Silas

by V. J. Chambers

  * * *

  The sound of the television wafted through the house. I could hear it as I came down the steps the next morning. “… possible perpetrators in an attempt on philanthropist Derek Rolf’s life fled the scene in a black sedan.”

  I turned the corner into the living room, where Sloane was sitting in front of the TV.

  “Well,” she said, “we made the news.”

  I sat down next to her. “Shit. They saw us.”

  “They saw my car, anyway,” she said. “In fairness, black sedan is a pretty generic description. There were probably a ton of black sedans at the hotel that night.”

  “Yeah, but if the news media has that much information, imagine what Rolf has,” I said. “He probably saw you grab me and drive off. Hell, he probably followed us.”

  “If anyone was following us, I lost them,” said Sloane.

  “No, I know. I’m not questioning your ability to lose a tail.”

  “So, even if he tried, he failed.”

  “I don’t know. If we were smart, we’d get out of here for a few weeks, let everything blow over.”

  “We can’t do that,” she said. “We have the wedding.”

  “You have the wedding,” I said. “I got kicked out, remember?”

  She sighed. “Speaking of which, you should really talk to Griffin.”

  “No, I shouldn’t. He doesn’t want to talk to me,” I said. “And besides, I hardly think that’s what we should be focusing on right now. Rolf could be hunting us down.”

  “He’s not going to find us,” she said. “No one followed me. We’re going to be fine. And after the wedding, we’ll pick up his trail, and we’ll find him again, and we’ll kill him. I promise. But, for now, you need to try not to think about it.”

  I got up. “I don’t know, Sloane. What if he does find us? We’re vulnerable here.” I headed back out of the living room into the foyer. I tried the front door. “The door’s unlocked. He could walk right in.”

  She appeared in the doorway of the living room. “Silas, don’t start getting paranoid. I can’t handle it when you’re paranoid.”

  Easy for her to say. She didn’t have to get paranoid. I always kept her safe. Away from the messy work, from the heart-pounding danger of a knife inches from her neck. She didn’t have shit like that rattling around in her head. I did.

  I locked the door. “Just try to keep the door locked, especially when we’re home?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You realize that’s the exact opposite of what everyone else does?”

  “Yeah.” I went to the front window and tested it to see if it was locked. “And they’re idiots. What’s more important? Your stuff or your life?” I tried the window next to it. “Keep the lower-level windows locked too, okay?”

  She rubbed her forehead. “You are getting paranoid.”

  “I’m just trying to keep us safe,” I said. “You want to give me a hand? Help me check the other windows?”

  “What I want you to do is to stop this shit and agree to talk to Griffin.”

  I went into the kitchen to check those windows as well. “Griffin? Who cares about Griffin right now?”

  She followed me. “He’s your best friend.”

  “He’s not my best friend.” The window by the table was open. I slammed it shut and locked it.

  “He’s the only friend you have that you can be completely honest with.”

  “Big freaking deal. That’s such a chick thing to care about.”

  “Like hell,” she said. “As much as you happen to be in denial about it, Silas, you are a human being with human emotions.”

  I left the kitchen and jogged down the stairs to the basement.

  “Don’t walk away from me!” Sloane came after me.

  I went into our gun room and opened the case. “We need to keep a loaded gun in every room. Just in case.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “No. I don’t like that. It’s dangerous. What if you start having those dreams again, and you’re so freaked out when you wake up that you shoot me or something?”

  “I would never shoot you,” I said.

  “You wouldn’t mean to,” she said. “But after those dreams, you’re disoriented and—”

  “I haven’t had them in a long time.” I took two hand guns out of the case.

  “Silas, you scare me when you get like this.”

  I looked up at her. She was giving me her pleading eyes. They were big and concerned and hard to ignore. I set down the guns and went to her. “Look, it’ll just be until after the wedding.”

  She bit down on her lip.

  That hadn’t been enough for her, huh? I heaved a huge sigh. “I’ll talk to Griffin.”

