by Gregory Ashe
He knew some of it. He was guessing the rest. How? I’d only ever told Austin. How could Lawayne know so much?
His finger landed with more certainty on the third injury: the first time she used a cigarette. And on. And on. Sometimes he hesitated. A few he got wrong. Toward the end, they were so frequent and so close together that he might have been getting them right and I didn’t know it; I’d lost track. Whatever hellscape my mom had laid out on my back, I’d gotten lost a long time before she’d finished. But Lawayne wasn’t lost. He kept touching. And touching. And touching. And his touch was so hot that it might have been cold. Or so cold it was hot. I didn’t know. I was shivering, and the seam in the wood panels dug into my forehead.
“Get the fuck off him, get the fuck off him, get the fuck off him right now, I’m going to fucking kill—”
Emmett spoke for the first time since I’d taken off my shirt, and I knew from the sound that he’d left the doorway. His voice came from the same direction as Austin’s, and that meant Emmett had walked across the room, had stepped up to my boyfriend, and—what? Nuzzled the gun against his chest? I didn’t know, but I could guess. And I could hear his words. “Shut the fuck up, cocksucker.”
“This gets you off?” I said, trying to draw all their attention, trying to draw out Lawayne. The words sounded as shivery as I felt. “Touching a boy, that’s what gets your rocks off? Fuck, if I’d known that, I would have let you blow me when I lived with my dad.”
“Kid, you don’t even want to know what gets me off.” Lawayne’s hands moved to my hips, his touch clinical, the nails fishing under the line of elastic. “Keep talking and you might find out.”
“Not down there.” Emmett’s voice was hard and flat. “I told you, didn’t I?”
“You did. But sometimes people miss things.”
“This fucking faggot is so desperate for me to bone him that he’s always getting naked around me. If he had anything down there—” A sneer came into Emmett’s voice. “—anything I was interested in, I mean, I would have noticed. And I would have told you.”
For the second time that night, Lawayne’s hesitation filled the room. He shimmied the elastic down another inch, bunching the denim and exposing the top of my ass. His thumbs settled into the cleft like he wanted to keep going. Or like he wanted to rip me in half with his bare hands.
“Fuck, kid. Lots of guys would kill for an ass like that. Your boy Emmett sure would.” Then he laughed, slapped me like he was telling me good game, and let the elastic slither back into place. From the way his voice changed, I could tell that he had turned away from me, facing Emmett as he said, “You were telling the truth.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“About all of it?”
“Of course.”
“All right.” Lawayne’s excitement glimmered underneath his best efforts to keep his voice expressionless. “We have a deal.”
“About time.”
“What deal?” I asked. “What the hell did you do, Emmett?”
“I’m going to kill you,” Austin said. His voice had taken on an eerie calm. “You know what this kind of shit does to him, Emmett. You know what you do to him. And you put this together. You did this to him, even though you knew. And I’m going to kill you for that.”
“Not if I kill you first.”
“What deal?” I said again. “Whatever the fuck you think Emmett’s going to get you, you’re wrong. He’s a goddamn cheat and a liar.” The air was too thin; my lungs burned and heaved no matter how much I sucked in. “If he’ll do it with you, he’ll do it to you.”
Lawayne laughed. The sound was so startled and so honest that it had to be real, and that made it worse somehow. I wanted to sink into the wall; the grit scrubbed my forehead, my cheeks, my wrists, the soft flesh on the inside of my arms. Lemon stuffed up my nose. Then Lawayne’s hand tangled in my long hair and jerked my head back.
“He’ll do it to me, is that right? Damn, kid. You’ve got a perfectly nice guy right here, ready to get his ear cut off for you, and you’ve got your panties in a twist about Emmett fucking Bradley? I thought you had more brains than that.”
“What’s the deal? What’s he offering you?” My mind flashed back to Sara’s living room, to the white-out desperation in Shay’s face, and I said, “Did you get involved with Cribbs and those kids—”
The movement was fast and hard, and I never had a chance to prepare myself. Lawayne yanked on my hair, drew my head back, and then drove my face into the wall. My nose bent. Blood sprayed across the paneled wood. I flailed, and Lawayne hammered me against the wall again, dropping his elbow across my neck and bracing me. His coffee breath tickled my ear.
