Stained Glass Souls (Wattys 2014, Collector's Dream Award Winner)

Price: Sin-Stained Scars

(Price: unedited)

He wanted to tell her to turn left. Positive that she was going in the wrong direction, he was trying desperately to keep his mouth shut. It was her house. She would know where it was.

So why where they heading further and further away from Redemption, into the heart of the city districts?

He hadn’t heard anything about homes like this. Mansions, veritable castles, joined forces with department stores and crowded streets, towering over his small truck as they rattled through the heart of Portland. It had taken about an hour or two to reach the city, and another thirty minutes to inch through traffic. He had never been down here. Actually, he had never been to a city before. The news, the papers, movies – nothing could have prepared him for the hum of life.

To his left, the familiar ocean stretched out, glistening blue waves hidden underneath the flap and roar of sailing boats. It was snowing harder here, creating soft caps upon the high rise buildings, piling into glowing windowpanes as the sun melted from the sky.

Once they reached the outskirts, Price dared a glance at Ariel. She was hunched over the wheel, eyes unfocused. He thought he saw moisture building in her eyes, but it could have been the cold. Despite the heating vents, his car was a rickety piece of crap, and chill snuck its way through cracks in the ceiling and windows.

“Almost there.” Her fingers flexed, but she didn’t venture a glance in his direction. “Sorry. I should have told you. . .”

“It’s fine.” Price said shortly. After a moment of waiting for her voice and hearing only silence, he leaned back against the headrest. His temples were throbbing, a side effect of Nolan’s skinny, flailing fists.

He still wasn’t quite sure what had possessed him to attack. 

He wasn’t sure how he had known, almost instinctively, that Charliegh was in the graffiti studio with Nolan. Maybe he had seen, enough to take it as truth, that broken people flocked together. They were the most likely, and terrible, match: a poet, tortured with the past, and a redneck, smoking away his soul.

It had been a little thing, seeing them. He had been minding his own business, driving, cutting straight through town to the grocery store. Getting Oreos for Jewel, or something. He wasn’t expecting an open door, or a hulking truck addling outside. A flash of red, the color of her favorite winter coat. Then a flash of limbs tangled together, a blurry smile.

His brakes were still rattling from how hard he had jammed them. Jumped out, like he was playing Superman, and charged into the middle of something he wished her didn’t understand. It was almost like betrayal – Charliegh succumbing to the crooked charm of Kat’s son. Had Earnest know, when he left? That in his wake, two wandering teenagers would find middle ground?

Attack. His first instinct, and his last coherent thought before he let himself go. Fists clenched. Blood, creeping up from his fingertips, staining Nolan’s dingy skin. It was almost frightening how easily he had snapped. When he stopped trying to restrain his anger, he was suddenly stronger. Braver. Daring – going straight for that door, blaming Charliegh for the charge of pain inside of him.

Ariel pulled the car to a ragged halt before he could decipher his thoughts. His motives. Confused, headache beating inside of his head, he could only stare as she dropped the keys in his lap.

“Welcome to Clarenac.” She zipped her sweatshirt up to her chin and climbed onto the cold pavement. A cloud of white smoke surrounded her as she stood waiting, the breath writhing out of her mouth and expanding around her frail body.

Price shook his curls out of his eyes, trying not to clench his fists. He didn’t come to be distracted by those eyes, those bones. This had been his last option, his last resort. Nowhere else to go. No one but Ariel could see this – the empty, darkened side of him. The dried blood. The sheer weakness.