Fortune (19 page)

Her warning came too late. Chance swung around, fists clenched. As if in slow motion, she saw Kevin lunge forward, saw the glitter of light on metal as the blade slashed across Chance's middle.

Chance stumbled backward, a hand to his chest. A scream pierced the quiet; her scream. Blood seeped between Chance's fingers, staining his white T-shirt.

“Nobody flips me off,” Kevin said, advancing on Chance again. “Nobody threatens me, got that?”

“No!” Skye leaped to her feet and threw herself at Kevin's back. She clawed and kicked; she pulled his hair and dug her fingers into the side of his neck. The knife slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor; he swung around, catching her in the shoulder with his fist, knocking her backward.

Both Chance and Kevin dived for the knife. They struggled, rolling together on the floor. Kevin's hand closed around the blade's handle, Chance slammed his elbow on the other boy's right shoulder. Kevin's hand opened, releasing the knife, and Chance lunged for it. A moment later, he rolled to his feet, the weapon clutched in his right hand.

He stood over Kevin, panting. “Now who's the big man? Huh?” Chance kicked the other boy. Skye jerked at the sound of Chance's foot connecting with flesh. Crying out, she brought her hands to her ears.

“She's only thirteen, you son of a bitch. She's just a kid.” He kicked Kevin again. Moaning, Kevin rolled onto his side, arms curved protectively around his middle. “I could kill you now, you piece of shit. I swear I could.”

She had never seen Chance this way, had never seen anyone this way. His face was white and tight with fury, the veins in his neck bulged, his taut form radiated a frightening energy.

He
could
kill Kevin, she realized, making a sound of terror. He could do it.

He kicked the boy again. This time the force of the blow lifted Kevin off the floor.

Skye stumbled to her feet. She went to Chance and put her arms around him. He tried to shake her off, but she clung to him. “Don't, Chance,” she pleaded. “Don't…please. You can't. Let him go. Please…please.”

Kevin was blubbering like a baby, begging Chance not to kill him as he inched on his belly toward the door.

As she held Chance, as she begged, she felt the violence slip away from him. The fury. He began to tremble, his teeth to chatter. Turning, he wrapped his arms around her.

Skye buried her face against his chest. It was sticky from his blood; it smelled musky. He had been hurt, because of her. He could have died. What would she have done if she had lost him? What would she have done if he hadn't come home?

“I'm sorry,” she murmured over and over. His blood stained her hands, her ripped shirt, her cheek where she pressed it to his heart. “It's my fault, everything…my fault. I didn't mean it. Don't hate me, Chance. Don't leave me. Please…I'll do anything you say. Just don't ever…leave me.”

But Chance said nothing at all.

He just held her.

C
hance sat on the bed and watched Skye while she slept. Her head rested in his lap; she clung to him even in sleep. He touched her cheek and the ugly bruise that marred it. Emotion choked him, and he looked quickly away.

He had scared himself today. When he had seen that son of a bitch on top of her, he had gone nuts. He had wanted to kill the slimy bastard, had wanted to so badly, he had all but tasted it.

If not for Skye stopping him, he would have.

Chance shifted and winced, his hand going to his chest and the bandages that covered the long cut that ran diagonally across it. He probably should have had stitches, but stitches were a luxury they couldn't afford.

Especially now. Kevin had left with their rent money in his pocket.

Skye hadn't remembered until too late.

He had been angry, but not with her. With Kevin, their situation, with himself for not having been able to protect her. Especially that.

Thank God he had come home.
Old man Taylor had taken one look at him and told him to punch out and not come back until he got a grip on himself. Chance had tried to reason with his boss, but Taylor had been insistent. Thank God. If he had listened to Chance, if he had relented and allowed him to come back to work…

Chance couldn't think about that now. If he obsessed over all the things that could have happened, he would drive himself crazy. As it was, he might never sleep again.

Chance brought the heels of his hands to his eyes, and wished the four over-the-counter pain relievers would hurry and offer him some relief. His head throbbed; the cut burned.

His heart hurt more than either of those.

He loved Skye. He had realized just how much when he had come home to find that piece of shit trying to rape her. She was his family, his sister, his best friend.