“Now why’d you have to go and say something stupid like that.”
I spat blood, and the crimson loogie slid down the wood paneling. “That’s it? You’re going to break my nose? That’s all you’ve got?”
“Kid.” His fingers tightened, and even though I was tall, I had to rise onto my toes as Lawayne hauled on my hair. “I really tried to like you. I’ve given you all sorts of chances. But you just don’t make it easy, do you? Where are they?”
The shock of the question took me by surprise. Lawayne thought I knew. He thought I had something to do with it.
Casually, he smacked my head into the wall again. “So this is it: this is the last one, the last chance, the last time I make an exception, because I want to like you, kid, I really do. Where?”
“They’re not with their dad, are they? They’re not with Cribbs.” I had to swallow; my mouth was all sparky and coppery, and someone was playing the radio loud, really loud, and it was a high-pitched noise like an emergency broadcast. “You were supposed to have them, but you lost them.”
Lawayne drove me into the wall with another of those indifferent blows, just a guy doing a job he didn’t find very interesting. Then, shaking out his grip on my hair, he let me go, and I slid down the wall faster than my own bloody loogie.
With his sneaker, Lawayne pushed me onto my side—nudged, really, the way another guy might have nudged his dog out of the way. And then his shoe came down on the back of my neck. A lot of the world had disappeared into the shrill whine of that radio. And part of me knew there wasn’t a radio, and nobody was broadcasting an emergency. I couldn’t worry about that, though, because I had to swallow again. The inside of my mouth was too slick; it was like a waterslide.
“—fucking knocked his brains out.” That was Emmett.
“He’s fine.” That was Lawayne.
Long, slender fingers turned my face. The lights were still bending and flickering no matter how hard I squinted, and that radio was still shrieking in my ears.
“He’s no good to us if he’s in a coma.”
“He’s no good to us at all. Not like this. No. Shut the fuck up, Emmett. I’m handling this.” Then someone began to dial back that godawful radio, and more of the world came into focus, and I recognized the change in Lawayne’s voice as he spoke into his phone. “Bob, shut the fuck up and listen. I called you, all right, so shut up. I’m doing the talking.”
Bob.
For a moment, the radio warbled back to full volume, and that emergency siren canceled out all thought. Bob. There were a lot of guys named Bob, but Lawayne wasn’t calling a lot of guys. He was calling one guy. One Bob. One Bob in particular. Bob Eliot. My dad.
“Your baby boy’s over here at the Bradley place. Uh huh. Uh huh. I’m not trying to jam you up, Bob, so shut it. I’m telling you your boy is over here and he knows something. And you know what? Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeah, he’s got fucking rocks for brains. So I think it’s time Daddy gets his house in order. Get over here, now, and take care of this. No. No. No, I don’t want to hear your excuses. Well, why the hell did you drive all the way out there in the first place? Bob, the only reason I haven’t shot off both your kneecaps is because you promised me you could make him heel. Well, he’s barking like hell and I’m telling you to make
him heel, and what are you giving me back? Just a bunch of bullshit, that’s what.”
The worst of that shrill whine faded from my ears. My vision cleared a little, and I found myself staring up into Emmett’s dark, funhouse eyes. But right then, with the hard lines of his face softened in my fuzzy vision, they didn’t make me think of that funhouse drop. Right then, with his long fingers curling along my jaw, he looked worried. And furious. And helpless. And he blinked once, and long lashes came up heavy and glistening.
From Lawayne’s phone came the soft buzz of my dad’s voice, and then Lawayne grunted. “Well, that’s something. That’s really something. They were sending him back to you anyway? Good old U. S. of A. Fine. That’ll be fine. But I’m telling you, Bob, I want him on a leash. In a fucking kennel, if you have to. I mean that literally. Fine. Fine. Tomorrow, then.”
With an abruptness that surprised me, Lawayne dropped the phone from his ear and disconnected the call. Tension tightened Emmett’s fingers, and then he let my head drop and stood. As he rose, that trapdoor in his eyes opened again, and all I could see was the black space of a funhouse drop.
