by Nicole Snow
Don’t get me wrong.
Fuchsia is dangerous. She could kill a man with her bare hands. But she’ll find a way to do it without so much as running her pantyhose or getting a single splatter of blood on her designer skirt.
Today’s designer skirt is grey, a break from the usual assassin’s black, a sheath that hugs her body as she leans against the SUV and waits with cool impatience. It’s so damn gaudy and out of place I shake my head, and think of Ember, even when I don’t want to.
She doesn’t have to resort to this shit to seem sexy. That little firefly woman draws my eye like flame, whether she’s dressed to ruin or wearing a paper bag. All thoughts I damn sure can’t afford right now.
Fuchsia doesn’t even glance my way as I pull the truck into the opposite bank of pumps.
Discretion is a must. I can’t be seen talking to her in public. I don’t want to be seen talking to her in public.
Still, this is the perfect place for pantomime, pretending to go about our own business while exchanging murmurs as we pass. I shake my head at how absurd it seems, creeping around like spies from some Cold War flick. Not something I ever thought I’d be doing in this little town.
There’s no sign of Nine, thank fuck.
Either he’s in the car, or she bluffed to get me to meet her again.
I just have to keep my control through this, bite my tongue until it’s over – unless I see a good opportunity for running her out of town myself.
Slowly, I get out of my truck. Inside the ARCO, through the broad front glass windows, the boy working the register – Jeremy, I treated his pug last week to prevent mange along with a good deworming – catches sight of me and waves enthusiastically. I spare a brief nod, then go about the business of refilling my tank.
This is why caution is king.
I know everyone in this town, and everyone in this town thinks they know me.
On the other side of the pump, Fuchsia turns and pretends to fiddle with the touchscreen and card reader over her payment. Then her voice drifts through the pump station, quiet like she’s murmuring to herself.
“So is this how you treat all your old friends, Gray?” she asks, soft but mocking. “So cruel. You don’t even want to be seen in public.”
“Don’t insult me by insinuating we’re friends,” I throw back, snarling low. “Or that we ever were. I have actual friends now. Not that you’d know what that’s like. You have people who are useful to you, and people you leave to die.”
She clucks her tongue with a wounded sound. “Now, now. Neither you nor Nine died, did you? And I had no use for you...at the time.”
My hand clenches on the gas pump. This sociopath could make me burst a vein. I have to force my grip to relax. Swallowing another growl, I stare down at the scars on my hands.
Scars that are there thanks to her.
“What use? You’re implying that you have one for me now?”
“I’ve already told you why I’m here. It’s time for Gale—oh, I’m sorry, the company to go down, and I can’t convince our old circle, but you could.” She sighs. “We were all so close, once. And if you don’t want to be the public face of this, maybe he will. It may even exonerate him for all the trouble he’s in. I just need a messenger the people trust.”
With a snort under my breath, I turn my back on her to slot the pump into my truck, speaking over my shoulder in an idle murmur. “Because you know that your presentation is somewhere between Cruella de Vil and Maleficent.”
“I had no idea you were such an aficionado of kids’ films.” Her tone is amused, but coldly so. She turns a black card over between her fingers; not quite a debit card, but an access card, gleaming dark. “But yes. I’m aware my demeanor can be...off-putting to some. The message would be better delivered by someone else. Someone kinder.”
“Trouble is,” I say, “I don’t trust your message. Where’s this sudden altruism coming from? You had no problem letting Galentron continue reaping the rewards for years. You don’t have a change of heart unless it benefits you.”
“Oh, Gray. You wound me so deeply.” She flutters a hand to her chest. “Even Nine was kinder.”
“So you have spoken to him.”
“Of course! He refused to come into town, though. Afraid of his own shadow, or something.”
“You – fuck. So you lied to get me to meet you. Again.”
A playful pout flits across her lips, but it’s like poison candy. “You do have a rather firm way of rejecting a girl.”
“Enough.” I rip the gas pump from the tank and shove it back into the holder, glaring at her through the digital screens and control panels around us. “I’m done with games. No circumlocution, no twisting words, no bullshit. Be straight with me. Tell me the real reason you’re here. If you actually tell me the truth for once in your life, I might consider working with you one-on-one to sort this out. Leave Nine out of it.”
Her smile is so icy, darkly triumphant. She parts her lips, no doubt ready to deliver some half-truth she thinks is a killing stroke.
Then she stops as my phone vibrates in my pocket.
I’ve never been more grateful for Pam in my life.
But all thoughts of gratitude vanish as I pull the phone out of my pocket and scan the text. Emergency 911—priority, get back ASAP!
Fuck.
If it’s something Ember and Pam can’t handle together, it’s life or death.
I drop my phone back in my pocket and jam my debit card into the pump, tapping quickly. “Don’t,” I say sharply, holding up my free hand. “Don’t say a word. You’re not my problem right now. I have other priorities. This conversation can wait.”
For some reason, that only makes her smile more, but she doesn’t say a word.
Fuchsia only bides her time and her silence when there’s something in it for her.
And as I finish quickly, turn my back on her, get back in my truck, and speed off as fast as I can without getting pulled over, I wonder.
