Burn Down the Night

by M. O'Keefe

  “Good night, asshole.”

  I felt a needle prick in my neck and I whirled to find Fern there, a syringe in her hand.

  “What?” I yelled. I dropped Joan’s arm and grabbed my neck. The world was swimming around me. Joan was jumping and falling and weaving. Nothing stayed where it should. “What the fuck—”

  The world went fuzzy and dark and then it swallowed me whole.

  Chapter 12

  When I woke up, I was back in the bed in the shady bedroom. I knew before moving that I was locked up again. My wrist attached to the bed frame. I put my free hand to my neck where it was sore.

  “It was a sedative.” Joan’s voice floated from across the room toward me, and it took me a second to focus on her. To find her in the haze. But there she was, back on the dresser.

  Her hair was up in a ponytail and she wore cutoffs again and a T-shirt with a unicorn with rainbows coming out its eyes.

  I didn’t know how much time had passed. From when I got shot. From when we got here. From when I got stuck with that syringe.

  How the hell did I get here? I wondered. My pops—the fucking murdering, badass father—he’d be so disappointed.

  Held hostage by a stripper and her aunt with a few hospital-grade narcotics.

  I jerked my wrist against the handcuffs just so they would rattle. I wanted to rattle the world. I wanted to put my hands around her neck and rattle her.

  “When I get free, Joan, you’d better run as fast and as far as you can.”

  “Promises, promises,” she said and pointed to the stretch of bed beside me. “There’s a sandwich and a bottle of juice there. Fern, despite your manhandling—and really you should be ashamed of yourself—insists that you eat and drink.”

  I wanted to pick up the plate and throw it at her head.

  She lifted an eyebrow like she could read my mind. “I won’t make you another one, Max.”

  “I’m not kidding, I will kill you with my bare hands.”

  She waved her hand at me like she couldn’t care less about my threats and then tucked her legs up under her. In her hands was my phone.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I thought I’d read you some of the text messages you’ve missed. Go ahead, have something to eat. I swear it’s not drugged. It’s only ham.”

  “You didn’t call Lagan?”

  “Look, Max, I’m not an idiot. I know I need you to call Lagan.”

  Thank God for that. Thank God she had just enough sense to not set this whole place on fire.

  “I’m not going to.”

  “See, and last night you made me believe if I just fucked myself for you, you’d do whatever I want.”

  “You know I was never going to do that. And you fucked yourself for me because you wanted it, too. Let’s stop lying to each other.”

  “Still, you are proving to be very unreliable.”

  She pursed her lips at me, and if I could have, I would have broken down walls to get my hands on her. But the metal around my wrist wasn’t going to give.

  “Let’s see how you feel after these texts.” She squared her shoulders like some kid in a recital. “First up, from a woman named Sharon.” She cleared her throat, put on a whiney voice. “ ‘I miss you, BB. You haven’t called in so long. The girls are getting lonely.’ ” She dropped the voice. “The girls, I believe, are her tits. I can only surmise that because she sent you a picture of them. Which are…not bad. I’d fuck her.” She turned the phone toward me so I could look. I glared at her instead.

  Surmise. Listen to her.

  “Ooohhhkay, not interested in what Sharon has to say. Maybe I’ll text her a little note that she should just move on. Find herself another sociopath to sext with.”

  I kept my mouth shut because Sharon didn’t matter, and both of us knew it. Joan was playing with fire and pretending like she didn’t care as she scrolled through my texts.

  “Oh, here’s one. From some guy named BLJ; where have I heard that name before?” She looked at me over the edge of the phone, her face twisted up like she was confused. “Oh right, he’s one of the guys who has been arrested for those bombs.” She tsked. “Nasty business those bombs. Poor Zo. I’m glad he’s got that insurance money to console him. Anyway, good old BLJ says: ‘Where the fuck are you?’ ”

  She said it in a voice, like she was pretending to be a bear or some shit.

