No Damaged Goods

by Snow, Nicole

  Langley makes a nervous sound of agreement. I already know when push comes to shove, he probably won’t be much help.

  He picked the wrong town to bumble into.

  I’m already forgetting Justin, turning away, but my elbow bumps the door as I do and sends it swinging open.

  And I go cold, frozen in place, as I see the interior.

  Gone is that sterile lifelessness that made me think Justin’s existence, his home, must be so empty, so lonely all the time.

  All the photo albums have been yanked down from the shelves.

  They’re scattered everywhere, their pages open and slashed in ominous red ink.

  What the hell?

  I almost don’t want to look.

  I have to.

  Because suddenly what I’ve been overlooking is right here in front of me.

  I drift inside, crouching down to look at the first photo album on the floor.

  The pictures in it are old.

  But I know them, because I know the people in them.

  Warren. Jenna.

  Me.

  Back then, we were a trio, after Leo went underground and before Doc moved to Heart’s Edge. We’re young, fresh out of boot camp, hanging on each other and laughing at Brody’s.

  The picture’s shaky. Taken by someone real inexperienced.

  But me and Warren are slashed out in red, while Jenna’s face is circled in a curly red heart.

  My jaw drops.

  It’s the same weird shit in every other picture.

  Dozens—no, fucking hundreds, some just seconds apart, capturing our lives. Us working. Us laughing. Us coming home from deployment to see our families and friends. I see myself and Warren and Jenna over and over again, but more and more it’s Jenna. Jenna. Jenna.

  Shots of her tossing her hair back, shots of her dirty with grease because she wasn’t afraid of manual labor, shots of her leaning on her brother and laughing until her eyes scrunch up.

  Then shots of that folded American flag on a coffin.

  Shots of her grave.

  And then no more of her as I move from album to album...but there’s me again. This time, it’s a photo from an old local paper, taken by some reporter.

  Right outside the Paradise Hotel, or at least what’s left of it.

  And Justin’s mother leaning on me as I haul her away from the smoking rubble.

  I don’t even remember that.

  That night was such a fucking haze. My gut’s in knots as I realize that in the rush of doing what needed to be done, I must’ve been the guy to notice the woman collapsed in the ruins was still alive, wheezing, her body blackened with soot.

  I don’t get it.

  Don’t understand why he’d save all this crap. Why he’d be taking pictures of us all these years without us knowing.

  There’s something very wrong here, I’m realizing.

  Something wrong inside Justin’s head.

  More and more, I’m flipping through page after page, barely breathing.

  Watching as the photos get better in quality but more obsessed, more strange. More of me and Warren on our lonely fishing trips, and visits to Jenna’s grave captured in black and white.

  Then Doc, too, as he opened up The Menagerie, practically chronicling his integration into Heart’s Edge. Even a few secret shots of Leo back when he was Nine by night, concealed in the shadows, watching over the town from a distance, just a silhouette with an edge of moonlight glinting off his mask and hood.

  Justin’s been everywhere.

  Watching our lives.

  Obsessing over us.

  And hating us, because too many of these photos are scratched, slashed with ink.

  Enough of them show an unstable rage.

  Blame, in jagged scratches of red pen strokes that rip right through the paper.

  Snarling, I sift through more, coming up on recent stuff.

  Then I hit on a trend that terrifies the ever-loving fuck out of me.

  I start seeing photos of Andrea.

  My daughter, and goddamn if every goose pimple on my body doesn’t stand up. I recognize her gangly pre-teen lope, her crooked gap-toothed smile. More and more photos that seem to track her growth by the month, hearts circled around her face...until it’s not her face at all.

  The photos are altered in this strange, fucked up collage.

  My daughter’s punky clothing and knobby knees, but pasted over her face, it’s Jenna Ford’s.

  Hundreds of cutouts of Jenna’s face, meticulously trimmed down and pasted over my daughter’s until Jenna lives again in these sick doctored photos.

  They paint a clear picture.

  One that makes me want to vomit.

