by Krista Wolf
“I’m starving.”
We stopped at the nearest fast food joint, which was famous for its waffle fries. Trey ordered two helpings of them. The rest of us sat and watched him eat, staring at each other from both sides of our booth. Absently picking at nothing in particular, while I told them all the whole, sordid story about Chris.
“I can’t believe you kept this from us,” said Dante, when I was finished. “I mean seriously, Brooke. Who knows what would’ve happened if he managed to get into your apartment that night.”
I’d told them that part too, including the encounter with Big Mike. The guys more than appreciated the old marine’s help. Adam and Dante set me immediately to the task of finding out what he drinks, so they could leave a case of it in front of his door.
Dante also shared what he’d learned from the police. It turned out Chris was fine, just shaken up. He’d checked out of the hospital and immediately given statements, indicating that Trey had attacked him, and that he’d tried to run. When questioned as to why he was on Cornell’s campus in the first place, he stated he was merely checking up on me. That we were still boyfriend and girlfriend, who dated off and on.
“That fucking liar,” I spat.
Chris went on to swear that he saw a ‘struggle’ between Trey and I, and that he ran over to help. When the police questioned him about the nightstick they’d finally found, he admitted to grabbing it from the back of his car when he saw Trey’s overall size.
It got even worse, too. It turned out there was footage of the fight, from the building’s overhead cameras. But the footage only showed Chris running around the corner, and Trey grabbing him by the hood and thrashing him. Unfortunately, there were no cameras at all on the side of the building.
“So no one’s asking the bigger question here,” Adam said when Dante had finished.
Trey pushed another two waffle fries into his mouth and chomped down on them. “And what’s that?”
“How’d he know where to find you in the first place?”
All eyes turned toward me.
“I… I guess he followed us.”
“No way,” Trey disagreed. “It was late, and dark, and icy as hell. There was no one behind us as we left the restaurant, and practically no one on the roads.”
“What about when you entered the campus?” Dante asked. “When you passed the security gate?”
“Nope. Nobody.”
I shuddered a little, thinking about Chris making his way to faculty housing. Bringing his weapon. Sitting there, just waiting to ambush Trey. The whole thing was my fault, and I already felt terrible. But now…
Now he wasn’t just keeping tabs on me, he was stalking my boyfriends too.
“Wait a minute,” I said, turning toward Trey. “That first time I was on campus with you? Chris knew about that, too. He mentioned it the next day, at work.”
“But he couldn’t have known that,” Trey said. “We left your car off campus. Walked in from the west side, near the Hot Truck.”
Realization dawned on him, and suddenly he looked up at me. “Holy shit! This asshole slashed my tires, didn’t he?”
I stared down guilty, unable to meet his gaze. I nodded slowly in response.
“He was probably at our apartment too,” said Dante, nodding toward Adam. “That heart, you just said was carved into the ice on your windshield? Really think that was him?”
“Probably,” I sighed.
“Are you still sharing location with him maybe, on your phone?”
“No,” I shook my head. “I stopped doing that the second we broke up.”
“Check anyway.”
I did, and sure enough my shared location contacts were blank. Chris’s number was still blocked, too. I’d taken care of that again, immediately after calling him about the dead rose.
“How does he always know where you are, then?” asked Adam. “I mean, if he’s not following along in his car, but he’s showing up later…”
Dante’s eyes wandered down to the table, then suddenly up at me. I saw a flash of insight. A spark of inspiration.
“Brooke,” he said, reaching across the table. He shook his open palm. “Let me see your keys.”
Wordlessly I picked them up and passed them over. He went over the contents of my keyring one by one, eventually stopping at a faded Ithaca lanyard. “What’s this?”
“Mom gave it to me,” I said. “First year of college.”
He pushed it aside. “And this?”
I looked down at the pink leather tassel he was holding. “Some stupid woven keychain I bought in Arizona.”
Dante moved on again. This time he stopped at an enameled sunflower charm, in bright, eye-popping colors.
“That…” My eyebrows knitted together. Suddenly I understood. “Chris gave me that! On my birthday.”
It was the biggest and bulkiest thing on my keychain, and always had been. I kept it because I liked it. Because it was pretty.
“You don’t think…”
Everyone watched as Dante removed the sunflower from my key ring. He took one of the knives on the table and used the point to pry at the center of the flower. After two or three tries it popped off…
… and a small, black disc came clattering out.
“Oh shit.”
The disc landed near Adam. He picked it up, and read the single four-letter word scribed across it. “TILE.”
Trey was already calling up his smartphone’s browser. He punched a few buttons, then looked up. “It’s a GPS tracker,” he swore loudly. “Pretty big company.”
I was in utter and complete shock.
“Son of a bitch.”
“You download one little app,” Trey continued, “and you can track that thing to the ends of the Earth.”
We were all staring at each other, shaking our heads.
“No wonder this guy is always up your ass. He knows exactly where you are, every minute of every day.”
