by Paula Cox
“But Patrick isn’t the real problem. Like I said, it’s his pal, Barry, who’s the real pain in the ass. I’ve done a little research on this man. Some of the things I learned made me shiver, Jude.”
I doubt that, I doubt anything could make Mickey shiver.
“Did you know he tortured and killed a seven-year-old girl? This was up in Maine. He went down there a few years ago to settle the death of his father. Whilst he was down there, a little girl—still in pigtails—went missing. She was found a few days later, tortured, killed, abused in every way you can think of. Barry was arrested. There were witnesses who saw him picking the girl up, and forensic evidence. Mysteriously, all of it disappeared before trial. The monster got away without a scratch. We do bad things in this life, Jude. I won’t pretend otherwise. But none of my guys would ever torture and kill a child just for the fun of it.”
Mickey snaps the last words. I take a surprised step back and then immediately right myself.
“He’s visited New Jersey quite a few times over the years. The disappearance of several children coincides with his stay at nearby hotels. There’s no doubt in my mind that he kidnapped and tortured those kids, too. Barry’s a priority, Jude. I want him gone first. And then the rest of Patrick’s little gang.”
Including Patrick himself. But Emily . . .
Mickey turns back to the pond, takes out a handful of crumbs, and tosses them into the water. Instantly, ducks begin to gather.
“What’s the world coming to,” he muses, “when men can do things like that and get away with it, over and over?”
He’s not expecting an answer, so I don’t give him one.
I turn away and skirt around the pond, all the while thinking about Emily, sweet, strong, smart Emily, Emily who loves her big brother, even though he’s a monster.
Chapter Fourteen
Emily
“When the kids at that fucking orphanage wanted to hurt you, who stopped them?”
My mind detaches from my body and it’s like I see the scene from somebody else’s perspective. I watch as this frail-looking, skinny girl curls up on the floor. I watch as this giant beast of a man rains fists down at her head. How does her neck not snap? I think, watching as knuckles pound into her face. How is she still alive?
He hits her—me—around ten times, but he’s a practiced sister-beater and he doesn’t go too far. He hits me hard enough to make a point, cause two black eyes to sprout on my face, but not hard enough to do any lasting damage. In a way that’s even worse, because it’s not like he’s completely lost control. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
I watch as Patrick stumbles back, staring down at the crumpled-up woman.
Then, slowly, I return to my body. My face aches like I’ve just been thrown into the side of a brick wall. Blood trickles down my cheeks from cuts imbedded within the black eyes. I cough, sputter, and then sit up with a painful grunt.
Patrick sneers down at me. “I’ve always protected you,” he whispers, lips trembling. He looks down at his hands like he can’t quite believe what he’s just done. “Why do you make me do this?” he asks. “I don’t want to. I don’t enjoy it. But you make me, Emily. Why can’t you just be a good sister? Why can’t you just do what you’re told? Why does everything have to be a long fight with you? Why can’t you just be good for once?”
Because your version of good means not really being a person at all. Your version of good means letting go of everything that makes me a real, living person and becoming a robot. A silently working robot whose only function is to give you money for rent and to be quiet the rest of the time. Never meet people, never have any fun, never have any pleasure. Just give myself to you until when I look in the mirror I don’t recognize the person looking back at me. That’s why, you stupid man.
I can’t say any of that. My survival alarm is blaring in my head and I know if I voice my real emotions, it would only set him off again. He’d beat me until I stopped singing my own tune and started singing his. He’d beat me until I was blood-covered and caked in bruises. He’d beat me until I turned into a mass of pulp and blood. But I don’t feel any fear. Just a kind of detached need for survival. After all, I’m a veteran when it comes to getting beaten up by my brother.
I stumble to my feet, wincing as my bruised eyes crease, and grip the counter. Facing him, I speak in as calm a voice as I can. “You have to leave, Patrick,” I say. I wish my voice was stronger. I wish it didn’t tremble. I wish I could be like Jude, carved from iron. And to think, only a few minutes ago I was happier than I’ve ever been.
“What?” Patrick snarls. “Why would I leave? You’re coming with me.” His fists are clenched at his sides, knuckles stained carmine with my blood.
I need to get out of here. But how?
I reason it out: he’s high and drunk, when he gets high and drunk, he gets paranoid, so I have to play on his paranoia.
As if God is listening, the air suddenly fills with sirens. There’s nothing unusual about that. More often than not, the New York air is filled with sirens. But that’s from a sober person’s perspective. I see it in Patrick’s face, fear flitting across his expression.
“I called the police,” I say at once, making my voice calm when all I want to do is scream. If this doesn’t work, he’ll take me, beat me, imprison me.
“W-when?” he stutters.
“I saw you coming down the street.” My heartbeat pulses in my face, something I’ve never experienced before. It’s like it beats up my neck, my cheek, and directly into my bruises. I fight the urge to wince in pain.
“You didn’t,” he mutters, but he glances behind him at the windows. “Did you?”
“I did.” I take a step forward. My legs feel weak, jelly-like, like at any moment they could collapse.
