Once upon a time, I had been a pretty decent Christmas cookie baker.
In another time, another life.
I hadn't even seen a chocolate chip in the better part of a decade.
The heat seemed to come from a small space heater tucked a few feet away from the couch. There was no AC. Not that those things mattered. I had gotten on well enough without them for many years.
"Everything is empty," he told me, waving a hand toward the cupboard and the fridge. "Except there is likely a bottle of whiskey in the freezer. I will grab you some stuff."
"I can—"
"No," he cut me off, shaking his head. "If we are going to pull this off, you have to lay low here. There's not much in the way of entertainment. Got my old record player and some records I left here that I had repeats of. I can maybe grab you some books. You still into the true crime and history shit?"
Was I?
I hadn't had access to books in years.
But I still remembered, of course, all the endless hours I had once spent with my nose buried inside them, escaping from the real world when it was not exciting enough.
Now, though, the real world was plenty exciting. Maybe it would be nice to escape to something calmer.
"Not true crime or thrillers," I decided. "Anything but that."
"Anything but that," he repeated, mulling over the words, looking for the meaning behind them. "Got it. What about food? You still all about the coffee and crunchy cheese puffs and half-sour pickles?"
More memories, ones that had been so buried under flavorless chicken, sweet potatoes, and the rotation of green beans, peas, broccoli, and asparagus.
I'd had coffee.
Plain black coffee.
The kind that could damn near put hair on your chest.
Everything else, though—just part of my past. Cheese, sugar, most carbs. I hadn't touched them in years. Holden was in charge of obtaining and cooking food. I was simply grateful to eat after a hard day of training. I stopped dreaming of junk food years ago.
"Yes," I told him without hesitation. "And Devil Dogs."
"Devil Dogs," he repeated, lips curving up slightly.
That wasn't one of my public junk food binges. Devil Dogs were my secret binge food. The thing I feasted on in private after a bad day.
Doing poorly on a test.
Getting that look of disappointment from my mother.
Having a silly fight with Iggy.
Watching Vance hit on another girl in front of me while it was painfully clear I was mad for him.
I would stop at the convenience store, grab a box, hide it in my backpack, lock myself in my room, and plow through the entire thing.
I shouldn't have needed the comfort.
I hadn't needed anything even resembling comfort items in so long that I was sure I was above such things.
Even when I had seen and done the most horrifying things a person could imagine.
I managed.
Without a soft blanket.
Without music.
Without books.
Without fucking Devil Dogs.
But all it took to bring back old habits was simply stepping foot in my hometown?
What would happen after a couple hours, a couple days?
Would it make me soft all over again?
No.
No, of course not.
I couldn't let it.
"Alright, well, I can manage all that. What about clothes? Doesn't look like you brought much in that bag on your bike."
I hadn't.
Because I didn't own much.
Three days worth of clothes. A notebook I'd taken from the workout room because Holden wasn't using it, a place I used to write once every year. On my birthday. Why, I wasn't sure. To remember? For my family to have should I die, to know why I ran, what I ran to do, all the things I had been through?
I don't know.
But I did it.
And I kept it with me most of the time.
Otherwise, well, I didn't have much to my name.
A little cash.
Some sharp objects.
A big old bottle of ibuprofen.
A little wooden bear statue Holden had carved for me one day. After that night.
The night the lock on the door failed.
The night he came barreling into my room with his demons racing through his veins.
I'd taken a blow to the head before managing to scramble out through my window, falling down wrong, twisting my ankle, but having to run on it regardless because he was coming. I still to this day wasn't sure how I got away from him in the woods he knew so well but I was just starting to learn, but by some miracle I had, hauling myself high up into a tree, lying flat and still against the trunk, just waiting for day to come.
When I had finally hobbled back to my makeshift home, I'd found my breakfast there waiting for me along with the wooden bear on the tray.
Holden wasn't good at words.
But sometimes his gestures spoke volumes.
He was sorry.
He, in his own way, valued me, didn't want me to leave, wanted me to know it wasn't him that had broken into my room, that it was a part of him that existed in dark moments.
And, well, I had started to understand.
I kept the bear.
I treasured the bear.
But I made sure I secured that goddamn door.
"I can get by with what I have."
"I think we can do better than just getting you by, Ace," he said, the word seeming to shock us both the moment it was out of his lips. It had slipped out naturally, out of habit, old and familiar.
He'd always referred to Iggy's friends by nicknames he associated with us. Sometimes, when he was being a condescending ass, he'd call us kids. Or he'd call us punks. Or nerds.
But me?
Me, he liked to call Ace.
I was Ace.
In my silly, girlish mind, I was his Ace.
My heart always fluttered when I heard it.
There was no flutter now.
I didn't flutter anymore.
But there was a jolt, something electric. Something stronger than a flutter.
Maybe the old me letting me know for the first time that she was still around, buried deep, but not as dead as I thought she was.
