Lullaby to a Jitterbug by Hayley Camille

Author:Hayley Camille [Camille, Hayley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SpearPoint Press
Published: 2017-12-03T22:00:00+00:00

*

It was the following day, after school, that Jacob had managed to track Susie down at the docks. It was an easy guess to find her there, at least for him. This was their training ground, a largely ignored spot on the edge of the Hudson which had become a jumble of timber cast-offs and decaying barrels, old fishing line and concrete pilons rising from the water like ugly birds. Behind, derelict warehouses served as storage areas for the freighters whose cargo spilled over from the newer modern buildings upriver. By day, only the poorest fishermen moored here and on rainy afternoons, the dim warehouses made the perfect place to practice fighting. Now, at dusk, it was deserted. Except, of course, for Susie.

She was sitting alone outside on the dock, flicking knives. A crude target had been chalked onto an empty mooring post. It had a man’s face.

“Why do you let them do that?” Jacob growled, plonking himself down on to the concrete beside her. “You could beat the blazes out of those fat-heads if you wanted to. You’re dead stronger than any boy, and faster with a punch. Teach them a lesson, or at least, let me do it!”

Susie cocked her head to the side, seriously. “Can you imagine what would happen if Pop found out how strong I was? Can you imagine what he’d make me do? Or, that man he works for –”

“Who is –?”

“You know I can’t tell you,” Susie muttered, angrily. “It would only put you in danger, Jake, especially with your Aba being who he is. If they even knew we were friends –”

“But this is stupid.”

“I can’t fight back,” she said, definitively. “You know he already uses me to read the minds of the filthy criminals that work for him. Not to mention the poor sods that end up on the wrong side of them.” Susie shuddered. “He takes my gift and turns it into something cruel and terrible. Something I’m ashamed of. What do you think he’d make me do if he knew how strong I was, or how well I could fight?” She looked expectantly at Jacob, who just scowled back. “He’d use it, that’s what. He’d turn me into something that he could hurt people with. My body wouldn’t be my own anymore. It would be his, just like everything else.” She looked away, staring across to the dirty water through the eyes of someone far older than her fifteen years. “So, I can never let them find out.”

“Surely they’ll guess though, at some point? You’re not exactly… an ordinary girl.” Jacob’s face flushed with pink.

“They’ve got no reason to suspect me, as long as I don’t fight back. Mom never had this gift, the strength or the speed, or the, whatever it is that I can do. So, they aren’t expecting it from me, either. Just the mind-reading. And it’s years too late to keep that a secret.”

“Well, how long are you going to put up with them treating you like rubbish?”

“Not forever.

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