by Nicci Harris
It wasn’t just one night, for we were forever changed. I couldn’t refuse him that first time or any other time he crawled on top of me. I owed him for so much. Not after everything he did for me… does for me. After I ruined his life, after losing Liz, after the beating he received from Max Butcher, it seemed like a small thing to give him. My feelings for Erik have always curdled in the pit of my belly; a messed-up feeling that is both content within my big brother’s arms, and ashamed of the things I let him do to me after dark.
He left for college and we never spoke of it again. The whole idea of this other side of our relationship seemed to vanish with him and the time apart enlightened me. I didn’t want that kind of relationship with him. I didn’t love him like that. I thought he was finished with me, and that we could go back to being siblings, but as he takes my body again, after so many years, I realise I was wrong.
NINE: Konnor
Their words are barely audible. Their voices are barely recognisable. My bloody head. My bloody angry, throbbing, pulsing head. Why didn’t I chase a Panadol with a litre of water before I went to sleep? Rookie mistake. I sigh into the covers. Why do blankets feel so damn good when the last thing you want to do is get out of them? Soft and warm. Conscious thoughts slowly seep back in and my stinging eyes bat open, the uninvited light flickering into my half-masked irises. My jackarse of an alarm clock says it is 6:30 a.m., which means I have an hour left to sleep. My heavy eyes close again. Sleep is good… Then I hear a girl’s voice, and when I realise it isn’t Pemberton’s, I jolt up.
Blesk…
I grip my forehead and stumble to my feet as fast as I can, almost tripping over the rug in my room. As I peer down at my body, I’m confused when I see I’m fully dressed. What happened last— Oh, fuck!
Rushing, I skid from my bedroom to face the terrible world that has seen me inebriated for such a long time. I trip over something and fall to my knees. The tiles under me do not forgive. My brain struggles to engage, my muscles wrestle to react, and my better judgements are caught in a thick fog.
When I raise my eyes to search the room, I am inundated with memories of last night. My apartment is a complete wreck. Blesk. Her face fills my mind, the way a projector portrays an image on a blank screen. How she felt in my arms, cradled beside my body. The feel of her rapid pulse against my skin. I begin to shudder, hungover and in shock. I need her here, need to touch her, need to know she’s alright. I need to see her heart-shaped lips, her long hair, those damn chocolate pools. Two hands grab me and I squint up at Jax as he pulls me to my feet.
“Konnor!” He drags my drunken arse over to sit on the couch, but I shake him off.
I shoot up. “Where is she?”
“Mate, she’s with Erik. She’s fine.” He puts his hands on my shoulders, pushing me back down until I’m sitting.
I frown and squint up at him. “I heard her!”
Elise walks over to stand in front of me. “No, Konnor, you heard me.”
I rattle my head for a moment. Confusion clouds my mind; it’s an unpleasant feeling that is hard to describe. The significance of yesterday is undeniable, although I’m not sure I could articulate what it even was. But she knows things. She responded to my finger on hers. She knows . . .
“You know where she is? Like, you spoke to her?” My voice is desperate and pleading, and I don’t recognise it.
“Yes, she’s fine. She’ll be home tomorrow,” Elise says delicately.
I massage my jaw with my palm, which feels like it took a punch last night. “Where’s Drake?”
“He went home, buddy, he has early classes. Just chill out for a while.” Jax nods and his pitying expression pisses me off.
“No!” I stand up and sway in place. “I need to find Blesk.”
Jax puts his hand on my shoulder again. “Konnor, you’re not thinking straight—”
“I don’t expect you guys to understand!” I snap. “But I need to find her. Now.”
They stare at each other and attempt to communicate without words, sharing worried looks.
Elise turns towards me and tilts her head, “She said—”
“I don’t care what she fucking said!” I yell.
Those words were not meant to come out so aggressively, and I definitely didn’t want to make Elise’s smile recoil the way it just did. Jax frowns at me, and I sink to the couch in defeat. I glance up at Elise apologetically, but she’s smiling down at me again.
