Scars & Honey - Sample (Chapter 1)

I've often told readers, "If you're not on board with chapter 1 of Scars & Honey, you're not on board." Please mind the CW below before proceeding with the cirst chapter sample, and if you're interested in the rest of the story, see the links page.

CW: This book is not suitable for readers sensitive to the following: on-page sexual assault (male victim), miscarriage, death (all ages), and discussion of suicidal ideation. It is not appropriate for bigoted minds. These adult themes are told in adult language. Discretion is advised.

----

Le Sauvetage

Amund

His scream stopped me.

It was loud enough not to be lost under the traffic outside, so I reversed my steps from the apartment stoop and returned to the empty lobby. I glanced at the ceiling fans and down the main hallway, but the place reverberated like a bathroom. It looked like one, too, with grungy lines on the cracked diamond pattern of the squeaky linoleum floor. If only the whirring from above would shut up for a minute.

I stared between the built-in mailboxes to the open stairway. My gorgeous neighbor Ky lived at the top. We’d only met a half hour ago, but I swallowed hard at the thought of his freckled face and peculiar style, pairing thick leather bracelets and several rings with a creamy pistachio dress shirt. He wielded his expressive brows with ease, flirting with a barely-there twitch. Ky’s green eyes reminded me of the first blades of grass after a snow melt. His thick ponytail of brown locks curled into the back of his neck, playfully hinting at rebellion the same way his jewelry did. Definitely younger, but it couldn’t be by much.

Maybe I fabricated the scream as an excuse to see him again. Did it matter?

I coughed to suppress my pounding heart and charged for the stairs to investigate. Each old step complained under my weight. Above me hung a naked 40-watt bulb; a cobweb crawled down from its chain. The thin wood paneling on either side of me reeked of stale cigarette smoke—remnants of the building’s past as cheap welfare housing. The handrails were too wobbly to depend on and did nothing to put me at ease.

Ky called me beautiful when he said goodbye earlier. His kindness unraveled my plans.

At the top, my full height nearly touched the angled ceiling, and I shuddered like the place crawled with unseen spiders. The label, 3A, judged me harshly from his door. I bit my thumbnail before pressing the button that flashed lights inside—since only applicants who knew sign language could move in, the whole building was equipped with things like this, all deafness accommodation. It was wasted on people who signed for other reasons, like me.

The anxious minutes at his door were torture. Something shuffled inside—did he see the signal and choose to ignore me? I tucked my white button-up into my jeans and felt for errant bumps along the tight French braid trailing down my spine. I picked a stray blond strand off my shirt and shook to rid it from my sweaty palm.

The final seconds to rejection were cold reality. Three. Two. One. No answer.

In the oppressive solitude before 3A, my nerves were shot again. What would such an impressive young man like Ky want with me anyway? I shook my head and turned to finish my mission outside, more comfortable in my emotional hole than this literal one.

While aiming for the hazy lobby below, a sputtering yowl from 3A made me jump.

What the fuck was that? My knees faltered and I nearly fell down the stairs, only saved by the handrail’s precarious attachment. The apartment begged me to press my ear against the door, which I did with a cautious hand between my cheek and the wood.

A muffled woman’s voice came through. She wasn’t really speaking, more like growling through her teeth. “Shut up. I know you like it. I feel you likin’ it. Shut up or I’ll fuckin’ kill you, Ky.”

I wheezed. Why is she speaking? Ky signed downstairs—isn’t he Deaf? I fumbled around my jeans, unable to squeeze my hands in the tight pockets fast enough. In my front right side was a folded note that crinkled like cellophane next to my ID and bank key. On the left was the spiral notepad and pen for when I couldn’t use Sign. My small flip phone was last, used only for photos and text messages. I cursed myself when my first attempts to dial for help had extra digits.

When was the last time I spoke on the phone?

A predictable, feminine, stoic voice answered, “9-1-1, what is your emergency?”

“H-h-h-help, p-pl-pl—”

“I’m sorry, I can’t understand you. What is your name?”

“A-A-Am-Am...” Dammit, fuck my stutter, not now, for the love of— Muscle memory took over and I signed to no one, [A-M-U-N-D, A-M-U-N-D.]

Her nasal tone persisted. “Hello, are you there?”

“M-my n-n-n-name is Am-Am-Am—help, help, p-please. Someone c-calling for help.”

“You’re calling from a line listed to Pittsburgh, is this correct?”

I tried to steady my voice by singing. Only stammering panic escaped. “Y-yes.”

“And what’s your location?”

I piecemealed the address until she repeated it correctly. “Yes. N-now. Hurry, please. Upstairs.” I leapt to listen again at the door.

A low voice this time. “No, I won’t do it. No.” He finished with sobs that twisted my insides.

