This Wicked Rush

by Jessie Evans

  I nod, and impulsively lean in, giving him one last kiss on the cheek. “For luck.”

  “I’ve already used up all my luck,” he says, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. “You keep it.”

  Before I can respond, he starts across the road. I follow, boots crunching lightly in the gravel before we hit the lawn and our footfalls go silent. I tail Gabe through the blue moonlight around to the side of the darkened house, amazed that the night is so quiet.

  In my neighborhood, it’s never this quiet, not even at two in the morning. There are too many people with babies, couples who brawl in the middle of the night, and people working double shifts and graveyard shifts, whatever hours they have to work to get by. There is always someone coming or going, someone shouting or laughing or crying or calling a dog or shooting a rifle into the air to scare the starlings away in the fall.

  Here, at the edge of town, on a narrow dirt road where the gentlemen farmers of another age built their sprawling farmhouses, the world is silent. There is no wind tonight, no rustle of trees, not a sound except for the occasional chirp of an insect the heat hasn’t lulled into a coma. The quiet is smothering, and by time we reach the yard beneath the attic window and I crawl onto Gabe’s shoulders, I’m finding it hard to breathe.

  Or maybe you’re just scared out of your damned mind.

  My hands shake as I ease the windowpane open and pull myself up to the sill, but I’m not sure it’s fear making them tremble. I’m excited too, so ready for this that I can already taste how good it’s going to feel to hear Mr. Pitt won’t be returning to teach seventh grade in the fall.

  My biceps flex and I hook my leg over the edge of the window, hauling myself silently inside, grateful for all those heavy trays I carry at Harry’s. I don’t have any trouble lifting my own weight. I feel strong, confident, every cell vibrating with determination as I step down onto the dusty boards, giving my eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light.

  The moment they do, my stomach clenches and the worst wave of acid I’ve experienced in days surges up my throat. My sour stomach has been behaving itself lately—having Gabe around seems to agree with it—but now Gabe is gone, off breaking into the ground floor.

  He might as well be a hundred miles away. A million.

  I suddenly feel terrifyingly alone and trapped, though I know Gabe’s right and, unlike the woman held captive here before me, I’m young and fit enough to jump to freedom if Gabe doesn’t come back to catch me.

  But as I stare at the stained mattress lying on the floor to the far right of the window, I can’t help imagining what it must have been like for Pitt’s mother when she was locked away for all those years. Did she feel like she’d been exiled from reality? Did she hold out any hope of rescue, or did this nightmare become her world? Did she die with nothing but memories of the unbearable heat in her dusty prison, loneliness, and her son’s cruelty lingering in her mind?

  I cross to the mattress, eyes focusing on a mildewed cardboard box filled with threadbare stuffed animals and a china tea set laid out on the floorboards, as if waiting for someone to come visit. The realization that Pitt’s mother must have played with these toys, reverting to a childlike state while she was treated worse than the law allows owners to treat their pets, makes my throat close up and my eyes sting.

  A second later, I’ve spun and started toward the pile of boxes and plastic storage tubs on the opposite side of the attic, more determined to find those tapes than ever. I’m ashamed to live in a world where monsters roam free, slipping off the hook with help from lawyers who think only about how to win and keep winning, not whether or not they should.

  Pitt never should have walked free. He should be rotting in prison. The tapes can’t send him there—he’s already been acquitted, and can’t be retried for his mother’s murder—but I can use them to make him suffer.

  It’s like Gabe said, we can’t rewrite history, but we can tip the scales back in the other direction. Teaching Pitt a lesson won’t bring his mother back, but it will make the world a more just place, and might even make Pitt think twice before he indulges the evil part of his nature again.

  My footsteps are light on the boards—making only the softest thuds as I make my way over to the part of the attic Pitt reserves for storage. It’s the dead of the night and I’m assuming Pitt is asleep, but there’s a chance he could wake up, hear me moving around, and come investigate. I force myself to move slowly, and when I reach the boxes and lean down to open the first one, I am careful not to let the cardboard flaps do more than whisper as they brush against each other.

