TW on child abuse

Sloane Briallen

My relationship with Mikko had always been complicated.

For a lot of people, trauma hardened them. That was how Annie and I were. We kept everything inside and didn’t let anything get to us. We were prickly and hard, and we kept everyone at an arm’s length. It was how we had bonded. You can’t get hurt if your shell is airtight.

Mikko was soft and squishy and sensitive. He cried at Disney movies. He liked to snuggle unprovoked, unbothered by my elbow in his ribs. He hid behind me and Annie whenever there was anything serious going on. He trusted people.

I was an asshole the first time we met.

It was an alley in downtown Phoenix, close to Van Buren Street, early in the morning. Dawn was starting to creep up and sex workers were wrapping up their night to go home to sleep the day away and wait for nightfall. I’d seen a few drug dealers out and about too, but they were going home as well.

I frequently took this alley as a shortcut from Van Buren to a bus stop that would take me back to Mira. I was meeting Annie for the ride back.

The buildings on either side of me were mostly offices—bail bondsmen, lawyers, accountants. This was just on the edge of downtown before things turned seedy. It probably said something that there was a bail bondsman next to a lawyer’s office.

Industrial-sized dumpsters were lined up along the walls down. It wasn’t the best smell, but it didn’t smell like decaying food like it did outside of restaurants. It was just a vaguely harsh, moldy smell.

He was on a damp cardboard box next to an overstuffed dumpster, obscured by a couple bags of trash that hadn’t fit inside the dumpster. He’d tried to hide, but when you’re homeless, you could tell the signs of other homeless people.

He was barely more than skin and bone. He looked older, maybe thirteen or fourteen, but he was probably younger. Homeless kids always looked older than they were. He was probably younger than me. Maybe ten.

He was asleep when I found him, curled up on a bed of flattened cardboard boxes. He had dull, tar-colored hair in matted patches all over his head.

I kicked the dumpster next to him, a clanging noise cutting through the muted city noises around us.

He jumped, sitting up suddenly. As he did, I noticed scarring on one side of his face, by his ear. I couldn’t see past the matted hair too well, but the purple scarring was angry against his seashell-colored skin.

He locked dark eyes with me and tensed. His hands clenched, and his shoulders shook. It was pretty warm outside; he wasn’t shaking from the cold.

He reminded me of a small dog, like a chihuahua, shaking in fear as he stared at me. Anger flared in my chest. I wanted to kick him. I hadn’t even done anything or said anything, and he was already shaking? I wanted to give him something to be afraid of.

“Why are you shaking?” I sneered at him, stepping forward and looming over him. “What’s there to be afraid of?”

He stared up at me with wide, frozen eyes. I could see him weighing his options. Did he run and risk me chasing him? Did he risk aggravating me? Or did he stay here and take whatever shit talk I would dole out?

I feigned a kick at him, and he flinched away violently. My disgust just rose up.

“Ain’tcha gonna fight back?” I demanded.

He hazarded a glance from behind where his hands shielded his face.

I bent down and grabbed him by his arm, hiking him up to look at me. He hissed out in pain as I did. “Stop shaking, you pussy!” His arm was hard beneath my grip, just bone.

He still didn’t say anything, staring at me with wide eyes, trembling.

“Sloane!”

I glanced back to see Annie walking from the same entrance I had come from.

“What’re you doing?” she wanted to know, looking between me and the boy.

“He won’t talk and he’s shaking,” I replied, shooting him a disgusted look.

Annie sighed. “Sloane, leave him alone.”

“Why?” I’d have though Annie would be the first to jump at this opportunity.

“Just leave ‘im alone.”

I rolled my eyes and let go of him. He slumped back down on his butt, still shaking like a leaf.

Annie crouched down in front of him. “Are you okay?”

He blinked at her. The shaking eased ever so slightly, which just served to piss me off more.

“Annie—” I started.

“Shut up, Sloane,” she cut me off, giving me the finger. She leaned over. “Come on.” She took his hand and helped him up.

Looking between the two of them, frustration and embarrassment warred inside of me. I had thought Annie would be on my side. But she wasn’t. And now I felt like an asshole.

“Whatever,” I growled, turning from them to continue down the alley.

I was so mean to him in the first few months I knew him. He hardly talked and he stuck to Annie like glue. I was twelve when we met. I didn’t understand how he could be so soft and gooey. He was afraid of everything, absolutely insufferable.

It wasn’t until he started doing coke when were just out of our preteens that anything changed.

It’s funny. People don’t realize how often it happens that kids get hooked on drugs. Young kids. People won’t believe you, but I’ve seen nine-year-olds smoking weed and doing crack. It’s more common in poverty.

