I barely took a breath on the entire ride over to my new home, but I watched from the backseat as the dirty city streets became clean neighborhoods. I couldn’t imagine any of my father’s friends living in such a nice place, but I didn’t let that deter me from the caution and fear that roosted in my center.
The car pulled up to a two-story brick ranch, and I swallowed the nerves that threatened to choke me. One thing I’d learned in my life was that looks could be deceiving. Just because a person or a place looked nice didn’t mean they were nice. I refused to let my guard down no matter what.
The lawn was green and rolling like something I’d once seen on TV. A flowerbed filled with happy yellow daisies surrounded the mailbox at the end of the drive. Hanging plants and wind chimes hung from the large porch, sending their sweet music into the air around us.
This place was a home.
Maybe my home.
It all depended on what I found on the inside. The yard was a shell—a show for outsiders—but I knew the kind of evil things that hid behind beauty.
I kept my head down as we entered the house, my shoulders stiff with anxiety and fear. My eyes remained glued to my feet as I took step after step into an unknown territory. My heart drilled inside my chest, and my palms were sweaty. The urge to run and hide was there.
What if whatever was hiding behind the elaborate wooden door was worse than the life I’d murdered?
What if I was trapped and couldn’t run away?
I began to shake, the emotions overcoming me so quickly I was afraid I’d shut down. I was drowning, my air being cut from my lungs and sucking the life out of me.
But once we settled into the center of the entranceway, I was welcomed by a friendly voice—a voice different from any other I’d heard. The soft manly tone with a hint of happiness and joy invoked hope and welcome, and somehow, it shocked the fear and anxiety from me.
“Hello, Tyson. I’m Mr. Palmer. It’s very nice to meet you, buddy.”
The treatment I’d endured over the years had taught me not to trust, and even though I was feeling okay with the sounds around me, I didn’t even trust myself. The uncertainty of the situation was there, even if I was starting to relax.
I didn’t look up at him, but still, the friendly man continued to speak to me.
I nodded and shook my head in response as he told me about my new room and new school—as he told me about how great it was going to be to have me there.
I wasn’t fooled.
If nothing in life was ever good, how could anything in life ever be great?
I didn’t bother to look up as the man introduced his wife and their son, their voices just as kind and welcoming as his. But when I heard her tiny voice for the first time, something inside me sparked and came to life.
It was as if a bolt of electricity had struck me—shaking me so intensely that my insides scrambled, and I no longer knew which way was up and which way was down.
The robotic boy I’d lived as suddenly felt something deep inside that had nothing to do with fear and pain. A light had shined down on me, heating my insides and leaving me breathless in a whole new way. For the first time in my life, I felt real contentment and delight—I felt at ease.
“And my name’s Nicole,” she’d said.
Her voice was soft and sweet … welcoming. It reminded me of the wind chimes on the front porch—sweet music to my ears.
My head rolled back on my neck so I could look at her, and when I did, my entire world shifted. The boy I’d always been changed with that brief encounter. I’d always lived for the second, worrying only about myself and my survival, but looking back at me was an angel—an angel I knew I’d spend the rest of my life trying to protect.
She was small and pale. Her long blond hair was loosely braided and hung over her right shoulder. Blue, sparkling eyes glittered back at me, and she was smiling as if she was happy to see me.
No one had ever looked at me like that before, and a feeling I didn’t understand spread through my body, shocking me and burning differently from any cigarette that had ever touched my skin.
I’d known darkness—I’d touched it with my bare hands. Abuse had been my life for as long as I had memories. I’d been hit, burned, manhandled, and touched in places I was just learning the names to, but once I met Nicole Palmer, I learned a new meaning of the word torture.
I never knew torment could be so sweet.
ONE
Nicole Palmer
I’D LOVED TYSON Payne since the day he became a part of my family. His father, a friend of my dad’s from high school, had dropped dead from an overdose, leaving his twelve-year-old son with no one to care for him. My father was contacted as next of kin for some reason, and he and my mother gladly took Tyson in.
He came to our home with his head down, beaten and defeated by life. Dirt smudged his olive-toned skin, and his clothes were tattered and too small for his growing frame. His hair was dark as night and hung long over his face. He was scary, but when he looked up and his midnight eyes connected with mine, I saw so much more.
I saw what Tyson really was.
He was beautiful. The way a jagged icicle ready to fall and pierce your heart could be beautiful. He was tragic, with heartbreaking memories that hid behind his gaze and taunted my curious nature. To know everything about Tyson was my ultimate goal, but getting past his steel exterior proved to be fruitless.
And that was our life.
From the time he arrived when I was eleven, we grew up together; he took his place in our family without allowing himself to actually become a part of the family. He’d never said so, but he always thought of himself as the outsider. He took that role to heart—the outcast—brimming along the edges of our lives while living under the same roof and abiding by the same rules.
He never allowed my parents to do much of anything for him yet pushed to do everything he could for them. As if him being there wasn’t enough. Like he needed to prove he was worthy of my parents and their love.
He was the shadow of our family, always walking a few steps behind and darkening the halls of our modest home.
Coarse and quiet.
Hard and soft.
He was everything to me, and the more our minds and bodies matured, the more diverse he became—transforming from a scrawny boy into a large, beautiful man before my eyes.
A bad boy.
That was what the girls at Bennett High School called him, and I could see where they got the name since he was in the principal’s office at least twice a week for fighting. I’d been told a lot of his fighting had to do with me and defending my honor, but I was sure his issues with being touched also contributed.
It was strange.