  “You will?”

  “Yeah, sure, I will.”

  She hugged me. “That’s good. You need to try to smooth things over with him.”

  I hugged her back. “But we’re keeping guns upstairs.”

  She let go of me. “Silas—”

  “Fine. I won’t load them,” I said. “But I swear to god, if you don’t let me at least have unloaded guns up there, I’m not going to be able to handle it.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I guess that’s okay. You’ll tell me if you start—”

  “I’m fine.” Maybe it came out a little more sharply than I intended.

  She nodded. “You won’t need to tell me anyway. I’ll be able to tell.” She patted me on the arm. “I’m glad you’re going to talk to Griffin.”

  * * *

  “You know the only reason I’m here is because Leigh made me come, don’t you?” Griffin was sitting stiffly at my kitchen table. He’d been waiting for me when I got home from class that afternoon. I’d asked him to come by a little later, but I wasn’t going to point out how early he was. Not when he clearly still hated my guts.

  I was standing by the refrigerator. “You want a beer?”

  “I guess.”

  “Wait, Leigh put you up to this?”

  “That’s what I said.” He inspected his fingernails. “She said that I wasn’t allowed to ruin her wedding just because I was being an ass.”

  I took two bottles out of the refrigerator. “Yeah, well, Sloane roped me into it.” I opened the beers. “Fucking girls.”

  Griffin let out a small laugh of agreement.

  I handed him his beer and sat down opposite him. “Look, I get it. If I thought someone was hurting Sloane, I’d go apeshit. So, I’m sorry.”

  Griffin took a drink of the beer. “Is this something you made?”

  “Nah. It’s a homebrew, though. My buddy made it. It’s a little heavy on the orange peel, I think, but otherwise it’s okay.”

  “It’s good,” said Griffin. He set it down on the table. “I don’t want to talk about you and Christa.”

  “I thought that was what we were doing.”

  “Yeah, but, what’s there to say? She’s my sister. I don’t want think about her… you know, doing it. And I don’t like to think about you doing it either, so, let’s drop it. She seems to be handling it okay. She’s got enough sense not to have feelings for your pathetic ass.”

  Ouch. Why did that sting? It wasn’t because Griffin called me pathetic. I didn’t mind that.

  It was because… I wanted Christa to have feelings for me? That was crazy. That didn’t make any sense at all.

  I nodded. “Okay. Well, I’m good with that.”

  “Cool.” He upended the beer into his mouth and swallowed it in three draws. Then he set it down. “Well, you’re back in the wedding. Leigh’s happy, so I’m happy.” He stood up.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Yup.” He started out of the room. It was still earlier than the time I’d set for us to meet and hang out. He’d barely been here for five minutes.

  I stood up. “Hey, hold on a second.”

  Griffin turned to me. “What?”

  “Just… we’re not okay yet, are we?”

  He rubbed the top of his head. “I don’t
know, man.”

  “I really am sorry about Christa.”

  “Yeah, it’s not really about that,” he said. “I mean, it is. Kind of.”

  “So what’s it about?”

  He sighed. “I don’t even want to get into it.”

  He didn’t? I was realizing that I wanted us to be okay. That I didn’t like the idea of not having Griffin as a friend, no matter what I said to Sloane. “Is there something I could do to make this better?”

  “I don’t think so.” He looked at the floor. “Generally, I’d say that what you do with your down time is your own business, and if you want to sleep around, I don’t care. But… you know, when it comes down to it, I think it’s sort of fucked up. And I kind of always have.”

  I picked up my beer, feeling defensive. “Yeah, you know what? It is my business. Not yours.”

  “Right,” he said. “Well, I’m not sure if I can hang out with you without thinking about how fucked up it is all the time.”

  “Why not?” What the hell did Griffin care?

  “I don’t know. I guess because I’m not that kind of guy, and I never wanted to be that kind of guy, and I never thought I would be close friends with that kind of guy.”

