The Silent Sounds of Chaos

by Kristina Circelli

  One hand reached behind his back. Finn saw the motion and sprang, lunging for Joe before a weapon could be drawn. He could have used his own gun, but the fury within craved blood. Finn wanted to make the man suffer for what he’d done, to tear him apart with bare hands.

  One punch landed solidly across Joe’s cheek, another to his chin. It was like hitting a wall, each strike sending spikes of pain through Finn’s hand while barely slowing his rival, who matched each hit with his own. Stars exploded in front of Finn’s eyes when a fist was swiped across his temple. His vision dulled and he dropped to his knees, the momentary falter all Joe needed to take control.

  “All this time I thought you never knew,” Joe rasped as he dragged a half-conscious Finn from the kitchen, down the hall, into the bedroom at the end. Blood was smeared around his lips, coating his teeth. “DU had her first, ‘til I took that sweet young thing all for myself.”

  “Fucking son of a bitch,” Finn snarled, grabbing at the hand fisted in his hair but not able to free himself. He’d lost his gun somewhere in the kitchen. Twisting against the hold, he frantically searched for Joe’s, not seeing it anywhere.

  “All this time I thought you never knew,” Joe continued as though he wasn’t dragging another person along the floor. “Had my mask on and everything. You did good, you little shit. Barging in to Charlie’s office that day, demandin’ a job. Playin’ the part of wannabe thug all them years. Actin’ like some hero off to save a girl. And I played right into it, didn’t I?”

  Finn grunted when he was tossed to the floor but immediately picked himself up, refusing to show weakness. He was a bad-ass, not some weakling victim Joe could toss around like a ragdoll. “Played into what?” he asked around a mouthful of blood, entirely confused by the man’s ranting.

  “Don’t play dumb with me, kid.”

  “You don’t play dumb with me,” Finn shot back, ready to lunge. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I didn’t catch on until your little sleep-talkin’ fuckup.” Joe laughed to himself, an incredulous and insane sound. “You’re smarter than I gave you credit for.”

  He was done with this idiotic tirade. “I don’t give a shit what you think is happening here. I don’t even care why you brought Snow into it. Just tell me where she is. What did you do with her?”

  It struck him then, where he was, the stench in the room, the reason why Joe brought him here instead of killing him in the kitchen. Slowly, almost unwillingly, his eyes moved to the closet. The door was shut, black shadows creeping out from the cracks and crawling toward him, beckoning him forward.

  Before he could move, Joe was on him. Finn was propelled backward into the wall but caught himself, bracing his back against the window and landing a solid hit to Joe’s gut. His opponent doubled over, giving Finn the opportunity to send a fist into his jaw, another to his cheekbone.

  Hit for hit they matched one another, tumbling over the bed in a flood of fists and blood. Finn wasn’t a particularly skilled fighter and his strength would never match Joe’s, but his blood burned with a wrath he’d never known before, blinding him in a red haze.

  All around them cheap paneling splintered. Glass shattered and clothing was torn, blood bursting from lips and noses. No words were spoken, only furious shouts and pained grunts. Finn managed a tight headlock, sending his fist into Joe’s gut, but the hold didn’t last. His opponent spun from his grasp and countered, sending Finn flying against the wall with a sharp kick to the back.

  There was no time to push off, no chance to retaliate. Finn felt his body tugged away from the wall mere seconds before he was thrown to the floor. Exhaustion racked his limbs, weakening his attempts to shove the stronger man off.

  Cold fingers wrapped around Finn’s throat. Joe’s hands tightened, his weight pinning Finn to the floor. “Your momma done finally confessed, huh?” he asked in a tone that was too calm compared to his maniacal laughter earlier. “She musta really hated you, you little punk. She knew the consequences of opening her whore mouth.”

  “Fuck you,” Finn spat back, his voice rough and garbled. Blood dripped down his throat, choking him as much as the hand gripping his neck.

  “Ain’t so tough now, are you? I shoulda ended you a long time ago. You wanna know why I let you live?” Joe’s face lowered until it was mere inches from Finn’s. “‘Cause I thought, even if you did know the truth, me and ‘ole DU fucked you up so much you knew better than to open that bratty fucking mouth of yours.”

