by W Winters
“You don’t know the half of it. You don’t know what I did,” he says and his voice goes tight and again he covers his face, forcing him to let go of me. He scrubs his eyes like he wants the vision to go away.
“Seth, tell me what’s wrong?” The unsettling, gut-wrenching feeling takes over. Something is not just wrong, it’s gotten to him more than I’ve seen anything get to him. He’s scared. I feel it rock through my bones, his fear and despair. “Seth, please,” I beg him and he only shakes his head, his hands on the top of his head, his eyes closed tight.
“Tell me,” I demand and pull at his arms, forcing him to look at me, not knowing what else to do. Not knowing how to help him and not knowing what I’m going to do. I’m so on edge.
“I killed your dad!” Seth screams and the rage and brokenness that was written on his face changes quickly.
What? His words sink in slowly, like a dark red sky late at night before it all turns black. Shock is a reality. It’s numbing.
“Laura.” He speaks my name and reaches out for me with both hands. I shake my head, not accepting his grasp.
“You’re drunk; you didn’t kill him. He—he died in a car accident. He was in a car accident.” It was an accident, but my chest feels hollow hearing Seth say something like that. There’s no skip, no beat of any sort. My heart has fled.
I rip my arm away from him and he stays like he is, hunched down with his arms out to me even though I step away. “You need to stop and go to bed,” I warn him, feeling my throat go raw with horrible emotions.
“I did.” His wretched words are spoken like they’re true, but they’re not.
“It was a car accident,” I say as I take another step back until I’m fully in the living area and he’s in the kitchen. “You need to stop,” I warn him again, raising my arm. Of all the days to bring up my dad, it would have to be this one. When he’s been on my mind the entire drive here.
Seth takes a cautious step forward and suddenly I feel like I’m choking. Just from the way he’s looking at me, like he’s about to break me.
“He was a rat. That’s why.” My bottom lip wobbles when his eyes turn glossy.
“Stop it,” I say and try to cut him off, but he keeps talking. “No he wasn’t. You’re just tired and not—”
“That’s why Vito was going to hurt you. To get to your father.” I have to blink away the shining haze of tears in my eyes as I back away. He’s lying. My father would never rat. Seth would never kill him. It doesn’t make sense.
“Stop it!” I scream. “You don’t know anything about my father,” I say, barely getting the choked words out, tears flowing easily down my cheeks as I take another step back, hitting the coffee table and nearly falling backward.
Seth explains, his eyes turning red and a tortuous tone in his voice as he says, “My father… he couldn’t let yours live. I wanted it to look like an accident. I didn’t want to kill him. I didn’t want to, but he made me. He said it was the only—”
“Stop it, please,” I say as my legs go weak and tremble. My shoulders hunch in as I round the coffee table, backing away as Seth gets closer to me. I need to get to the door. I have to get the fuck out of here. “Stop it,” I beg him.
It’s not true. He’s just drunk. It can’t be true, but the hurt in my chest, oh my God, it can’t be true. Denial is the first stage of grief.
“He said I had to do it if I wanted it to be an accident.” Seth’s eyes reflect mine. Glossy and wishing what he’s saying wasn’t true.
I don’t know how or why, but I slam my fist into his jaw, only once before taking off. It’s all a blur. I don’t remember thinking of reacting, choosing to leave. My body’s hot and numb and disbelief turns me blind to what’s happening. I do it, though. I hit him square in his jaw. Leaving Seth behind me, holding his jaw in shock. I run faster than him, I get out of the house and into my car before I see him in the doorway. The burning pain in my knuckles is nothing.
It’s nothing compared to the pain ripping through me as I speed away.
Seth
Fuck. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. My head’s spinning. I shouldn’t be driving. Jase was right, I should have stayed at the bar or with him or anywhere else. I shouldn’t have let him and Anthony drive me home.