It had been weeks since I had seen him. The coke habit had started maybe a year before. Annie, Mikko, and I all tried it at a party and while it hadn’t stuck with Annie and me, Mikko had been hooked immediately. He would disappear for days at a time. Even without Mira’s ability to read minds, we knew. We’d seen the behavior before in Mira’s mom.

He lied to us, borrowing money with no intention of paying it back. I even caught him taking some of Mira’s mom’s jewelry to hock it. It wasn’t until he pawned a necklace Mira had gotten from her grandmother, breaking Mira’s heart, that I lost my absolute shit at him. He hadn’t come around since.

Annie was worried and dragged me into searching for him with her. There had been a recent rash of coke ODs because of something they were cutting the coke with.

I was the one who found Mikko at a party at his drug dealer’s house doing a line of coke off a counter littered with beer cans. He had been so high he hadn’t even recognized me. I hauled him out of there and told his drug dealer if I ever found out he gave Mikko coke again, I would break him in half.

Little Ray had been stupid enough not to take my threat seriously. He walks with a limp now. I’m not above using a crowbar to get my point across.

I didn’t want Annie finding him, and I didn’t want Genie or Frankie seeing him like that. Genie and Frankie had just started hanging out with us a few months before, and Frankie thought Mikko was the sun. They tagged along with him, and it pissed me off, but I’d already taken a liking to Genie, and Frankie was alright.

I didn’t take Mikko home. I got him some water from a convenience store and took him to a park not far from the party. It was dark and quiet. A couple of teenagers further down were playing on the jungle gym. I sat with Mikko on a bench, waiting for him sober up.

A coke high lasts only about fifteen minutes. And then after that your brain feels like it’s melting, and everything in your body is on fire. The aftereffects of cocaine are what make coke junkies do so much of it.

On the comedown, he tried to leave to go back. When I forced him to stay, he scratched the ever-loving shit out of me, and I had to pin him to the ground.

When he was finally sober and had drunken all of the water I got him, he was more human. I was able to let go of him without him trying to run.

He apologized for everything, but I wasn’t going to let it pass. And then he told me the story of his parents.

It’s not necessary to explain the things they did to him when he was growing up. It was too horrifying, even for me, and I’ve seen a lot. Starvation, neglect, physical abuse, mental abuse—the usual. It was all there. Until he was ten. That was when they cut off his ear in the middle of the night while they were high out of their minds, thinking they could sell it for more junk.

The state took him from the hospital. And in a lot of ways, that just made it worse. He was taken from his parents and put in a foster home. A rare foster home with warmth. A good foster home with loving, kind parents.

He lived there for a year. For a year he was safe and at peace. He was loved.

That was the worst part of it all. The story was already awful, but the fact that he had a sweet, caring family made it tragic. Like most kids with living family, he had been in a reunification program—the goal of which was eventually to go back to his parents. He hadn’t known that. He had been too young to understand, really. And why would he? They had cut off his fucking ear. In what world should he have gone back to them?

When his parents got back custody because they played nice, he no longer had a beautiful, kind family. He was back in the same, terrifying place. Being treated exactly the same except now, they made sure the bruises were covered. They didn’t do anything that got him hospitalized. They just got close enough.

He ran away two months later. He lived on the streets for three days before foster took him back. His parents lost custody for good, and foster put him in a home. Of course, he wasn’t put back in the same one. This new home wasn’t beautiful and loving. He was neglected by this family. They didn’t hurt him or starve him; they just ignored him. They had three other foster kids and only cared about the welfare check.

Mikko ran from there. He decided he was better off on his own.

We found him a month later, and from there, everything was different for him.

I never apologized to Mikko for my behavior. I just changed it. I was nicer to him. Annie and I began to spend all of our time with him to get him clean. Frankie found out and instead of rejecting Mikko, he insisted that he help get Mikko clean. Frankie was an angry kid, angrier than the rest of us, but he had hope beneath the anger.

It took months to get him clean. Two of us were with him at all times, sleeping in shifts and making sure he didn’t get to his supplier. He had two slips, but we kept him on the wagon after that.

During the time it took to get him clean, I was taken away from them for two months from November until the beginning of January. I turned fifteen during that time period. I came back, and Mikko was clean.

During the time I was gone, I was assaulted. It was why I came back. Mira found out, and Mikko was the only one there when she found out.

Mira was the one who convinced me to go to the free clinic to get tested for pregnancy and STDs, but Mikko was the one I allowed to come with me. He came, and he was there. He held me when I cried when the doctor told me I had gonorrhea and chlamydia.