  Breath wheezed out of Finn’s closing throat, black spots dancing before his eyes. Still, he felt the rage building at the admission and managed to say, “I never … forgot … what you did to me.”

  Joe chuckled, a harsh, unforgiving sound. He ground Finn’s head farther into the floor and laughed again at his wince. “You always were ‘ole DU’s favorite. Skinny little kid that shook like a leaf whenever someone looked at him. You were the perfect toy. But he liked your girl too. We both did.” Now the smile faded, replaced by an expression far more sinister. “You still wanna know what we did to her?”

  He didn’t want to listen. He didn’t want to hear the truth. But what he wanted no longer mattered.

  “I broke every finger and every toe, one by one.” Perverse pleasure glinted in Joe’s eyes. “I remember it so clearly. All the cracks. They were like music. And her skin.” He rolled his shoulders as though gratified by the thought, his body responding to the jerks of the boy beneath him as he kicked his feet, struggling for freedom. “So soft and slick. So easy to cut open. And every time she screamed, it just made me want to do it all again.”

  An unnatural sound escaped Finn, a guttural scream filled with years of hate. It would be his last breath, the air fleeing his lungs, unable to draw in more, but he released it willingly even against the burn in his chest. His hands released Joe’s wrists and clutched the sides of his face, thumbs digging into dark eyes. Joe arched back, trying to shake off Finn’s grip, but he held strong, ready to die if it meant taking this fucker down with him.

  A sharp shout sounded from Joe’s lips to match the blood starting to drip down his face, but he too had made his vow. Finn’s airway closed and the fight left his arms, and he peered up at Joe through spotted vision to see the face of death above him, contorted into carnal satisfaction.

  I’m … sorry … Snow.

  His last thought would be of her, the girl who made his life worth living. He would see her face, hear her voice, imagine them together in another world, finally united.

  But the vision he struggled to see never came. Instead his fading blue eyes locked on that sick pleasure in the narrowed orbs above him, watching as it erupted into panic for only a second before being replaced by emptiness. Blood and brain splattered Finn’s face. The hands around his throat loosened, Joe’s body falling on top of his, jerking with its final moments of life.

  Air returned to his lungs in sputtering gasps. Each breath burned as it entered, momentarily distracting Finn from the dead man crushing him, the revolting odor of a skull turned inside out. It was the smell that finally broke his daze and he shoved at the body, scrambling to his knees while spinning around to the door, shocked to see Charlie standing there with his arm still raised, gun pointed at Joe. Next to him stood Chix, Infinity’s most-feared bouncer, the same bouncer who’d granted Finn entry as a kid in need of a job.

  Finn didn’t know how Charlie got there, or why he was there. Nor did he care. Questions could be asked later; right now he had to get to the closet. The crawl to the other side of the room seemed to take hours, though it was likely less than a minute before his hand touched the peeling wood. His fingers trembled.

  Snow was in there. He could feel her presence, except this time in a different way, a way that told him he was forever alone in the world. But he had to know, and so Finn pushed open the closet door, tears pricking the corners of his eyes, unable to wash away the sight of his failure.

  A YOUNG GIRL lay upon the cold carpet, knees drawn up t
o her chest, hands mangled, open lesions on her bare back. Yellow-gold hair was spread around her head in a halo. It seemed she was sleeping, her expression hauntingly calm. If not for the abuse her body had gone through, she would be just a girl playing hide-and-seek in the closet.

  Except she was still, so still. Why won’t she move? Finn asked himself. He refused to believe she was gone. Not his Snow. Tentatively, Finn reached out to touch her, to insist she wake and tell him she was okay.

  But she didn’t respond. The girl lay motionless, blood smudged along dirt and bruise-covered legs, arms, jawline, throat. Everywhere. She was hurt everywhere, and Finn could do nothing but lower himself to the floor next to her.