I wish they’d been there when I walked in and saw she wasn’t there. I stayed outside while they drove off, gathering whatever composure I could. It was a recipe for disaster. Everything about our story is meant for tragedy. It all could have been different, if only.
Fuck! I slam my hand onto the steering wheel, feeling the stinging pain from the already formed bruises. I do it again and again, just to feel it. I deserve it.
Reckless. I was reckless with her. I never should have said a damn thing. Selfish. I did it because I needed to know she’d still love me after. Selfish.
The lights turn red. I swear every light has turned red on my way to her house. Praying she’s there, praying she’ll forgive me, doesn’t offer me any hope. Why would she? I already knew she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t love me if she knew. She never really loved me, because she didn’t know. It’s why I could never make the first move; it’s why I could never tell her those words she needed to hear, I love you. It was such a lie.
I was never worthy of that love. It wasn’t real.
Thunk! I slam my fist against my window, wanting to feel even more pain. The pain is so wretched in my chest that swallowing feels like suffocation.
I wish I could take it back. All of it. I wish I could rewrite our story.
My head falls back against the leather seat as I slow to stop at another red light. My face is hot and my breathing staggered, but my body is wired. My leg doesn’t stop the constant tapping.
Thank fuck the streets are barren. There’s not a soul out tonight.
Time moves too slowly; all the while anxiousness eats me up inside. My tires squeal when I pull into the parking lot outside Laura’s place. Her car’s already parked.
My body sags with relief of at least knowing where she is.
She’s safe. That’s all that matters tonight. She’s safe.
If Jase hadn’t wanted me to tell him… If I didn’t have to tell him, I wouldn’t have had to relive it.
With my fist at my jaw, I stare at Laura’s window. The lights are on; she’s inside. The sad truth is that it was going to happen eventually. I always knew it would. Her leaving me was a blessing. I should have let her go. I shouldn’t have brought her into this hell again. Selfish.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, feeling the loss all over again and knowing it’s my fault. My hands don’t stop shaking.
I did it for her though. I remember telling Jase over and over. I did do it for her. She didn’t have to know her father was a rat. Vito wanted to hurt him by hurting Laura, and that wasn’t something that could happen.
It didn’t change the fact her father had ratted. He was a rat and he had to die.
Fuck, my chest sinks, remembering the old man. Everything was a joke to him. It was never serious but the shit he talked about to whoever would listen… it wasn’t something we could allow.
My father knew he had to go the second he took charge and everyone agreed. They were going to do it in the warehouse, then dump him in the back alley.
Then what would Laura have had? She would have known. Everyone would have known with his body being left there and she would have been the daughter of a rat.
I wanted to hide it from her. I wanted to protect her. Everything inside me needed to protect her.
Then you do it. My father’s voice echoes in my head as I stare straight ahead at the bright lights in Laura’s living room. Her curtains are parted and I can see her silhouette move from one side to the other.
My father put the gun in my hand and I shot her father in the back of the head while he begged for his life. I never wanted to do it. I didn’t want to kill him. I just wanted to protect her. I had to do it alone while they watched. Getting his body to th
e car, driving it to the top of the cliff, disposing of the gun in the cement pit round the back.
They were going to kill him one way or the other, but I did it.
I didn’t want her to know. It would have killed her. She was already so alone.
“I’m sorry,” I say again in the darkness, all alone where I belong. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
My throat’s raw, my body humming, my emotions thrashed, which is why I hesitate to believe what I see. Two sets of lights are on.
My body’s cold in an instant. Fuck, no. No. It can’t get worse tonight.
She’s visible in her bedroom.
So are three other figures, in her living room.
Laura
I hear the front door open and I know it’s Seth, but I don’t say a damn thing. I don’t even know if I can speak right now without screaming incoherently through the pain.
My father’s been long gone. I have to cover my face with my hands as it crumples and the sadness rips through me… he wasn’t a rat. He wasn’t.