Forty-Six
BROOKE
It was strange, showing up at Chris’s place for once instead of the other way around. Driving up to the house he rented, or rather, the one his sister had rented for him. The place was a little neglected, but not run-down. The siding needed a good power-washing. The landscaping had been fairly ignored.
I took the cobbled walkway with as much confidence as I could, knowing I was safe no matter what. I’d only come here for one reason. And I’d come here with the guys’ full knowledge and blessing, under two very strict stipulations.
First, that both Adam and Dante were with me. That they’d remain at the curb, sitting silently in the car, while I dealt with Chris on my own.
Second, that no matter what he said or did, I was to remain outside. That if he refused to talk to me that was his right, but I was never, ever to go inside.
I rang the bell, which didn’t work, then rapped three times on the storm door. The glass was cold. The door rattled in its frame, feeling old and flimsy beneath my knuckles.
Chris answered in a dirty bathrobe, wearing a pair of shorts and a threadbare T-shirt I recognized from our time together. He held a full bowl of cereal in one hand. A spoon in the other.
“Brooke…” he said, sounding surprised. It was the first genuine reaction I’d seen from him in almost a year.
“Drop the charges.”
My ex looked at me, then glanced over my shoulder. Upon seeing the others sitting there in the car, he scowled.
“Trey’s not here,” I said quickly. “Those are just… some friends.”
“You mean Adam Liston and Dante Villavane?”
I stiffened as Chris brought the spoon to his mouth, spilling a few drops of milk on his robe in the process. “Yeah, I can see that,” he scoffed. “Friends. They look like really good friends.”
I’d expected a lot of things, gone over the conversation we might have on Chris’s porch a hundred times in my mind. But I’d never expected this.
“Yeah, I know who they are,” he confirmed without
me asking. “I know everything Brooke. Now I do, anyway. Maybe not at first. But definitely now.”
He was crunching casually, comfortably beneath his robe. God, he looked like such a shithead. I couldn’t believe I’d ever slept with this loser, much less dated him.
Christmas parties. Never again…
“Look Chris,” I tried reasoning with him. “Enough’s enough. We’re not dating. We haven’t been for a long time.”
He kept crunching and swallowing. Smirking down at me in that disgusting way, like he had something I really wanted or needed, and enjoyed keeping it from me.
“Drop the charges,” I said again, “and we can all move on with our lives. The police have your baton. There’s a knot on the back of Trey’s head, bigger than—”
“He attacked me,” Chris said simply. “I defended myself.”
The infuriating curl at the corner of his mouth told us both it was a lie. Chris let his words hang in the air for a few moments before scooping another spoonful.
“You were on his Campus,” I said thickly. “Stalking his place.”
My ex shook his head gravely. “I was there for you, Brooke. You needed my help.”
It was astounding, watching him work. Seeing him try to convince himself of his own bullshit.
“I found the tracker in my keychain,” I said icily.
That seemed to give him pause, even if just for a moment. Chris regained his composure quickly though. In the end, he only shrugged.
“Like I said, everything I did was for your protection. That guy was dragging you down the sidewalk, trying to pull you into his place,” Chris went on. “Who would’ve known what might’ve happened if I hadn’t shown up to—”
“YOU FUCKING LIAR!” I screamed. Somewhere behind me, I heard the sound of two car doors immediately clicking open. “What do you want from me, Chris!? I don’t get it! Why can’t you live your life and let me live my—”
“Three guys, Brooke?” he suddenly hissed. The smirk was gone now, and there was anger in its place. “Not just one, or even two, but you’re dating three guys at the same time?”
He was glancing over my shoulder warily, keeping close tabs on the street. I didn’t have to look back to know Adam and Dante had exited the car, and were probably standing there, arms crossed.
“Not three,” I said defensively. It came out weak, though. “Not at the same time, either.”
“What, do you think I’m stupid?” Chris laughed. “My sister let me read your article, Brooke. And holy shit! I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t comprehend it! You and three. Fucking. Guys.”
He spat on his own porch, a grotesque mixture of milk and yellow cereal. But he was genuinely upset. So freaked out by everything, he couldn’t even control himself.
“My sister doesn’t even know you’re Hannah,” he laughed again. “Can you believe that? She hasn’t made the connection. But she will, Brooke. Trust me. And when Cosmo prints that article?” He stared straight into my eyes, and the look he gave me caused my blood to run cold. “Everyone will.”
For once I was speechless. I could feel my heart pounding. My throat, slowly closing.
“I have their names. Their addresses…” My ex’s expression was hopelessly manic now. “I know what they do, Brooke. Where they work. Who their families are, even.”
“Chris,” I somehow managed to gasp. “Chris, no..”
“I know how to dismantle them. How to destroy them.” He started nodding suddenly, in a wild and crazy way. “They’re taking advantage of you, Brooke. But not for long. Not when they can’t even go anywhere, or do anything, or—”
I turned and ran. Straight down the cobbled path, right back to where Adam and Dante stood waiting for me. What Chris was saying was totally horrifying. There was no reasoning with him, none at all.
“Good luck with the article!” Chris called back, cheering for me like a fake asshole. “You’re gonna do great!”