  “What ‘kind of guy’?”

  “Whatever Sloane calls you,” he said. “A manwhore.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You serious? I’m in college. I’m not ready to settle down. I’m acting normal. You’re the one who’s getting married too young.”

  “Too young.” Griffin shook his head. “I guess maybe I used to kind of tell myself that. Because I am older than you, and I thought maybe you were just going to grow out of it, like it was a faze or something, you know? Like maybe you’d mature, or you’d meet the right girl, or something. But I don’t think so. This is a way of life for you, isn’t it? You really don’t believe in relationships.”

  I drank some of my beer. “I guess not. At least not for me. If it really works for you guys, more power to you. But you were currently forced over here against your will to talk to me. If you didn’t want to make Leigh happy, you wouldn’t have to do that. And how many more concessions can you make to her happiness before you start resenting her?”

  He laughed in disbelief. “You don’t get it at all. It’s not like making her happy makes me miserable. It’s more like I’m miserable without her, and I’m miserable if she’s not happy. And so anything I can do for her, I do. Because I love her. And it’s not like you don’t understand the idea of loving someone. You care about Sloane.”

  “She’s my sister. That’s not the same thing.”

  “No,” said Griffin. “It’s not.” He started to say something, and then he stopped.

  “What?”

  “No, I don’t know if I want to go there.” His jaw twitched.

  “Now you kind of have to,” I said. “You can’t bring it up and then leave me hanging.”

  He took a deep breath. “Look, I think it’s kind of… predatory and disgusting what you do. You’ve got it all down to just a physical connection, and it’s not about emotion. And I’ve seen that kind of approach to sex before. It’s the way that the guys… when I was in jail treated me. It’s dehumanizing. It’s disgusting. And when I look at you…” He shook his head.

  “That’s not fair,” I said. “I’m not a rapist.”

  He shrugged. “They’re all objects to you, Silas. You use them. You don’t even think about how they feel. Maybe it’s not rape, not exactly, but it’s still fucked up.”

  I licked my lips, searching for something to say.

  But Griffin turned and walked out of the kitchen.

  I didn’t stop him.

  I heard him leave through the front door.

  I only went after him to make sure it was locked. I checked the windows again, even though I knew that neither Sloane nor I would have had any reason to unlocked them.

  What he said about me wasn’t true.

  Or…

  If it was, maybe I didn’t care. So, I was an asshole to girls. So what?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “So, how was Griffin?” Sloane asked me, depositing her book bag on the kitchen table. She was getting back from her last class of the day. This semester, Sloane had somehow crammed all of her classes onto Tuesdays and Thursdays, meaning she had Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays off. However, she went from eight in the morning to seven at night on the other days. I didn’t know if it was worth it or not.

  Admittedly, Sloane was taking more classes than I was. She was taking this whole college thing a lot more seriously than I was.

  I didn’t quite see the point. We’d managed to steal a lot of money from Op Wraith when they went under, which meant that we were set for life. We’d been able to buy a house and pay for our college educations outright. We weren’t hurting for money, and that probably wasn’t going to change.

  (Well, we could probably spend all the money if we wanted to be really conspicuous and stupid, I guess.)

  So, I didn’t really feel the need to go to school to get a job. I was studying whatever the heck I felt like studying, whether it added up to a degree or not. I was having a blast.

  But Sloane was fulfilling requirements and on track to graduate early and being really regimented about it. Which was fine with me. I didn’t care or anything.

  She and I were different. We might have been twins. We might have shared the same womb in our early development. But she tended to be a little bit more serious than me. I did whatever I wanted. Sloane followed the rules.

  “He hates me,” I said. “He said that I treat women like objects and that I’m two steps down from being a rapist.” I was sitting in the kitchen, eating corn chips.

  Sloane sat down with me. She took the bag and grabbed a handful. “Well, that was kind of harsh.”

  “But I’m back in the wedding. He wants to keep Leigh happy.”