He stares at me for around half a minute, all the while the sirens getting louder and louder.
“This isn’t over,” he snaps, pacing to the door with wide steps. “It isn’t over!” he screeches, as he walks out into the street.
I watch as he breaks into a jog and disappears down the street. I wait for five minutes—the sirens grow quieter as they head toward some other disaster in some other place—and then go to the bathroom. I wash and clean the cuts, apply Band-Aids where I can, and then continue closing the bakery. When I’m done, I lock up and walk down the street faster than I’ve ever walked anywhere. I always thought it looked silly when people did that power-walking thing, but I do it now, pacing as fast as a jogging person.
I look over my shoulder every few seconds, terrified that Patrick might come to his senses and realize I tricked him. But then I’m at the door to Jude’s apartment building. I open it gratefully, run up the stairs like a person running to a safe haven, and lock and bolt the door behind me.
Only when I’m safe, I sit on the couch and let the panic overtake me.
For a few minutes, I pant like crazy, my lungs seeming empty and shallow.
When I catch my breath, I go into the bathroom to check on the black eyes. I hardly recognize myself. I’ve always liked my eyes, though I’d never admit it to anybody. But I have, ever since I was a girl. I like how big they are, I like the shade of green. People have often complimented me on them and, despite my shyness, it makes me feel good. Now, I can hardly see them. My skin is black and taut, puffy, turning my eyes into small beads which peer from two bruised mounds.
Jude will see these, I think, with a chill.
I could lie to him, tell him I fell over at work, but a man like Jude knows bruises well and he’ll know I’m lying. You don’t get two massive black eyes from falling over. No, he’ll know it was Patrick. Even now, after he just kicked the hell out of me, I don’t want Jude to hurt Patrick. I try and persuade myself otherwise, telling myself that he’s a monster, he’s beaten me my whole life, he’s always hurt and manipulated me, discounted my feelings, never even seen me as a person. But the idea of Jude hurting—or killing—Patrick provokes an involuntary tug in my chest. He’s
my older brother, even after everything. It’s a love-hate, love-despise, love-loath relationship I can’t seem to get free of.
I go into the bedroom and collect my makeup kit, sit on the bed and open my little pocket-mirror. Maybe I could hide the bruises. I laugh darkly as I study them again. There’s no way I’m hiding these. All the foundation in the world wouldn’t be enough. Anyway, Jude would sense something’s up. I don’t wear much makeup. How would he react if I suddenly started wearing twenty layers of the stuff?
“Emily.”
Damn. I didn’t even hear him come in.
His voice comes from the living room. As one last desperate attempt, I take my pot of mascara from my makeup kit. Maybe I can cover it after all. But then Jude is standing at the bedroom door.
I pause, brush inches from my face.
“Emily?” He crosses the room and kneels beside me. “What happened?” His voice is unusually soft, probing, and for a moment I consider telling him the truth.
But then an image thrusts into my mind: Jude, bathed in blood holding a straight-edge razor, standing over my brother with a mad grin on his face. I see Jude kneel and cut him some more. I see the life empty from Patrick’s eyes. Despite everything, it makes me withdraw into myself. I can’t tell him. He’ll hurt Patrick. And Patrick is the only family I’ve ever known.
But he beat you, bad. He hurt you. How can you still stand by him? I swallow. That’s a question I’ve been asking myself my entire life without a satisfactory answer.
“Nothing,” I mumble.
“Nothing?” Jude cocks his head at me. “What’re you talking about, Emily? You look like you’ve just gone twenty rounds with Mike Tyson. Look, you’re in pain!”
I try and make my face a mask, stop myself from wincing, but the pain resurfaces every few seconds. It’s like there’s a creature in my face, behind my skin, prodding the tender places.
“Nothing,” I insist.
I jump to my feet, throwing my makeup onto the bed, and pace into the living room. Dropping onto the couch, I switch on the TV to the nature channel. Jude follows closely after me. He leans down behind the TV and yanks out the plug.
“It’s not nothing,” he says, hands trembling. He sits on the couch next to me. “Do you really expect me to believe that, Emily? Look at your face. I want you to tell me what happened.”
“No.”
“No? Why? I promised to protect you, didn’t I?”
That’s what I’m afraid of.
“No,” I repeat. “Can’t you just leave me alone? I want to be alone. I want to relax. It’s been a long day.”
In this moment Jude doesn’t seem all that different to me than Patrick. It’s unfair, I know, but Patrick will often bother me when all I want is to withdraw into myself, empty my mind, just sit and do nothing and let the worries of the world drift away. Jude is nothing like Patrick. I know that now. And yet right now he’s having the same effect on me. I feel anger rise in my chest. Unfair anger. Unearned anger. But anger all the same.
“I’ll leave you alone once you tell me what happened,” he presses.
“Just leave me alone!” I screech, wheeling on him. When I scream, my cheeks pull at my eyes; the black bruises pulse in pain.
Jude leans back on the couch, watching with me dark eyes. “Why are you shouting at me?” he asks. No emotion touches his voice but curiosity. “I’m trying to help you.”