For a split second, I considered ordering Adam and Dante to run back there. To thrash my ex so hard on his own porch, he’d need to have his lying jaw wired shut. It would only take a word, a single solitary word. It would be so good, too. So fucking satisfying…
Instead I pulled my lovers back into the car, before they did anything rash on their own. I had only one avenue left to explore. And right now, only one word to say, as my whole body shook with frustration.
“Drive.”
Forty-Seven
BROOKE
I stormed into Chloe’s office, even harder and faster than last time. She was in her chair, bent over the phone. Immediately upon seeing me, she covered the bottom half of the receiver with one hand.
“You’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve coming in here,” she growled angrily, “considering what you just—”
“Dump the story.”
I was leaning forward, both hands resting on the edge of her desk. She was staring at my hands. No one ever touched her desk.
“Brooke, I—”
I reached out and slammed two fingers down on the cradle’s button, disconnecting her call. Chloe looked up at me like I’d just run over her dog.
“Are you out of your goddamn min—”
“I said dump the story,” I snarled, practically into her face. “Call Cosmo. Tell them the whole thing is dead, and do it now.”
Chloe slowly lowered the phone to its cradle and regarded me coldly. From her expression I could tell she wanted to rip my face off. But I could also tell that no one had ever talked to her this way before.
Maybe ever.
“I can’t kill the story,” she said, regaining some of her composure.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both, really.”
I shifted even closer, kicking one of the uncomfortable metal guest chairs out of the way. Staring into her eyes, I could see it now. Past the mascara, beyond the too-thick layers of eye-shadow… there was a small measure of fear in her eyes.
“It’s in my contract,” I said grimly. “I own full rights to every story I write for Mythic Daily, during and after my employment here. Therefore I’m taking it out of your hands. I’m killing the story, and you can tell your bosses that too.”
“Technically you didn’t write this story for our magazine,” Chloe pointed out slyly. “You wrote it for an outside source.”
I blinked in astonishment.
“Besides, I don’t think your contract is as iron-clad as you think it is,” she touted. “Or that we’d even honor that clause in a situation this important.”
Chloe’s tone was definitive, like all this had already been decided. Even so, she looked almost nervous, telling me these things.
“Brooke, your boyfriend put my brother in the hospital,” she said. “He has a possible concussion.”
“He’s got brain damage,” I sneered. “That’s for sure.”
She ignored me. “You joke, but this is serious. You both work here. You’ve both been fighting like cats and dogs. In and out of each others’ offices, making scenes that the rest of the workplace can attest to.”
“Your brother—”
“I don’t know if I can protect you anymore,” Chloe interrupted. “Hell, I don’t know if I even want to protect you. He’s my brother, Brooke. My own flesh and blood.”
“Your own flesh and blood showed up in front of my boyfriend’s place,” I said. “And in a jealous rage, clubbed him in the back of the head with one of the police batons your stepfather gave him.”
“So you say,” Chloe smirked.
“He’s been tracking me all over the city,” I went on, “through a—”
“Keychain he gave you on your birthday,” Chloe chuckled. She waved dismissively with one hand. “I heard all this bullshit already, Brooke. Chris told me.”
“And you believed him?”
“Listen to yourself!” Chloe laughed. “My brother — who’s pretty busy to begin with — has nothing better to do with his time than track you all over Ithaca?” She wrinkled
her nose. “By your… what was it again? Your homing keychain?”
Her laugh turned into a cackle, which made me want to slap the smirk right off her face. Grab her as hard as I could shake her, until I could somehow make her understand.
In the end though, it just wasn’t worth it.
“You deserve each other,” I said at last. “I know you’ve had it rough. Your parents splitting up, your mom kinda going off and doing her own thing… Chris told me all of it, while we were dating.”
All trace of a smile left Chloe’s face. All of a sudden she was deadly serious. Her expression, all business.
“Anyway, good luck with that,” I said with all sincerity. “But if you’re going to hitch your wagon to your brother’s star? Might want to check him on some of his ‘facts’ from time to time. Or one day you’ll wake up to find yourself chin-deep in a vast field of his unending bullshit. Just like I did.”
I pushed back from her desk and folded my arms. It was sad, in a way. I’d really admired Chloe. She was fantastic at what she did. For a long time, we got along. Our goals were aligned, on a good many things.
But like everything else Chris touched, it all went to shit. If she was willing to throw away our professional relationship over some blind devotion to her asshole brother, I couldn’t really stop her.
“I’m going over your head,” I said coldly. “Just so you know.”
“You can sure try.”
We stared at each other for another few seconds, like gunfighters sizing each other up along a dusty, ghost-town street. Then I spun on my heel and left her office… possibly — and sadly — for the last time.
Forty-Eight
DANTE
“Well on the surface it doesn’t look good,” Tony said glumly. “Here. See for yourself.”
He pressed the play button, and the video started running on his phone. It was black and white. Night vision. It was also a film of a film running on a monitor, as he’d had to record it secretly without his supervisors knowing.
