Because their side is right.
There is a thump on the other side of the door and I swear under my breath. No part of this is good. But it is, somehow, right. And the distinction has never been so clear in my head. Sometimes you have to do some bad shit for the right reasons.
My fingers are rock solid as I put the key in the lock and slowly, silently, turn it. The door pops open and then eases forward.
There is this very still place in the center of my brain where I understand what I might see on the other side of the door. Where I think I know what I am going to see. But there is no place in my brain or my body where I can understand the sight of a teenage girl fighting against a grown man double her size while he pulls up her nightgown.
I haven’t been innocent in a long time. But something in me shatters at the sight of that, of the man who is supposed to be caring for us hurting Beth like that.
Tommy screams beside me and I jump, startled. I drop the keys as Tommy lifts the knife and charges The Pastor.
“Tommy,” I yelled, uselessly. Stupidly.
The Pastor brings up his arm just as Tommy slashes at him with the knife, drawing blood. The Pastor shouts in shock and pain and Carissa rushes forward pulling Beth off the desk.
“Tommy,” The Pastor says, bleeding from the hand and stomach. “Put down the knife.”
“No!”
“Put down the knife, Tommy, or this will not go well for you.”
“Fuck you!”
The Pastor pushes Tommy into the chair like he is nothing. Like he is a bug.
“Tommy!” I yell again like I am the worst cheerleader on the planet. And Tommy glances up just as a thundering punch catches him across the face.
There is another. Another. Tommy is on the floor, getting the shit kicked out of him.
Tommy shoves the knife across the floor, hard enough that it skitters to a stop in front of me. I stare at it, stupid and scared for one moment.
“Simon,” Tommy says. “Please —”
And The Pastor clips him in the chin, knocking Tommy out.
It’s not right.
It’s so not fucking right.
I grab the knife. It’s slippery in my hands. Blood and sweat.
I look at Carissa and Beth who are standing in the hallway. Beth is bleeding from her lip because The Pastor hit her. The places on my back where he hit me suddenly burn like they are on fire.
“Simon!” Beth yells and I turn just as the Pastor is charging towards me and it’s nothing… It’s a reflex really. I put out my hands to stop him, but one of my hands is holding the knife.
I catch him in the stomach and I jerk my hand, freaking out and shocked. The knife slices through him. He gurgles, eyes wide, mouth foaming pink.
Oh God, I think. I killed him. I killed him.
And then he reels back, the knife sliding out of his body, blood running down the blade, across my fingers. It’s warm. Like hot.
The Pastor slips, staggers and suddenly falls onto his back.
I stand there. Beth and Carissa behind me and we watch the rise and fall of his chest slow down.
And then stop.
I stumble to the side, my stomach heaving and I throw up the over-cooked carrots from dinner. I throw up everything. Everything in my body.
Carissa is suddenly running across the room as Beth slides to the floor beside Tommy. Carissa is frantically opening drawers. Rifling through papers.
“What…?” I swallow, my mouth gross. “What are you doing?” I ask Carissa.
She doesn’t answer me. Instead, she goes to the bookshelf behind the desk and starts pulling down books.
“We need…we need to run,” I say.
“We can’t leave Tommy,” Beth breathes and she’s right. We can’t. Maybe I can carry him? I cross the room to them, stepping over the pool of blood, my body in shock, my brain sinking fast as I’m unable to bail.
“Where did you put it, you asshole!” Carissa screams and it’s so shocking to hear her scream that we all turn and watch her run across the room and fall to her knees beside The Pastor’s body.
She’s checking his pockets, laying her body across his to get to each one, covering herself with blood.
“Carissa,” I say. It occurs to me that we aren’t whispering anymore, but I can’t think that it matters.
I killed him.
What’s a little yelling after that?
Carissa is speaking under her breath, wild and frantic as she digs through The Pastor’s clothes.
“What are you looking for?” I ask her in a careful voice, wondering if she’s maybe, with all this, lost her mind.
Have I?
She’s got The Pastor’s wallet in her hand and she’s pulling out dollar bills and throwing them on the floor. IDs, loyalty cards to the grocery store.
And then she gasps. Tears in her eyes. A small square piece of paper in her hand. Something folded? A picture? I can’t see. I can’t tell. She tucks it into the pocket of her pajamas then stares at me, blood all down the front of her like she was the one to kill him.
And she smiles. It occurs to me this is the first time I’ve ever seen her smile and it’s beautiful. Illuminating.
I smile at her because I can’t help myself.
For the first time since knowing her — Carissa is happy.
“Oh, my God,” a voice gasps from the doorway. And I don’t have to turn my head to see. It’s The Wife. And our time to run is over.
“He was hurting Beth,” I say, in a rush. “Tommy tried to save her and The Pastor beat him unconscious. The Pastor did this.” I point at Tommy in a lump beside the chair he’s been knocked out of, Beth beside him with her split lip and wild eyes.
But The Wife is silent in the doorway. She wears the robe we sometimes see her in, when she’s sick. And her blond hair is back. Her cell phone in her hand.
And she doesn’t care. Not about any of it.
We all watch as she presses dial on the phone and lifts it to her ear.