  “Don’t leave me,” he whispered, needing to talk to her, to feel her. His hand touched her cheek, feeling cold flesh beneath his fingertips, then moved to her hair, feeling the soft curls marred by dried blood.

  But she didn’t respond.

  He moved closer, hoping, praying, deluding himself into believing his warmth would thaw the ice coating her skin. His arms wrapped around her and he began to rock, the steady back and forth a bitter balm to his aching heart. Whatever tough-guy persona he’d tried to put on earlier—tried to put on his entire life—melted away and, for the first time since he was seven years old, Finn let himself cry.

  And, still, she didn’t respond.

  What was the point, he asked a cruel world that didn’t care. What was the point of hearing Snow’s thoughts, of fate bringing together two kids who needed a friend, just to tear them apart? Or maybe it wasn’t the world that was at fault. Maybe he was to blame. Because of who he was. Because he didn’t try hard enough. Because he was mean where she was sweet, tough where she was soft.

  A hand touched his shoulder, startling Finn out of his misery. The effort it took to lift his head exhausted the boy. Charlie stood over him, an expression of rage tinted with grief coloring his aged face. He looked so much older in this moment, Finn noted.

  “We need to leave.”

  Finn shrugged off his hand, but Charlie’s grip only tightened. “I’m not leaving her. I’m not failing her. Not again.”

  “I’m not giving you a choice.” Over his shoulder, Charlie said to the bouncer still standing just outside the door, “Call the cleanup crew. Get rid of this mess and the one at the hotel Joe was tracked to. You know what to do if there are any witnesses. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Finn heard the order, but couldn’t process it. Once he would have been terrified by Charlie’s tone, all business with no room for negotiation, a deadly reminder of everything the man was capable of. Now he didn’t care what followed the man’s demands.

  “You did this,” Finn accused, one hand gently brushing the soft yellow of Snow’s hair. In some part of his mind he knew it was irrational—Joe and DU were their own brand of psycho, their boss never being one for kidnapping and torture—but it helped to blame someone other than himself.

  Behind him, Charlie cleared his throat. “Yes, I suppose in some way I did.”

  The admission did little to comfort the young man kneeling in the closet. Nor did the tug on his shoulder suggesting he move from his cramped spot.

  “Get off me!” Finn shouted as Charlie attempted to haul him out of the closet. Charlie sighed, the sound both annoyed and saddened, but it went ignored. The young man at his feet remained focused on his rocking, on the quiet mumbling beneath his breath speaking of his failure, his inability to protect the only girl he ever loved.

  In his devastation, he didn’t hear Charlie mutter, “This is for your own good.” In senses overtaken by the emptiness Snow’s absence left behind, he didn’t feel the bite of pain as a needle slid into his neck. When he slumped over, the drug working its way through his system, Finn could only find happiness in the hope that, maybe, he was finally going home with Snow.

  He dreamt of cramped closets and cold winter nights.

  Flashes of childhood nightmares burst against the backs of his closed eyes—his mother slapping him for no reason at all, his stomach growling after three days of no food, hulking figures creeping into his room in the middle of the night reminding him it was time to pay his mother’s debt … mornings after when she pretended not to notice the bruises and tears.

  We don’t ask for help, she’d always told him. Don’t ask for help. Don’t be a child. Don’t cry or show weakness or let people see you in need.

  We are better than that. Better than what, he’d always wondered. Better than the kids at school who always had lunches? Better than the rich people who didn’t have to lie and cheat to get their money?

  You got that, you little shit? He got it, all right. Never ask for help. Be better than everyone else. And watch as your best friend dies because of it.

  Snow asked for help, he told himself in sleep. And he let her down.

  When Finn finally opened his eyes, they were wet with unshed tears. Echoes of Snow’s screams for help sounded in his ears, out of tune with the birds chirping outside the window across from his bed. Finn blinked against the harsh sun, instantly annoyed that he was once again waking up with no idea how he got there. He’d always thought himself to be smarter, tougher, than that.

  Searching the room with a quick turn of his aching head, he realized quickly he was home in his apartment. The feel of his bed was familiar, though not welcome. He shouldn’t be this comfortable.

