by Ginger Scott
“I’ll get the car,” Nick says, locking the cash away in the box and carrying it to the office in the back. We have a lot of moving parts in this world. Stolen cars, stolen identities—stolen people. We’ve only done one kidnapping. I wasn’t in control when that happened, but I’ve learned to guide things more since then. The kidnapping was messy. It never had an end. I think maybe that guy is still locked in the storage container down by the docks. I don’t want to check.
A dark green Escalade pulls into the warehouse to pick me up. Nick’s driving and two guys whose names are constantly changing sit in the back. We all wear black. Sometimes, I’m in a suit. Today, though, I’m closer to my real self. Black jeans and a black long-sleeved T-shirt. My hair is a little wet, so it must be raining outside.
I pull open the passenger-side door and climb inside, slamming the door behind me. The SUV vibrates with heavy bass. That sound, the power of it, ignites my smile. I let it spread slowly, feeling the way it pushes into my cheeks.
“We gonna take him out today, V?” Tonight, the guy behind me is Chase. He and I used to be tight in the real world, but he got into some heavy things and his mom ended up pulling him out of public school and put him in a place for kids who are addicted to bad shit. Last I heard, he’s stuck on heroin and he dropped out. Damn, maybe he’s even dead over there.
“Nah, we’re just gonna scare him a little,” I say.
I hear the tinge of disappointment in Chase’s sigh as he flops back into his seat. I like that he wants to do more to Paul. That was the first place I really moved my needle between right and wrong.
“We’ll see,” I add after a few seconds filled with nothing but thumping booms from the Escalade’s speakers. The sinister grin I’m gradually getting used to wearing falls into place and I imagine a duplicate one on every other mouth in this vehicle.
We’re well on our way, making every light because I can do that in here—make the lights change to suit my needs. It’s not that I’m in a hurry, but rather that I’m anxious. I don’t want to run out of time.
The swerve wasn’t planned.
“What the fuck was that?” Nick’s arms flex, his grip working feverishly to right the steering wheel and control our skidding tires. The smell of burnt rubber seeps into the cabin, and my body jams into the door, my head hitting the window hard enough to make it instantly sore. The car rocks to the right with our hard stop, and my stomach drops, anticipating the SUV flipping over. Our wheels momentarily lift before the creaking chassis slams back to the ground.
The guys in the back are moaning, their bodies having been tossed around a bit. Seatbelts are optional for dreams, I guess. I touch the tips of my fingers to the pulsing spot on the side of my head. The warm, damp sensation alarms me that I’ve got more than a lump and bruise going on up there. I bring my fingers to my lips to taste my own blood, sucking it off as my gaze hits hers.
Our exchange is brief. She’s dressed in all black, wearing a mask she just pulled up from her face. It still covers her head, hiding her usual thick, dark hair. She looks like a spy, and she moves like one. I kick open my door and step out on the running board, peering at her over the door frame to get a better view.
It’s started to rain. I didn’t make that happen either.
Her eyes flit from mine to the center of the roadway, to the enormous lump of rolled-up tarp. It’s the size of a large animal, or maybe . . . a man. She looks back to me and shouts something, but I can’t make out the words. It’s almost as if there’s a sound-proof wall of glass between us. Her mouth moves, but I get nothing. I jump down from my perch to chase after her, but by the time I make it into the beams from my headlights, she’s disappeared. And the balled-up tarp? That’s gone too.
19
Cowboy
There is no way I’m going to make my face look like anything other than shit by today. Coach bought my bullshit story at films Saturday morning, or maybe he didn’t care enough to press the issue. As long as I say I’m fine to throw a ball, I guess we’re all good. My ribs hurt like hell, but maybe, come Friday, with the help of some serious wrap and maybe a visit to the alleyway with a few of the boys . . .
In the movies, there’s always some teacher hero who notices the kid getting abused and does something about it, like adopts the kid and raises them as their own, away from violence and abuse. No way in hell is Coach bringing me home to live with him and his three daughters. There’s a reason he sends them all to private school far from here. Even I know not to shit where I eat.