Her voice is frantic, wild with sobs.
But her eyes, as she looks at us, are stone-cold sober.
“Help, please, my foster kids have killed my husband.”
As an act, it is pure conviction.
FOUR
Still that night
I CUT away everything that hurts. Everything.
Memories of my family eating dinner at the table every night — gone. The father helping that middle school boy build a robot that could peel potatoes. Never happened.
The lunches my mom made for me with the little notes in them. I tore the memory apart.
I did the right thing and now everything is over.
I close my eyes and try not to think of what will happen next.
And I try even harder not to care.
Suddenly the door to the small interrogation room opens and another cop stands in the slice of light from the bright hallway. He comes forward silently and unlocks my handcuffs from the table.
“What’s happening? I demand a lawyer.” I’ve seen enough law shows on TV, I aced Civics Class, I know I have some rights.
But the cop just smiles at me. “You don’t need one.”
“Yes, I do,” I say. Feeling better since I have something to do, which is demand a lawyer. “And a lawyer is my right. My —”
“You got something better than a lawyer,” he says.
Has someone come forward? I imagine some former foster kid who is now an upstanding pillar of society stepping forward and telling everyone what conditions are like at St. Jude’s. I imagine someone like my mom from legal aid, getting wind of what happened tonight. I imagine the ripple effect across the shattered foster system. I imagine massive overhauls and inquiries.
“Justice?” I ask, not realizing how stupid I sound until after the word is out of my mouth.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “You got the devil on your side.”
He opens another door into a bigger interrogation room and there is Carissa, still covered in blood
. And a few minutes later, they bring in Tommy who looks terrible.
“Has he been to the hospital?” I ask the officer who doesn’t answer, only locks Tommy to a chair and leaves.
“What’s going on?” I ask Carissa who shrugs. The dried blood on her pink pajamas cracks with her movement.
Beside me, Tommy’s breathing stutters and pauses.
“Tommy,” I yell and he stirs just slightly. Not dead, only dying.
“Tommy!” I shout again. “Beth needs you!”
That gets to him and he opens the one eye that isn’t swollen shut.
“Oh, thank God,” I breathe.
His gaze is riveted to Carissa’s pajamas. “Is he dead?”
“We shouldn’t talk about it,” I say, looking at that big wall full of one-way glass. “They’re probably listening.”
“He’s dead,” Carissa confirms, expressionless and still.
“Did you kill him?” Tommy asks.
Carissa opens her mouth.
“Don’t!” I bark, not just preserving myself since I was the guy holding the knife. But all of us. All of us need to be smart. “Don’t answer that. For the love of God, don’t…say another word.”
It is legit legal advice, not that I expect either of these death-wish teenagers to listen to it. But to my surprise, Carissa shuts her mouth and turns again to look out the small window of the door. The bright rectangle of yellow light.
“Listen,” I say, dropping my voice like it might matter. “I don’t know why they have us all together here. But it’s fucking serious. So no one talks. Not to anyone who comes in that door.”
“You gonna…be…our lawyer?” Tommy pants, smiling just enough that his lip split again.
“We’re in serious fucking trouble, Tommy.”
The door opens, suddenly, and one man stands there, tall and thin and blond. He looks like a serious lawyer in a serious suit. He says something to someone behind him then he walks in and shuts the door behind him.
The silence in the room pounds. Cold sweat runs down my whole body.
“Are you a cop?” I ask, sitting up straight. The other two are letting me talk for us and I am going to take the responsibility seriously.
The man pulls out the chair next to Carissa, unbuttoning his jacket as he sits. “I am not a cop,” he says in a low voice. He glances at all of us but does a kind of funny double take when he sees Tommy. He has eerie-as-fuck, pale gray eyes and they narrow like someone is going to be in trouble.
“Have you had medical care?” he asks.
“What does it look like?” I snap. “This is police brutality and we demand a lawyer.”
The stranger smirks at me.
“I’m fine,” Tommy wheezes.
“Clearly,” the stranger says. He stands and goes to open the door. A cop follows him in.
“I think the cuffs can be done away with,” the stranger says.
“You’re joking, right?” the cop asks, scowling at us like we’d shit on the floor. “You know what these kids did?”
“I do. And I don’t think them killing the man who abused them means they are about to go on a killing spree,” he says.
Abuse. Oh God. This man knows. I am allergic to hope, I am, but it is suddenly there. A thin trickle of it.
“It’s your fucking funeral,” the cop says and, one by one, he unlocks our handcuffs. I immediately stand, put my back to the corner, and rub my chafed wrists. My shoulders ache. My glasses are cloudy at the bottom because my body is putting out so much heat.
Tommy stays slumped in the chair and Carissa, too, stays seated, her hands spread wide over the table.
“Where’s Beth?” Tommy asks when the cop leaves.
“The hospital,” the stranger says. “Her mother is there.”
Carissa, Tommy and I all share a brief look at that. Beth talked briefly about her mother when she first moved in, but we all sort of believed she’d made it up. People with mothers don’t usually end up in a place like St. Joke’s.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“My name is Bates,” the stranger says.
“Is that supposed to mean something to us?” I ask.