Oh, god, he speaks. Maybe he’s an interpreter? What the fuck’s happening in there?

The woman inside barked, “Open your mouth. Open it. Now.”

The 9-1-1 operator called out on the line, “Are you there? Hello? Can you tell me anything else? An officer will be at your location in five minutes.”

That could be too late. She’s hurting him. I looked down at myself as if viewing someone else. I was on stage, a pawn, numb and facing sure chaos, ignoring my instincts to answer Ky’s screams.

I put down the phone and slammed my shoulder against the door, cracking the cheap wood. The sign rattled to the floor. My second charge crippled the doorframe, leaking sound from the broken upper hinge.

High-pitched cries of pain came through, punctuated by spitting and coughing.

I backed up to the stairwell, storming once more, throwing all my weight into 3A. The door fractured and swung open at the top, breaking the deadbolt and peeling the thin wood away from the lower edge. With detached resolve, I forced myself in, scratching my arm on the splintered door jamb to hell itself.

Iron. The stench of fresh blood. Something sour, though I didn’t search for where or who it came from. The small studio suffocated me, like an oversized closet stuffed with furniture, and blood stippled every surface.

I was too determined to be frightened by the girl or Ky’s bloody and brutalized form on the floor. We met eyes, and I found a new reason to live.

“Who the fuck are you?” the girl roared, rocking on the limp man beneath her, silencing Ky with sanguine hands held firmly over his mouth. A half-naked demon with a partial shaven head and unnatural red hair, she was more stomach-churning than any hellish illustration that I’d ever seen in Catholic literature. A short plaid skirt covered the rest. Her eyes were bloodshot and wide, black, suggesting she wasn’t acting on her own influence but by some unseen force in her veins, verified by the scratched-open blemishes on her cheeks. Most frightening was the river of red from her lips dripping down to the floor. It didn’t belong to her.

I grasped under her arms and pulled the girl up while she kicked frantically. A knock to my shin nearly took me down, but I didn’t relent. With her hands released from Ky’s face, he spat a stream of fresh blood, adding to the millions of droplets around us. Cherry rain.

“Get off me!” she screeched.

I threw her into the small bathroom behind me. She slammed against the back wall and fell to her knees in the shower, a victim more of gravity than my own force. She was too stunned to effectively stand and relied too much on the shower curtain, popping off the rings one by one. I shut the door and prayed she was too stunned to open it since the lock was broken.

Ky choked, swallowing so much blood, a small pool of vomit erupted over his lower lip and down his neck to the hardwood floor. Given the putrid bubbles surrounding him, it wasn’t the first time he’d done it. He shivered with his arms stiff and bent above his chest. His strong hands—sans all his rings—were clenched into tight fists, squeezing the unknown, straining to seize whatever might’ve been left of his innocence before today. The unsatisfactory panting from his lungs gave me a secondhand sense of suffocation.

I still couldn’t speak, couldn’t sign, couldn’t even pause to process what I burst in on. A black wide-knit blanket at my feet was the best balm I could offer him. I opened and draped it over his trembling form with a single shake before kneeling by his face.

Did I stay with you the way you stayed with me?

Ky shrank and refused to blink his right eye, fixating on me. His left swelled shut; a cut above his eyebrow spread to a bruise beneath his delicate freckles. Its maroon edge mimicked shy blushing at the sight of me. A tease from God. As his panic grew, his beauty faded.

I quickly signed, [I’m a friend. I’ll take care of you. Do you remember me?]

He didn’t respond, not that he could. Terror silenced him.

[We met downstairs. Your name is Ky, yes?]

Only a whimper escaped. His open right eye leaked a steady stream of tears.

I wiped it away with a tender thumb, touching as little as possible to respect his space. [I’m Amund. I’m not deaf. Are you?]

The bathroom mirror shattered, and the girl cursed and screamed. Ky’s startle at her outburst answered my question well enough. Time was running out, and the police still hadn’t arrived. I searched the area for anything useful about the young man at my side.

Shredded strips of light linen surrounded us. Pant fabric. His slacks had been cut off, and my belly filled with dread. His pretty shirt was equally torn apart, sliced up the middle of the back. His jewelry was scattered. Adjusting my eyes and coming out of the panic, a wound on Ky’s shoulder demanded my attention. Not a cut. Something far more deliberate and sinister.

Sweet Jesus. What possessed her to do that?

I stood to find more information and startled at the girl in the bathroom hitting the door with her fists, unintelligibly shrieking.

[I’m here,] I signed to Ky, then found his wallet on the floor beside his keys. My shaking hands threatened to drop everything as I combed through it.