They didn’t have to kill him; he never would have told anyone anything. He wasn’t a rat! My knees are still weak and I sniffle, angrily brushing under my eyes. I can hear Seth in the living room, but I don’t go to him. I want to, I want to scream at him, hit him. I want him to lie to me and tell me he made it up. I want it to be a cruel joke I can beat the shit out of him for and for him to hold me until this shaking and the sobs disappear.
He said we’d be together to make the hurt stop, but it doesn’t. It never stops with us.
A shuddering breath pulls the energy from me and I hear something in the living room. He moved something around.
I want to tell him to get the fuck out. I want to scream at him and shove my fists into his chest. At the same time, I don’t want to see him or be around him. I don’t want his large hands on me, his warm body pulling me in. Why? Because I desperately need someone to hold me right now and I have no one.
It’s hard to inhale; harder to calm my wild heart down. It trips like it’s falling down an endless staircase and it hurts. God it hurts.
“Get out!” I scream and the sound is ragged. My fingers fly into my hair as I hunch my shoulders down and cover my face with my forearms. I grip on for my sanity.
Just breathe.
I’ve been doing it all day, thinking it all day, but at some point, breathing doesn’t help.
The bang sounds again from behind me. He’s still moving shit around in there.
I know that he’s drunk, I know he’s hurting, but right now, I can’t have him here. I can’t allow it to happen. I’m crumbling into nothingness and he doesn’t get to watch that. He doesn’t get to be around me when it happens. I don’t care how badly I need him.
“Laura,” a voice calls out just as I get to my bedroom door and chills flow down my spine, sinking into my blood as I stop with my hand on the knob.
Thud, thud.
That’s not Seth.
“Come out, come out,” the voice sounds, “wherever you are,” dragging out the words like it’s a game. And then I hear another voice. Two men.
My pulse races with a new kind of fear. Whiplash dizzies my mind.
I could hide, but there’s nowhere to hide in here other than under the bed defenselessly. I have a window in my bedroom, but the fire escape stairs are in the living room. The ones made of steel that go all the way down and lead outside.
Sometimes you can’t just breathe. Sometimes, you just have to face it.
When I push the door open, listening to the eerily soft creak, four men face me.
Three of them have black masks, dark blue jeans and black shirts. All nondescript. None of them recognizable from their voices or what little I can see of their eyes. They stand in a relative half circle, my coffee table pushed back.
Three men who have come to do something awful, although seeing masks covering their faces, calms a side of me. The logical side, the side that thinks, is telling me they hadn’t planned on killing me. If they had, they wouldn’t have worn masks to hide who they are.
They came for something bad, though. That much is known from the slow clap and chilled laughter from the one on the right, the one by the coffee table. As if the masks and breaking into my apartment wasn’t enough to give it away.
I may be terrified, but a part of me is ready. That little piece that screams inside my head that I should have put a bat next to my bedroom door.
“There she is,” he calls out, his voice harsh with brittle humor. I don’t know how I stand so tall when they’re so much bigger than me.
I try not to look at the fourth man. Swallowing harshly, my bottom lip quivering, I search my whirling mind for anything I can do to stall as Seth moves quietly to close the front door. I don’t want my focus to go to him; I don’t want them to see him sneaking up on them. In his oxfords and disheveled suit, a gun already in his hand and not on the doorknob.
My lips part to say something as the hot tears slip down my face, but I can’t even speak. The barrel of a gun stares at me, the man on the left raising it. Fear is a crippling bitch. She can fuck right off, but right now, she’s got her grip on my throat.
The barrel of the gun pointed at my face is a dark hole, like one I’ve imagined falling down so many times.
The bang isn’t from it though, and the next bang and hollering isn’t either.
“Behind you!” the not-so-funny man yells to man number two. Man number one, the one who dared raise a gun to me, is already lying face-first on the floor with a hole in the back of his head. Blood pools around his face.
Bang! I scream instinctively. Seth shoots but so do the other two. Bullets ricochet and fly, something breaks and I can’t track it all at once. I don’t know what is happening, just that I need to move.
