Burn Down the Night

by M. O'Keefe

  She was going to do it. I could tell. She was silent all the way back to the condo, staring out the window with her thumbnail in her mouth.

  She was going to go to Eric and get the help she needed. Which was good for her.

  Incredibly, impossibly bad for me.

  There were about twenty things the feds could charge me with regarding that drug deal. And my being in her life in any way might make the help she got from the feds more complicated.

  I have to go.

  The wind blew her hair across her neck and I curled my fingers around the steering wheel so I wouldn’t touch her. Wouldn’t stroke those hairs back from her neck, cup her shoulder in my hand. Slide my fingers under that ridiculous unicorn T-shirt.

  We pulled into the parking garage and stepped out into the muggy heat of midday Florida.

  I felt very keenly the gaze of Eric’s cameras on my neck as we walked into the building. In the main lobby there were a number of people moving furniture and setting things up, I assumed for the cocktail party.

  The women all recognized us and shouted hellos. Joan and I lifted our hands in awkward greetings. We weren’t used to all this unwarranted enthusiasm. I couldn’t speak for Joan, but I didn’t particularly trust it. Or want it.

  “I’m so glad you’re here!” Nancy came across the sunny room to us.

  Joan and I both took infinitesimal steps back. “Fern has all the highball glasses in her condo. Would you mind going to get them?” she asked.

  “Um…sure,” Joan said and we headed toward the wing with our condo unit and Fern’s on the floor beneath ours in it. We got to the end of the hallway and the stairs and I pushed open the door.

  “You don’t have to come with me,” she said.

  “It’s no big deal—”

  “Max. I don’t want you to come with me.”

  Her green eyes met mine, and I realized she didn’t want me there when she went to talk to Fern.

  I got it. Begging was private work.

  “Yeah. Sure. My leg’s hurting like a bitch anyway.”

  She fished the keys to the condo out of her pocket and handed them over to me. I had the foreign instinct to lean in and kiss her forehead. The kind of thing I saw my dad do to my mom about seven hundred times a day when the times were good.

  And I realized Pops probably didn’t even realize when he’d done it for the last time. Maybe he didn’t even remember it.

  Sometimes goodbye looked nothing like goodbye.

  Joan

  I knocked on Fern’s door and then, like the teenager I hadn’t been in forever, I wiped my sweating palms on my shorts.

  “Nancy!” Her voice called from inside. “Come on in.”

  I pushed open the door and stuck my head inside. “Hey, Fern. It’s not Nancy, it’s Joan.”

  There was the brush of feet over carpet and then Fern stood in the hallway wearing a robe and towel drying her hair. “Is Max all right?” she asked.

  “Fine. I mean, his leg is sore but he’s…he’s fine.”

  “Oh, then—”

  Why are you here?

  She managed to just stop herself from saying it.

  “I ran into Nancy. She sent me to get the highball glasses.”

  Fern looked at me like I’d grown another head.

  “Is she wrong, or something? You don’t have the glasses?”

  “No. No. They’re right here,” Fern stepped over to her kitchen where an old cardboard box sat on the counter. “Give me two seconds and I’ll help you.”

  “It’s one box, I can take it.” God, did I sound like a jerk. What I needed was her on my side. I just didn’t know how to do that. How to gather people toward me rather than push them away.

  I braced my hands on the counter. “I’m sorry.”

  “I understand. Old habits…between us. We’ve never been very good at talking to each other.”

  Right. All we had was sarcasm and bitterness.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Remarkable how difficult this was. “You asked about Jennifer.”

  I heard the soft huff of her exhale. “Yes?”

  She was still beside me, smelling of shampoo and a shower. I didn’t look at her. Couldn’t…or I’d find some reason to not do this. I’d fall back into anger and all the memories of how much she didn’t like me. And how much I didn’t like her. I would tell myself, as I always did, that I was better off just doing this myself.

  “She’s in trouble?” Fern said in her firm voice. Army nurse at the ready.

  “She is.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “Really…really bad.”

  Fern put her hands on my shoulders and turned me toward her and I let her, with a token amount of resistance. Barely trying. “Olivia,” she whispered. “Tell me what’s happening.”

  Her using my name—my real name, the name my dad gave me and I hadn’t heard in forever—made it easier. Smoothed the way for the story I had to tell.

  I explained about the diner and losing my job. Jennifer’s job at the mall and how it wasn’t enough to live on. Fern stood three feet away from me, her arms crossed over her chest and I stared at the corner of the cardboard box, stained and wrinkly.

  I told her about going out into the woods and joining the group there.

  “No,” she breathed.

  “And then I realized what they were doing in those trailers.”

  “Drugs?” she asked point-blank, like I was the only fool who could be surprised by such a thing.

  “Meth.”

  “And what happened?”

  “I tried to get Jennifer to leave. But she’d had enough of moving around. She wanted to stay put. She was mad…mad at me. Mad at everyone and she wouldn’t come.”

  “So you left her there?”

  Oh, how carefully she tried to keep the horror out of her voice, but I could hear it. “I didn’t have a choice. I left her there and planned to go back and get her. But he moved the camp every time someone left. And I thought I’d be able to follow him and find it but—”

  “He was smarter than you thought?”

