They Threw Me Away at Twelve, So I Came Home Undefeated novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Terms

Rhett threatens Dutch's warehouse unless she comes home; Perry holds out a gumdrop and she knocks it away; their father waits outside with cameras.

Dutch's office was a closet with a desk, a space heater and a cracked leather chair.

Rhett dropped into the chair and put his boots on the desk.

Perry stayed by the door with his back against the wall.

I stood in the middle of the floor with a towel around my neck and my hands still taped.

"Here's how this goes," Rhett said. "You get in the car tonight, and nobody gets hurt."

"Who would you hurt?"

"That depends on you."

He pulled out his phone and turned the screen toward me.

It showed a lease with a company name at the top and a signature at the bottom.

"This building belongs to a company that belongs to Dad's lawyer," he said. "The fire marshal is parked two blocks away with a bad feeling."

"You're closing the cage."

"I'm closing the cage, the bar upstairs and the old man's bank account, unless you walk out of here with me."

I looked at Dutch, who was standing in the doorway with his arms crossed.

He did not argue.

He looked at the floor, and then at Perry, and then at me.

"They can do it, kid," he said quietly. "They own the paper."

Thirty fighters trained under this roof.

Half of them had nowhere else to sleep.

"Why now?" I said. "You buried me. Why dig me up?"

Rhett smiled.

"Grandmother is dying," he said. "She's been asking for you for a month. She says she never believed the fever story."

"What fever story?"

"The one Dad told everybody. You caught a fever at a camp overseas and died in a foreign hospital. Nobody saw a body, so nobody saw a lie."

"And now she wants to see the dead girl."

"She wants to see you with her own eyes. If she sees you, she changes her will. So Dad wants to be the one standing next to you when she does."

"Dad wants a prop for his campaign," I said.

Rhett shrugged his huge shoulders.

"Dad wants a miracle. He's running for the state senate, and a lost daughter who comes home alive is the best ad money can buy."

The room was quiet for a moment.

Perry pushed away from the wall.

He came across the floor in three steps and stopped in front of me.

He held out his hand, palm up.

On it sat one red gumdrop in a crinkled bit of plastic.

I knew that gumdrop.

He used to carry them in his coat pocket and leave them under my pillow after Dad had said something at dinner about my size.

"Jellybean," he said. His voice cracked on it. "I'm sorry. Please, just let me..."

I slapped his hand away.

The gumdrop skidded across the concrete and rolled under the desk.

"You don't get to call me that," I said.

His hand stayed in the air for a moment, empty, and then he put it in his pocket.

He did not say another word.

I turned back to Rhett.

I thought about the forty dollars, and the long dark road behind the truck stop, and the two nights I slept in a bus shelter before Dutch found me eating out of a trash bag.

I thought about a grave in my mother's garden with my name on it.

My father had not simply thrown me away.

He had made sure no one would ever look for me.

So I decided to go home.

I wanted to see the stone, and the room, and his face.

I wanted every one of them to look at me and know exactly who they had thrown out.

"Here are my terms," I said.

Rhett laughed.

"You don't get terms."

"Dutch is never touched. His building, his fighters, his bank account, none of it. You put that in writing tonight."

"Fine."

"I see my grandmother alone, before anyone else talks to her."

He hesitated, and for a second his eyes slid to Perry, then back.

"Fine."

"And I keep my phone."

"Keep your phone, little sister. Who are you going to call?"

I ignored him and walked over to Dutch.

He put both hands on my shoulders and spoke so quietly only I could hear.

"Go," he said. "Go, and keep your eyes open. I'll be here when you want to come back."

He looked like he wanted to say more, and he did not.

I packed my gym bag, and I did not look at the red gumdrop on the floor.

Rhett led me up the back stairs and out through the bar and into the street.

It was raining, and there was a black car idling at the curb.

Behind it sat a white news van with its satellite dish up.

A cameraman stood in the rain with the light already on.

And my father stepped out of the back of the car with his arms open wide.

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