  I open box after box, container after container, but discover nothing more damning than a box of old Tupperware, and a tub filled with faded plaid shirts. Meanwhile, the physical exertion, combined with the heat in the attic and the fact that I’m wearing long sleeves and pants in the middle of June, join forces to make my head spin. Within five minutes, I’m sweating like every drop of liquid in my body is determined to commit suicide through my pores, and the pulse in my temple is throbbing so hard it thumps against my skull like a hammer.

  By the time I finally shift a long, narrow container of books and letters to reveal an old-fashioned fruitcake tin like the ones my grandma used to hold her sewing supplies, I’m so dizzy my vision is beginning to blur.

  I’ve never passed out before, but I’m pretty sure I’m about to. I know I should start back across the attic—I need to get some air before I lose consciousness and ensure I’m caught—but instead I reach for the tin, prying it open with swollen, heat-drugged fingers.

  Inside, I discover DVDs. Eight of them. Each with a year scrawled across the silver in black marker.

  Just like that, I know. I know he’s transferred the VHS tapes he mentioned to Gabe’s father—the one’s he thought might prove he was guilty if they were discovered—to DVD. I know it. I know Pitt wanted to protect the mementos of his mother’s suffering the way serial killers protect their trophies. I know he’s that monstrous, and I suddenly wish I hadn’t shied away from Gabe’s suggestion that Pitt’s punishment should fit his crime.

  I want to see Pitt locked away in a room like this one, miserable and isolated without anyone or anything to comfort him, trapped so far from the nearest house no one can hear him scream. I want to watch his face on a television monitor as he realizes he’ll be meeting the same end as his mother, a slow, torturous, miserable, nightmarish end that will leave him broken in a corner, rocking and mumbling and playing with toys, anything to try to escape, even if it’s only in his mind, even if only for a little while.

  But there would be no escape for him. He doesn’t deserve escape. He deserves worse than prison. He deserves to die, to be wiped off the face of the earth before he can contaminate it any further or hurt any more innocent people.

  I pull the cloth bag Gabe gave me last night from my pants pocket and stuff the DVDs inside, already tasting Pitt’s blood on my tongue, sincerely longing to see the man die, to take part in the torture and killing myself. If Pitt were standing in front of me right now, I would pull the trigger, jab the knife, pull the noose, and I wouldn’t feel a moment of remorse.

  I stumble back across the attic with tears streaming from my eyes to wet my mask, hating myself for not being more fucked up by the thoughts reeling through my mind than I already am. But no matter how loudly my head insists that answering violence with violence isn’t the answer, something deep in the hollows of my bones screams for vengeance, for blood to wash this horrible house clean before I burn it to the ground.

  I reach the window and hang my head outside, drawing in deep lungsful of air, but though the dizziness fades, my head doesn’t get any clearer. I keep thinking about what must be on the DVDs, wondering if Gabe and I are going to see Mrs. Pitt crying, begging to be set free, or simply lying on that bare mattress all alone. I wonder if we’ll see her playing with her toys, rocking her stuffed animals, and setting out a tea party for visitors who are never going to arrive.

  I wonde
r if her death is captured somewhere on the last DVD, and the acid surging in my stomach pushes up my throat like a fist.

  I’m seconds away from getting sick when Gabe appears beneath the attic window. Just laying eyes on him, knowing he’s close, is enough to calm my stomach, and send a tremor of relief quaking through me. His face is covered by his mask and the moonlight isn’t strong enough for me to see the look in his eyes, but the black bag in his right hand makes me think he’s succeeded. When he holds the bag up and gives it a victorious shake, I’m sure of it.

  I answer him by holding my bag out the window, smiling when he gives me a thumbs- up and motions for me to come out.

  We did it. We found everything we came for. The realization makes me want to throw back my head and shout at the stars, but shouting will have to wait until we’re safely away from this horrible place.