“They haven’t decided what they want from him.” It was the first thing Krystal had said, and her voice was deeper than I expected, almost husky.
Lawayne rolled his shoulders. “I know what they want.”
“I’m going to take him—”
Lawayne spun on her, and Krystal recoiled, her hip bumping the desk. She didn’t look afraid; she was too tough to be scared. But she was unsettled. Uncertain. Wary. The blade in her hand trembled centimeters from Austin’s throat. My head was still thrumming from the blows, but I tried to focus on what I was seeing, on what it all meant. They were allies. But they didn’t trust each other.
“You know.” Lawayne punched a finger down onto the desk. “You know that’s not how we’re playing this.”
“We’ve got him right here.” Krystal hugged her skinny chest. “It’s stupid to go on playing some game when we’ve got him right here.”
“Get the fuck out of here. Emmett, you too. If you have to drag their sorry asses to the gate, do it, but get them out of here and then get the fuck lost for the night.”
Krystal shook her head, exposing a network of dark roots, but she didn’t argue. She stomped to the stairs, and her passage down echoed through the house. Emmett followed her to the landing and then stopped.
Stiffly, as though he had aged years over the last few minutes, Austin levered himself up out of the chair. One of his hands floated up toward the cut on his ear, but he stopped himself, and he shuffled over to me. By the time he reached me, I was on one knee, so Austin helped me dress and dragged my arm over his shoulder.
“Sorry,” I croaked.
Austin just squeezed me around the waist and dragged me toward the landing.
Emmett watched us, fingering the gun at his waist, sneering. He jerked his thumb at the stairs, and so we went first. By the time we got to the ground floor, the worst of the fogginess in my head had burned off, and I was walking better. I tried to slide my arm free of Austin’s shoulder, but he caught my wrist and tugged.
“Play it up,” he whispered.
So I did. I let him support me all the way to the front door, underneath the massive chandelier, and I slumped against him while he juggled my weight and wrestled the heavy door open. Krystal paced at the other end of the foyer, chewing a nail, watching us. On the black wave of night came the crispness of freshly watered grass and, muted, the not-far-off dustiness of the high plains. Security lights on the front of the house arced across the grass, washing everything milky-white. The wind howled, plucking at the grass, stirring it, drawing it out and spinning it into threads.
As we walked, the night air cleared my head, and I noticed again how badly overgrown the yard had become. Weeds choked the split asphalt. Had Emmett’s dad gone broke? The whole thing seemed like a joke. Why were they letting this place go to hell? I glanced back at Emmett, who stood ten yards back, hand curled around the pistol in his waistband.
At the gate, we stopped. I glanced back at Emmett, who said, “You can go out the same way you came in.”
“He’s hurt.” Austin shifted my weight. “Jesus, Emmett, just open the gate.”
“He’s faking.”
“Your boss,” Austin laid pure disgust on the word, “just about smashed his face in.”
“He’s fine. You’re not fooling me, tweaker.”
“Open the goddamn gate.”
Tugging on Austin’s shirt, I shook my head. “Leave it. He’s going to be a dick about this, so let’s just go.”
“I don’t want you climbing—”
I tugged on his shirt again. Hard. “Leave it. Please?”
Austin’s mouth snapped shut. Lacing his fingers together, he held out his hands, and I settled my foot into the stirrup. The weeds were blowing again, snaking against my leg, the thorny creepers catching in the denim and tugging. With a grunt, Austin propelled me up and braced my foot with his arm fully extended. I caught the top of the gate, the metal cold under my bare hands, my head just clearing the top bar.
Ahead of me, at the end of the drive, Kaden sat inside the Camaro, its halogen lights cutting out a strange shape on the shoulder. Inside, Kaden was nothing more than a silhouette.
Then Austin grabbed my leg and pulled. I slipped, banged my chin, and tasted fresh blood. “What the hell—”
I looked down and choked. It wasn’t Austin pulling on me. It was those damn creepers. They wound around my leg, thorns nicking the fabric of my jeans, looping tighter and tighter. I kicked. As if by reflex, the creeper closed around my ankle like a noose, and its thorns drilled through denim and into my flesh. Then, with a ferocious jerk, the creeper hauled me back toward the ground.
