by Ginger Scott
“Bitch,” I correct.
He stares at me for a beat before a slow smile sets in.
He holds the bottom of his shirt again. “I’m not stripping. I wanna show you something.” His eyes focus on mine, waiting for my nonverbal consent. I flit my gaze down to his stomach and nod.
He drags the shirt up slowly, and hater or not, I’m still a girl attracted to boys. And yes, his body is quite impressive. I don’t have brothers, so I’m not exposed to things like toned stomach muscles and abs. I mash my lips together to keep myself composed and hide how self-conscious I’ve suddenly become staring at parts of him.
The more he drags his shirt up his body, though, the less this becomes about me seeing the school hottie without his shirt on. His entire right side is purple, almost as if someone kicked him.
“Who did this to you?” I step closer and bend down. He jerks.
“I won’t touch.” Our eyes meet. “I swear.”
I tuck my hands under my arms to set him at ease. He must be in a lot of pain. He lifts his shirt again and I really take in the various colors of his skin. He looks like an eggplant.
“That’s the thing,” he says as I focus on what I’m pretty sure is a broken rib. His labored breathing shakes his body. “I got this from a horse.”
“I didn’t know you ride.” I glance up, squinting, and a little impressed. I don’t know why horse riding makes him seem cooler than quarterbacking, but it does.
“Yeah, I don’t really,” he says, bursting my momentary fantasy and dropping right back down to quarterback status. He lowers his shirt but leaves it bunched in his hands, giving him something to fidget with. He leans closer to me, and I mimic his movement, this sense that we’re going to share a secret.
“I’ve never ridden a horse in my life.” His eyes blink a few times before settling on mine. I try to decipher his stare, hoping my instinct is right. There’s no reason for him to come to me for something, not unless there are exceptional circumstances.
“Were you . . . over there when you were riding?” He studies me at my question, his face not so much a look of confusion but maybe . . . hope? Hope that he is not completely losing his mind. I get that because there was a while—at the start, when I found the bullet—that I was pretty sure I had been fed acid and was stuck on a trip with no hope of getting off.
We continue to stare at each other in complete silence for a few more seconds until my dad interrupts us with the loud rumble of our raising garage door.
“Can you ask your friend to move from our driveway so I can leave for work?” My dad’s tone is both arrogant and accusatory as he beeps himself into his car, tossing his worn leather briefcase into the passenger seat with a little extra oomph. My eyelids butterfly over the rolling that happens underneath. My father is going to think this totally validates his lecture, that I pick crappy friends and this drunk boy who always sleeps on our lawn is, in fact, my friend.
None of that is true. Or rather, none of that was true. Most obviously, Cowboy is stone-cold sober, despite being punch drunk. But perhaps less evident, the two of us may be headed toward something in the vicinity of friendship.
“My dad finds you on the lawn a lot.” I shrug and he frowns, looking to his right where the lush part of our yard has been his napping spot in the past. As bruised as his side is, his face looks about ten times worse.
“Horse leave you with that too?” I circle my own face with my finger when he glances back to me. His eyes dim slightly, and after a long breath, he shakes his head.
“No.” He leans his head to one side, almost as if he’s recognizing the ground with the gesture as a way to differentiate our dream lives from our real ones.
“Who?” I draw out my one-word question, regretting it the moment it’s asked. I can tell by the sourness to his lips that the who is the worst part of his injury. Bruises heal, but disappointment can last for a lifetime.
We put another foot or two of distance between us as my father backs out of the driveway. He glares at me through his windshield, punctuating his warning about fraternizing with the wrong types, but rather than mouth some argument back to him, which wouldn’t matter anyway, I step toward Cowboy and place my hand on his elbow. My father’s car swerves into the grass, just a little, and I catch enough of it in my periphery to feel smug. Of course that sense of superiority flames right into a slight dose of humiliation when I hear the chuckled words slip out next to me.