He bit back a moan, gritting his teeth, the pain almost unbearable. His feelings for Skye didn't change the fact that they couldn't go on this way. Skye couldn't. She needed to go to school, to have friends, a regular family and a real life. The life of a thirteen-year-old. If nothing else, the events of the past days had proved that.

He needed a life, too. The one he wanted, the one he had promised himself he would have.

Chance breathed deeply through his nose, fighting the regret and doubt that ate at the edges of his determination, his certainty. He forced himself to focus on what had happened today, on what had been going on—unbeknownst to him—for weeks now; he imagined the future. Her future. His.

And what he imagined looked grim.

He squeezed his eyes shut, then reopened them, knowing the time had come to face the truth, to face what had been inevitable from the first.

He had to find a family for Skye. He had to leave her behind.

M
ichael and Sarah Forrest were kind people, former flower children who had gotten left behind as the sixties had progressed into the seventies, then had become dinosaurs as the seventies had become the eighties.

Sarah was a crafts artist, a jewelry maker, who taught adult-education classes at the Northern Illinois University there in Dekalb, Illinois, and sold her wares at crafts shows and local boutiques; a woman given to wearing round wire-rimmed glasses, like those favored by John Lennon, and long, flowing caftans. Michael was a farmer, a soft-spoken man with a quick smile and an aversion to both the government and all forms of violence.

Chance had found them through a want ad in the
Dekalb Farming News.
Michael had advertised for a summer field hand, someone with experience, someone who would work for a small wage plus room and board. He had, no doubt, expected a student from the university to apply; he had gotten Chance and Skye instead.

The farm was a modest one, not much more than an old clapboard farmhouse surrounded by fields of sweet corn. But it was pretty. And picturesque. The house had a sweeping front porch, complete with a swing; a creek ran along the edge of the property, land which was dotted with flowering fruit trees and shady maples.

Sarah and Michael had taken him and Skye under their wing, accepting their story about being an orphaned brother and sister, with no questions asked. For the first time since leaving Marvel's, Skye, Chance knew, felt safe. She was happy here.

He, on the other hand, couldn't shake a growing urgency in himself, an urgency to get on with his life, the feeling that something was out there waiting and if he didn't get about going after it, he would be too late.

So, he had decided. Sarah and Michael were the ones. Sarah was crazy about Skye. She would be a good mother; Michael a good father. They had no children of their own, and Michael had confided to Chance that Sarah's inability to conceive had been heartbreaking for them both, but especially for Sarah.

Chance descended the steps to the farmhouse's basement, where Sarah had her jewelry studio set up. Sarah and Skye were working at one of the benches, heads bent together as Sarah showed Skye how to solder a finding to the end of a necklace. Skye was fascinated with what Sarah did and showed an amazing aptitude for it.

He smiled. They hadn't been there a week before Skye had begun nosing around the studio. Sarah had been only too happy to share her knowledge and equipment with Skye; she had been blown away by Skye's talent. He had watched Skye blossom under the other woman's attention and admiration.

He was doing the right thing. She would have a good life here. She would have a good life without him. He wasn't cut out to be a big brother; he didn't want the job, he wasn't good at it.

He hoped Skye would forgive him. He hoped she would understand. If not right away, then someday. Leaving her would be for the best, for both of them. Someday she would see that. She had to. He couldn't stand the thought of her hating him forever.

As if becoming aware of his presence, Skye looked up, breaking into a big smile when she saw him. He sucked in a sharp breath, realizing how big a part of his life she had become. Realizing how much he would miss her.

“Look,” she said, holding up the necklace she'd been creating out of beads and pieces of pounded silver. “It's almost finished.”

“It's beautiful.” He smiled, looking at her rather than the necklace, thinking what a beautiful woman she would someday be.

“Sarah says I'll be ready to try the lost-wax casting process soon.” Skye all but bubbled over with excitement. “Maybe even this week.”

“Probably this week,” Sarah corrected, gazing affectionately at Skye. “I think you're ready. Your progress has been amazing.”

“Did you hear that, Chance? She said my progress has been amazing!”

