Manipulative Attraction

32. ⚛️ Danse Macabre

Jeannie studied him with wary eyes as he decided. "Make it pepper steak, then."

She merely nodded and gathered the ingredients, leaving him confused.

Did something happen?

Thorne's arms broke out in goosebumps at the thought. He knew Shon had attended the same meeting as Jeannie. Quentin had called to tell him so, shortly after he'd left Jeannie's apartment.

Has Shon won her over after all?

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask, but how could he explain how he knew Shon was with her? He couldn't, so he held his tongue.

Jeannie emerged from the refrigerator with a brick of meat wrapped in butcher's paper, four large green peppers, and two stalks of celery. She looked down her arm as she pointed a finger to the kitchen door, a pepper clutched tightly in her fist.

"Why don't you watch TV while I make dinner. It won't take long."

"I want to help, Jeannie." Thorne hoped that by helping her cook, he could find out why she was being so distant.

Jeannie shook her head. Her next words came out low and wobbly like a busted tire from a bike run over by a car. "I can manage, please... just go."

Thorne wanted to comfort her, but if he bungled the attempt and she became even more upset, he doubted she would let him get close again.

Instead of doing what his heart told him, Thorne created a canyon between them by leaving the room.

As he sat on the couch, facing away from the kitchen door, every knife chop or grease sizzle had his heart racing.

He bit down on the inside of his cheek. An old habit in the times of stress. The last time was at eight years old when he'd left the care of Diana Stevenson.

It was she who had given him the scars on his chest. The ones Thorne had tattooed over with his first earnings from The Source. Thorne had invested many hours, stinging pain, and a lot of cash to camouflage the thin scars.

But he still remembered how he'd gotten them.

He remembered everything.

Momma Diana clapped him on the back of the neck.

Hard.

"Your teacher toldt me you was a'talkin' during class." Her three pack a day habit, combined with her morbid obesity, had turned her voice into a thin wheezy whine. "Is that true, boy?"

Thorne nodded, hanging his head.

"I reckon, you a'needin' a'purnishment." She grinned, showing discolored stumps that peppered her empty gums. Her mousy brown hair, done up in the beehive of her youth, showcased her watery blue eyes that danced with malice.

Thorne trembled. His lanky frame quivering with fright as Momma Diana loomed over him. Her broad shoulders blocked out the overhead light bulb making the room take on a defeated glow.

"I only wunted Jeff to stop pinching me, is all."

The slap, a backhand this time, was quick. The force rocked the boy on his heels. Thorne blinked back the moisture, which threatened to spill from his blank green eyes.

"No sass, boy." Momma Diana lips, a cut of red in her doughy face, thinned even further.

"Yessum," Thorne said, his shoulders sagging in resignation.

Without another word, he trudged into the kitchen and retrieved the plastic measuring cup from the pink dish rack. Thorne scooped up enough kernels from the ten-pound bag to fill it to the brim.