I wonder exactly what she’s getting out of this by dangling me on a string.
The scene at The Menagerie is nothing short of nightmarish when I walk in.
Several frightened women are huddled in the far corner of the reception room, clinging to each other and their hysterically barking and screeching pets, rattling something about a snake and how they don’t want to die.
From the back, I can already hear the source of the problem.
Blake goddamned Silverton.
“Don’t squeeze him like that!” Blake shouts. “He’s choking, dammit, he doesn’t need CPR!”
“How else do you expect me to get the ball out of his throat?” Ember snaps back, a note of panic in her voice – but also a touch of firmness, a sharpness I’ve never heard her exhibit around me. “He’s a boa constrictor. They constrict. He’s not going to relax voluntarily.”
“Goddammit, how do you expect me to—”
Damn it all.
That exchange tells me everything I need to know, and I know I’m not in for a good time.
Blake is here with his daughter’s boa constrictor, Mr. Hissyfit – and whatever’s wrong with the damned snake is making Blake throw a hissy fit for the ages.
Pam might be the only calm one here. She doesn’t even look up from her computer as she waves me toward the back.
I’m already shrugging my lab coat back on, removing a pair of sterile nitrile gloves from the wad of them I keep in my pocket. I snap the first one on pointedly loud, making it smack against my wrist and commanding the attention of the room as I step into the back.
“Mr. Silverton,” I say firmly, raising my voice for the first time in what feels like forever. “If you could stop verbally abusing my assista—”
I stop.
Then I just stare.
Mr. Hissyfit has grown since I saw him last. The albino boa constrictor, a fat thing in various shades of ivory and gold and banana-yellow, is now well over eleven feet long – and currently coiled around both my assis
tant and my so-called friend, thrashing fiercely while both struggle to pin him down to the table and deal with the obstruction that’s swelling his throat, a good foot down from the back of his skull, out to the size of a basketball.
Actually, I think it is a basketball.
I’ll ask questions later.
Right now, I may just have to save this snake’s life before he chokes my assistant and his owner to death. Especially since Ember’s so tiny, the boa constrictor could easily snap her up for its next meal.
“Pam!” I snap, yanking my other glove on. “We need another pair of hands, stat. Scrub up. Blake, out.”
Blake jerks his head up to glare at me, brow furrowed under his messy crop of rusty-brown hair. “But I—”
“Out,” I command. “My clinic. Trust me, you’ll just be in the way.”
With a resentful look, he manages to unloop himself from the snake and goes straggling out, trying to hide his old war limp that always flares up under stress. That’s exactly why I don’t need him here. I won’t have him injuring himself tensing his entire body to struggle with the powerful, muscular coils of a boa constrictor.
I take his place instantly, catching the snake around the throat and looking at Ember.
“Grip him in one place and hold firmly, please. Don’t try to fight him off you, he’ll just squeeze tighter. We’re going to gently straighten him out so we can loosen his airways. Pam,” I throw over my shoulder as she comes bustling in. “I’ll need a muscle relaxant and a mild sedative.”
“Of course, Doc.”
Ember lifts her head as she struggles to get the boa constrictor under control. The only reason this snake isn’t dead right now is because of his breed. Constrictors are made to stretch their throats to swallow enormous things, but the rubber of a ball will catch and stick. It’ll never break down in its digestive acids.
We have to move. We don’t have much time.
It’s not hard to see on her face that she knows it, too – wide eyed, sweat beading on her brow, plush lips trembling and parted on rapid, shallow breaths.
She’s afraid.
Not of the snake, but for him.
“Ember?” No response, so I say it again, more firmly. “Ember.”
Her head snaps toward me, and she stares. “Y-yes?”
“You’ve got this,” I say. “We’ve got this. Are you with me?”
There’s a hazy moment where uncertainty flickers in her eyes, before they clear, and she presses her lips together, stilling their trembling as she takes a more steady grip on the constrictor’s coils. “I’m with you,” she says, voice stronger, firmer.
“Very good, then.” I take a strong grip just below the obstruction, pinning the snake down gently. “Let’s get started.”
Wrong choice of words because suddenly I’m not in The Menagerie.
Twenty-Three Years Ago
“Let’s get started.”
My father stands over me, his massive bulk towering when I’m fourteen and haven’t hit my growth spurt yet. I’m standing at attention, shoulders square.
I’m not allowed to stand any other way.
Spine stiff, hands at my sides, head down because to look him in the eye is a challenge.
And challenges are met with violence, daring me to be strong enough to fight back.
I’m staring at my feet.
Then he thrusts my report card in front of my face. A line of A+ grades, picture perfect...until that damning B+ in English that left me both dragging my feet on my way home, afraid what would happen if I showed up late or displayed the smallest sign of fear. Of weakness.
“To begin with,” he barks off with that drill sergeant cadence he never lost even in retirement, “what did you do wrong?”
I cringe.
I fucking hate this part.
It’s the first part of any formal dressing-down because he expects me to know the rules well enough to know how I’ve violated every single one, and to stand accountable for my personal failings – of which he says there are many – without needing to be told.