  I hook the bag’s strap around my wrist and turn, putting one leg through the window at a time and sliding out on my belly. There’s a moment of pain as the wood digs into my chest and forearms, but then I shift my weight and slowly straighten my elbows until I’m hanging from the sill by my clenched fingers.

  The heat and my mini-breakdown have taken their toll on my body. I know I won’t be able to hold on for long, but before my arms have the chance to start trembling, Gabe’s hands are on my ankles, guiding my feet back onto his shoulders. I find my footing and lock my legs, finding my balance before I let go of the sill and bend my knees. I jump forward off of Gabe’s shoulders, but he catches me around the waist on the way down, softening my landing, making sure my feet hit the grass with a gentle thud.

  He pulls me to him, hugging me tight before he turns and starts back across the lawn. I follow, and seconds later we’re across the gravel road, moving through the shadows on the wooded side of the street. I hand over my bag and we part ways with a whisper to see each other soon and a swift kiss before he disappears into the woods and I hurry back to the van.

  I slam inside barely a minute later, arms shaking as I start the vehicle and pull away from the railroad tracks, heading back to town a different way than I came. I rip the mask off as I drive, and wiggle out of the black shirt, revealing the green tank top beneath. The top is soaked through with sweat, but hopefully no one who sees me at the Laundromat will think anything of it, and I can always chock a sweaty shirt up to sleeping without the air conditioning running.

  Ten minutes later I have my alibi—I check the dryer where I deliberately left the clothes earlier today, making sure my sigh of relief is performed facing the security cameras—and I’m back on the road, heading for home. I park the van and slip in through the back door, relieved to find the house as relatively quiet as when I left it. I hear Sean snoring in his room, the hum of the box fans whirring in bedroom windows, and the whine of the fridge as it struggles to keep the milk cool, but nothing that would indicate anyone woke up while I was gone.

  I snag the note I left for Danny and head upstairs, stripping off clothes as I head for the shower, wanting to be clean when Gabe arrives at my window. Clean and wearing nothing but a bed sheet and a smile.

  We’ve finished the job. Now, it’s time to celebrate.

  Chapter Ten

  Gabe

  It is my soul that calls upon my name;

  How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, -Shakespeare

  “I’ve been waiting for almost an hour.”

  Her voice drifts to me as I climb through her window. I turn to find her framed in a crooked rectangle of moonlight on her double bed, wearing nothing but a white cotton sheet draped across her middle. It covers her breasts and reaches down far enough to conceal her thatch of tight blond curls and those sweet inches between her legs I can’t wait to get my hands on…my mouth on…my cock in, buried balls deep.

  “What took you so long?” she asks.

  “I made sure the DVDs were what we thought they were,” I say, eyes tracking up and down her body. “Then I hid them. I didn’t want you to have to watch.”

  “Thanks. I don’t think I could have.”

  “You’re welcome¸” I murmur. “You look…comfortable.”

  “Not really.” She lifts her arms over her head as she stretches, wrists crossed. Moonlight caresses her pale skin, while shadows darken the hollows of her armpits.

  I want to kiss her there, taste the tang and salt of her sweat. I want to kiss her ribs, the curve of her hip, the bends in her knees. I want to press my lips to her anklebone and rake my teeth over each one of her toes. I want to fist my hand in her hair and hold her so close, kiss her so deeply, that we disappear into each other.

  I need her so much I feel like I’m going to disintegrate into a pile of lustful ash if I don’t touch her soon, but I force myself to stand still, memorizing this moment, etching each detail into my brain.

  This is a memory I want to keep for the rest of my life. This is one of the pictures I want to flash before my eyes when I’m fighting for my final breath.

  She’s so beautiful, like something out of one of my dreams, the dreams that are always about her. Always. Ever since the night I first kissed her addictive lips.

  “Are you just going to stand there?” she asks, thighs shifting lazily, shushing against the sheet, the feline way she moves making my already swollen cock strain the front of my pants. “Or are you going to come help me out?”

  “Depends.” I step out of my shoes, setting my keys and wallet on the desk near the window, but keeping my eyes on her. “What do you need help with?”