“You’re all kinds of touchy today.” He rubs the back of his neck and stares at the place where my palm holds his elbow, like some concerned-mother type, or worse, one of his groupies.
“Buy my chocolate,” I snap out, dropping my hand to my side.
His eyes wrinkle at my knee-jerk transition and he laughs.
“Buy your what?” He tugs his hat from his head and runs his hand through his hair a few times. It is lovely hair. Almost as lovely as . . .
“My chocolate. I’ll help you with trig, and with . . . this. With whatever is going on with our dreams. I’ve been so sidetracked that I’m blowing it on my Washington trip fundraiser. I was supposed to sell last night at your game. And I—”
“You slept,” he interrupts.
I stop, mouth agape, then close my jaw for a few long seconds to let it all sink in.
“I slept,” I agree. “I sleep. All. The. Time.”
He nods while I talk.
“Same,” he adds.
He pulls his wallet from his back pocket and slips a twenty from inside. I huff out a laugh because that’s not how bribes work. I stare at it for a second, though, and grab it because I’m desperate. A sale is a sale.
“Wait right here. I’ll grab you four bars and be right back.” I spin on my heel and march back toward the house, catching both of my baby sisters’ noses pressed to the glass of the front room window. Their eyes widen when they see me and they dash away.
“Five bucks a bar? No wonder you can’t sell those fuckers!” he shouts.
I don’t bother to look at him, instead yelling back over my shoulder.
“It’s two-fifty, actually, but you just bought my sisters’ silence. Trust me, it’s a bargain.”
Bea and Angelica have buried themselves under the blanket pile by the time I get through the door. I hear them giggle when I make it to the stairs, and before they can plot how they’re going to tease me about some boy in the driveway, I shut them up as only a big sister can—with the promise of thirty-five grams of sugar before dinner.
“He bought you chocolate.” Their gasps of wonder and awe echo behind me as I climb the stairs. I get to the box to pick out what I need and notice my phone left on the dresser next to the candy. There’s a missed call alert on my screen. No voicemail. Just a familiar number.
He called from this world. He called, and I wasn’t there.
17
Damsel
The trig part won’t be a problem. I’m good at trig. Detoxing Cowboy from whatever it is that’s made our dreams so fucked up is another story. And I don’t really want to mess in it too much. I want to see this through, to earn the payout at the end, go to Washington and never, ever come back—not until I’m campaigning for office.
If I get too nosey, Ms. Esher might kick me out. I’m no longer unique. Cowboy’s dreams are just like mine, only as far as I know from the little he told me, he’s never killed a man.
This man here—the one with the bag over his head and the rope tied nice and tight around his neck—he’s my first.
My first . . . kill. I can’t get through even thinking the word without swallowing the hard stone it produces in my throat.
I wanted to focus on myself tonight, for this round of sleep to be void of chasing a drug dealer some off part of my brain thinks is cute. I’m not sure whether it’s a crush or an obsession. Perhaps they are the same.
Regardless, tonight’s dreams were meant for me—mine! I meditated, clearing my thoughts of everything but my goals until I eased into sleep. “I will be co
nfident. I will be a leader. I will be a step ahead of everyone else.” I spoke those words and so many more, like a mantra, until I felt the satisfying hug of the skin-tight uniform I’ve worn every night since this experiment began.
The envelope simply appears in my hand. I open it out of curiosity, and when the money falls at my feet along with the photo, I pause. I count the hundred-dollar bills first because . . . money. I’ve never held so much in my hand. Fifteen hundred; I count three times to be sure.
The name written on the back of the photo is Gustavio Sietz. It’s an old name for such a young man, at least according to his portrait. My gut sorta knows from the clues, but one phone call from a voice I’ve never heard before clears it all up.
“That’s the first half. You get the rest when the job is done. And nobody—repeat, nobody—can find the body.”
The caller severs our connection before I can ask questions. I don’t know how to even begin. Do I find one of those old-fashioned phone booth things and grab the book of phone numbers that hangs inside? I haven’t seen those since we made a road trip through Oklahoma two summers ago, but maybe in this world they still exist.
