Hiro Loves Kite
A Paper Stars Novel, Book 2
Lauren Nicolle Taylor
Contents
Content Disclosure
1. KITE
2. KETTLE
3. KITE
4. KETTLE
5. KITE
6. KETTLE
7. KITE
8. KETTLE
9. KITE
10. KITE
11. HIRO
12. KITE
13. HIRO
14. KITE
15. HIRO
16. KITE
17. HIRO
18. KITE
19. KITE
20. HIRO
21. KITE
22. HIRO
23. KITE
24. HIRO
25. KITE
26. HIRO
27. KITE
28. HIRO
29. HIRO
30. KITE
31. HIRO
32. KITE
33. HIRO
34. KITE
35. KITE
36. KITE
37. HIRO
38. KITE
39. HIRO
40. KITE
41. HIRO
42. KITE
43. HIRO
44. KITE
45. HIRO
46. HIRO
47. KITE
48. KITE
49. HIRO
50. HIRO
51. KITE
52. FRANKIE
53. HIRO
54. KITE
55. HIRO
56. KITE
57. KITE
58. KIN
59. HIRO
Breaker and the Sun
Also by Lauren Nicolle Taylor
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Afterword
I’m sure this is weird, but I’m dedicating this book to myself.
You got lost for a while there, but words have always brought you home.
WARNING: This novel contains realistic portrayals of domestic violence.
* * *
For more information about our content disclosure,
please click on the picture above or visit us at
http://www.CleanTeenPublishing.com.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
* * *
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
* * *
Hiro & Kite
Copyright ©2018 Lauren Nicolle Taylor
All rights reserved.
Clean Teen Publishing
* * *
Summary: Nora finally has her beloved sister Frankie back, but that's just the beginning of their struggles. She must now become Kite; a stronger, more independent version of herself. Kettle has Kite's heart, but a looming shadow threatens to separate them. Kettle must accept that he is also Hiro. And Hiro loves Kite — that much is clear – but Kite won't wait forever for him to tell her...
* * *
ISBN: 978-1-63422-326-3 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-63422-327-0 (e-book)
Cover Design by: Marya Heiman
Typography by: Courtney Knight
Editing by: Cynthia Shepp
* * *
Cover Art:
© fotolia/John Takai
© fotolia/Supakrit
© fotolia/martin951
© fotolia/pzRomashka
1
KITE
The path gleams white as bleached bone. A small, black-board cottage. A bland neat garden. A road between that could be a pit of tar.
“She’s in there.” My voice is shaky, my throat salty from so many tears. When I close my eyes, the flash of a polaroid camera burns my eyelids. The photo we took. The tumble we made. The memory of my father, a statue, frozen in violence and pain. He waits for me on that landing. He’s always right there. Waiting.
I swallow. He can’t reach me here.
A warm hand graces my back and finds its way between hunched shoulder blades and quickly parting ribs. “She is,” he says, serious, careful. No chirp to his voice.
Toes bunched, eyes scrunched. I want to move, but… the guilt, the guilt, the guilt. It’s seven pirate coins stacked on my tongue. Hidden treasures with heavy consequences. Bitter. Nauseating. I lean into his touch, and his hand moves with me. I want closer. He won’t give me closer. I dig fingernails into my palm. “What if she’s…”
Kettle takes my hand, gently pulling my fingers apart one by one. “If she’s hurt, we’ll take care of her.” Patch her together with found buttons and lengths of string.
“If she’s…” If she’s hurt, I will never forgive myself. I think of her eyes, dark blue rings around powerful irises. Blinking, I picture bruises growing around those irises like dark clouds trying to swarm her eyelashes.
Kettle turns me to face him, his calloused fingers brushing my skin. Sandpaper to smooth old pain. “Nor… Kite.” His blue eyes lighten like gold glint in the sky. His mouth lifts. “You have to go.” I know. “She needs you.” I know. “I can’t drag the house across the street for you,” he says with a dusting of regret. Like if he could, he would.
A small breath in. I fill my heart with feathers. With clouds that make happy shapes in the sky. Checking for traffic, I limp into the street, feeling the loss of Kettle’s touch the moment our skin breaks contact. He can’t come.
I have to do this alone.
My feet crunch on glassy gravel. My leg throbs, and my body aches from the fall down the stairs. It’s been six days. Six long and harrowing days. My elbows press against my sides when the sea wind blows, pushing a shadow into the corner of my eye. I feel watched. I feel like his fist is about to come down. I flinch and wobble.
I glance backward to Kettle sitting on a park bench, hands clasped, knees wide. Our eyes connect, and he nods. I can do this. I have to do this. I am pirate sails flooded with a strong breeze.
Biting my lip, I knock on the door. A dog barks, low and lazy, and I quickly straighten my skirt as I wait.