Having to be told what I did wrong, he often tells me, lacks self-awareness.
And he wants me to know all my flaws right down to their shape and size and smell.
He wants me to be aware of how much he didn’t want me, and the only reason I’m alive is because he was, in his words, man enough to do the right thing. Which I guess means putting a roof over my head and Mom’s with all the charisma of a tyrant.
“Dad, wait, I...” I have to stop, breathe in, steady my voice. No weakness or I might end up spending a week in the shed out back with nothing but a thin pallet and a bucket to piss in and one meal a day. “I didn’t study enough.”
“And why didn’t you study enough?”
Shit. Not studying enough was the easy answer. I don’t know what else he wants.
It’s the obvious one, because obviously if I’d studied enough, I would’ve gotten an A+ in that class too.
But the only answer I can think of to explain it? I was too busy studying for other classes. It’s all I do when I’m not in school. I only get to do stuff like read comic books at lunch when I snag them from my friends.
I don’t watch TV. I don’t play video games. I’m not allowed to do either.
I just study, and the only way I could’ve done more is to sleep less.
I barely sleep five fucking hours a night as it is. I don’t think that’s normal.
But he’s waiting, and the silence builds between us like raging thunderheads. I bite my lip, then stop.
Careful. That’s another sign of weakness.
Then my brain hits on something. Something I can offer up to placate him, a way for me to be wrong so he can tell me he’s right like the loud, angry god he always pretends to be.
“When I went to Timmy’s pool party in April,” I whisper, then flinch when he barks at me.
“Speak up, boy. Don’t mewl it. I wanna hear this.”
I clear my throat, swallowing, and say more firmly, “Timmy’s birthday pool party in April. I guess...I could’ve spent that day studying.”
“You’re damn right you could have, Gray. But you had to go be frivolous instead, and now look at you! A B-fucking-plus. I didn’t raise you to be a B-plus boy. You think B-plus was good enough when I was at the Academy? If I hadn’t paid attention, I’d have wound up in some jungle snake pit, a prisoner, letting those bastards rip out my teeth.” He smacks his fist into his palm hard enough to make my heart jump and my stomach bottom out, but I manage not to flinch this time, holding rigidly still.
Shit. Not again. Not more talk about the war, his medals. A big, screaming display of the unresolved rage he brought home from overseas as Colonel Caldwell.
“Thing is, I thought I could whip you into shape, just like the USAF did to me. Turn a fucking sow’s ear into a silk purse. Make a man out of you. But I’m starting to think I was wrong. You start with bad materials, you’re gonna get a half-ass result. And you’re a goddamned half-ass result. I don’t think you’ll ever amount to anything, no matter what I do.”
I bite my lip so hard this harsh, iron taste fills my mouth.
It shouldn’t hurt. I’m used to this crap by now.
I’ve told myself I don’t care a thousand times.
I don’t need his approval, and I’m just trying to survive long enough to get out of here on my own. But there’s still this hard, dull pain in the pit of my stomach.
Underneath that, though...there’s also hope.
Because maybe he’s giving up. Maybe he’ll let me off easier today.
Maybe he’s so disgusted he’ll even stop trying to shape me into the image of the son he always wanted and I can never be.
Maybe then he’ll finally leave me alone to be a normal teenage boy, and we can just avoid each other until I graduate high school and never have to look at him again.
Only, of course he speaks again, once more smacking his fist against his palm with a sharp impact that makes
my entire body twist up in a knot, demanding I run.
“Except,” he says, looking down at me with a sneer, “I’m not a quitter. And nothing’s useless if you break it down enough to be able to put it back together as something better. I guess we haven’t broken you down enough, so we’re gonna have to try harder. Drop, Gray,” he commands. “And give me five hundred.”
I snap my head up, staring at him, sucking in a breath. “F-five hundred?”
He’s never made me do more than a hundred push-ups at once before.
But in my shock, I’ve made a fatal mistake. A huge one.
Eye contact. Crap.
And his eyes gleam with evil delight as he smiles slowly, cruelly, grinding his fists together until his knuckles make terrible, ominous crunching sounds.
“You wanna fight me, boy?” he says, soft and promising. “Then drop and give me a thousand. One thousand push-ups, good form, and then let’s just see if you can stand up enough to fight, Mr. Man.”
I stood up to fight that day.
Because after a thousand push-ups, I was so fucking angry that even though my nose was dripping and I was nearly vomiting, even though I couldn’t feel my arms or legs and my palms were scraped raw by the concrete garage floor, I hated him so much I would’ve killed him then, if I could.
I’d have killed my own father.
He knocked me down with one blow.
And I got up and kept fighting anyway.
Because no matter what he thought of me, that’s who I am.
A fighter. Not a quitter. As strong as him – stronger – without his sadistic, self-righteous overgrown bully attitude.
And I’m not quitting on this damn snake, even if it takes hours of work to get the ball – a dodgeball, I’d been wrong – free from his throat.
With the muscle relaxants and sedatives, we’re able to get the boa constrictor relaxed and strapped to the table, and then it’s hours of alternating careful tissue massage between me and Ember while Pam forcibly kept Blake from the room.