How in control am I in this place?
I walk until I reach the train station, climbing into the stopped car to take a seat. I pull the black mask down over my face, and a child in a seat across from me begins to cry. I stare at him until he stops.
A twenty-minute ride north brings me closer to downtown. I exit at Loman Street because of a feeling. I have nothing to go on. No drummed up phone booth directory, no search results on my phone, nothing other than a photo, a name, and some cash. I walk for six blocks until the scent spilling out of a sketchy corner diner draws me in.
I begin to pull my mask off as I walk inside, but a quick glance clues me to one glaring fact—I am the only woman in this joint. The strangest thing, though, is how nobody seems to notice that I’m masked. A grizzled old man with a poorly made wooden leg shuffles to the booth I claim in the back of the restaurant, a pad and pencil in his hand. My mouth waters from the scent of bacon, and I’m ready to order. Only, before I can he jots down a quick note on one of his tickets and tears it off, folding it and sliding it toward me. I don’t touch it until he walks completely away, only then unfolding it with one finger as if my touch would leave a print that somehow proves I was here and doing something truly awful.
3rd stool on the right.
I don’t look right away. That would be obvious. Instead, I flip through the menu that was waiting for me when I took this table. Every item is the same: hot cakes and bacon. Every price the same. Everything to drink: Coffee. This place is odd. Even odder, though, is the well-dressed man wearing a three-piece business suit eating hot cakes and drinking a cup of coffee on the third stool from the right.
It’s him, Gustavio. He looks to be maybe thirty, about the same as the photo. His hair is combed into a perfect wave from one side of his head to the other, a hard part that’s almost dashing. He’s attractive, though too old for me. I smile under my mask anyway and wonder if he might notice my sexy form if I were to walk by just once to check him out. I prepare myself to make a pretend visit to the ladies room when he sets his coffee down and reaches for his wallet on the left side of his coat. The slightest movement on his part brings our gazes together, and he knows why I am here.
I know why I am here.
Everyone knows.
I blink once and the restaurant clears, just the vibration of a saucer spinning where the man with one real leg just bailed on pouring someone coffee. Gustavio reaches into his jacket with his right hand, lifting his other palm in a surrender. I know better.
At lightning speed, he pulls out a pistol, the barrel aimed at my chest. It’s too late. I drop to the floor and roll three table rows over, darting behind the counter to where the spinning saucer is on its final rotation. I rise, grab it, and send it flying at Gustavio’s head. The gash is instant and deep, and the impact forces his shot to go wide. I wrap an electrical cord around his neck before he can recalibrate, then clamber up on the counter and kick away his gun before he tries again.
My knees rest on his shoulders, and I pull on the cord with all my strength while his neck and cheeks turn nearly blood red. I wait an extra few seconds after his body falls limp, finally exhaling while I rest on the stool where he once enjoyed hotcakes. The lifeless body dressed in Armani is at my feet. His cologne still smells like wood and fire and honey. How is that possible for something so . . . so . . . dead?
I’m halfway there. I completed my first hit. But how does one dispose of a body? And where do you take things so they can never be found?
18
Villain
After a week of fighting a full night’s sleep, delirium kicks in. Before that, I had what are called microsleeps. Those are so fucking freaky they’re almost rad. Basically, I snoozed with my eyes wide open in the middle of . . . everything. I was waiting for the bus and apparently missed it, zoned out and staring right out at traffic while I caught Zs behind my open eyes. I looked it up in one of the science labs at school and learned that when you push the body to its brink of deprivation, autopilot takes over. At least, I think I looked it up. Perhaps that was a hallucination too.
Now, though, sleep won’t stop. I crave it so much. It’s not the actual sleep that pulls me, it’s what I’ve built inside. When my eyes are closed, I rule an empire. And tonight, tonight I’m going to visit Paul.
It’s time.