  “I went out with this guy tonight,” she says, one hand sliding across her pillow, down until her fingertips brush the side of her face. “And the date was really good, and really…bad.”

  “How’s that?” I take a step forward, gaze glued to her hand, the one sliding down her neck, across her chest to disappear beneath the sheet.

  “Well…the good part is that we gave a horrible person a little of what’s coming to him,” she says, sheet shifting as her hand moves beneath it. “The bad part is that I had to come home alone…” She holds my gaze, a challenge in her eyes as her hand moves lower. “I’ve been sitting her thinking about the man I went out with, and how much I want him to touch me. But he took forever to get here, and now I’m so wet it’s embarrassing.”

  “Show me.” My hands fist at my sides. I fight to maintain control, to draw out this moment of anticipation a little longer before I join her on the bed and show her how sorry I am for making her wait.

  “Show you? Like this?” She fists the sheet in her free hand, drawing it up her body until her pussy—and the slim fingers sliding up and down her slick flesh, teasing in and out of her swollen folds—are bare to me.

  “Like that,” I say, throat tight, balls tighter. “Spread your legs wider. I want to see every inch.”

  She spreads her legs, but it’s still not wide enough.

  “Wider.” My breath comes faster as she obeys. “Now reach down and spread your lips.”

  Again she obeys, reaching down and opening her sex to me in a way I know some people would find obscene, but that makes me so hot it feels like my head is going to explode. Seeing her like this—so turned on and vulnerable, ready and willing to give herself to me—makes me want to consume her, to devour her pussy with my mouth until she comes, screaming my name, bathing my face in more of her heat before I rise up and push inside her. I can’t wait to fuck her with all the need that’s been building inside of me, like tension along a fault line, until it feels like my bones are going to shatter if I don’t relieve the pressure.

  But not yet, not just yet…

  “Finger yourself,” I say. “Just one finger.”

  She follows my instructions, the way Caitlin does in situations like this. She gives me shit outside the bedroom any time she pleases, but when it’s time for our clothes to come off, she hands me the reins. It’s one of the things I adore about her, one of the many things that have conspired to make any minute without Caitlin in it seem like a was
te of precious time.

  I watch her slender finger dip in and out of her slick entry. She’s so wet her sex glistens in the moonlight, beckoning me to come and taste, to consume and be consumed, by the only girl who has ever made me feel like every tightly locked door inside of me is being thrown open, all at once. There’s quickly becoming nowhere to hide from the intense, insane, impossible things she makes me feel, but I’m starting not to care. This thing with Caitlin feels…inevitable, like I was meant to spend this last summer with her, like I was meant to rip my heart out of my chest and hand it over to this girl.

  Still beating.

  Still raw and ugly and messy, but real, the realest thing I’ve ever known.

  “Does that feel good?” I ask. “Is one finger enough?”

  She shakes her head, chest rising and falling faster as she increases her pace.

  “What about two?” I strip my shirt over my head and toss it to the ground without breaking eye contact. “Will two get you off?”

  “No.” She shakes her head again, moaning softly as she watches me undo my belt. “God, Gabe. Please…”

  “Please, what?” I pull a condom from my back pocket and toss it on the foot of the bed before flipping open the buttons on my fly and shoving my jeans down. I step free of them and toe off my socks before making quick work of my black boxer briefs.

  The hunger in Caitlin’s expression as the briefs vanish and my engorged cock falls free, bobbing heavily between my thighs, is almost enough to make me come. I swear I can feel that look like she just fisted me in her hand and I’m on fire. My skin is hot and feverish and my eyes are burning and my blood is lava coursing through my veins, determined to scorch every cell in my body to pieces if I don’t cool off.

  And then, without memory of moving, I’m on top of her and her skin is cool and her hair is cooler and still a bit damp and she smells so perfectly like Caitlin—like night flowers and spice and treasures hidden in cedar boxes—that something inside of me takes flight. I’m suddenly flying, soaring miles above the ground, beyond the reach of the ordinary world and all its petty concerns and everyday tragedies.