  Finn’s brow furrowed as he continued his roaming gaze—the fish tank he usually forgot to clean, clothes strewn across the floor—until finally landing on Charlie sitting in a chair in the corner. His boss was awake and staring right at him with those ice-blue eyes that could cut through even the strongest of men. Except now, they looked tired, even as his rigid stance suggested dominance, his face having aged considerably in the past week. It was unnerving to see the usually suave businessman looking so out of sorts.

  Movement at the door caught Finn’s attention. He looked over to see Chix standing against the wall, hands clasped in front of him, position ready to leap into action. For what, Finn wasn’t sure. Images of Charlie holding a gun, murder set in his expression, Chix at his side with his own weapon at the ready, returned to Finn’s mind. The trailer. Joe trying to kill him. DU bleeding out in a motel room.

  “What…” Finn’s voice came out rough and garbled. He touched a hand to his throat, wincing at the tender flesh. If his boss noticed, he didn’t provide any indication of sympathy or concern. “What happened to Joe? To … DU?”

  “They’re gone,” Charlie said simply. Finn turned his head slightly, seeing the meaning behind the statement in his eyes. He knew what “gone” meant. When Charlie wanted someone gone, he said the word and the person disappeared as though they never existed at all. If he said Joe and DU were gone, then it meant more than their deaths. All traces of their existence were wiped out. Finn didn’t care to wonder what resources Charlie had at his disposal for such a feat. It was enough to know they were gone.

  “What about … what about Annette?”

  “Given a proper burial.” Now there was regret replacing stone-cold killer. “But also gone.”

  Swallowing back bitter bile in his throat, Finn dreaded his next question. “…Where is Snow?” When Charlie merely stared down at him, he tried again. “Don’t … don’t tell me she’s gone.” Again he received no response. His blood began to boil, the wordless reply fueling his body. Just as he made to move off the bed, Charlie motioned with one hand to the bouncer, who Finn realized wasn’t protecting from anyone getting in, but, rather, from him getting out.

  The bedroom door opened slowly. A man and woman in white lab coats entered, holding what looked like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag. Finn knew what was coming and raged against it. He lifted his tired and aching body from the bed but Chix was there, one beefy hand pressed against his chest. Charlie rose as well, too calm as he approached.

  “Don’t fucking tell me she’s gone!” Finn shouted at him, desperately trying to remove Chix’s hand and fa
iling miserably. “Don’t you tell me she’s fucking gone, Charlie!”

  “I won’t tell you she’s gone,” Charlie replied smoothly, sounding like he was talking to a child.

  “Then tell me where she is!” His demand echoed through the room, down the hall, matched by the doctor’s curt order to the nurse just inside the room. “What did you do with her? What did you do to me? And what the hell are you doing here?”

  The man at his bedside tried to calm him, pressing a firm hand to his shoulder. “Relax. We are trying to help you.”

  “Like hell you are! Where is Snow?”

  The nurse rushed to the doctor’s side, handing him something from the leather bag in her hand. As Chix continued to restrain their patient, the doctor continued to prepare a sedative, seemingly oblivious to the struggle taking place mere inches from him. Seeing the needle sent Finn into another bout of rage, strength fueling his limbs as he shot up from the bed, only to be thrown back down by a muscled arm. Wild blue eyes traced that arm, his grief and exhaustion-drugged brain filtering through faces until it landed on Joe’s, a hallucination as much as a memory securing him to the mattress as the nurse approached cautiously.

  “You son of a bitch,” Finn growled, coming to the only conclusion that made sense. “You knew about her all along, didn’t you? You got rid of her because I was getting too good. Her father had nothing to do with it, did he? You goddamn liar!”

  “Relax,” Charlie said again, his tone firm but his eyes filled with gloom. “You’re speaking nonsense and you know it. This is for your own good.”

  “The fuck it is.” Finn struggled, but felt the needle pierce his skin and was powerless against its effects. A painful warmth sliced through him and took the fight out of his body. He slumped against the mattress. “Where…” His voice was weak, punctuated by a sob. “Where is Snow?”