Bluffing my way through this meeting with Ms. Esher is a bit different. If my father weren’t the one to push me into this thing in the first place, I could probably get him to throw a fit about this mandatory medical exam. Especially since he’s the bastard who gave me almost every visible bruise I have. But Ms. Esher isn’t one of those inspirational teachers from the movies. She doesn’t care that I’m getting abused, but she does care that I fell off a horse in my dream and woke up with the broken rib.
Everything about the exam is incredibly clinical. Nobody asks about the injuries until the medical team leaves and it’s just me and Esher facing one another in the counselling fishbowl. She pulls back the blinds as soon as her staff leaves us alone. Can’t let anyone think she seduced me.
“I suppose the fact my dad hit me isn’t much of a surprise to you.” I sink into the chair so I can stretch my legs out. My bruises itch from the movement of blood under my skin. I rub at my cheek on reflex then mask the wince I crave to make from the pain.
“The physical part, yes, that surprises me a little. But your dad has been abusing you for years, hasn’t he?” Her smile is soft, a comfort to the way her face rests after leveling me with such a direct assault of the truth.
I pull my lips in for a tight smile and simply lift my brows.
“That’s why you pushed for me to be a part of this trial, huh? Not for the benefits it might give me as an athlete?” I already know the answer to this, just my acute instincts.
She doesn’t answer. I guess I didn’t really expect a response to that question, what with her whole “You get out of this what you put into it” brand.
“Let’s talk about your experiences so far. Have you started your journal?” She’s good at redirecting. I wonder how she’ll react when I show her my work.
I pull the book from my backpack and toss it on the desk for her to look through. A quiet laugh slips out of me when she cracks it open to the first page. I decided to draw pictures.
“These triangle things, they’re mountains?” I nod. I can’t draw for shit. My drawing is better than my writing, though.
“Okay.” She nods, looking back down at the pages, her lips in a tight smile. She’s amused by my stick figures, I think.
She flips to the next page where I did my best to show the confrontation that led to the broken rib.
“This man here, is he with an animal?”
I nod.
She twists the book around to look at it from a new direction, sucking in her top lip and furrowing her brow.
“I’m sorry, but is this you? And are you lying down? Or standing?” She leaves her finger on the stick figure I drew to represent me.
“Yes. That’s me,” I say, my frustration showing a bit in my tone.
“And you’re lying down,” she assumes.
“Yes, I’m lying down.” I scratch at my face and lean forward to look at the book with her. It is a pretty rudimentary drawing. Maybe I should have written this stuff down, after all.
I reach for the book and slide it back to me, shutting it and dropping it into my bag at my side. “Maybe let’s just talk.”
Of the three communication possibilities—pictures, words, and speech—talking is probably my worst skill. But the other two attempts were such utter failures, it’s my last option. I lean back in the comfortable leather and fold my arms over my chest. I’m tired. I could sleep here in this chair and then she could maybe hope I talk in my sleep.
“
Okay, but a conversation goes two ways.” I’ve grown to dislike the lipstick she wears. It makes her mouth really fucking irritating when she smiles at me as though she’s just stolen my queen in a game of chess.
“I know.” I huff. Great, I bet I sound like some of those other losers who meet with her in here.
I draw in a deep breath to clear my head and ease the tightness in my chest. My eyes close automatically, perhaps some sort of triggered reaction to being honest in a therapist’s office—even though she insists she’s not really a therapist. She’s here for data collection only.
“I think I’ve always wanted to be a cowboy,” I begin.
Her chair squeaks a little with her weight as she leans back into it. I don’t open my eyes.
“Is that because they call you that? Cowboy?”
I shrug and slowly peel my eyes open.
“Guess that’s maybe a chicken, egg thing. But no. I’m pretty sure that fantasy started when I was little. I don’t remember it well. Mom says I was pretty ADHD in the lower grades, so retention of shit . . . oops, sorry, I mean things like memories isn’t really part of my code.”
