The Pleasure of Panic

by JA Huss

  “Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? We can do something with our secrets.”

  “I don’t think so, Finn. I think the world already knows our secrets. Some place, deep down, they know these things already. Maybe not the specifics, but they know bad people are out there. They know there’s corruption. They know all this, and they don’t want to think about it. They don’t have time to care. Because caring means they have to reevaluate their priorities. Their worldview. Caring means they have to change.”

  He looks over at me as he turns into the alley behind my work. Pulling up next to my car. The only car in the parking lot since Suzanne won’t be back and no one is coming in for a consultation today. We get out of his car, get into mine—he drives. And pull back out into the street to head over to my place.

  “Are we talking about them? Or you, Issy?”

  Some people might take that as an accusation. Some people might be offended. Some people might even get angry.

  But it’s an honest question.

  Those were the words I was looking for and couldn’t find.

  “Why am I doing this?”

  “Leaving?” he asks.

  “No… why did I start this business in the first place?”

  “Oh,” he says, surprised at the change of subject.

  But was it really a change of subject? Haven’t I been talking about this the entire time?

  “To help people, of course. I mean, you can’t be doing it for the money. Otherwise you’d be charging for that online course.”

  “I’m not doing it for the money,” I say.

  “I know. So why don’t you tell me why you’re doing it? Because you’re the only one who knows.”

  “I’m doing it because I care about them,” I say. “I want them to feel cared for when they’re with me. I want them to feel that because I never did.”

  He leans across the center console, places a hand on my cheek, kisses me on the lips, and whispers, “Yeah, it’s official.”

  Which makes me laugh. “What are you talking about?”

  “I love you.”

  “Oh, Lord,” I say, still laughing. “You’ve known me one day.”

  “We’re working on day two, lady. Don’t shortchange me on the morning after.”

  “You’re crazy,” I say.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe all the panic we’ve been through just made us unusually close. Maybe telling secrets gave us a bond you can’t get any other way. Or maybe,” he says, soft smile creeping up his face, “I’m just the kind of guy who knows a good thing when he finds it.”

  I feel tears welling in my eyes. Which isn’t me at all. I mean, I didn’t even cry last night when I told him I was raped repeatedly as a child. By a mobster who is now most certainly after me. Who probably wants to kill me or, worse, rape me again.

  Anger, hate, rage, violence—none of that stuff fazes me anymore.

  But tenderness?

  Yeah, that gets me every time.

  I’m just not used to it.

  “Hey,” Finn says. “Get used to it.”

  It’s like he can read my mind. How could he know me so well? Why do I feel like we’re meant to be together?

  I’m not one of those girls who waits around for Prince Charming. And he’s not even Prince Charming. He’s fuckin’ King Death or something. He admitted to killing his own father. And I dismissed it. I… I validated him for doing that.

  “I like you,” he says. “Maybe love is too strong a word for day two, but I’m in, ya know. Whatever it is you want to do, I’m in. If you want to run, we’ll run. If you want to fight, we’ll fight. If you want to go public, we’ll do that. Hell, we can do all three if you want. I don’t care. I feel like with you, I can do anything, Issy. You… empower me. So just tell me and we’ll do it together.”

  I place my hand over his. “I want all three.”

  “Done.”

  “It’s not done, you weirdo. Doing all three is impossible.”

  “Says the woman who already did the impossible.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You survived, Issy. And from what you’ve told me, that was an all-of-the-above kind of strategy. So let’s do it. Let’s leave today, make a plan, get that asshole Caleb—and Declan and anyone else who’s dirty as sin—and take it all public. Put it all out there for the world to judge. I’ve got tricks up my sleeve, don’t worry about my reputation. What you see is not what you get.”

  “I don’t know if I believe that.”

  “Which part? The tricks part? Or the surviving part?”

  “They’re gonna get you,” I say. “And I can’t let them.”

  “If that’s code for I’m-gonna-leave-him-so-I-don’t ruin-his-life, then forget it, babe. You’re stuck with me.”

  “But—”

  “Just trust me,” he says. “I know that’s a hard thing for you, but trust me. I got this.”

  I decide to accept his offer. Because I’m tired. I’m tired of making all these decisions on my own. I’m worn out from being the strong one. I’m fucking exhausted from maintaining control. I just want someone on my side. I just want a partner.

  And I want to believe that the pleasure of living comes from the panic you endure when you change your life from one thing into another.

  And it hits me then. Just as these words go from being an ethereal mist around my feet to something concrete in front of me… this is exactly what Zig meant when he said, “You must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change.”

  And that feels so right all of a sudden. So on track, so inevitable, so certain, and necessary, and fated that I believe it.

  But I shake my worldview one more time and take that conclusion one step further.

  It’s not the words I believe in… it’s us.

  His phone rings in my hand, startling me. But when I look at it, there’s no incoming call.

  I squint my eyes, tabbing at the screen as it continues to ring, trying to find the call.

  I look up at Finn and find a look of panic on his face.

  “What the—”

  But that’s when I realize the phone in my hand, his phone in my hand, is not the one that’s ringing.

