31. Franny

"You agreed to what?" I sputter.

"Don't give me that look." Tyler sighs. "What choice did I have?"

"Saying no, maybe?"

"And what?" Tyler shrugs. "I end up getting arrested? Like I'd let that happen."

"Arrested doesn't mean you're going to jail," I say. "What have they even got against you? What evidence are they using?"

Tyler sits on the edge of Ethan's bed. Ethan brings nothing more to the conversation; he just sits off to the side. I don't ask him though—knowing him, he'll side with Tyler anyway. The IV is no longer in his hand and the breathing tube is finally off him. He's supposed to be getting out today, if his mother ever shows up with her car.

"The detective has my files," Tyler says.

"Files?" I frown. "The files you burnt?"

Tyler shoots me a humorless smile. "Looks like they're not very burnt."

"So—what, Carl had them the whole time?" I ask. "He had another copy?"

Tyler groans. "I'm way over my head here, Franny. I have no idea what I'm doing. I didn't when I was trying to go up against Carl and now I have to somehow be a fucking spy without him realizing."

"Just watch James Bond, you'll be fine," Ethan remarks and Tyler glares at him.

"You're not helping," he snaps.

"Look, you sure there's nothing else you can do? Anything to get you out of this? I don't like it. It's not safe and that cop sure as hell won't help you if Carl tries to hurt you."

"I'm running out of options," Tyler says. "This is all I've got. And Carl won't hurt me, he barely has before."

My frown deepens. I look around the room as I think. Tyler turns away and talks quietly to Ethan, who is trying not to fall asleep. Apparently he hasn't been sleeping a lot. I bite my lip and begin to pace.

"Franny, what are you doing?" Tyler asks. "The pacing is making me worry, stop it."

"I'm thinking," I snap.

"About what?" he asks, exasperated.

"Carl hurting you," I answer.

"But I said he won't."

"Exactly," I say briskly and then look over at Tyler. "Exactly. He won't hurt you. Why won't he hurt you? If he hates you so much then why wouldn't he hurt you?"

"Never said he hated me," Tyler says.

"You said he shot a guy in the leg for stealing money," I say. "You burnt all his files and yet he didn't shoot you. He did nothing. He knew you burnt them and did nothing!"

"He still hit me the other day!" Tyler defends himself.

"But only because you hit him first," I say. "Otherwise he wouldn't have hit you. He wouldn't have touched you."

"Why does he never hurt you directly?" Ethan frowns.

"Does it even matter?" Tyler mutters.

I open my mouth to respond but the nurse comes in. Her brows crease in confusion when she sees Ethan still on the bed. "Is your mom not here yet?"

"No, it's stupid to wait for her. I'll just call a taxi."

The nurse looks a little concerned but nods anyway—Ethan is of age to do whatever the hell he wants. She finishes some things up and leaves a pile of his clothes on the chair. His mom didn't bring him new ones so he's stuck putting on a shirt caked in blood. Tyler stands up from his bed and walks to the far wall, crossing his arm and leaning against it. I glance at him before looking back at Ethan.

"Your dad woken up yet?" he asks.

I nod my head.

Tyler looks over at me. "When did he wake up?"

Right when you were selling your life away to a cop.

"About an hour ago," I say. "He's fine, but a bit shocked."

"Shocked?" Ethan asks.

I frown. "Well he just found out they most likely have to remove his eye. They need to do vision tests and that sort of thing, but it looks like it's getting removed."

"What does it look like?" Ethan asks.

I narrow my eyes. "His eye? It got beaten by a bat, what do you think it looks like?"

"There's no need to get snappy, he's just asking," Tyler says.

I turn on him. "My dad might have to lose an eye. I think me being snappy is quite justified, don't you?"

Tyler glares at me then looks away. He sighs and pushes off from the wall. "I need a cigarette."

He walks out the door and I stare down at the ground, rubbing at my tired eyes. "I'm sorry," I tell Ethan.

"Never be sorry for your anger over something Carl has caused," Ethan says. "That anger in itself is justified."

I stare at Ethan a moment longer before turning away and walking out of the room. I take the first elevator down, and come out only to stumble back when a gurney is rushed down the hallway. After the commotion has passed, I head for the main doors.

The air is cold and the ground has a thin layer of frost over it. The ice crunches under my shoes as I walk around the side of the building. I see Tyler, just past a group of hospital employees having a smoke. I slowly make my over, as he blows smoke into the frigid air.

"Smoking kills," I murmur.

"Good thing I'm at a hospital then," he snaps.

I sigh and turn around to walk away but he grabs my wrist. I stop but don't turn back. I hear Tyler stomp out the cigarette on the icy ground. The frost crunches under his shoes as he takes a step towards me—my back against his chest.

"I'm terrified," he says.

I stare down at the little patch of cracked ice on the ground and gulp.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Tyler says. "I don't know what I'm meant to do. How I'm supposed to deal with this. Fighting used to just be an outlet for me—something to get my mind off things. Carl would never hurt me back then and I say that he won't now . . . but I can't vouch for that, Fran. I can never know if one day he'll get tired and put a bullet in my head."

I turn around and wrap my arms around his waist when his voice cracks.

"I'm just a fucking teenager," he says shakily. "And I don't know what the hell I'm meant to do."

"Why did you start fighting?" I ask.

Tyler tenses beneath my arms, but I don't pull my head away from his shoulder and he slowly relaxes.

"I'm adopted," he says. "My parents didn't tell me themselves. They waited for my real mom to show up at the front door." He chuckles humorlessly. "There she was, saying how I'm her kid—eyes crazed and bloodshot. My parents didn't know what to do. They panicked and tried to get her out the house. Eventually they did, but the damage had already been done. They sat me down and said that they were still my parents, that they'd had me since I was only a week old. That I was theirs. And they made me believe that for months. But then I found out how they knew my real mom. She's my adoptive mom's sister. I'd been brought up by my aunt and uncle. They'd always known my real mom. Knew exactly where she was. My grandparents—everyone! And they lied to me, pretended like they never knew her. When they fucking did!"

I flinch when he raises his voice and pull away. "Tyler—"

"And here's the funny part," he says. "Apparently my birth-giver wasn't that right in the head. So with a bit of paperwork and a couple favors, they took me off my mom and threw her in an institution. She was released five years before I found out. Five years they knew she was out there and they never told me. The whole fucking family."

I blink at him in disbelief.

"That's why I have family problems. I couldn't trust any of them and I was angry, so I went out and did stupid things and ended up with Carl. And the bastard took me in. As for my biological mom, fuck knows what happened to her. She probably went back into prostitution." Tyler laughs but his voice comes out strangled and hoarse. "That's how I came into the world—in the middle of a brothel with a prostitute for a mom and her pimp for a dad."

I don't notice he's crying until his hands shake against mine and his tears hit my knuckles.

- Ellie x