Charity For Nothing: The Virtues Book III by A.J. Downey Page A

squinted at me, hands still working at his bike, “Why would you do that?”
    “Because right now, anywhere else would be better than here,” I said softly and he sighed, hanging his head with a soft curse.
    “Look, I’m clean, I don’t know why I said that…”
    “Because you’re an asshole. Only assholes say things like that to girls they just banged against their kitchen counter.”
    “Fair enough, I deserve that.”
    “I brought you some food,” I set down the Tupperware containers full of what I’d pilfered from Cutter’s house on the edge of the nearest countertop – the one, thankfully, we hadn’t just fucked against.
    “Look, Charity –”
    “Save it, Nothing. I don’t want to hear it,” I told him and walked away.
    He cursed again and there was a sharp bang and clack followed by what I imagined was his socket wrench skidding across the kitchen floor. I’d left my bag and wet things in his bathroom, but right now, I just wanted to be surrounded by something that was mine. I didn’t want to go wandering through his space, so I went back out to the garage and huddled in the driver’s seat of my Jeep. I cried some more, and I think, eventually, I fell asleep. Had to be better than awake.
    God, I was such a stupid girl.
     
    ***
     
    I woke up somewhere that wasn’t my brightly colored bed in Cutter’s house. It took me a minute to realize it wasn’t my Jeep, either. I pushed back the black comforter and sat up. The dresser at the foot of the strange bed was made of dark wood, an antique mirror against the wall was attached to it, the silvered glass spotted at one edge where it was either flawed or flaking in the back.
    Pictures were tucked into the edges of the mirror, surrounded by the same dark wood as the dresser and foot board of the bed. The storm sounded like it was still going strong out there, and I realized that the light that illuminated the room wasn’t from a nightlight, it was the blue-white light of a battery operated camping lantern.
    I threw back the blankets and picked up the lantern from the bedside table, which matched the bed and dresser. I glanced through the doorway beside the bed and noted the small master bath through it, but the pictures around the mirror were like a siren’s call. I couldn’t resist.
    The pictures were of a pretty auburn haired woman with blue eyes that held just a hint of lavender to them. She held a smiling girl about four or five and they were laughing at the man behind the camera, sitting in the back of an ambulance’s open bay doors. Tucked behind the picture were two EKG readout strips, one had pen in the upper right hand corner in blocky letters that read ‘Katy.’ The other, when I edged Katy’s out of the way, read ‘Mommy.’
    There was another picture above the one with the EKG strips, this one had the ambulance in profile, and standing in front of it, was a younger looking Nothing, the smiling woman tucked against him in the crook of one arm, the little girl sitting on her father’s shoulder, an arm tight over her lap, her arms raised in the air in triumph.
    A happy family. Nothing’s happy family… except now he was all alone.
    I let my eyes roam from picture to picture, settling on a close up of Nothing’s wife. She had pale white scars along the side of her neck, her hair in the first and second picture had hidden them away, but this picture she was coming up out of a swimming pool, her hair slicked back behind her, showing them against her pale, freckled skin. The scars on the side of her throat drew the eye down to the heavy patch of scarring on her chest and so intent was I on the images I didn’t hear the door open, or see Nothing standing there, shoulder against the door jamb until he cleared his throat, scaring the ever living crap out of me. I jumped and put my hands to my chest, startling hard with a short bleated shout.
    “I put you in here so you’d be more comfortable than sleeping in your car, not so you could