Brawler by Tracey Ward

number?” I demanded. “Eight thousand eight hundred and eighty eight? What is that?”
    “He says that eight is his lucky number.”
    “I was born on August eighth,” I ground out. “Eighth day of the eighth month.”
    Dan nodded slowly. “I know.”
    “Shit,” I muttered, standing up and stretching my suddenly aching legs. “What does he want?”
    “He wants to make sure you know about the money. That’s why he started hunting for you. He didn’t look before because your mom told him not to. When he found out you’ve been in the foster system he was very upset. He had no idea your mom had passed.”
    “What a horrible shock for him,” I deadpanned.
    “He wants you to take the money your mom refused, Kellen. He wants you to use it for your education, to buy a house, to take care of yourself. He’d love to teach you how to invest it if you’d let him.”
    “That fucker can’t teach me anything.”
    “I told him that would probably be your response.”
    “You’ve talked to him?” I asked severely.
    “No. I talked to his lawyer on the phone today when I opened the package. I would never speak to Mr. Thorp without your consent.”
    “Why did they contact you and not my foster father?”
    “They found you through your arrest record. I was on file as your attorney in that hearing.”
    Red flames of shame scorched my cheeks. “So he knows I was arrested? He must be so proud.”
    “He offered to pay for my services in your defense.”
    “He can go fuck himself!” I shouted, losing control. I shook out my hands, trying to pull it in. It only took a moment for my whole body to start shaking.
    “Listen, son,” Dan said softly. “Calm down.”
    “No, I—I have to go. I can’t. I don’t want anything to do with any of this. Burn it. Burn it all. Tell him to take it back or give it to a different charity because I don’t want it.”
    “There are limits set on how much you can withdraw each year. It can’t be given away. Not that easily. Besides, I think you should give it some time. Calm yourself down and get some distance from it. This could be a very good thing for you.”
    “I don’t want it. If my mom didn’t want it, then I don’t want it. You can have it. Use it to send the girls to college. How much is it? Will it cover their tuition?”
    Dan sighed. “Kellen, it’s two point five million dollars.”
    I almost threw up. It was such an insane amount of money, I couldn’t even stomach it. I couldn’t process it.
    I stormed out of the room. Out of the house.
    Dan didn’t call out and he didn’t follow me.
    I did the math that night. I sat down and thought it through in the dark of my bedroom as the neighbor’s music blared through the walls until after two in the morning. My mom had told him to leave us alone for a second time when we left Las Vegas. She told him to stay away as we moved to Los Angeles, deep into the last days of the cancer killing her. She knew. She knew she was leaving me alone and there would be no one left to take care of me, and still she told that man to stay away and never look for me. She’d taken the one person that could have saved me from foster care – from the abuses I took day after day after day – and she blinded them.
    Why? Why the fuck would she do that me? How could she do that to me?
    I stared out my window at the smog ridden city glowing with electric life, and I watched the structure of my mom’s pedestal begin to crack.
     
     
     

Chapter Nine
    One Month Later
     
     
     
    “Please, Kellen,” Laney breathed. Her hands gripped my shoulders tightly. “Please, baby, please.”
    I looked down at her where she was sprawled out over the backseat of the car. Her dad’s car. She had backed hers into a light pole at the grocery store and sent it into the shop for the scratch to be repaired. Now we were rolling around in her dad’s car and doing things that made me cringe to think of Dan getting into it in the morning. I felt like a skeeze