Mikko and Mira were the only ones who ever knew I got the STDs. They kept it a secret and I never told anyone about it except for my therapist.

He stayed with me when I got shots and made sure I took my antibiotics to get rid of the infections. After I finished my treatment, he promised me he’d never get high again. If I could get through the sexual assault and suffer through a battery of tests, shots and oral medications that were daily reminders of what I’d been through, he could stay clean.

Mikko wouldn’t break his promise like that. Of all people, I should have known that. I had betrayed him.

I looked up at the sky. I could feel fear welling in my chest, making it had to breathe. It had been forty minutes.

I should have come back after Mickey and Bell disappeared. I should have come back and moved in with Mira and gotten a full-time job. I should have been here for them. I shouldn’t have gone on my selfish way and moved to St. Paul. If I had come back, I wouldn’t be a vampire.

But you would be dead.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to listen to that voice in the back of my mind.

You were dying when he sired you. He told you.

I shook my head again. I didn’t want to think about it. Things would have been different here.

Would they?

Yes. They would have been different. I wouldn’t have smoked so much, and nothing would be as it was. Annie would be okay, and Mikko wouldn’t have been kidnapped. I didn’t know about Genie and Frankie, but at least if their adoptive parents had died, I would have been here for them.

But I hadn’t done any of those things.

It was getting darker and darker as we passed midnight. The fear was growing in my stomach, getting heavier and heavier. What if she couldn’t find him? What if the hairbrush was useless?

Or even worse . . . Corvine wasn’t always the most reliable person. The auditory hallucinations made her forget things. She probably hadn’t even gone after him.

Mikko was probably dead.

There was a snap through the air like a firecracker going off, and I smelled ozone. I jerked around to see Corvine hunched over, chest heaving. Smoke rolled off her shoulders in waves, and her clothing was shredded. Her skin, where I could see it, was smeared with blood. I wasn’t sure if it belonged to her or not since there weren’t any open wounds that I could see.

She held Mikko in her arms. His clothing was in tatters, his skin mottled by cuts and bruises. Blood, dirt, and sweat matted his hair. One of his eyes was black, the skin around it purple and yellow, and he had cracked lips that were bleeding. If I hadn’t known it was him from the beginning, I don’t think I would have even recognized him.

But he was alive. He was breathing hard, and I could hear his heart racing, but he was alive.

I took him from Corvine almost before I knew what I was doing. “Mikko,” I whispered. My eyes stung. “Mikko.”

His head turned to me, squinting through his swollen eye. “Sloane?”

He was awake. I hadn’t expected that.

“Mikko,” I warbled. “Oh, my God. You’re alive.” The tension and fear in my stomach eased, the heaviness lifting. It didn’t completely abate, but it was enough that I almost felt dizzy.

“Sloane,” he said. He reached up and put his arms around my neck. He turned his face into my shoulder. “I knew it’d be you,” he whispered. It was so quiet and muffled in my shoulder that I almost didn’t hear it. “I knew you’d be the one to find me.”

Tears prickled at my eyes, and I looked up at Corvine. I could hardly speak over the lump in my throat. “What happened?” I choked out.

“He was inside of a metal room spelled with ridiculous amounts of magic to keep him in there. I had to kill a bunch of vampires, shifters, and a mage or two. But I got him.”

“Why are you smoking?”

“They had some magic on there that isn’t very friendly to the animalia,” she said. She held her hands up in front of her body and shook them out. As she did, her clothing changed. She still had black jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt, but they were free of rips. The only hint of what had happened was that she was still steaming.

“Why would there be magics against the bestia?” I asked. I tightened my hold on Mikko.

She shook her head. “There are some wards against fey magic that work on us. I think it was just a general battery of spells to hold someone inside.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. “Why did they have Mikko?”

“I didn’t stop for tea and cookies to ask the kidnappers what their plans were,” she snapped, shooting me an annoyed look. “I got in and out, and that was it. If you wanted me to ask questions, you should have said that before. As it is, I’m going home.”

I clenched my teeth. Right. I hadn’t been specific in my request. “Okay,” I sighed. I unclenched my teeth. “Thank you so much, Corvine.”

“We’re even,” she replied. Her gaze was like a laser, cutting through me. My skin crawled.

“Yeah.”

“For now,” she said.

Then she was gone.

I looked down at Mikko. His grip on me was tight.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“They didn’t break anything,” he said, finally looking at me. Those eyes. They were the same dark brown from when I had first met him. Scared and covered by hair.