  “When was that sent?” I asked, despite knowing I shouldn’t engage with her on this stuff. But still…BLJ.

  After I’d pushed Dylan out of the club, after I’d forced him as far away from me as possible, I’d gotten tight with BLJ. We called him BLJ, because his name was Jim and the night he got patched in, he’d gotten so fucked-up he’d tried to jump off the roof of the clubhouse and broke his leg. Broken-leg Jim.

  I took him to the hospital that night. And then took him to my house because his apartment had stairs. We’d gotten high and watched old episodes of The X-Files.

  That guy tried to kill me. Planned to kill me. And I swear to God, he was the closest thing I had to a friend in that life.

  “Just before I detonated the first bomb,” Joan said. “You think he was trying to find you so they could kill you?” she asked, like it was no big deal. “I mean, seems likely, right? He was standing there with Rabbit. He was one of the guys who kicked you when you were bleeding on the ground. Sorry, one of your brothers who kicked you when you were bleeding on the ground.”

  She lifted her hands in air quotes around brothers.

  I said nothing.

  “You want me to text him back?” she asked. “Hey, BLJ, lost my phone for a while let’s grab a drink and catch up?”

  I glared at her.

  “No? Probably a smart idea. That guy was a total buzzkill, anyway. Eva said she took him in the back room once and…” She lifted her pinky and then slowly lowered it while making a sad trumpet sound.

  I would not smile. I would not. Nothing about this shit was funny.

  Except her.

  “Okay,” she said, eyes back on the phone. “Let’s see what else we’ve got here. Oh, here’s a good one from someone named D.” I couldn’t control my reaction before she looked up at me. So she saw me stiffen. She saw me frown and try to hide it. I gave away everything in that one second.

  “Dylan, right? Your real brother?”

  I wanted to roar off this bed and grab the phone from her. I wanted to push her down on her knees in front of me. I wanted to hurt her and fuck her all at the same time. But I showed her none of that. I gave her nothing. In fact, I managed to pick up the sandwich on the plate next to me. And I took a bite. It was sawdust and glue.

  “You going to read it?” I asked around a mouthful of ham and swiss. Tons of mayo, which was gross.

  She looked at me for a long moment, like she could see right through my bullshit. Like I could pretend all I wanted, and it wouldn’t matter. She’d still see everything I didn’t want her to see.

  And then she glanced down at the phone, opened her mouth, and tore me to pieces.

  “ ‘Rabbit is dead,’ ” she read. “ ‘He survived the explosion at the club but made it to the trailer park. Found Pops and messed him up pretty bad trying to find out where you were. Pops held out, didn’t say a word. Asshole put a knife through his hand. Annie and I are at the hospital with him now. Pops is going to be fine. Tough SOB. They arrested the rest of the Skulls. Couple of the cops were circling me and Annie looking for you but with Rabbit dead, they’ve lost interest. Fuck man. You might be dead. I should never have let you leave with Joan. I should have kept you with me. We were finally starting something, right? Finally getting back to something? Jesus. I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s the middle of the night and I’m at a hospital and I miss you. Text if you can. Just let me know you’re alive.’ ”

  I had to force myself to swallow the goddamn sandwich. It sat like a lump in my throat. I couldn’t breathe around it.

  “You want me to tex
t him? Let him know you’re alive?” she asked, her voice low. Of course she would understand this. The ties that bind are the ones that hurt the most.

  I shook my head. “The less he knows the better. Especially if cops are circling.”

  Frankly, I thought Zo had a pretty good shot at pinning the bombs on the club. It was smart and Joan was right—those guys had enough priors and history with the cops—they wouldn’t look too hard at anyone else for those bombs.

  But I’d stay away from Dylan.

  Just in case.

  Story of my entire life right there. I’d stay away from Dylan just in case I dragged him down with me. I’d stay away from Dylan just in case he had a shot at a life that could mean something. So he could rise above the cesspool where I lived.