There’s a scuttle and a thwack as the dog barks again and is chastised by its owner. “Humphrey, that’s enough!” Cold boards, sharp bangs, and then, “Frances, would you be a dear and answer the door?”
There are hot coals in my chest. Burning holes, puncturing what air I had left in my lungs. I clutch my ribs. Try to keep calm.
The thick wooden door creaks open, and shadowed behind a screen is my sister. My beautiful sister. “Nora,” she whispers in her husky voice. Her head tips to one side, a small, doubtful smile touching the edges of her mouth. “You’re here.”
“Frankie.” I sigh. She’s intact. Taller. How can she be taller? Bewildered and acting fast, I open the screen door and grab her hand, pulling her from the doorway. Without a backward glance, I yank her along the path. But she’s fighting me. Pulling. Trying to return to the house.
“Nor-ah, wait! I hef to say goodbye to missus Bee-Champ.” She stares up at me with watering eyes, frowning. “It’s rude. And Missus Bee-Champ has been lookin’ after me.” There’s something pointed in her tone. A maturity that’s grown there. Planted from a seed of trauma and neglect. She pulls her hand from mine, hard, and crosses her arms. “I’ve got manners. Manners is sayin’ goodbye. Manners is tellin’ people where you’re going and not jus’ disappearin’.”
Splinters and saltwater spray my face,
stinging.
I kneel, cup my sister’s fretful face. “Frankie, we can’t stay here.” My eyes dart from left to right. “Do you want to come with me?”
Her eyes round and spill. She nods, but she doesn’t answer my question. The door behind us whines on sea-rusted hinges. “You must be Nora.” An old lady jams the point of a black umbrella in the doorway, eyes squinting. Frankie turns and runs to the woman, arms outstretched. She sinks into her bosom and sniffs loudly, wiping her snotty nose on the woman’s dress. “I think you and your friend…” The old woman motions toward Kettle, now standing and looking concerned. “…better come inside.”
2
This seems like a very bad idea. The old woman lumbers down a dark hallway, leaning heavily on an umbrella with a wooden handle. A dog the size and dimensions of a ham hock bangs into her legs, knocking her into the walls like an oversized pinball. Frankie’s eyes are like soup spoons. Scooping up every detail. She eyes me with fascination. No signs of fear or distrust. Just curiosity. I steal looks. Picking out the Nora-ness of her. There’s a lot.
We move to the back of house. To a dingy living room with peeling wallpaper and not much else between us and the elements that batter the leaning home. She points her umbrella at a piano stool lacking a piano and a dining chair. We sit when we really should just grab the sister and run. But there’s something quiet and kind about the woman. Her face is like a history book with folded-down pages. I get the sense she knows things. She collapses heavily into a worn armchair with a sigh.
Kite’s legs jiggle nervously, and I resist the urge to place a hand on her knee. These are things I shouldn’t do. My jaw tenses. Frankie sits on the floor at the old woman’s feet and pokes at a hole in the rug, pulling the thread and gathering it into a ball.
Clapping her hands over Frankie’s ears, the old lady whispers,” Your father is an awful, awful man.” She shakes her jowls in disgust. This place smells like mildew and acres of dust. Scrunching my nose, I nod in agreement.
Kite draws in a shocked breath. But I feel myself relax. Each tense muscle giving just a little. Not all the way. Flight is my natural state. I’ll always be ready to run.
Frankie stares at me. Innocence warped like a mercury mirror, reflections and black smudges distorting the picture. Because I can’t quite identify. My innocence was lost before I had a chance to recognize it. Slipped down the drain with the bathwater.
Kite leans forward, head tipped just like Frankie’s. Her pale lips part, and she pulls at a hair that’s caught in the corner of her mouth. “Who are you?” Each word is a sword held out in the air. Not to harm. To guard.
“Anita Beauchamp,” she says, nodding her wrinkly head. “I was Rebecca’s…” she clears her gravelly throat, “…your mother’s governess.” Her eyes look like boiled eggs. Milky with inky irises. And they moisten at the mention of Kite’s mother. The three females all seem frozen in bad memories. A triangle of grief I’m on the outer edge of.
Kite’s chest expands with air as if she’s about to say something, but she holds it. I cough, and they startle. Frankie says,” Bless you,” with a voice like a dying engine. I smile, winning a return one as bright as the first star.
Kite recovers. “But how is this…” Her chin dips to her lap. “I don’t understand.”
“Your father knew I would do just about anything for Rebecca.” Mrs. Beauchamp’s head falls too, folds of wrinkles, falling over her stiff collar. “I should have done more…”
She can barely push the words from her mouth, but I see her square herself and I ask the dreaded question. “Did he hurt her?” My teeth clench, bracing for the bad answer.
The woman shakes her head. “No. Thank goodness. I wouldn’t allow it. He only visited twice.” Her eyes harden. “Twice too many.”