Even shaking, I can see everything clearly, but only seconds of it. A second of logic and clarity and then a whirl of chaos. Grabbing the clock on the wall, the large sixteen-inch barn clock, I run and scream, slamming it into the back of the man’s head who’s closest to me. Cursing, he stumbles, but doesn’t fall. I raise the clock again to strike him, wanting and needing to do anything at all, but I hear another shot and then another and the frightful burst of the bang forces me to huddle down.
My heart races. My body hot, I blink away the chaos. My breathing screams in my ears and it’s all I can hear.
Seth’s still standing. I’m standing. My gaze moves to each of the men accordingly. One, two, three. All still, all not moving. I watch them each again, listening to my ragged breathing. Is it over already? Are we okay?
We’re alive. My chest pounds, my heart pumping hard and fast. I feel faint.
“We’re okay,” I whisper, rocking as I lean against the wall. The bullets weren’t clean and simple. There’s blood everywhere.
Is that blood? There’s blood on Seth. His shirt. There’s too much blood. Not like the bits that have spattered behind me. Not like what’s on me. It’s a circle and it’s growing.
A mix between a grunt and a groan leaves Seth as he checks his gun and then it clicks loudly as he heads back to the front door, locking it.
“Are you okay?” I ask in what feels like a yell although it sounds like a murmur, hoping he can hear me. Inhaling sharply, my heart beats wildly and my lungs refuse to move right. He’s walking, he’s okay. He’s okay. He has to be okay.
Everything is shaking and my hands don’t stop shaking. I clasp them, trying to calm down, but that’s when I see the blood on my hands. There’s so much blood.
He still hasn’t answered me; he’s just walking to the windows.
“Seth!” I scream at Seth to look at me, my eyes burning and my throat sore from screaming. He doesn’t answer me, but the blood circle is growing. He’s shot. My lip quivers. “Seth!”
He ignores me, stepping over a body to get to the window.
“Fuck,” Seth hisses as a loud ringing wails. “Why are they here so fast?” he questions out loud, moving to the window and curs
ing again. It takes me a moment to even understand. Everything is ringing, my blood, my ears. Shock and fear still have their grip on me.
Sirens wail outside. Loud and they’re only getting louder.
“Check them,” Seth grits out, his jaw clenched as he breathes in deep.
“You need a doctor,” I beg him to let me help him, but he grabs my hand as I grab his shirt. “Check them first.”
My eyes are wide with disbelief. “For what?” My head is spinning and my thoughts are scattered. I don’t understand. “Make sure they’re dead,” he yells out and then leans against the wall.
I could argue with him and I almost do. My body leans forward subconsciously, wanting to go to him and give the gunshot the attention it needs.
“It’s in and out, Babygirl. It’s not a big deal, just annoying the fuck out of me,” he talks calmly, although his breathing is still labored. Heavy and deep.
I take a step back to do what he tells me. Check them. Dead bodies. Three dead bodies all in masks.
The sirens get louder and Seth tells me to hurry, dropping to his knees by one man behind the sofa.
“Dead,” he calls out loud enough for me to hear him.
I have to crawl on my knees across the thick carpet to go from one dead man to the next corpse. My shaky fingers dig into their necks, waiting for a pulse that doesn’t come.
I stare into the eyes of the man closest to me through the ski mask. He’s white, his eyes are hazel and they stare at nothing. Pulling his mask back, I note that I don’t know him. He’s just a man.
“Who are they?” I question in a hushed breath and Seth only replies asking if they’re dead. My body trembles, not knowing what would have happened if Seth wasn’t here. What would they have done to me? What did they want?
“They’re dead. They’re all dead,” I reassure Seth as he grips his side. I don’t know how I’m still standing, or how any of this happened. Three men lie on the floor of my living room, all shot. All dead. Bullet holes litter my walls, the coffee table is broken from one of them trying to use it for defense, I don’t know. It all happened so fast.