“Seriously, dude?” Jax shrugs at me. “Don’t talk to Elise like that, man.”
Fuck.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Elise.”
She feigns indifference. “Don’t be silly, it’s fine. I’m glad you care so much about her. I’m sure it has to do with the whole beating you with your own leg threat, so … I’m going to take complete credit.” She laughs again, and Jax chuckles. My head drums again, and I try to shake the noise out, but it just sloshes around between my ears in retaliation.
“Elise,” I say. “What happened? Did she tell you? Was it something that I did? I—”
She cuts in. “She didn’t tell me, but she sounded concerned about you … so I don’t think it was something you did.”
I look Jax straight in his eyes, almost pleading. “Please mate, understand, I need to look for her. I’m going with or without you.”
“You don’t know where she is,” he insists.
“She’s with her brother?” I ask.
Confusion crosses his face. “Yes, she’s with Erik.”
“Well, Pemberton has Erik’s find my phone password.” She set it up on his phone while they were sleeping together and I know this, because she did the same to me. "Let's go get her!"
Elise’s face brightens, and then she turns to look almost mischievously at Jax. “Let’s do it, Jaxon.”
He blinks at her. “Really?”
“Yes, definitely!” she exclaims with a big cheeky smile.
Jax tilts his head to me and smirks. “Konnor, I don’t think Pemberton will help you find, Blesk.” He shrugs in a dubious manner. “Just saying, buddy.”
“How about we tidy up a bit, and you go talk to your ex?” Elise dramatically enunciates the word “ex.”
As if I need reminding.
I would do anything for Blesk, even if that means facing Pembie.
✽✽✽
Though it took some cajoling and sweet-talking and reminding Pemberton that we were friends first, I finally got the information out of her that I needed. We hit the road; Jax is driving and Elise is in the back seat watching the world go by. It will take us just under four hours to get to Camden if we don’t stop. Camden is only thirty minutes from my hometown, Brussman, in The District.
I put my feet up on the dash and lean my seat back slightly, relaxing into it. I have an old pair of jeans on and my hoodie is pulled down over my stinging eyes. I squeeze them tightly shut and ponder what I’m going to say when I see Blesk. If I wasn’t so hungover I could potentially form more constructive thoughts, perhaps formulate a game plan of some kind. Erik’s phone appears to be on a farm. The satellite view on Google maps, didn’t show any houses or construction at all. If it’s accurate, he’s in the middle of an empty field. Elise brought Blesk a change of clothes, a jumper and leggings; she’s such a considerate little thing. I catch Jax fondly looking at her every now and then. Elise doesn’t seem to notice.
“I’ve never been on a road trip before,” I hear Elise say.
I pull back my hoodie and sit up, twisting in the seat to look at her. She has her legs scooped up to the side as she leans on the door and stares out the window.
“Never?” Jax glimpses at her in the rear-view mirror.
“Nope,” she confirms.
“What about with your family? Vacations or something?” He keeps both hands on the wheel and a keen eye on the road but offers her a glance every so often.
“No, my mums both work nonstop. Trying to save the world from scum. I had a nanny for a while, but then I
was just sort of on my own. I liked my nanny, though. She was good fun and would paint my nails and stuff. My mums hated that.” That memory makes her chuckle under her breath.
“Mums?” Jax asks and bumps my arm.
“Mums?” I repeat with a grin.
She giggles. “Boys are pathetic.” She shakes her head at our eagerness. “Yes, mums. I have two mums.”
“What do your mums do?” Jax asks.
“They’re both lawyers. They saw a lot of messed up stuff, a lot of messed up people. It was hard for me to have a life.”
“So, no road trips with friends, no school-leaver weekend? No summer camps?” Jax asks. “No road trip songs or games? No road trip junk food?” He sounds genuinely disgusted, and I can’t prevent myself from laughing at his mock distress, as if never having a road trip is on par with never being told you are loved.
“Nope, none of the above. Although I don’t need road trips to have junk food,” she states adamantly
“That sucks, Elise,” I add.