  And my phone is dead.

  “Finn?” I ask. I look at his coat pocket and realize the ringing is coming from there.

  I reach for it, but his hand on my wrist stops me before I can get my fingers inside.

  “Don’t,” he says.

  “What is that?” I ask. “Is that a…”

  He shakes his head. “Just don’t, Issy. Not now.”

  “Is that a burner phone in your pocket?”

  I slap his hand away, reach inside, and pull out one of those cheap-ass phones you can buy in the checkout line at Walmart. The screen says, Blocked.

  “What the fuck is this?” I say, my voice rising in pitch. “Are you still working for them? Like right now? Even after you got a second chance?”

  “Issy—”

  “No. Tell me,” I yell. “Tell me right fucking now. Are you still with the Mob?”

  But I don’t need him to tell me. Because it’s written all over his face.

  Finn Murphy is nothing but another goddamned lying man.

  “Issy, please.”

  I throw both phones at him. One hits the window, screen cracking, the little burner bounces off his cheek, leaving a bright red mark on his skin.

  “You fucking liar.” I shake my head. “You motherfucking liar. And I almost left town with you. Were you gonna turn me in to Caleb? Was this all a game to you? Were you gonna—”

  “Stop it,” he says. “Just listen to me.”

  I point my finger right in his face and say, “Fuck you. Get out of my car, leave, and don’t ever contact me again.”

  And then I take a deep breath, feeling a little vindicated that I figured him out before we left town and he ruined my life—but also a little sad that I fell for his charm. And his smile. And his eyes. And his drea
m.

  But I let that breath out, open the door to the car, slam it behind me.

  And walk away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - FINN

  “Issy!”

  Goddammit. I get out of the car, jog to catch up with her, and take her arm. She does some… I don’t fuckin’ know, some martial arts thing on me, and has my arm twisted behind my back as she says, “Go away. I’m done. You had every chance to tell me you were still as crooked as the tree roots in my front yard, and you didn’t.”

  I shake her off and she lets go, her small face looking up at mine, anger, and fear, and… anger written all over it. “That’s not what this is.”

  “Bullshit! Why do you still have that fucking burner phone then?”

  “I can’t say, but—”

  “You can’t say? I just told you the most fucked-up thing that ever happened to me. I just told you my stepfather raped me as a child. And you’re standing here telling me you can’t say why you’ve got an extra phone in your pocket?”

  I want to tell her, but she’s never gonna understand. Ever.

  “OK, then,” she says. “Get the fuck off my property, Agent Murphy.” She turns, walks away, and just when I think she’s never going to talk to me again, she stops. Looks back. And adds, “Great game, by the way. Congratulations. I guess you win.”

  It’s like a gut punch. I can’t move. I can’t say anything. I can’t do anything but watch her unlock her door, open it up, step inside, and disappear.

  Only then do I find my voice. “But what about Kansas?” I whisper to the cold morning air.

  I realize there’s a shitload of people on the sidewalk in front of her house. The streets are filled with AM traffic. There’s sirens, and sounds of construction, and the whoosh of someone whizzing by on a bicycle.

  But here, standing in her front yard, sheltered between these two tall apartment buildings, I go unnoticed. I am ignored. I am alone.

  No one sees me. No one heard us fight. No one cares.

  “Murphy.”

  I turn at the both familiar and unfamiliar voice and see him over near the side of the house. He walks out from a tangle of bare bushes, his face familiar, his blue eyes narrow, his head shaved, his body bigger than I remember. Hardened from years of prison-yard workouts.

  “Kelly,” I say back.

  “It’s good to see ya again.”

  And that hangs there in the air like a poisonous cloud. I can’t say it back. Won’t say it back.

  But he doesn’t notice. He just walks towards me, smiling, hand held out, like we’re gonna shake. “I just called ya. Ya didn’t answer.”

  And then his hand is in mine, and he’s clapping me on the back, and I’m dying inside. He called me?

  He. Called. Me?

  A scream from inside the house. I hear things crashing. I hear things breaking. But the worst thing I hear is silence when all that is over.

  I look at Caleb Kelly.

  I’ve known him since I was four years old and he was ten. His father and my father were friends when they were kids. We almost grew up together. If we’d lived in the same city and were closer in age, we’d probably be like brothers now.

  I shake my head at him. “No,” I say.

  Because we didn’t live in the same city. They moved away when I was ten and he was sixteen. He was in and out of juvie while I was doing my homework and planning for a future that never let me catch up with it.

  I never saw him again. I swear to God I never saw him again.

  But she’s never going to believe me.

  Caleb smiles. “Yes. And, uh… thank you. For delivering her right into my hands.”

  I open my mouth to protest, but the pain in my skull sends me reeling to the ground. Blackness, then blurry light, then blackness again.

  I feel the blood trickling down my face as my head spins from the blow that came from behind. And it’s only then I realize… I was playing a game.

  Different than the one I thought.

  Caleb’s Game.

  CHAPTER THIRTY - ISSY

  I slam the door to my house, looking around at the mess. My eyes immediately go to the floor where the broken frame was, and find it missing.