“Maybe I don’t need your help,” I grunt.
“Maybe not, but I think you do.” His tone is infuriatingly calm, the tone of a patient teacher talking with a problem child. But then, when he next speaks, an undertone of rage enters it. I look at his hands. They’re shaking. He’s trying hard not to lose control, I realize.
“What, are you going to hit me?” I hiss, hating myself for taking my anger out on him, but unable to stop. “Is that what you want, Jude? Do you want to dominate me? Do you want to hurt me? Do you want to make me feel small and useless and pathetic? Is that what you want? Well, is it?” I bark the last words, hardly able to believe the acidic voice I’m hearing is my own.
“It was Patrick, wasn’t it?” Jude’s voice drops low, turns into a growl. “Patrick did this to you. You’re protecting him.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
I stand up and go into the bedroom.
Chapter Fifteen
Jude
“Well, we’re going to talk about it!”
I follow her into the bedroom. Dammit, I’m trying to stay calm but when I look at her, her beautiful saucer-like green eyes turned into tiny emerald glints, rage bubbles through me. It’s a rage I haven’t felt in a long, long time. I’m Mr. Ice. That’s how I do my work so well. That’s why I was promoted. I don’t let my emotions cloud my judgement. I just get the job done. But twice in my life I’ve felt this broiling rage. The first time was when Mom and Dad sank deep into the lake; the second time is now.
She sits on the edge of the bed, looking down at her feet. Her hands are shaking, just like mine. Is she angry with me? How can she be angry with me when it was that fucking prick Patrick who did this to her? How can she take her rage out on me? For fuck’s sake, Emily, wake up! He’s a piece of shit and all he wants is to hurt you!
“It was him, wasn’t it?”
She doesn’t look at me, just keeps staring at the floor. One of the Band-Aids has come loose, revealing a fine red line.
I try and make my voice calm, but I can hear the rage rising in it. I can’t stop it. “Emily.” She doesn’t so much as flinch. “Emily!”
“Yes, and now it starts, doesn’t it?” Her voice is devoid of emotion. She glares up at me. It’s like she’s checked out of her head and has put herself on autopilot. She isn’t the Emily I’ve come to know over these past weeks, not even close. “Is this when you let your anger take control, Jude? Is this when you start hitting me?” She tilts her head, offering me her cheek. “Go on, then. Do it. It’s what it always comes down to in the end, anyway, isn’t it? You’re a killer, a bad man, an evil man. Why wouldn’t you hit a woman?”
“You don’t believe any of that,” I say, clenching my hands into fists. I don’t have much in the way of fingernails, but even so they stab my palms. “Just tell me what happened. That’s all I’m asking. I know it was Patrick . . . wait, it was at work, wasn’t it? Unless you went out of your way to see him, which I can’t imagine you did, he came to your work and did this to you. Wasn’t anyone else there? How did he just march into the bakery and tool you up like this?”
“Just . . . stop.” She sighs. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I think about Patrick, that giant pile of shit, twice as high as Emily and twice as broad. I see his giant fist smashing into her breakable face. How could a man do that? How could a man hit a woman half his size and not feel . . . something. Anything. Some small pang of guilt. It’s always confused me when big men hit little women. Aren’t they scared they’re going to kill them? I see Emily backed against a wall, trying to protect her face with her thin arms, as Patrick rains down blow after blow. My blood is like lava in my veins. Anger coils around my heart. Tiny devil-horned beasts roam around my body, poking me, singing into my mind: Are you going to let him get away with this? He hit your woman. He beat the fuck out of your woman. Are you going to let that stand?
But I can’t do jack without Emily’s permission. That’s the truth. I value her too much.
“Emily.” I say her name slowly, trying to make her see I’m trying here. “Just, just tell me, okay? Just tell me what happened.”
“No,” she snaps. “How many times do I have to say it? No, no, no, no! There, do you get the picture now?”
“Fuck!” I roar, jumping into the living room, vision hazy, seeing blood-red. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” My mind fills with Patrick, his fists, and Emily’s whimpers. In my mind, the whimpers are the worst of all. They’re not surprised or outraged; they’re the whimpers of somebody who is used to being beaten, somebody who has accepted it.
“Fuck!” A woman like Emily shouldn’t have to just accept something so damn awful. Hell, no woman should. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
I charge into the kitchen, barely conscious of my movements, and punch the microwave so hard the glass shatters. I tear it from the counter and hurl it to the floor. It lands with a crunch as the loose glass knocks around inside. I bring my boot down on it, caving it in. I tear cupboards loose, sending cutlery and cooking trays flying. I head-butt one, snapping it in half, my vision so red I can barely see what I’m doing. I’m bleeding, but I don’t feel it. I punch through another. Snap a third over my knee. I roam the kitchen like an enraged beast, end up near the oven. I kick it as hard as I can, rage coursing down my leg. The glass explodes and I take the oven glove—draped over a hook near the cooking surface—and rip it in half. The tear is loud in my ears, louder even than my frantic breathing.