  “Yes. And I’ve been trying to find out where the new camp is.”

  “How?”

  I explained the strip club and the drug deal. Zo and the bikers. Every word that came out of my mouth seemed more and more ridiculous.

  “Oh my God, Olivia…”

  “It was the only plan I had.”

  “And now?”

  “Lagan trusts Max. I believe at some point he’s going to get in touch with him. And then…”

  “You go charging into the wilderness armed with what? A fake badge, a gun, and your tits?”

  Don’t, I wanted to say. Don’t do that. But it wasn’t far from the truth. And I had to look that in the eye.

  I could not save my sister by myself.

  “That’s…that’s why I’m coming to you.”

  “Me? You need police or the FBI.”

  “I need someone I can trust.” I explained the pills and what might happen if police came to ask questions at the camp.

  Fern stepped back and put her hand to her forehead, squeezing the skin. “We need to talk to Eric.”

  “Yes,” I said with a sigh.

  She glanced down at her watch. “He’ll be back later this afternoon,” she said. “I’ll text him and we can set up a time to talk.”

  The relief was rather profound. To have all the weight off my own shoulders if even for a few minutes was like taking a deep breath after years of panting. There were tears on my face now and I turned away and scrubbed at them with my hands, feeling stupid.

  “Olivia,” Fern breathed and stepped closer.

  “It’s been a lot,” I said, trying to laugh. “It’s just…I mean I know it’s my fault but the last year…” I was done crying. I pulled in a deep breath, wiped the last of my tears away, and faced my aunt with the best smiling face I could muster. “I appreciate your help.”

  Fern tilted her head, watching me too
carefully. It was uncomfortable. Deeply so. Like standing naked on a windy day.

  “Max told me that the care I was trying to give you when you lived with me was the wrong kind. I thought if I kept you in school or helped you get a job, you’d be all right—”

  “It was good care,” I said. “I wish I’d listened to you.”

  She shook her head. “I think what you needed was someone telling you that you were okay. That you were safe and you’d done everything you could, but you didn’t have to be alone anymore.”

  Too much. It was too much. All my buzzers and warning systems started to go off and I stiffened and stepped sideways.

  “No,” Fern caught me. “No, don’t run.”

  “I’m not…I’m just—” well, running. But come on. This was too much.

  “You have been alone since your dad died, Olivia,” Fern said. “From before that, really. The first thing you learned to do was circle the wagons. Protect yourself and your little family. It was you and Jennifer and no one else could get in. I should have tried harder. I should have tried until you let me in. I was the adult. You were the child. I am so sorry.”

  “I don’t want your pity.”

  “Good,” Fern laughed. “Because I’m not giving it to you.” She pulled me sideways a little, with just the smallest touch on my arm. “I’m glad you told me about Jennifer. I want you to believe me when I say that I really think everything is going to be all right.”

  Oh, I wanted to believe it so badly that I very nearly turned my face away, rejecting the words. Because that was how I worked. That was how the small scales in my heart worked. If I wanted it too much—I had to push it away.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Let me get changed and I will help you carry the glasses down to Nancy.”

  It was my instinct to say no. Because the glasses were a ploy, and I knew she just wanted us to spend a little time together. And that, too, was something I knew how to reject. Oh, the practice I had rejecting that.

  “Or I can do it on my own,” Fern said as if she knew what I was thinking and she was gracefully giving me an out. “I’m going to help you no matter what, Olivia. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “I’ll wait,” I said. It wasn’t a lot. It was far from enough.

  But it was a start.

  While she got dressed, I looked at the pictures on the fridge. Jennifer and I when we were young. Really young. I leaned in closer trying to remember how being that young felt.

  When she came back, she was wearing some shorts and a T-shirt. The T-shirt looked like it had been ironed. I lived out of a garbage bag and she ironed her T-shirts. It was kind of ludicrous that we came from the same gene pool.

  “What are you going to do about Max?” she asked, leaning against the doorframe.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re going to the authorities. To tell them about the drugs and that Max was involved in all of that.”

  It was like out of the the darkness, out of my periphery vision, all this reality came crashing in. And I saw how this would go down. I could try as hard as I could to keep him out of things, but Max was all tangled up in this.

  Max was a bad, bad man and I was going to go to the cops.

  I took a deep breath and let it out as slowly as I could, turning away from my aunt under the pretense of grabbing the glasses.

  It’s not like I’d been imagining a whole future with the guy. That would have been stupid. But I’d been imagining more…more time. More of him. More of what he made me feel.

  “Joan?” Fern asked.

  I grabbed the box of glasses and folded away all my wishes and my wants—because it wasn’t about what I wanted. It never had been.

  This was for the best, really. End it now before things got messy.

  “I’ll handle Max.”

  And that, very much, was the end.

  Chapter 22

  Max

  I was down on the bed, my leg throbbing. The air-conditioning thunked on and the blinds rattled against the window, lulling me to sleep. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d fallen asleep in the middle of the day. The last time I’d been tuned up probably. There’d been that dustup with the Bastards outside of Neptune Beach a few years back. Such a stupid thing. They were all stupid things, in the end. Ego and drugs and money and some misguided sense of brotherhood.