  Justin was obsessed with Jenna, even though he’d have been so young when she was alive she probably never noticed him as an awkward teenager.

  Obsessed with all of us.

  They call us saviors, heroes, but we didn’t save the woman he idolized.

  Or his mother.

  And now he’s transferred his warped obsession to my daughter.

  Fuck isn’t strong enough a word.

  I can’t decide if I’m more pissed off or freaked. If he’s willing to punish us by fire, if he can play the victim so easy that even I was fooled into taking him under my wing...

  I don’t even want to think what he’d do to feed his obsession with Andrea.

  I just know I’ve got to protect her.

  And I’ve got no fucking time to lose.

  19

  Broken Pitch (Peace)

  I don’t think I’ve ever seen Andrea looking so despondent.

  I’m trying to practice backstage, but it’s hard when she’s dragging around looking like the apocalypse just hit.

  I feel for her.

  Truly.

  Justin’s vanished, and she can’t do the safety presentation on her own. She needs someone official backing it up from the town fire crew.

  “Hey,” I say, trying to catch her attention. “It’ll be all right. Blake will totally find him in time.”

  “Yeah, sure.” She rolls her eyes, sighing heavily as she flops down on one of the benches backstage. “I should just give up now.”

  “No way,” I say softly. “Listen, honey, if it comes right down to it, and he doesn’t make it back in time, I’ll wiggle into Blake’s coveralls and do it up there with you.”

  “You don’t know it.” She smiles wryly. “But thanks for offering.”

  “Plan B. Dead serious. I’ve been around enough showy fireworks and circuses to know how to give a spiel. Nobody’ll ever know.” I wink at her.

  She stares right through me, letting out a deflated laugh.

  There’s a tired maturity in Andrea’s smile that hurts to see.

  She shouldn’t have to deal with this crap. She shouldn’t be so used to disappointment that she learns to accept it.

  And when she stands, coming over to squeeze my shoulder, I decide I won’t let her.

  Catching her hand, I grip it tight for a moment, before she pulls away.

  “I’m gonna go find a bathroom, okay?” she says. “Yell if he ever shows up.”

  “Will do,” I say, watching her straggle off before I bow over my guitar again.

  She’s not the only one with jitters today. Playing at The Nest was a sliver of this crowd.

  I try to shake off my nerves, losing myself in practice chords. That song about my gold-hearted desperado still rolls real easy off my tongue.

  It’s now or never.

  It seems especially fitting right now, when the whole town is honoring Blake and his friends. I guess they’ll all see the heroes of Heart’s Edge in the song, though I’m really just singing it for one very special man.

  My man.

  I’m so lost in the melody and lyrics I don’t realize how much time blurs by until one of the stagehands ducks in the back. “Uh, Peace? Hey, it’s almost time for that fire safety thing? Where are they?”

  Oh.

  I li
ft my head, looking around.

  No sign of Andrea. No Justin. No Blake.

  It’s just me back here, all by my lonesome with my guitar.

  I flash the stagehand a distracted smile. “Let me see if I can find them.”

  My heart throbs sadly. I bet Andrea just moped off somewhere to give up.

  Poor girl.

  Maybe Blake and I can take her out for a special dinner tomorrow to make up for the disappointment.

  I’m still thinking of things I can do to help her feel better as I head off toward the row of temporary bathrooms backstage that aren’t much better than port-a-potties, just cleaner.

  But I don’t start worrying until my foot catches something.

  I look down and recognize the ragged patchwork colors of Andrea’s neon-stitched messenger bag. There’s a scrap of blue notepaper poking out of it I can’t help but recognize.

  “No!” I whisper, my hands already starting to shake.

  My vision flashes, a sudden hot rush of panic, vertigo, adrenaline.

  And as I bend down, slow with dread, to pluck the paper out, I see the familiar, scratchy handwriting.

  The same handwriting on the notes left by the monster.

  Hey, babe, let’s make up. Meet me out beyond the fence. I’ll be waiting. You were right. Love you. -Clark

  Clark didn’t write this.