“To you?” Bates looks at me in one long sweep of a glance. “No. But I work for a man named Lazarus.”
“Oh shit. What does Lazarus want with us?” Tommy asks.
Lazarus means nothing to me. But Tommy perked right up at the name. And his fear makes me scared. I think of the implications of a man who can get a cop to take our handcuffs off. Who can get us put in a room together. Who can walk in and out of here like he owns the place.
And he isn’t a lawyer.
I remembered what the cop had said when he put me in this room. That we had the devil on our side.
This guy is our devil.
And I don’t know how to feel about that.
“Lazarus wants nothing to do with you,” Bates says. “I’m here on my own business.”
“I know who you are,” says Carissa. She is fucking chilling, sitting there wearing all that blood. “Who you really are.”
“Are you hurt?” he asks her in a quiet voice, like he’s attempting to be compassionate but it’s not working. His face doesn’t make the right expression. He’s curious instead of worried.
Carissa leans forward and says through her teeth. “It’s not my blood.”
Fucking badass, our Carissa.
“We demand a lawyer.” My voice cracks and my glasses slip down my nose and I push them back up with my wrist.
“A lawyer isn’t going to help you.” Bates crosses his legs at the knee and pulls a piece of lint from his pants.
“Then why are you here?” I ask.
“As you can imagine, you three are in a great deal of trouble. The thin ice you were on as court-placed minors is broken. The prosecutors would like to try you all as adults for first-degree murder.”
“It was me,” Tommy says, gasping. “All me. They didn’t do shit. Look at him.” He tilts his head toward me. “He’s going to be a fucking accountant. And she…” His head rolls listlessly toward Carissa. This is a last-ditch effort if I’ve ever seen one. “Tried to stop me.”
“Just…shut up, Tommy,” Carissa says.
“I’m afraid the wife of the man you killed has told everyone who will listen that the three of you acted together. That you planned it. You also planned to kill her and rob them and the church.”
“That’s not true!” I cry.
Bates shrugs. “That is something you are welcome to prove in court. However, I am here to present you another alternative.”
“What’s the alternative?” I ask, grasping at all the straws coming my way.
“You can walk out that door. Free—”
“Why? How?” I demand answers and Bates holds up his hand to silence me.
My mouth shuts so fast my teeth click together. This guy walks with such serious power, it is scary and intimidating and…electric.
“With the understanding that you owe me a debt. And when I come calling for payment on that debt, you’ll do as I ask or you will find yourself right back in this room. Only there will be no escape. And you will go to jail.”
“But the statute of limitations—”
“I don’t think you understand the nature of my power,” Bates says, looking angry for the first time. Next to him, Carissa stiffens, her face creasing in a quick taut, panic. “I can free you from this room. From the very serious charges against you. I can wipe away the crime you’ve committed. The crime with witnesses and murder weapons found in your bloody hands. I can make that all go away. Do you honestly think for one moment I can’t also settle upon your shoulders another crime, equally violent, equally disturbing, that you had nothing to do with?”
I want to argue, but there is no point. I believe every word he says.
“What will we have to do for you?” I ask. “In the future.”
“Whatever I ask.”
“Will it be illegal?”
Bates
smiles like a shark. “Probably.”
I swallow, light-headed. This doesn’t have that bright, hot feeling of doing the right thing. This feels like a chain around my foot, dragging me slowly…slowly down.
“What about the wife?” Carissa asks, pulling Bates attention from us.
“I can handle her.” Bates’s voice sends chills down my spine.
“There is another girl,” I say.
“Rosa.” Bates nods. And it isn’t even weird that he knows her name. I mean, it is, but this guy is like God coming down and promising shit that doesn’t even make sense. Of course he’d know about Rosa.
“She might get in trouble—”
“I’m trying to find her,” Bates says.
Rosa is good at disappearing, but I am still surprised he is trying. My brain jumps from now, this moment, to what is next. I’m not borrowing trouble; I’m mapping out the obstacle course we are in.
Because it is we. After months of pretending otherwise. This is all of us, or none of us. Tommy wouldn’t be taking this on by himself. Neither would I. Neither would Carissa.
“Will we have to go back into foster care?” I ask.
“That’s not my concern,” Bates says. “My deal only gets you out of these doors. After that, everything is up to you.”
“They have to find us first, right?” Carissa asks. “The parole officers and social workers?”
“That’s the view I would take,” Bates says in his calm, cool voice.
There are a thousand places in this city kids like us could hide. We’ll be smarter this time. We won’t get caught. I think of my books, of school — I can’t go back there.
I think of my things at St. Joke’s…the notebook of clippings. The snow globe.
I’ll never see it again.
And the grief is a little bit like losing a stuffed animal. A favorite blanket from childhood.
But it doesn’t matter, I tell myself through my childish grief. I have the articles memorized and I’ll start a new one. On a bulletin board like in the movies.
I’ll make a revenge wall and I’ll tear Simpson down.
Carissa gets to her feet, her chair screeching across the floor behind her. “I agree to your terms.”
“No!” Tommy shouts. “Don’t, Carissa!”
“This wasn’t your fault, Tommy. I’m doing this.”
Ruin You Page 3
