitty found me there, bawling my eyes out.” A wan smile crossed my lips. “If expletives could kill, my foster parents would have been dead many times over. She wanted to take a hit out on them.” I thought back to Kiernan Donovan. “I’m honestly surprised she didn’t. Anyway, she emptied out the storeroom that afternoon, with help from the regulars, and she went to Goodwill and furnished it with her own money. Even decorated it for me. She fed me. Bought me clothes, shoes, school supplies. She got on my ass about homework. She made sure I finished high school, said it was my rent. She gave me a job as a bar back, and that’s where I’ve been ever since.” I felt a catch in my voice. “And now I’m losing that home, too.”
Galen and Chase exchanged a long, lingering look.
“Okay, you guys have been doing that the entire time I’ve been talking. What the fuck?” I pulled my legs out of Galen’s lap and stood up, moving to a chair next to Aric. More looks exchanged. All four of them looked distinctly uncomfortable. Well, three of them. Aric just looked like Aric always did, mildly bored and a little pissed off that we were there.
Finally, Galen spoke up. “I can’t sit here, listening to you blame yourself for being moved around so damned much. I’m sorry, Chase, but I can’t.” He glanced at Chase, who glowered at him.
“Galen…”
I shot Chase a look. “I’m listening.”
Galen drew in a deep breath. “Mary and Terese didn’t lose the adoption fight because Terese was trans.”
My heart stopped. “Go on.” My voice was tight.
Galen looked down into his lap. “When your parents died, so did most of the Elder Council. It was a big, bloody fight and the void in the aftermath was chaotic.” He looked me in the eye, finally. “No one knew who betrayed them. No one knew who to trust. Rosa Chadwick was an earth dragon. She took you and placed you with the humans in the foster care system, then went radio silent from all of dragonkind.” He took a deep breath. “The Cult was after you, in a big way. And we didn’t know who in the dragon community wanted you dead. So she kept you on the move.”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to hit something. Instead, I sat there, frozen.
“They couldn’t let Mary and Terese adopt you. The Cult was onto your location. The judge was a water dragon, planted to stop the adoption. Terese’s gender identity was a convenient, if abhorrent, excuse to use.”
There it was.
He kept talking, but his words echoed distantly. “Rosa suspected that someone in a place of power was one of the conspirators, so she hid you even from them once you hit your teens. We honestly, truly lost you once you hit high school.”
“You ruined my life.” The words fell out of my mouth. “I could have had a home. I could have had a childhood. But no. I had to be ‘safe.’” I stood up, fury knotting beneath my sternum. “Safe from what, exactly? People who beat me for not having parents? People who tried to rape me? People who just didn’t give a shit if I lived or died? And even then, you guys lost me. Who was keeping me safe then?” I felt something trickle down my finger. A crimson drop of blood dripped onto the carpet. My nails had bitten through flesh. “You kept me safe from being loved. From being wanted. From feeling like I mattered a tiny goddamn bit to someone. Anyone. That, I found on my own. All alone. No dragon help there.”
“Sia, I…” Chase started to rise. I swung my hands out to my sides. Small shadows in the corners lashed out, binding the boys into their respective seats.
“Don’t Sia me,” I snarled. “Fuck you. Fuck you all.” I whirled on my heel and stormed out of the mansion alone.