“I heard,” Chance murmured, his last doubts fading away. He was doing the right thing. Skye would thank him one day.

Now it was only a matter of how he would do it. And when.

S
kye awakened with a smile. She sighed and stretched, loving the feel of the bedclothes around her. After some of the places she had slept over the last ten months, she would never take a real bed and real sheets and blankets for granted again. Never.

She turned her face toward the open window and the gentle, early-morning light. A whisper of a breeze stirred the antique lace curtains; it wafted across the bed, sweet and soft. Skye snuggled her cheek deeper into the feather pillow. The truth was, she loved waking up here, at Sarah and Michael's. She loved being here.

She and Chance had found a home.

They had found a family.

Skye curled up on her side, drawing her knees to her chest, listening to the song of a bird perched in the apple tree outside her window. The past two months had been so wonderful, she had almost forgotten the horrible events of those last days in Boyton.

Almost. For she would never be able to erase them completely. Even now, with her mind's eye, she could see the glitter of light on Kevin's knife as he had slashed out with it at Chance; she could see Chance's blood, brilliantly red, soaking through his white T-shirt. She could recall the way her heart had seemed to stop, her world with it. In that moment, she had feared that she had lost Chance.

Chance could have died. And she could have been raped; would have been if Chance hadn't come home when he did.

Because of her stupidity. Her childish defiance.

She had been everything he had called her. A rock around his neck. The thing keeping him from having a real life. A brat kid who wasn't even his sister.

Skye squeezed her eyes tightly shut, wishing she could forget, wishing she could block out those words forever. She couldn't; she had tried. They, like the image of Chance's blood seeping through his white shirt, seemed to be permanently fixed in her memory.

Those last days in Boyton had changed her forever. Just as they had changed her and Chance, something between them. She saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. She felt it in the air whenever they were together.

But they were here now, she thought, her lips curving up again. If they could go back to the way it had once been between them, it would happen here. With Sarah. And Michael.

Skye sat up and drew the sheet around her. Sarah thought she had real talent, she had said so. She had even taken her over to the art department at N.I.U. and shown her around. That's where Sarah had gone to college, and Skye had thought it the coolest place she had ever seen. Like a city of art.

Skye had watched some of the students work. They were the ones who were talented, she had told Sarah, intimidated. Compared to them, she had no talent at all. Sarah had only chuckled and reminded Skye that they were also much older and much more experienced than she was. Sarah said she thought Skye had more talent than any of them.

Skye reached across to the bedside table and picked up the pin she had cast just last night. It had been her first attempt at the lost-wax casting technique, and though still far from finished, she thought the pin the most beautiful thing she had ever created. Skye turned the piece—shaped like a butterfly—over in her hands. Today she would cut off the sprues and begin to file and polish it.

Skye drew her eyebrows together, recalling each of the steps she had to take to get the pin to this stage. First she'd had to make a wax model. She had taken great pains creating it, carving and smoothing, using a heated biology needle to get the butterfly just the way she wanted it. Next had come attaching the sprues—they provided the channels for the molten metal to flow to her pin—and mounting the sprued piece in a pipe flask.

Sarah had shown her how to mix the investment, a plaster-like material, then had shown her how to fill the mold with it, taking precautions to ensure no air bubbles settled near her pin. After the investment had dried, they'd burned out the wax in a kiln.

It had been technical, painstaking work. Tedious, even. But Skye had loved every moment of it, anyway. She didn't know why, but she had.

Skye ran her fingers lovingly over the silver, then brought it to her cheek. It was cool now, but she remembered the way it had looked, red-hot, glowing as if illuminated from within, remembered the way it had held heat, even after being cooled.

She shook her head. She didn't know which had been more exciting, releasing the spring on the centrifuge and watching as it threw the molten silver into the mold, forcing it into every nook and cranny of her pin, or breaking away the mold after it had been quenched in a bucket of water and revealing her pin, now cast in silver.

It had all seemed like magic to her.

Magic.
She screwed up her face in thought. That's exactly what it felt like when she worked in Sarah's studio. As though she was making something special, magical. And there, she felt special, too. Free. Of everything but the moment and her pleasure in it.