I let out a shaky sigh of relief. “God, I was so scared.”

“Probably not as scared as me.”

I laughed bitterly. “And I was so angry with myself. I wasted so much time.”

“You thought I was using again.”

I wanted to deny it. I wanted to lie to him.

But I couldn’t do that. Not to him. “Yes. Fuck, I wish you’d been using. It would be so much easier to deal with.”

He shook his head. “Not for me. I preferred the pain. I’m clean, and I’m going to stay like that.”

I bit my lip.

“Put me down.”

“Are you—”

“They didn’t break anything. I ain’t stood up in days. They kept me tied up.”

I put him down gently. “It’s Tuesday. Going on Wednesday.”

He looked at me. “October?”

I nodded.

“So . . . they only had me four days.” He looked up at the dark sky. “God, it felt like forever.”

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I’m sorry for when we were growing up and I was so mean to you. I’m really sorry. I never apologized and I thought if I didn’t—”

He held up a hand to stop my word vomit. It worked. “We’ve always been okay. Shit happens. If I was upset about things from years ago, I doubt we’d be friends.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, the ache in my throat growing. He was right. I still felt heavy, though. “I’m sorry I thought you were using.” Tears spilled over.

“I can’t blame you for thinking I was using,” he said, giving me a small smile. “Because the reality was a lot fucking weirder.”

I laughed, my breath hitching. I wiped the tears out of my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I hiccuped, tears streaming down my face.

He looked at me. The smile was still there, sad and gentle. He wiped away the tears before wrapping me in his arms and pressing my head into his shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault,” he murmured into my hair. “Am I bummed you thought I was using? Yes. Am I surprised? No. You and I are okay.”

I hugged him back and it wasn’t until he gasped that I let go. I had hugged too hard. “Sorry,” I whispered, wiping more tears from my face.

“Enough sorrys,” he groaned. “Enough tears. We’re good.”

I nodded. I resisted the urge to say sorry again. Mikko was the only person who could elicit so many apologies all at once. And he was the only one who could lift my guilt.

I felt a little lighter.

“Alright, let’s try this,” he said. He tried to take a step forward. He wobbled and I caught him before he fell.

“I might need some help,” he admitted.

“No shit.”

He put an arm around my shoulder. He was shorter than me, so I had to stoop to meet him.

“You smell terrible,” I finally said, wrinkling my nose. He still smelled like laundry . . . but maybe molded laundry.

He snorted. “I’ll make sure to tell my captors next time that you disapprove of their hygienic policies.”

I smiled.

He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you,” he murmured.

I put my arm around his back to help support him. “Yeah.”

A musty stench hit me, and I froze. It was far beyond how Mikko smelled. This was strong and reeked like an unwashed animal.

“Sloane?” I heard Mikko’s heartbeat speed up, and he clutched me tighter with the arm around my shoulder. He sensed it, too.

I didn’t answer. My muscles itched to bolt.

A growl rumbled right behind me, and I just barely avoided claws that swiped down on my head. Mikko cried out as I shoved him away.

I spun away and had a split second’s view of red eyes and black fur before my head cracked against asphalt. Pain exploded behind my eyes.

Claws tore into my neck, heat tearing across me, and I finally reacted. I kneed the creature where I thought its stomach, or balls, or something would be. It didn’t pull away, but I heard a snarl of pain, and the pressure eased from my neck. That distraction bought my enough time for me to lace my fingers together and hammer-fist down onto the first bit of the creature I could hit.

I got lucky and hit something tender. It screamed out in pain and let go of me.

My head spun but I rolled to my feet. Move or die.

I finally got a look at what had attacked me and wished I hadn’t.

It was the biggest fucking animal I had ever seen, towering over me like a pick-up. It was like a bear with a pointed snout, standing on two heavily muscled front legs and two small, thin back legs. It looked like a terrifying version of that dog that used to give Tom Cat shit in those Looney Tunes shows. Its mouth was filled with rows of fangs dripping with saliva and blood.

Thick, coarse black hair brushed over heavy muscle. I had hit its trapezius, a tender spot no matter how much muscle was there. With the vampire strength, no matter that it wasn’t a full vampire’s strength, I had injured it, and it favored that leg now as it moved, staying out of arm’s length.

That was fine. My training was more Taekwondo than boxing. I had long since learned how to use my height to my advantage.

I heaved out a kick that caught the bearthing off guard and hit it square in the tender sides of its nose. It stumbled back, wailing in pain.