“Oh, man, no. This is no good,” Jax says in comical disapproval. “Junk food on the road is totally different than junk food at home.” He continues to shake his head and frown. “Nope, this will not do at all.”
I grin from ear to ear when he pulls into the strip lane and takes an exit off the highway.
I look back at Elise, who is peering at me, confused. “What’s he doing?”
“You’ll see.”
We pull into a petrol station and we both jump out the car, leaving Elise staring inquisitively through the window at us. We shove each other a little as we strut into the servo. The sliding door opens, and I make my way straight for an iced coffee. Blesk must be hungry, so I grab two and check out the breakfast bars. I hover over the meal-replacement congregation and feel immediately disappointed that I have no idea if she is allergic to nuts, or if she likes chocolate, or if she even drinks coffee.
What do I know about Blesk? She’s a musician, her mum died a few years ago, her brother's a dickhead, she is the most extraordinary girl I’ve ever met, with the sweetest smile, a giggle that makes me want to spend every day of my life making sure it happens over and over again… Is that it? Is that really all I can come up with?
I don’t deserve her.
Jax approaches me with his arms full of food, packages crunching within his grasp. He dumps it all on the counter and grabs a couple of magazines from the rack, as well as The Best of The Beatles.
As we get back into the car, Elise is beaming. Jax leans over the seat and hands her the bags. “Right, now, I know you don’t eat much meat?”
Elise looks shocked, and so do I—and impressed. I know absolutely nothing about Blesk. “How do you know that?” she asks, searching through the bags.
“We chatted about the agriculture industry at The Basement Lounge, remember?”
“Wow, I can’t believe you remember that. I never actually said I was a vegetarian. It’s kind of a well-established fact that guys don’t usually listen to girls like me.”
“Girls like you?” I query, unimpressed by her self-deprecating words.
She snorts. “You know.”
“No, we don’t,” Jax states, with his brows knit together in disapproval.
“Well, I don’t look like Blesk,” she mumbles.
“No, you don’t,” he repeats, staring at her in the rear-view mirror. “You look like Elise, and that is exactly how you should look… Anyway, well, I got the usual must-haves: Starbursts, Skittles, Maltesers. I couldn’t find any Pez, which is disappointing, but I found these weird Vege-Strip things, that look kinda like jerky but are vegetarian.”
Smooth motherfucker.
He starts the car and tries not to look too proud of himself, but I can see the smugness oozing from his eyes, and I want to taunt him mercilessly. I chuckle on a cough and he subtly hits me in the stomach. “But I did get us boys real jerky, Pork Crackle, and cheese sausages, ’cause it ain’t a road trip without ’em. I hope you don’t mind?”
I flash a serious expression back to Elise, who is flushing pink. “I am eating my cheese sausage,” I say definitively.
“Oh, of course,” she mutters, shoving some lollies into her mouth. “I don’t expect you guys to go without.”
Jax chucks me a grin. “Good to know.” He slides The Beatles in the CD slot, and we all start singing “Penny Lane” at the tops of our lungs as we hoe into our assortment of preservative-based goodies.
Australia is a weird country. As we travel north across the plane, the landscape varies from vast reds to flourishing greens. For the first few hours, it’s flat and dry, akin to a desert. Hours later, it’s green and tropical. Elise researches each town we drive through and relays some interesting and some not-so-interesting facts.
When we turn down a dirt road and pass a sign that reads “Main Estate,” discomfort immediately jackhammers through me. We pass an old broken-down homestead, which is overrun by vines but still distinctively stunning. With large white pillars, at least three stories and still sporting its original timber frame construction, it looks like a waste of a great family home. It isn’t until we come to the end of the dirt-track that we notice Erik’s car parked up on top of a hill. A sandy track leads up the hill to its peak and then continues along the top.
“Lucky we brought the Prado and not the Beamer, hey?” Jax halts the car at the dead-end and turns to look at us questioningly. “Should we drive up there? Or walk?”