  No flipping way did Clark Patten write a single word.

  The tone is too adult, the script too obvious, and why would Clark say love you when they aren’t even technically dating?

  My heart pounds so hard it’s making me sick.

  There’s a time to meet scribbled below his signature.

  Fifteen minutes ago, and Andrea’s still not back.

  I feel like I’ve just swallowed razors.

  Quickly, I look up, darting my gaze around. I’m in a narrow corridor leading out beyond the backstage staging area and around to the dressing areas, the bathrooms, other little enclosed bits of the ice palace that were thrown together for construction and maintenance.

  I’m alone.

  No Andrea.

  No anyone.

  I need to find Blake, before the worst happens.

  His daughter needs him.

  I need him.

  And maybe this whole town needs him. Again.

  Because whoever wrote this note...I think they want to hurt way more people than just Andrea.

  Choking back the sickly panic in my throat, I spin on my heel, darting to the exit.

  That’s how I slam right into something solid and warm.

  I stumble backward, reeling, my vision crossed for a second.

  Then my eyes refocus, and I’m staring up into a masked face. A pair of murky hazel eyes I recognize now with a horrible familiar chill.

  A single dark, Grecian curl escapes the mask, drifting across his eyes.

  And I don’t even get a chance to scream the horror rising up from my darkest depths before he’s on me, his hand clapped over my mouth.

  A foul, acrid smell washes over me.

  Everything goes cloudy, dark, distant, and I’m gone.

  * * *

  I wake to a pounding headache, brutal nausea, and the deepest cold I’ve ever felt in my life.

  It’s like I’ve been sleeping on a slab of liquid nitrogen.

  As my vision clears, the clarity coming back in the darkness, I realize I’m close to the truth.

  I don’t quite recognize where I am.

  Only that it’s dark and closed off with billowing cloth walls. There are chunks of ice everywhere. Stacked and tumbled in towering crumbles, slabs the size and weight of two or three men, many of them dirty or broken in half.

  It’s the leftovers from building the ice palace. The mistakes, the unclean bits, the oddly shaped bricks.

  And I’m lying on top of one of them, numbly aware of the freezing cold so deep it practically burns my skin. Oh, God.

  Frostbite city, here I come.

  But I’m less worried about that than the fact that I can’t feel my left leg, and I think my cheek might be fused to the ice.

  I can’t lift my head.

  There’s something around my ankle, too, cold and heavy.

  But if I roll my eyes, I can just make out the source of soft whimpers rising in my peripheral vision, paired with this strange, disturbingly happy masculine humming. A man’s voice.

  And Andrea.

  She’s in worse shape than me.

  She’s been stripped out of her coat, down to a sleeveless shirt and thin leggings under her skirt.

  And she’s sobbing in sheer misery as the tall, lean demon in black stands over her, painting her lips red, ignoring how she writhes against the handcuffs. They’ve been stabbed like icepicks into the ice block, keeping her bound in a crucifix position, arms spread, ankles together.

  And her poor bare skin touches the frigid slab, already looking red and irritated.

  Oh, God.

  Oh my God, it’s Justin.

  It’s been Justin all along...and I don’t think he even remembers I’m here.

  He’s so utterly fixated on Andrea’s face, watching her with a sort of scary, obsessed adoration.

  “Almost there,” he says, stroking his long finger down her cheek. Andrea flinches away, turning her head to one side. “You look so much better now. Except for that shitty clown hair, but we’ll fix it up. We’ll make you right again, Jenna.”

  “I’m not Jenna!” Andrea half screams, half rasps, her teeth chattering, her voice weak.

  I get a sick sense it’s hardly the first time she’s said it.

  “You will be.” Justin’s expression goes colder than the ice, his voice flat, his eyes a total black void.

  “Justin!” I snap, just wanting to get his attention.

  Anything to distract him from this shitshow. This senseless nightmare.

  Anything to keep him from hurting her more.