I barely caught myself on the top of the gate. Pain ripped up through my leg—in part from the force of the pull, and in part from the thorns digging deeper. I let out a grunt. Panic swam up at me, and I forced it away. I had to think. Christ, I had to think and not freak the fuck out because a plant was trying to rip off my leg.
On Emmett’s porch, illuminated by the glow from inside the house, stood Krystal: shoulders hunched, arms around her cadaverous ribcage, dollar-store blond hair spilling over her face. Ten yards behind me, Emmett held the pistol in his hand now, and he was spinning in a circle, trying to figure out what was going on.
Choking noises made me look down. Creepers and brambles bound Austin to the fence. His raised arm kept the creepers from tightening around his neck and cutting off his air, but blood coated his hands, running freely from his wrists where a knot of thorns held him fast. His face was red as he twisted against the fibrous noose pulling tight. Looking up at me, he rasped, “Vie, I can’t breathe.”
“Let him go,” I shouted. “Let him go, you fucking cunt, or I’ll kill you. I swear to God, I’ll—”
A thick vine lashed out of the darkness, wrapping around my wrist binding me to the gate. A second vine came almost as quickly, wrapping around my forehead, and the iron bars clanged as my head crashed between two bars. I was able to turn my head slightly toward the porch. The taste of rust filled my mouth, mixed with something else, something like the rot of old mulch, of grass clippings heated by the sun.
“I’ll kill you, you fucking cunt, I’ll kill—”
Below me, Austin arched his back. His head rang the bars like some horrible bell, and his toes—those boots, the worn, scuffed, beeswax-polished boots—dug into the turf. He twisted his face toward his armpit, trying to relieve the pressure on his throat and draw some air into his lungs. His features were puffed with trapped blood and the strain of his panicked struggles. He didn’t even look like Austin, not really, and at the same time he did, and he had kissed me, and he had tweaked the skin on the back of my arm, and he had laughed and said, I know you love me, I love you too.
“I’m not letting you walk away,” Krystal called. “They’d be furious. They’d .
. . they’d punish me.”
My eyes cut toward Krystal. I could barely see her; she was just a mop of cheap blond hair framed by house lights. It didn’t matter, though. She could have been in China. She could have been on the moon, and I would have reached out the same way I did right then, and I would have touched her just as easily. If Emmett wanted to shoot me to stop me, he could goddamn well shoot me. My third eye flashed open, and I stepped into her mind.
A faint resistance met me, and then I was past it, inside the waiting darkness. And I knew, this time, what I wanted to do. I found the right memory: dusty carpet, the scratch of wool on my cheeks, the thin line of light under the door, footsteps, her shadow, pee blotching the cotton between my legs with the warmth of an infection. The helplessness. The terror. I couldn’t force the memory on her, but I could call up its simulacrum, and I felt it splash as it broke the surface of that perfect darkness inside her mind. I caught glimpses of it. Robbie—whoever the hell Robbie was—holding her arms, and Cage shouting, “Do it, just do it, oh my God,” and dissolving into laughter, and then the brush of furry legs on my face, and it was going to eat me, it was going to eat me . . .
Sensory detail from my body crashed over me: the pain in my arms and in the ring of puncture wounds on my ankle, Austin’s wheezing, Emmett shouting something—whatever it was, I couldn’t understand—and then screams. Horrified screams. Helpless screams.
From the porch, Krystal plunged out into the night, running and twisting and tearing at her face. I’d never heard anyone scream like that, not in my entire life, and something inside me shriveled at the sound. I’d done that to her. I’d given her back her worst terror, and Christ, what kind of monster did that?
The vines flexed, and something popped in my elbow, and the thorns ripped furrows along my flesh. Austin’s wheezing grew even more labored; his eyes bulged, and his body shook like he was having some kind of seizure. The noose around his neck and arm pulled him up, and his heels left the ground. Tighter. Jesus fucking Christ, it was getting tighter.