  Sloane chewed thoughtfully. “What do you think about what he said?”

  “I don’t.” I ate some more chips. “Hey, did you lock the door when you came in?”

  “Yes. Don’t be a spaz.” She chewed. “I don’t think that’s fair for him to say that about you. I mean, you’re not into commitments, but that doesn’t mean you treat women like objects. That makes you sound psycho.”

  “We don’t need to talk about it.”

  “You don’t think of women as objects, do you?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.” Honestly, I had very little interest in thinking about this.

  “How can you not know?”

  I shrugged again. I shoved some more chips in my mouth.

  Sloane got up. “Do we have any salsa? These chips would be better with salsa.”

  “I don’t think so, but I didn’t look.”

  She opened the refrigerator door. “For instance, you didn’t think Sylvia was an object.”

  “Do we have to talk about her?”

  “Well, she’s the whole reason you’re in a bad mood. If it weren’t for her, we wouldn’t have to kill Rolf.” She pulled a jar of salsa out of the refrigerator. “Aha!”

  I watched her come back to the table with the jar of salsa. She opened it and dipped one of her chips inside.

  I followed suit. “Sylvia thought of me as an object.”

  Sloane was chewing, but her eyes widened and she shook her head. She swallowed. “No, she didn’t.”

  “Of course she did,” I said.

  “Well, maybe it started out that way,” said Sloane. “But you guys had real feelings for each other.”

  I dragged a hand over my face. “I guess so. I didn’t want her to die.”

  Sloane patted my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  The doorbell rang.

  I leapt up. “Who is that? Are you expecting anyone?”

  “No,” she said.

  I hurried into the living room. I could see that there was a pizza delivery car in our driveway. “Sloane, did you order a pizza?”

  “No,” she called from the kitche
n

  “Fuck,” I said. “It’s Rolf. Get a gun. Get one now.”

  “Silas, maybe it’s not.”

  “Oh come on? The delivery guy? It’s the oldest trick in the book.” I got the gun I’d stashed by the front door and began loading it. “You have a gun, Sloane?”

  “Yeah, okay, I’ve got one,” she said. “But please don’t shoot that guy unless you’re sure he’s with Rolf. You understand me?”

  I fumbled with the bullets. My hands were a little shaky.

  The doorbell rang again.

  “You understand, Silas?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, tucking the loaded gun out of sight and striding to the door. I opened it a sliver.

  The guy outside was holding a pizza box. He was wearing black sunglasses and a t-shirt from the pizza place. But that didn’t mean anything. Rolf’s guy could have gotten the pizza and the t-shirt anywhere. “Hey there. Got a pizza for you.”

  “Didn’t order a pizza,” I said.

  “You sure?” said the guy, eyeing our address.

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  He furrowed his brow.

  I took slow breaths. If he was really a delivery boy, he’d leave now, wouldn’t he? He was at the wrong place. He’d made a mistake. If he was actually trying to deliver pizza, he’d go back to his car.

  I waited.

  He didn’t move.

  “So, you gonna go?” I said.

  “Well, the thing is—”

  I cut him off by whipping out the gun and settling it against his stomach.

  His eyes bulged. “What the hell?”

  “How did Rolf find us? How many men does he have? If you cooperate with me, I’ll let you live.”

  The guy’s voice came out a squeak. “Oh my god, is that a gun?”

  I winced. “All right, are you acting, or are you really a delivery boy?”

  “Don’t shoot me,” the kid said. “Please, don’t shoot me.”

  “Fuck.” I put the gun away. “Would you go find the people who actually ordered that pizza, please?”

  The guy let out a sob. “Oh. Thank you. Thank you for not killing me.”

  I slammed the door in his face. I locked it.

  So, maybe I was getting a little paranoid.

  * * *

  “I don’t see the point of a bachelor/bachelorette party anyway,” I told Sloane. I was in a bad mood, because she’d dragged me to this thing, but no one was even acknowledging my presence.