In the jewelry studio, even her bad memories couldn't touch her.

Her mother's image popped into her head, clearly and in a way it hadn't in a long time. With it came a sharp, bitter feeling of betrayal.

Skye frowned and rubbed her temple. Why had she thought of her mother today? Why, when she was feeling so good?

That
morning she had awakened with a smile, too.

The morning her entire world had fallen apart.

Fear settled over her. Oppressive. Breath-stealing. Her heart began to thud, her palms to sweat. She pulled in a shaky breath, feeling the way she used to, when she would awaken in the middle of the night, certain that Chance was gone, that he, like her mother, had sneaked out in the night and left her behind.

No! Skye threw aside the covers and scrambled out of bed. Chance wouldn't do that. They were happy here. Everything was perfect now.

Skye grabbed her robe and darted into the hall, putting it on as she went. Chance's room was across from hers; his door was open, his bed made. He must be downstairs already.

Sarah was in the kitchen cooking breakfast. Skye heard her moving about; she smelled bacon frying. Skye leaned over the banister. “Sarah,” she called, “where's Chance?”

Something crashed to the floor and broke. Sarah muttered what sounded like an oath. Skye frowned. Sarah never swore; she was the most even-tempered person she had ever known.

“Are you okay?” Skye asked, leaning farther over the railing, trying to see around into the kitchen. “It wasn't one of your grandmother's dishes, was it?”

When Sarah didn't answer, Skye ran down to the kitchen. There, she saw that Sarah had, indeed, broken one of the mixing bowls her grandmother had left her. She was on her knees, pancake batter everywhere. Skye hurried to help her clean up.

That finished, they stood. Skye looked around. “Where is everybody?”

Sarah hesitated. “Michael's outside. I better…call him.” She went to the screen door, pushed it open and rang the dinner bell, mounted on the wall just outside the door.

Skye frowned. “Sarah?” The other woman didn't look at her, and a knot of apprehension settled in the pit of her stomach. “Isn't Chance outside, too?”

Sarah sighed, then met Skye's eyes. “Skye, honey, why don't you sit down.”

Skye shook her head. “Why are you looking at me like that? What's wrong?”

Michael came in from outside. He and Sarah exchanged unhappy glances. A sickening sense of déjà vu moved over her.

This couldn't be happening to her again. Dear God, not again.

Panicky, Skye looked from one to the other of them. “Where's Chance?”

“Honey, he's—”

“No.” Skye took a step backward. “I don't want to hear this.”

“I went to wake him this morning, and I…he's…”

Sarah looked helplessly at her husband. He cleared his throat. “He's gone, Skye. I'm sorry.”

“It's not true. He went out last night,” she said, desperate, searching for an explanation. “He…he must have stayed at a friend's. That's all.”

“His things are gone,” Sarah said gently, crossing to her, holding out a hand. “Honey, I'm so sorry.”

Skye jerked away. “It's not true!” she said. “It's not!” Turning, she raced upstairs to Chance's room. She checked the closet first, then the chest of drawers.

Empty, they were all empty. Just as Sarah had said.

No note. No goodbye. Nothing.

Skye sank onto the bed, her world crashing in around her. At least her mother had left him with a lie to give to her, an empty platitude, a false I love you. He hadn't even bothered with that.

What had she expected? She had never been anything but a rock around his neck.

Skye didn't cry, though tears welled in her throat, choking her. She stared at her hands clenched in her lap. She hated Chance for this. She would never forgive him. Never.

“He'll be back, honey. He will.”

Skye lifted her gaze to Sarah's distraught face. She stood in the doorway, Michael beside her, hand on her shoulder, a silent support. A cry of despair rose to Skye's lips; she held it back, but only barely.
He'd left her behind, just as her mother had, just as she had always feared he would.

He hadn't loved her any more than her mother had.

“We've talked about it and…” Sarah took a deep breath. “Until he gets back, you can stay with us.”

“He won't be back.” Skye turned her gaze to the window and the brilliant summer day beyond. “He's gone for good.”

Sarah took a step toward her. “Honey, he will. Surely, after all, you're his sis—”

“No,” she whispered. “Everyone leaves me behind.”