  It worked, too; Dylan had a pretty great fucking life right now, which only went to prove that staying away from Dylan was the right thing to do.

  “Rabbit’s dead,” she said.

  I couldn’t quite figure out what that meant. All I could think about was Pops and Dylan and how Pops got hurt and Dylan could have been hurt. Killed. Because of me. I just kept bringing death to their door. Like some wild dog that wanted to be a pet.

  Jesus. This was never going to end.

  “Rabbit is dead and the rest of the crew was arrested,” she said. “There’s no one to get revenge on.”

  I blinked at her, the words she was saying not sinking in.

  “You get that, right?” she said, when it was obvious that I didn’t. When it was obvious that whatever the fuck she was telling me was slipping far away. “They’re all gone.”

  “That’s…that’s not true,” I said, clinging to my revenge because that was all I had.

  I didn’t have my brother or my father.

  Or the shit family I’d created to try and replace them.

  My drug deal was in ruins.

  I was locked to a goddamn bed.

  And now I couldn’t even comfort myself with thoughts of killing Rabbit. Of getting my revenge against those brothers who tried to kill me.

  “There are still guys in Jacksonville,” I said.

  “You’re going to get revenge against them?”

  No. They were prospects and low-level soldiers. I had no beef with those kids. They didn’t know what Rabbit had been planning. Without us there, they’d probably split already.

  There was no revenge.

  It had been taken from me.

  I had nothing. Straight up nothing.

  The shaking started in my hands. And then the muscles in my arms started to twitch. My shoulders. My legs were restless and aching.

  What was I going to do now?

  Maybe now I could change things. I could walk right back into the clubhouse in Jacksonville and be president again. I could build the club back up again but without the poison of Rabbit. Maybe we could go straight. Maybe…maybe the Skulls could be different.

  A real brotherhood this time around.

  “You don’t have to go back,” she said. “You left once, right? You walked away once. You could do it again.”

  I looked down at my hands. My tattoos. The flaming skull on my shoulder. I was covered in the club.

  “There’s no walking away,” I told her, because it was the truth. “Not really.”

  “Then what happened a month ago. What happened when you were gone?”

  Arizona, my mother’s grave. That hotel room off the highway. That dawn ride through the desert under a hot-pink sky when everything had seemed so clear. So obvious. I’d made a mistake years ago and I was getting a chance to start over.

  But then Dylan called and told me I had to come back or Rabbit was going to hurt the woman he loved.

  And I’d gone back. Because I owed Dylan. Because he was my brother. My flesh and blood.

  Because guys like me didn’t get second chances.

  Something painful was happening in my chest. Something awful. Like in those natural disaster movies they showed late at night—there was a sinkhole opening and everything was getting sucked into it.

  “Max,” she sighed, her voice all soft with sympathy.

  “Is that all?” I snapped. Because her sympathy pissed me off. My whole body was burning with an anger and a grief and a fear—and I couldn’t separate them from each other. It was a mess in my gut. A fire-breathing mess.

  “Well, Sharon really misses you. There’s a couple more shots here—”

  Fuck Sharon. Fuck Joan. Fuck everyone.

  “But no,” she said, “that’s it.”

  Lagan’s number was still in my head. I could tell her to call it. And maybe nothing would happen, or maybe some terrible stone would start rolling downhill.

  Death and destruction followed me around like a ball and chain.

  She got up off the dresser and stood just outside my reach.

  Cagey.

  “I’m…sorry.”

  “For what.”

  She made some soft sympathetic sound that lit fire to my rage. Impotent and useless, my rage burned through everything until it was all I felt.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Joan.”

  “Your real name?” I don’t know why it mattered so much, but it did.

  “Joan.”

  “Take off your fucking clothes.”

  “I’m not getting close to you. Not like this.”

  “I want to fuck you. Not hurt you.”

  She looked at me, her eyes bright. She was into it. I could see it on her face. In her skin. I could smell it in the air.