  What the fuck? Did I put it somewhere last night?

  I walk over to the kitchen counter, looking. Sift through the debris of scattered papers, and old mail, and some shards of cheap dishes and canned string beans that should be in my cupboards.

  “Ow!” I slap my hand to my neck. There’s a stinging, burning pain in the fleshy muscle that stretches from the base of my neck to my shoulder. I grab a—dart?—and pull it out of my skin.

  I look at it. At the fuzzy red stabilizer protruding off the end. The chamber, empty now, but presumably once filled with drugs.

  And then a man steps out from the hallway.

  A man I know. A man I saw on TV this morning. Declan Ivers.

  “I will fucking kill you,” I say.

  “You can fucking try,” he snaps back.

  My hand is on the canned beans and it sails through the air, hitting him in the side of the head before he can even register what’s happening.

  I storm him.

  One chance. That’s what I teach my students in their self-defense classes. One chance to take them down when you have the element of surprise. I drill it into their heads. I make them practice the moves. And then I make them do it again, and again, and again until they no longer have to think about it.

  It’s just instinct.

  I chop him in the throat, releasing all the air in my lungs as I scream. He goes down, but someone else has my arms, then another has my legs, and the room is spinning, and my wrists and ankles are bound with zip ties, and the only thing I can think as they carry me through my house, out into the small backyard, into my detached garage, and place me in the trunk of a car is…

  How ironic.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - FINN

  Consciousness comes slowly, but there is a rhythm that keeps time for me.

  My head throbbing. My heart pounding. The ticking of a clock somewhere in the darkness, the sound of footsteps, the ring of a phone.

  Where the fuck am I?

  “Issy,” I whisper. I remember that much. They got her.

  No. I brought her to them.

  To Caleb, through this stupid fucking game I’m not even fuckin’ playing.

  “Oh, don’t worry about her,” Caleb says.

  I try to open my eyes. Fail. Then try again and see a sliver of blurry light.

  “I’m gonna take real good care of Izett, Finn Murphy. Don’t you worry.”

  “Issy,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Her name is Issy, not Izett.”

  “Right. Issy Grey. So powerful. So special. So tough.”

  “She could kick your ass.” I get a boot to the face for that, and spit out blood. “I could kick your ass too,” I say. Because fuck it. If this asshole is gonna kill me, let’s get on with it. I’ve been a dead man walking ever since I shot my father a few months ago.

  “Not like this you can’t,” he says.

  “No shit. So why don’t you cut these ties off and make it fair.”

  He kicks me in the back of the head this time. My ears begin to ring. “No one ever said the fight was fair, Finn. You know that better than anyone.”

  I don’t answer. Why bother?

  “You know what I don’t understand?”

  I don’t answer that either.

  “Why you didn’t just step into his boots when it was all said and done.”

  Now I’m curious. “Who?”

  “Your old man. He was handing this over to you on a fuckin’ silver platter. And you walked away.”

  I close my eyes, trying to figure out what he’s talking about.

  “You came to Denver. You gave it all up to start over, and where did it get ya? Right here, under Declan’s thumb.”

  “Obviously,” I croak. “I didn’t realize Declan and my father were basi
cally the same fuckin’ guy.”

  “They are? Is that right?” His enunciation is sloppy. They ahhh. Iz zat right. He’s got a prison drawl, I realize. More commonly known as… thug. “You sure about that?” Caleb asks. “Are you really sure about that? Because you sure as fuck came here lookin’ for something, Murphy.”

  I sure as fuck did.

  “Does it have anything to do with this?” Caleb holds up a phone. My phone. The burner phone. “You don’t need to answer that. I already know. Did it ever occur to ya, Murphy, that you’re not the only one playing this game from both ends?”

  What?

  He’s lying. This is a trap. Don’t answer him. He’s lying.

  “Yeah, I knew,” he says. “I always knew you was dirty, Finn. I always knew you and your old man were playing for the other side.”

  What?

  “You never fooled me,” he says, tapping the phone to his shaved skull. “I had you pegged as a double the minute I met you back when you was four.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I wheeze.

  “Little fuckin’ do-gooder. That’s what you were.”

  I laugh. And it hurts. My head, my ribs, my heart.

  “Always telling me, ‘Not supposed to lie, Caleb. Not supposed to steal, Caleb. Not supposed to hit people.’ Well, fuck you,” he says, spit coming out of his mouth with his words. “Just fuck you. You think you’re better than me?”

  “Honestly?” I manage to croak out.

  “What’s that?” he asks, bending down, like he wants to hear me better. “You got somethin’ to say?”

  “It don’t take much,” I whisper.

  “What?”

  “To be better than you.”

  He stands back up. Grits his teeth. Sets his jaw. Draws his leg back, the steel toe of his boot aimed right at my teeth when…

  Yelling somewhere else—some other room, some other floor, whatever. It’s loud, it’s shrill. “It’s Issy,” I manage to moan.

  “Yeah,” Caleb says. And even though I can’t see his face, I can feel his smile. His evil, diabolical smile. “It’s Issy. Let’s go watch, shall we?”