  What was I fighting for? What was I ever fighting for?

  What was I going to fight for now?

  Joan needed me to leave and that didn’t feel like fighting.

  It felt like giving something up.

  I sighed, sinking into the mattress when I felt the buzz of my phone in my back pocket. I rolled sideways and fished it out. I knew better than to hope it was Dylan.

  A text from Lagan.

  Where’s Joan or whatever she calls herself now?

  I felt my heartbeat spike. There was definitely a right way to play this and a wrong way and I didn’t have any idea which was which. Truth? Lie?

  And really, did we even need Lagan with Joan pulling in Eric’s connections?

  Joan? I wrote back and then winced. That was stupid.

  Don’t play dumb.

  That text sent ice through my veins.

  I got her outside the club and then shit went down with my crew. Didn’t see her after that.

  I have someone telling me she got you in a car. And the two of you drove away.

  That someone is lying.

  Someone is lying.

  Fuck.

  Who are you going to trust, Lagan?

  His silence was deafening.

  Like a mantra I told myself: We don’t need him. Joan’s gone for the big guns. Lagan is irrelevant.

  And those were good words, a calming sentiment, but when I put my phone down on my chest, I felt my heart beat right into my hand. Like it was doing everything it could to escape a sinking ship.

  Joan

  Max was asleep when I got back to the room. I looked at him through the crack in the door, his hand over his phone on his chest, like it was something he was keeping safe.

  It made me wonder if Dylan called. I hoped he had. It made me happy to think of Dylan and Max having a relationship after all that had happened to them. It made me happy to think of Max happy.

  Somehow, in the last few days, the blood and violence that had tied us together had turned into something else entirely. Something that clung and chafed. Desire and affection. Trust, a little. Hope, a little.

  It’s that we were so much alike.

  Stop. Just stop.

  This thing between us was ending. Now. It had to. For him. For me.

  I couldn’t save both of them. I couldn’t have both of them in my life. It was my sister or it was Max. Either-or. Never both. Never all.

  I took a long, hot shower putting off the inevitable. I was working out what I was going to say with my face under the hot water, so I barely felt my tears.

  When the water finally turned cool, I reluctantly cranked it off and put on the clothes I’d brought with me into the room. I was going to dress up for the cocktail party.

  I was going to dress up to say goodbye.

  But I’d left the shirt I planned on wearing in the bedroom.

  So, in my skirt and bra, I left the hot, muggy shower and walked into the cool bedroom.

  Max woke up when I came in and he gave me a slow, sleepy smile that turned my insides into pudding.

  “Sorry,” I said, in a harsher voice than I intended. “Did I wake you up?”

  “No, I woke up on my own.” He stretched, bowing his body off the bed and growling like a bear waking up from a long hibernation.

  I’d missed my chance, I thought with real grief. I’d missed my chance at that body. At seeing how high this chemistry could take us. At this moment, on the edge of goodbye, it seemed unlikely that I would ever be so attracted to a man again.

  And it hurt. But it would do me no good to show it.

  I dug through my
garbage bag and found my favorite dressy shirt and the necklace I usually wore with it.

  “You talk to Eric?” he asked, with a voice rough with sleep.

  I didn’t look at him while I slipped the shirt over my body. Taking extra care that it fell just right. “Not yet. Fern texted him and we’re going to talk later.”

  “She thinks he’s going to help?”

  I nodded, my throat tight.

  “Hey, that’s good news. That’s…real good news.” He didn’t sound like it was worth a celebration and I looked up and met his eyes.

  Steady and blue and calm.

  In a heartbeat, I understood what that calm hid. A grief so wide and deep a man could drown in it if he wasn’t careful. And he’d been swimming in that grief his whole life.

  He knows, I realized. He knows he has to leave. And somehow that made this worse.

  It made it so bittersweet my stomach ached. I grabbed my long necklace and looped it around my neck twice.

  “What’s your real name?” he asked.

  “Why does it matter?” I wasn’t looking at him. I couldn’t.

  “Because I don’t even know your name. And we’ve been through some shit, you and I.” I didn’t want jokes. I didn’t want this to end as friends because I would spend my whole life—my whole life—regretting that we’d said goodbye at all.

  I needed this to be sharp and painful and final.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “What if I want to come find you?”

  “And what? Play house?”

  “I’m not a guy who plays house,” he said. He pushed himself up on the bed.

  “Neither am I,” I said. “So why are you trying to pretend you are? What do you want?”

  To fuck me sideways. To make good on this thing happening between us. To satisfy this curiosity that had settled in under our skin. An itch we couldn’t quite reach.

  All of this we’d said to each other a few days ago. We’d thrown around the words like they meant nothing. A few days ago everything meant nothing. But now…now the degree to which I wanted him was something else. Something different. And now I couldn’t throw around the words in fear that they might reveal more than I wanted.

  To keep you safe.

  That’s what I really wanted.