“But you remember things now?” she asks.
I think about her question for a few seconds, really considering it. I remember plays. I remember where I live, some of the things I study, who my friends are, their families, my own family. I remember all of the times my dad was disappointed in me. I remember having to stand out in the front yard my freshman year and throw pass after pass into a tire until he was satisfied I could hit my targets. I don’t remember feelings. Maybe that’s how I made it through four years of him riding my ass and planning every little inch of my life.
Numb.
“I remember what I want to remember.”
She nods. It gets really quiet in the moments between our conversation. There’s a hum to the heater vents in the office, a steady blowing sound that makes my eyelids heavy. She notices.
“Are you sleeping enough?” she asks.
I laugh, loudly.
“I cannot stop.”
Her annoying lip gloss shines out a smile.
“You’re a teenaged boy. Of course you can’t. But if you still need more, you should listen to your body. Give it the rest it needs.”
I hold her stare and consider her qualifications for that bit of advice.
“How much sleep do you get, Ms. Esher?” I bet it’s less than me.
And cue the smug smile.
“Have you been dreaming about cowboys?”
It sounds childish when she asks it, so I awkwardly squirm in my chair for a moment.
“I’m not dreaming about Westerns, or rodeos, or dudes on the range. I’m a cowboy, working a job. It’s like, maybe seasonal? I can’t tell if I’m always there or if it’s part-time.”
She pulls her phone from her purse and flips to a recording app, holding her phone up to show me.
“Do you mind if I record some of this?”
I scrunch one eye because yeah, I do…kinda. But then, what’s the point of this if she’s not recording it or making notes.
“Yeah, I guess.” I shrink down into the chair again and wait while she sets up her phone and speaks into it for identification purposes.
“Megan Esher, Project Morpheus subject interview for October twenty-seven. Subject has been dreaming about cowboys. You can begin.” She holds her stare on me for a few seconds before I get it; it’s my turn to share now . . . on the record.
She seriously had to put it like that? I just said I’m the cowboy.
“Right. Anyhow.” I pause, breathing in hard yet not completely filling my lungs. It’s unsatisfying, and the tightness comes back to my stomach. This is how I feel when I’m going over my game play with my dad. Like it’s an interrogation. “Every dream starts the same way. I meet this guy named Jim.”
“Jim?” She repeats his name, almost as if it’s a question. I nod at first, but she glances toward her phone, urging me to say yes for her clarity later.
“Yes.” I sigh. “Jim. He’s one of the land owners, and it’s up north, near the border. At least, it feels like it is. I’ve never really paid attention to one of the license plates, but I think it’s North Dakota.”
“Your dad mentioned that was one of the schools contacting you.” She’s connecting obvious dots.
“Yes.” I say it nice and loud for the recording. “He has no interest in me going there.”
“And what do you want?” Her question feels out of bounds. I don’t answer it.
“So, in my dreams, Jim gives me some basic direction then sends me off to spend the entire night watching the herd. It’s a long night sometimes, and I never mind. I make a fire when it’s cold, ride until the sun is down, and eat this goddamn bread that Jim’s wife makes.”
I smile just imagining the warmth that melts on my tongue.
“I’m always alone, too. Well, almost always. That’s the weird part.”
She sits perfectly still, hands folded together below her breasts. She’s wearing a white sweater today; the outline of her bra is faint underneath, but it’s there. Goddamn, I hate her smile but her tits are fucking amazing.
“My dad, he was there once, out on the range. Friday night, actually. Probably because I talked football with him before I went to sleep. He likes to relive the game with me. You know, while it’s fresh?”
I wait for her to react. She doesn’t. Hands stay folded, tits stay perfect.
“Anyhow, I think maybe it was leftover stress from us talking that night. He went over all of the things I missed in front of some scout from Florida. It was . . . a little more involved than normal.” I roll my eyes.