My pulse suddenly quickens, but I’m not exactly sure why. Something is wrong. My gut knots up, and I unconsciously clutch at my stomach. I squint up at Erik’s car. All those daisies, all those trees, that bright sun, that sweet smell. Ringing fills my ears, and I start breathing violently in response to my heart’s beat. This doesn't make sense, it's not like I've been here before. Words float into my foggy mind.
“It is the daisies. They are my favourite flower. I will bring you a new one every day.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to share them with you. They light up the world.”
“No, you do that.”
“What’s up, man? Slater? What’s up? Slater!”
Someone is jerking me back and forth, and I turn to meet Jax’s eyes. “Huh?”
“Slater, where did you just go?” He looks at me concerned, and turns back to Elise
Elise touches my shoulder and leans forward to catch a better view of my face. “Konnor? Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I nod in a haze of uncertainty. “Sorry. Why wouldn’t I be?”
They frown at each other. Elise speaks cautiously and rubs my arm with her little hand. “You just zoned out.”
“Wait here," I say, and before I know what I’m doing, I’m running up the hill. Every muscle in my body is tight and focused wholly on my incline. My feet and arms are driving me forward, and I grunt under my breath. Why am I sprinting? I couldn’t move faster if I were being chased.
Running, jumping, panting until I reach the top and am drilled by the sun’s beams. I raise my forearm to shield my eyes from the invading light, squinting around the area, searching. Then it happens. I freeze up. My muscles lose all strength, all motion, all density. My head gets lighter and lighter as if inflating with air. The silence around me only makes the sudden thundering in my ears seem louder.
My head swivels around as I try to find something to focus on. I can see a hatch and stairs leading down, down, into a basement, a dark, dark, fucking basement. I slam my jaw shut and clench my teeth until they hurt. Some seconds pass, or moments, or an hour. Time has no order right now. It isn’t until I hear her small cry that my brain retrieves its senses.
Fucking move, Konnor.
That little weeping sound. My whole-body hurts as my pulse runs rampant through my veins. I peer down to my immobile shoes and attempt to lift them, wrestling with the terrifying paralysis. They stay frozen to the grass beneath. I inhale several quick fierce breaths. I hear it again. A masculine moan. A feminine sob.
“Please, don’t,” My whole body throws itself forward down the stairs as if it were possessed. As soon as I’m officially underground, the air gets so thick it is hardly breathable.
His lips are on her. His body is pressed against her. Her eyes are filled with tears . . .
A bolt of heat strikes my temple, and everything goes pitch black.
Then I’m wailing on him. My fists are red and raw. Every punch deforms his face further. I’m straddling him, pinning him to the ground——just like he did to her. Nailing him with every inch of strength I contain and some I don’t. The thumps turn into cracks. All I see is red. I’m going to destroy him. I hear grunting, loud, angry grunting, and it takes me a few moments to realise it’s coming from me My fists pummel his face and come away from it wet. When I hit a bone and hear a crunch, my hand flies back, spraying blood everywhere. Suddenly I can’t reach him anymore as I’m being pulled backwards. I’m torn from him, kicking and yelling, —volatile and animalistic. Erik is groaning on the floor, spluttering up mouth loads of blood and bile. I’m heaving wildly and grinning menacingly as he chokes on his own secretions. Elise rushes over and attempts to clear his throat. She checks his pulse, rips his shirt, and presses the material to the gushing cuts on his face.
I can’t think straight. I can’t feel anything other than the need to inflict pain on him. He was on my girl. My hands are pumping at my waist, anger is clawing at my back.
I jolt towards him and spit on his face. “Leave him to rot!” I growl.
“Shit, Slater!” Jax yells while dragging me back. “Think about the girls, Slate!”
“Konnor.”
Her sweet shaky voice crashes through my haze, snapping me back to here and now.
Snapping me back to what I saw and to what I now know. I shove Jax off and spin like a crazed animal in search of her face, desperation manifesting itself in my every frantic movement. I am covered in sticky blood and dripping in sweat. Every inch of me is twitching with fury and fear, a tangled combination of fight and flight. Even though the whole world is blurry I can make out their silhouettes. I focus more sharply until I distinguish her trembling frame. I see her face, that sweet girl, my everything.