  “That’s Andrea. It’s not Jenna. Let her go. Let us both go.”

  “You don’t tell me what to do. You’re not even his wife!” He whips toward me, his upper lip curled in a sneer. Even with that twisted, hateful expression, he’s still so empty it’s unnerving, his voice toneless. “Did you honestly think I’d let you take them from me? Take Chief from me? Take her from me?” His eyes glow eerily as he steps closer to me. “They’re family. My father and...and Jenna. You can’t have them.”

  That’s when my heart stops and the gravity of what we’re dealing with sinks in.

  Fear hits like a tsunami wave, making me numb, yet hyperaware. I can’t look away from this psychopath—from those chilling eyes, that blank stare.

  “You can’t have them if you hurt Andrea,” I whisper. “She’ll die of frostbite like this. And Blake will never forgive you. He’ll never be your dad if you hurt her.”

  I swallow hard.

  Jesus, I hope I’m doing this right. It’s not like there’s a guidebook or anything for talking down someone who’s gone dangerously off the deep end.

  I can’t even begin to understand what Justin’s going through.

  What’s happened to warp him this freaking much.

  But I remember overhearing it when they were washing dishes, that day we all had dinner.

  How he’s always seen Blake like a father.

  And Jenna Ford, Blake told me about her, how she died thanks to another man gone crazy with greed.

  Whatever happened to twist Justin’s need for a surrogate to the point where he thinks Andrea is Jenna and Blake is somehow his father...

  I have to stop it.

  I’ve got to snap him back to reality before it’s too late.

  But I flinch as he slams the heel of his palm into the ice next to my head, and nearly scream as my cheek pulls against the ice. It rips free from the thin skim frozen against my skin, leaving half my face on fire.

  Breathing hard, I stop panicking, struggling not to burst out crying, fighting not to black out.

  I don’t thi
nk I’m bleeding, just a little frost burned, but God does it smart in the nastiest way.

  And Justin seems to enjoy it.

  His mouth forms a vicious jack-o-lantern grin as he leans over me.

  “I know your ways,” he whispers. “Siren-seductress-Medusa, destroyer of men. I won’t listen to your lies, witch. But if you really want to save them, you’ll do what I say.”

  I lick my parched lips.

  Andrea’s sob eats into me, but I can’t look away from Justin.

  “What? What do you want me to do?” I ask, forcing the words.

  “I,” he hisses, catching a handful of my hair and making me cry out, “want you to make them take me seriously.”

  He jerks my head, neck whiplashing, and suddenly I can feel heat again as the sharp spikes of agony rush through me. He shakes me roughly a few more times, then stops, leaning closer, leering at me with his eyes too wide and his teeth bared.

  I’ve never seen anything scarier in my life.

  No movie monster compares with the insane terror of a man pushed over the edge.

  “Everyone calls them heroes,” he hisses. “Everyone! When they bring nothing but pain and misery to this town. The real heroes die so they get all the praise. Jenna. My mother. They might as well have killed them themselves. And everyone always sees them—them! They’re so strong, they’re so brave, they’ve suffered so much...what about my suffering? What about my strength? What about what I’ve lived through? What I’ve suffered? What I’ve lost?” His voice cracks like a very dangerous, very lost little boy.

  I don’t even know if I want to cry for myself...or cry for him.

  I have to try again to talk to him. To reach him through the terrible pain he must be in that turns his world into this black-and-white projection of every wrong he’s ever suffered, amplified a thousandfold.

  If I can ease my clients’ pain, I can stop this.

  Can’t I?

  Even if I’m shaking down to my core, in so much pain I could pass out, I keep my voice low, soothing. I try to channel Blake from his advice line, the voice that made me fall in love.

  “I’ll listen, Justin,” I say. “I see you. I see how much you’re hurting. You deserve recognition for everything you’ve lost. And if you want...I’ll write a song about you. I’ll tell the truth about everything you’ve fought through. Just please, let Andrea go. I’ll sing for you until everyone hears it.”