“Maybe,” she says, leaning forward. Her face contorts with deep thought for a moment, as if she’s making sure she says just the right words—nothing that would make her liable for anything. “Or maybe you still felt the mental anguish from . . .” She merely gestures toward her own face, not able to say the word beating.
I chuckle. It’s a good shiner, a damn good ass-kicking. And yeah, there is some social discomfort in being a guy my size, my age, still getting a beat-down from his old man. But I’m laughing now because she’s wrong.
“I dreamt about him before he hit me. This? It happened when I woke up.”
A puzzled expression bunches up her face.
“But before I woke up, I did fall off a horse. And I got this.” I lean forward and pull my phone from my back pocket. I had the smart chick snap a shot of my ribs for me the other day so I wouldn’t have to lift my shirt for Ms. Esher. I hand my phone across the table and wait while she zooms in on the screen, trying to figure out exactly what she sees.
“It’s right about here. Hurts like hell, too,” I say, running my hand lightly over my right side. “Broke a rib, maybe two. I’ve done that before, though, so it’s fine.”
She stares at the purple bruise in the photo for a moment longer, finally pushing the button to put my screen to sleep, then sliding my phone back to me. She can’t seem to move her gaze back to mine after what she saw.
“Anything else?” She leaves her palms flat on the desk between us while she waits, never quite looking at me directly, her hands seeming to itch to grab her phone and end our session. Maybe I’ve given her too much, made her nervous. It’s her program, though. If something she’s doing is getting us hurt, she should probably fix that shit. If I were in here with my trig teacher, or the actual school counsellor, they’d be reporting this, covering their asses. But I don’t feel as if I have to ask her to keep this private.
“Nope. And I didn’t say anything to my parents, if that’s what you’re worried about.” I test the waters, and maybe throw a little passive-aggressive shade at her while I stand. I pull my bag up on my left shoulder.
Satisfied, she ends the recording and brings her phone back into her hands, tapping on the edge a few times in thought before finally glancing up at me from under thick, dark lashes.
“Your readings are all normal
, but we’ll know a little more next week when we take some blood. Your pulse is at its strongest during the hours you log as sleep. That’s . . . interesting,” she says, baiting me with that last word, dangling it out there like Sonny Heaton on a drunken Friday night. I pull my mouth up on one side and nod, willing myself to leave it alone. I feel manipulated enough for a Monday.
My hand wraps around the door handle, and my chest opens up at the thought of freedom, of breaking out of the fishbowl and blending right back in with the stream of students all worried about their acne, their girlfriends, their lack of boyfriends, their besties, their damned scrunchies!
“Why is it interesting?” I squeeze my eyes shut, disappointed at my own weakness. I was so close.
“Because you’re sleeping, and that’s when your heart rate should be at its lowest. Yet yours, it runs wild.” I’m certain that smile she puts on her lips to bait people into more is waiting, so I won’t turn around to see it. I nod a few times with my back to her, accepting her weird-ass bit of data. I don’t know why any of that should mean anything to me.
“Oh, okay,” I say.
“You seem happy there, on the range.” I think maybe she’s belittling it. Kinda pisses me off, but I don’t want to throw a fit over her dissing my dream. That seems stupid.
“I am.” I leave it there, opening the glass door and leaving it ajar behind me. Others can check out her smile—and her . . . sweater. Me? I’m gonna fake sick and see the nurse so I can take a fucking nap. Head off to my happy place.
Because it sure as shit ain’t here.
20
Damsel
I’ve been looking for him for days, and yet the one time I do not want him to show up is now—while I have a body to hide.
I wonder if he’s sleeping at home, or if he’s at school like me. I may be the only person on our entire campus who does not get bothered or questioned about being in the bathroom too long. My teachers know I’m not vaping. I’m not having sex in a car in the parking lot, or drinking. No, they know if I’m in the bathroom, I must be having a panic attack or a really difficult “time of the month.”