Like any man’s wallet, it could reveal many things: where he worked and what he liked, the odd picture of family, a credit card or two. Driver’s license. If he carried cash, did he bother to smooth out the creases for the billfold or sort them right side up and in order? Movie ticket stubs or other hobby cards would speak to his age. I ultimately found little, which said just as much about Ky than anything inside.

First, a weathered card for Pennsylvania food stamp access. A business card for Child and Family Services, which had a ballpoint pen illustration on the back depicting a closed power fist in great detail—an excellent bit of art, regardless of the subject. Medicaid information. At least he was insured. A worn, pearlescent purple guitar pick fell out between his state ID and a ticket stub for a band I didn’t recognize. I glanced at his ID photo, in which he had shorter hair but an equally bright, slightly crooked smile like the one I saw earlier.

Kyle Lee. No middle name. Five feet, eight inches tall. Brown hair, green eyes. Organ donor. Birthday, November twenty-seventh—

Nineteen? You’re only nineteen years old? I misjudged him somehow; I’d only turned twenty-five three months ago and couldn’t imagine he was so much younger. Perhaps he appeared more advanced in age because he lived a troubled life, or I felt we connected because no matter all the things I lived through, my existence felt empty and stuck in one place. Maybe it was because men like me tended to look baby-faced, or wishful thinking that we had more in common than just our long hair and pale skin.

The last item in his wallet was a used punch card for a club downtown that I never entered, too afraid of my inability to speak, my own insecurities, and the palpable sin it offered. It dashed any doubts that he was gay.

Sirens in the distance brought me to Ky’s side again. [Help is coming. She doesn’t live here, does she? You’re alone?]

Ky shivered in waves and continued to spit blood, though it wasn’t a fountain anymore. Whatever his injury, he’d live.

The girl slammed herself against the bathroom door again with a new screech, but the fact she couldn’t figure out how to open it from inside further confirmed my suspicions that she was beyond high.

Hurried thumping up the stairs set off new panic in my heart. “Police!”

In a whirlwind, I greeted them with awful stammers while pointing at Ky. One of them pulled me aside until I could give more than a few words. I scribbled on the notepad in my back pocket as fast as I could. Ky’s blood soaked my white shirt and the front of my jeans. It trickled down my pen, too, leaving macabre evidence on every page. They wrestled the girl to the floor beside Ky, eventually leading her away; she dripped her own blood now, having cut herself with shards from the bathroom mirror. I didn’t commit the details of her face to my memory.

The paramedics took to Ky while I finished with the officers. After a few minutes investigating his front half, the EMT at his side clapped at me. She didn’t ask what my connection was to him and clearly presumed we knew each other. “You there—come ‘ere. I need to know what I’m dealin’ with. Let’s go.”

I nodded and tiptoed over his legs, avoiding any loose shards from the bathroom that were dragged out with the girl. On my way, I caught Ky’s eye again. He followed me across the room, not so much as glancing at the paramedic.

“Come on. I need to know if he’s been stabbed.” She pointed while egging me to hurry up.

In the chaos, I hadn’t noticed the bloody pair of shears half-hidden under the couch. The mere sight of them—and Ky’s severed ponytail, orphaned and haphazardly chopped off beside them—shot my heart to my throat again.

The second my knee hit the floor on his right side, Ky snatched my hands. Squeezed so tight, I thought he might hurt me. The tremors of his fear waved in predictable intervals. He shifted how his left hand gripped and I noticed it was incomplete—his ring and pinky fingers were missing at the second knuckle. Not a new injury.

“One, two, three, turn, okay?” The woman pushed him over, and Ky squealed in pain.

“Shh,” I said, letting him crush my hands. “It’s okay, K-Ky.”

She whispered under her breath, “Shit. Have to update the hospital.”

“No, no, no,” he exploded with marble-mouthed cries, pulling me closer with every word. “No hothpital. No hothpital.”

She scoffed. “I’m not lettin’ you to stay here. That’s suicide.” She stood to speak with the officers, leaving me alone on the floor with him.

Ky’s labored breath had yet to clear. “No hothpital. Pleath.” He shook his head and still refused to blink, as if even a millisecond of darkness would summon more monsters. His stare bored through me and into the wall. I couldn’t offer him anything except my presence and support, which already fell short because I didn’t know him well enough to ease his mind. Wriggling one hand away from his, I laid tender strokes on his uninjured cheek.

Be calm. Be brave. I’ll stay with you as long as you need me.

Before being loaded into the ambulance, Ky faded in and out of consciousness, eventually passing out from the pain in his mouth and the shock of what happened to him.

The mailroom, the stairs, and 3A’s broken door were landmarks of where my plans derailed. I learned to worship them as blissful reminders of why I remained. In the end, I was grateful for the simple truth of our beginning:

I saved Ky’s life. Without even knowing it, he’d saved mine, too.

Scars & Honey - June 3rd 2026