He found my new daytime hiding spot. I didn’t think the lock on the electrical box would catch his attention, but I guess he notices everything out of place that comes close to looking like a spot to hide cash and pills. He had bolt cutters in hand less than thirty minutes after I installed the lock. Fucker threatened to cut off my thumb when I caught him in the act. Over here, his bolt cutters win our violent little game of rock, scissors, bolt cutters.
Over there, though . . .
I actually get my best rest during lunch and fifth hour. Sucks to miss shop, but . . . priorities. I’m supposed to meet with Esher today, too, but I’m not feeling it. It’s her full team this week, medical exams to see how our bodies jive with the stories we’re feeding her. So far, I’ve given her complete bullshit. She knows it, but maybe that fascinates her—the why of my lies. She can spend time on these puzzles. Besides, won’t it be better if I have a good story to tell her at the end? If I tell her. There’s a small thread inside my head that knows I should, but it gets thinner with each sleep.
There’s this spot in our library where nobody goes. It’s mostly reference books, a few sets of classic encyclopedias with copyright dates from the eighties, and old boxes filled with these small pieces of film called microfiche. I guess that’s what Google was before there was a Google. If I lie down against the wall behind the row of boxes in the back, a person would need to stand right above me to spot me. If the thick layer of dust that coats the boxes and books in this area is any indication, nobody has stood in this bit of square footage for quite some time.
I’ve learned to wear double sweatshirts to school so I can pull one off and use it for a pillow. I tug my black one from my head as soon as I round the last row of shelves, and pretend to browse until I’m positive nobody notices me. I step over the boxes easily and descend into the dusty shadows, my brain already feeling the pull before my head rests on my sweatshirt. I keep my hands folded at my chest, my phone clutched near my neck so I’ll feel the buzz of the alarm. The last thing I need is to get locked in here. I need to meet Sal and get more product to sell in the real world.
My scenery changes in stages. It’s more of an awareness, really. At first, I feel the rough carpet and hard concrete beneath me, the squeeze of the boxes and wall, the scent of dust. It’s a little claustrophobic, but fades in and out, alternating with the wide-openness of my warehouse downtown. It isn’t a good neighborhood, but the things I’ve done over here couldn’t come from a suburb or someplace with shops and restaurants and regu
lar people. I need criminals. I need Loman Street.
The halfway houses around here are all just east of the freeway. Paul comes from one of these. Well, he didn’t start in one, but he landed himself in one fast after getting picked up for armed robbery right after high school. He was living in one of these joints when he met my mom. She brought him home the way people bring home abandoned puppies. At least dogs are cute. Who cares if they pee on the carpet? Paul pisses on our lives.
These houses are filled with the desperate. It took a while to learn to recognize the perfect ones, the people who don’t really want to reenter society but instead want to pick up right where they left off. I did find them, though. I found dozens. And our business . . . my business . . . has stretched around the Great Lakes. We make so much money over here, live so big. This life—this pretend life I’ve built—it’s hard to give up. It’s hard to wake up from.
“Count’s short again, V,” Nick says. He was one of my first recruits. I don’t know why he calls me that, but it’s better than my real name. It helps me know where I am, helps me see the line.
I like being V. I do. I’m a bit addicted to it.
Nick is in his fifties. He shot someone at a bank robbery gone bad. He got away with almost a dozen jobs before he fucked that one up, though. He’s good with money, so I put him in charge of watching the book and counting the take. His look is pretty intimidating, so guys don’t lie to him much. Bald head, dyed black beard, and a puffed-up chest that’s always too big for the T-shirts he wears. He rides in every night on a chopper he built himself. People always ask if he was in the Navy, I think because of his age and the boat tattoos on his arms. He lies and says yes, but he was really in the Donahue gang. Those boats are to remind him of the people and things he’s thrown into Lake Michigan.
“Time to pay a little visit to Paul, then.” I set this up. It took a few days to build the story, to make sure the guys in here know about Paul, about the guy who always shorts me, who’s two-faced and not really one of us.