"Since you are as skinny as ever, I think I can figure out your size."
"Here, let me give you some cash."
"Fuck off with that," he scoffed, rolling his eyes.
He'd always paid when we were kids. Even though I knew he wasn't rolling in it. I always thought it was rather gentlemanly of him. One of the many traits I had admired.
But that was then.
This was now.
Things had changed.
Maybe he hadn't.
But I had.
"I insist."
"You can insist all you want. You're not paying for shit."
"Vance..."
"I'm afraid it's not up for debate."
"Everything is up for debate."
"Yeah? How are you going to convince me to let you pay, huh?" he asked, lazy smile tipping up. Familiar. Charming as it always had been.
All words seemed to fail me in an instant.
"That's what I thought," he agreed, making his way to the door. "Give me a few hours. And lock the door."
I felt my lips curving up a bit at that. At the idea that any monster that showed up at my door could be anywhere near as vicious as I was. Even in this neighborhood.
"Will do," I agreed to appease him.
"Hey, Ace?" he called, standing in the open doorway, eyes a little lost, a little far away.
"Yeah?"
"It's good to have you home."
With that, he was gone, the rumbling of his bike speaking of his departure.
I poked around, making sure I wasn't sharing the space with any four-or more- legged friends before making my way back out to my bike, and finding I wasn't alone.
"Think if he's lo
oking to screw you, he'd at least spring for that sleep and fuck off the highway. Thirty bucks a night and it has better amenities than this shithole."
"Maybe I like it rough and dirty," I declared, rummaging into my bag to pull out my double-bladed hunting karambit, letting it catch the light.
"Well, then you fit right in here, don't you?" he asked, flicking open a lighter, holding it up to the cigarette between his lips.
This was a man you thought about when someone said a man looked like bad news.
Tall, fit, scruffy, wearing scuffed up boots and sporting a scar straight down his left cheekbone.
"I was born and raised in this town. With that accent, though, you weren't."
I knew a twang when I heard one. Even if it had gotten roughed up a little by spending some time on the upper east coast.
"Louisiana, darlin', since you want to know so bad."
"What the hell are you doing all the way up here?"
"Looking for some trouble."
"Then you're probably going to find it. You my neighbor?" I asked, jerking my head to the shack directly connected to Vance's.
"For now, yeah. Finch," he offered, though wisely didn't extend his hand, didn't come close. Men tended not to do stupid shit like that when you were holding a weapon sharp enough to sever a limb without much effort. "You got a name?"
"Not that you need to know."
Another of those devilish smirks.
"Fair enough. Well, you can rest easy tonight knowing you got a real devil one room away."
"Finch, I have a real devil living right in my skin. But it's nice to know the neighbors."
With that, I shut myself inside, realizing that in the course of an hour, I had spoken more words than I had likely spoken over the past month. Six months.
My throat actually felt scratchy.
Closing myself behind the door, locking it to humor Vance, I dropped down on the couch, head spinning.
Things had been so simple for so long.
Train, eat, sleep, research.
When I had trained and researched enough, I followed through on the mission.
That was it.
That was all I had to think about, all I had to digest on a daily basis.
I overestimated my ability to handle my reintroduction into polite society. I was pretty sure I had been as impolite as possible.
I was trying not to be too hard on myself. I hadn't needed things like pleasantries in ages. In fact, the harsher I was, the better it worked out for me.
It was something I needed to work on, clearly. And it seemed like I had about five days to do it. Before my parents got home. Before everyone would know I was back. Before everyone would want to talk to me.
I couldn't be snapping at them all the time.
They didn't deserve that.
I wasn't the Ferryn they knew and loved anymore. But maybe I could play her. For a while. Maybe I could give them what they needed. Then get back to my mission.
I owed them that.
The face of the girl they had raised.
My father, well, I was pretty sure he could handle this new me, could understand what life could do to a person.
But my mother? My mother may have suffered more than I ever realized when I was growing up, but she had stayed sweet, generous, loving through it all. She had a strength I clearly had not inherited.
She wouldn't get it.
She would try to.
She would love me regardless.
But there would be a part of her aching for her little girl.
I had to give her that. For all I had put her through over the years.
I wasn't sure how I would manage it, but I had a feeling a good start was with coffee with cream and sugar, and pickles, and crunchy cheese puffs, and Devil Dogs.
And maybe being less of a dick to Vance.
Really, he'd been nothing but good to me.
Then.
And now.
Kicking out of my boots, I climbed off the couch, moving over toward the record player sitting on a TV dinner stand in the corner, a moving box full of old records below it.
Music had once been a huge part of my life. I'd sat endlessly listening to everything I could get my hands on, widely discussing the merits and pitfalls of each genre, whether bands deserved the recognition they'd gotten or not.
I hadn't heard music in almost a decade. Sure, there had been caught snippets from passing cars, but mostly pop crap, mostly soulless words sang over electronic instruments.