Kite’s demeanor stays tense, but a small sliver of the guilt she’s been carrying seems to slide away. I see her catch it, though. Store it in her pocket for later torture.
Pointing her umbrella to the hallway, the woman croaks, “Frances, I think it’s time you went back to your family.” Frankie springs up. “Go pack up your things.”
To us, she whispers, “You need to hide. You need to take your sister and hide from him. I can’t protect her any longer.” She touches her wrists. Dark bruises peek out from beneath the ruffle of her lace sleeves. She heaves herself up. Kite stares blankly. Shock rendering her mute and inactive. Mrs. Beauchamp flaps her veined hands anxiously. “You need to go. Now!”
Heaving a leather suitcase that’s almost as big as she is, Frankie knocks down the hallway, huffing and puffing. Kite shifts on the old floorboards, swaying to music none of us can hear. Laying a palm on the green wall, I breathe in. She’s beautiful even in her devastation. She is beautiful and unreachable. In so many ways. Her honey eyes glance my way. Heart heaving. Breath catching. They say, I have questions.
My eyes answer. Your questions will have to wait.
I jump as Frankie dumps the corner of the case on my foot. “Who’re you?” she asks, peering up at me, small waves of wariness pouring from her stare.
I am… I don’t know why I say it. I haven’t used the name in years, but I extend a hand and say, “My name is Hiro.”
Tiny pearl teeth with gaps like licorice in her smile. “Dats a keen name.” She shakes her head and collapses on top of her case, legs swinging. Banging out a tune on the hard surface. “Are you Nora’s boyfren?” Her hair lights a fire in this murky green room. Her words burn a hole through my chest.
I shake my head as Kite joins us in the hallway. “No. We’re just friends.” It’s more, of course, but I don’t know how to explain that to an eight-year-old. We’re a part of each other. I also don’t really want to say that out loud.
Woodenly, Kite taps Frankie’s back. “We should go, darling.”
“Do you need money?” the old woman asks, offering what she cannot offer as she struggles to get to the door. After holding it open for the girls, I pick up the case and we leave the darkness, stepping into the bright afternoon filled with salt and bashing waves.
A gull squawks and dips low, grazing the straggling treetops in the garden, and Kite’s hands fly to her head. Frankie watches her sister with one of those expressions. The kind seen repeated on every face of a youth turned toward horror. It pains me. It pains me and links me to her instantly.
Kite told me he never hit her after the time he blew her ears. But sometimes, watching a loved one suffer abuse can be almost as bad. It does something to a person. Something dark and learned. A book they’re forced to read. A permanent thing in ink and paper.
This woman is poor. She has nothing. Kite bows her head and says, “No, but thank you, Mrs. Beauchamp. You’ve done enough.”
She takes her sister’s hand, and we walk away from the cottage.
“I can’t believe he brought her here,” she mutters as we cross the road and head for the bus stop. I look around. Marooners’ Cape seems like a pretty nice place. I shrug. Too nice for someone like me. I pull my cap lower over my eyes.
“Seems nice enough,” I say, the suitcase banging against my leg.
Kite frowns, her eyes running along the coast and watching the elegant arc of waves crashing on the narrow beach. “You don’t understand. When Frankie was five, we came here for a vacation. She waded out too far. Because she couldn’t hear Mother calling her in, she kept going and fell over the sandbar into deeper water,” Kite whispers over the top of her sister’s head.
The path brings us closer to the water’s edge, and I notice the change in the little girl’s manner. Her shoulders migrate to her ears. Her eyes blink rapidly, and she clutches Kite’s hand tight. The child is deathly afraid of the water.
“Heroes save people, don’t they?” Frankie rasps, pinching her sister’s arm.
I nod. Not feeling much like a hero right now, but I want to reassure her. “That’s what I’ve been told, kid.”
To herself, she whispers, “Heroes save pe
ople.”
Kite’s eyes are stony. She focuses on the bus stop, the road that leads away from the water’s edge. Her fists are tight and white. Pearls formed from anger. She drags her leg stubbornly, refusing assistance. I try to force the memory to the back of my brain, but it slips out like a forgotten photo left in the back of a frame. The image of her body hitting the stairs of the grand brownstone. The crunch, the thud. The fear that I was losing her. Rolling my shoulders, I shake it off. She’s here. She’s all right.
When we reach the bus stop, Kite lets out a long, hard sigh. After I put the case down, I lift Frankie onto the wall behind us. She giggles when I touch her under her arms. “Stay there,” I warn.
Kite stares down the street, willing a bus to appear. I slip next to her, then take her fist between my palms. A precious stone. A fight still raging inside her. “We’ve got her now, Kite,” I say, trying to sound comforting. Her hand clenches tighter. “Nora, look at me.”