  “You want it, too,” I told her. This is what a mess we were. This was how our wires were crossed. She looked away like this thing between us—raw and thorned—was too much to see. Everything had to be watched from her peripheral vision. And I wanted to look right at it, I wanted to smash myself into it so I could feel something—anything but this gnawing panic. This growing despair.

  “Suck my dick and I’ll call him.”

  “You’re lying.”

  I was. I was lying.

  “Fine, suck my dick because you want to. Suck my dick and I’ll make you come so hard you black out and for a minute, one goddamn minute, we’ll pretend we don’t live like this. We’ll pretend that we’re normal. That we’re decent fucking humans and not the pieces of shit we are.”

  “You’re not…you’re not a piece of shit,” she whispered. At that moment I wanted her to believe that about me. I wanted someone on this Earth to care.

  “Let me go.”

  She shook her head, afraid of me. I hated that and I loved it at the same time.

  “Show me something,” I whispered. “You just ripped out my guts. Give me something and I’ll give you the number.”

  She stood there, blinking at me like she didn’t understand what I was asking. But she did. Show me something you never show anyone. Give me a piece of your soul, because I just showed you mine and because I need to fucking live on something and I have nothing.

  Give me something I can live on. For a minute. That’s all I want.

  But she stood there and pretended not to understand. She pretended she didn’t know what I was talking about.

  “Get out of here,” I told her. I couldn’t look at her anymore. I couldn’t look at her and see my reflection anymore. Dylan was okay. Pops was…okay. That’s all that mattered.

  I didn’t. I never mattered.

  Chapter 13

  Joan

  The gas station across the road had a pay phone. Probably the last one in the state.

  Maybe the world.

  It was around the back of the buildings, by the dumpsters.

  I could see the canal through the trees on the other side of the parking lot. We were on a thin piece of land between the ocean and the canal and it felt—at the moment—like it was getting smaller every minute.

  Like I was getting squeezed between possible disasters every minute I stood here staring at the last pay phone in the world.

  I was Princess Leia d
own in the garbage compactor, only instead of Han, Luke, and Chewie for company, all I had was that fucking snake.

  The neon lights made my hands look like bones. I picked up the receiver with my grim-reaper fingers and didn’t give myself a chance to wonder if this was the right thing to do.

  My heart said it was, and I was listening to my heart.

  Which frankly probably meant I was making a huge mistake. That was the kind of decision maker my heart was. Like one of those rats in a maze looking for cheese—that was my heart—always going down blind alleys and making wrong turns.

  But this, this was just a thing that had to be done. Right or wrong.

  Dylan was worried. Scared. And I knew that kind of fear. That daily, grinding concern, not knowing where my sister was and if she was safe. If she was alive.

  It was a pounding in the back of my skull, every hour of every day. And it was no fucking way to live. This phone call was my gift to Max—not that he’d see it that way.

  Or that he deserved a gift.

  But I’d ripped open his chest on that bed reading the text from Dylan.

  And I was deeply sorry for that. For both our sakes.

  I deposited my coins and punched in the number from Max’s phone into the pay phone.

  It rang exactly once.

  “Max?” a man asked. Dylan. It could only be Dylan. God, the relief and fear in his voice was painful.

  “No…I mean, not exactly.”

  “Joan?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s…where’s Max?”

  Chained to a bed in Florida. I have your brother chained to a bed and I’m keeping him there until he agrees to go on a suicide mission to save my sister.

  “Oh my God,” Dylan whispered, assuming the worst in my silence.

  “No. No, he’s fine. He’s okay.”

  Dylan made a rough sound, like a laugh or a sob. I couldn’t tell.

  “I’m calling to tell you he’s okay. We’re safe.”

  “Let me talk to him.”

  “He doesn’t….” I looked up at the sky. The stars and the moon were covered by skinny clouds and I wished maybe I’d just texted Dylan. It would have been easier to avoid this moment.