I hadn't heard real music in so long.
Holden liked—no, needed—silence.
And I simply never sought it out.
Maybe a part of me was worried it was something too deeply steeped in who I had been, that clinging to it would make it impossible to change the way I knew I would need to.
My hands flipped through old, familiar favorites, making me wonder if they were favorites because Vance and I had the same taste or because I modeled my taste after his. It wasn't so far-fetched an idea. Young girls bent themselves into the shapes men most desired of them all the time. Sometimes so much so that they no longer recognized themselves anymore.
I liked to believe I was too headstrong for that, but now with everything being a time-soaked memory, I couldn't be certain.
Somehow, though, I was very, very certain about what I wanted to listen to when my hands found a record I had never seen before.
One belonging to Vance's band.
Turning it over, the date was the year I ran away. But none of the tracks had names of the songs I knew they had been working on.
Curious, eager, I slipped it out of its sleeve, putting it in the player, dropping the needle.
I think I ran through the whole album twice before I finally heard a bike rumbling down the road, snapping me out of the album that was really just seemingly one long story.
My story.
It was my story.
It started with a track called Young Girl all about the younger version of me being infatuated with an older guy who knew she was too young. It was a sweet, slow song, almost a ballad. Or as close to a ballad as a rock band could get.
From there, though, the story took a darker turn. Much like mine had.
Taken was about a man standing by helplessly watching a woman be taken to an unknown fate.
Don't Cry was another sad song of helplessness, a woman who saw no way out of a bad situation.
The next track was about the bad guys, about their predatory ways.
Closer to the end, there was a blood-soaked, brutal story about a woman fighting her way to freedom.
It concluded with a song called Runaway , this time in the perspective of all the people she left behind. Lines about her mother crying, about her father worrying, about her friends picking up a phone to call her only to remember they can't. Which had to have been a nod to Iggy. Then, finally, the man she left behind, lips still tingling from a stolen kiss goodbye.
If I were being critical, I would say it romanticized an ugly reality.
But I wasn't being critical.
In fact, all I could feel was awe.
Vance had always been a good songwriter. The only lyricist of the group, he always explored interesting topics, always had a way of weaving words together that was both blunt and beautiful at the same time.
But this?
This was something else entirely.
Maybe because this stemmed from an actual experience, something he had clearly felt deeply.
For a few hours, I actually felt myself transported back, felt the darkness, the loneliness, the helplessness.
It had been so long since I felt such things. I had been consumed by the rage for so long that it was almost hard to remember that the rage had stemmed from the even more uncomfortable feelings Vance portrayed in his lyrics.
More pieces of me I had lost along the way.
As though the record wanted to keep our time together a little secret, the music cut just as Vance's eng
ine did as well.
Shutting off the player, I moved back over toward the couch, trying to wipe any lingering emotions off my face, out of my eyes, knowing that he had once been able to read me so well.
"Don't ask how I managed to get all this back on my bike," he declared after somehow managing to unlock the door with his arms and hands loaded down with bags.
Bags fell to the floor and I felt my hope drop a bit too. Though I should have anticipated it. There was no way for him to get me a coffee from She's Bean Around on his bike.
A slow smirk pulled at his lips as he stooped, rooting around in a brown paper bag. "Worried I didn't get you your coffee?" he asked, producing a deep purple stainless steel reusable travel mug. "I had to get inventive on the bike. This said leakproof. I decided to gamble with it. Seemed to work." I nearly lunged at him, hands cradling the cup for a long moment before pushing the button to open the mouth. "Drip with vanilla almond milk, caramel syrup, and two sugars," he recited.
"You remembered." Hell, I barely remembered. I had just been excited about the idea of cream and sugar.
"So did Jazzy. She was like 'You know what's weird? That's the same drink the missing girl used to order years back.' Even she remembers you."
"Iggy and I practically lived there for a year. Oh, my God," I moaned as I took my first sip. Yes, moaned.
Judging by the awkward cough Vance let out, it sounded as sexual to him as it did to me. "Good as you remember?" he asked, a slow smirk pulling at those lips I had spent endless hours fantasizing of kissing.
"Better," I corrected.
"It's the little things you miss," he told me, seemingly from knowledge. Like maybe he had left Navesink Bank for a while as well. Long enough to miss the little things about it.
There was so much I didn't know.
And what was maybe even more surprising, things I wanted to know.
Where had he been?
Why had he written an album about my life?
Why did he become a Henchmen?
Burning questions all, but I somehow felt I had no right asking, demanding anything from these people that I had left behind.
"I think I did pretty well," he added, stooping to retrieve a few of the bags that belonged to the local grocery store. "I got the shit on your list, but grabbed a few extra things. You can't exist on Devil Dogs and cheese puffs. This fridge doesn't hold much, but I got some stuff to throw in the cabinet. And I can always pick up anything else you want. Or bring by some takeout."
The Rise of Ferryn Page 6