I turned to run, but I wasn’t fast enough. Snarling, it launched itself at me. I leapt into the air to avoid it, but it sunk its claws into my leg and brought me back down. I hissed out in pain, a high-pitched, breathy scream.

The thing bore down on me, snout broken, blood gushing freely from its nostrils. It howled a strangled cry of pain and rage and batted me to the ground. Pain seared through my arm as I scraped against asphalt.

Fuck.

I was dead.

Something jerked me from behind, and the bearthing and I both howled in pain. The bearthing had a claw in my leg that tore through me as I moved backwards.

The bearthing reared up on its tiny little legs and shook its whole body. As it moved, I saw what had pulled it away.

Bell was on its back, choking it.

I looked up to see that Mickey had been the one to grab me.

“You okay?” Mickey asked.

“Mikko,” I choked, looking to where I had thrown him. He was on his side on the ground, trying to get up. But his shoulder was unnaturally hunched. Had I dislocated it?

“Go,” Mickey said, gently pushing me towards Mikko. “We got this.”

I stumbled on my injured leg as he pushed me, but he was already running to the bearthing. His muscles shuddered beneath his skin, and he leapt at it. When he came down, he was a wolf the size of a motorcycle, covered in russet brown fur. His clothing was in tatters on the ground from where he jumped.

Bell stayed in his human form but together, they took out the thing in no time. They tore it apart like it was a third the size of what it really was.

I crossed the distance between Mikko and me, limping the whole way, and knelt down beside him. I was careful not to put too much pressure on my leg, even as I felt it healing. “Are you okay?”

“Dislocated shoulder,” he grunted, flopping onto his back. “What the hell just happened?”

I shook my head. “Maybe the assholes that had you sent something out after you?”

“It didn’t go for me. It went for you.”

I shrugged, holding my hands up as I did in a gesture of ignorance.

He glanced past me to where the wolves were fighting the bearthing. “Is that . . . Mickey and Bell?” He had met them a few times after I had been adopted.

“Long story.”

“Does this story also include why you’re a vampire?”

I froze. What?

“Sloane, I’m not an idiot,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me. “I knew something was up when you held me without an issue. I’ve always weighed more than you and you used to struggle giving Genie piggyback rides for too long.”

I couldn’t find the words to reply to that. He was right. But I hadn’t expected him to pick up on it so quickly.

The bearthing collapsed with a final death rattle, leaving Mickey and Bell standing. Mickey’s fur was slick with blood and Bell had healing claw marks on his arms.

“What was that?” Bell asked me, looking between me and the bearthing.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. But we need to get Mikko back to the house before anything else comes after us.”

Mikko piped up. “Can we pop my shoulder back in first?”

I looked back at Mikko. “Yeah, Bell, can—”

Mikko shook his head. “I’m sure Bell is very nice, but I would really rather you do it.”

His words hit me in the stomach like a truck. I hadn’t necessarily expected hostility from Mikko once he knew I was a vampire, but I also hadn’t expected him to treat me the same. I had expected . . . well, I wasn’t sure. But not this.

And it made me feel warm in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. It made my eyes sting and a lump settle in my throat.

He still trusted me.

I pressed my lips together and nodded. I didn’t think I could speak without crying again.

I steadied him against the ground and took his shoulder.

“On three,” he said. “One, two—fuck.”

I popped the shoulder back into place before he could say three.

“Bitch,” he huffed shakily. But there was a smile on his face, and it helped ease the lump in my throat and the sting behind my eyes.

I helped him up. “This is what you expected anyway.”

He didn’t have a rebuttal for that.

“How did you find me?” I asked Bell.

“Mira asked us to go after you just in case. We caught your scent while we were searching for you.”

I would have never thought to do that, but I was grateful that Mira had. I was almost always ready for a fight, but this time I hadn’t been. “Thanks,” I finally said. “I’m not sure I would have gotten out of this without you.”

He hazarded a slight smile, which wasn’t common for him. Bell mostly scowled.

He was offering an olive branch.

I wasn’t quite ready for it, but I also didn’t want to continue in this weird, awful limbo. Everything had been an absolute trainwreck since I had come back to Phoenix, and I hated it.

Finally, I said, “Let’s go. We . . . can talk later.”

Mickey’s tongue lolled out in what I think was a grin and Bell nodded, the smile still there. “Sounds good.”

I stood up. My leg had healed enough that it didn’t hurt to put weight on it. I moved to pick up Mikko, but he knocked my hand out of the way.

“While I love being carried like a princess,” he said, giving me a look telling me how much he absolutely was not loving it, “it is not the most comfortable position. May I suggest a cab?”

I smirked, shaking my head at him. “Sure.”