by Teagan Kade
“Oh hell no.”
*
I’m still seething my Dad and Michelle have concocted this rescue scheme for my wayward stepbrother behind my back. We’re both twenty-one. Why should I be forced to suffer because he can’t get his shit together? The flat is my place, my sanctuary. I don’t want him greasing it up with all his car parts and stripper friends. I’m thinking so hard on a way to get him out my head hurts.
I shouldn’t even be living at home any more. I should have an apartment of my own, a trendy girlfriend to share gossip with, but the academy wasn’t cheap. Nothing in this country seems to be these days.
“Collins, you with us?”
I stand up a little straighter, uniform starchy. “Sorry, sir.”
The captain continues on, surveying the other officers. “You’ve been called here because you’re some of the brightest officers in the force. You can think outside the box, and that’s just what we need for this special case.
“Case, sir?” queries Lewis, a hard-boiled forty-something with hair the color of a copper bell. Poor guy.
The captain nods. I can smell his coffee breath from here. “Nothing about this is to leave the room. Am I understood?”
We all nod, the excitement growing this might be a way out of general duties, from having to herd drunken idiots downtown.
The captain picks up a remote, the screen on the wall coming to life. It shows the latest haul from the DEA, bricks and bricks of the stuff. Lego ice, AKA methamphetamine.
The captain points his finger at the screen. “Street value of forty-million Yankee dollars and right on our doorstep. This is just the tip of the iceberg, pardon the pun. This shit was going to fuck up a lot of lives and it’s got to stop. But you want to know what the clincher is, the real head-fuck?”
I’m almost about to reply when I realize it’s a rhetorical question.
“This shit being brought in isn’t being distributed by the cartels or the MC boys. No, this is all street racers, my friends. Welcome to the fast and the fucked.”
The girl next to me cracks up. “Like the movies?”
The captain approaches her, laughing quietly to himself. “This is nothing like the movies, Turner. Vin Diesel isn’t going to show up and save the day. He’s not going to go down on you. You’re not going to blow Paul Walker, but I do need someone to go undercover.” He paces back to the screen. “Don’t be fooled either. It might seem like all these guys care about is cars and looking pretty in them, but they’re deep, deep into the dark scum of this city. They’re shit-peddlers like everyone else and getting real good at it. If we don’t stop them now we’re lining ourselves up for an ass-fucking of Jurassic proportions. Forget lube. Forget foreplay. We are fucked. So, who’s in?”
I’ve been waiting for this moment, this opportunity for months. I desperately want to make my mark, to show I’ve got what it takes to make it in the cops and finally prove my folks wrong. The competitive streak comes out in me straight away, my hand shooting to the roof so fast my arm almost pops free. “I’ll do it, sir.”
“Collins? A little keen, aren’t we?”
“I can do it, sir, I promise. I won’t let you down.”
“You don’t even know what is that needs doing yet.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
The captain rolls his eyes and pans around the room. “There’s only one spot here, folks. Anyone else?”
I’m surprised no one else is leaping at this chance, but they’ve all got their heads down or eyes focused on a growing bubble inside the water cooler.
“Sold,” says the captain. “Collins, hang here. The rest of you are dismissed, and if I find a single word about this op leaked you can all consider yourselves on litter duty for the next six months.
When the room’s cleared, the captain approaches me, the insta-coffee leaking from his pores. He hands over a folder. I flip it open and stop dead. My jaw drops—literally.
“What is it, Collins?”
I’m looking at Brock, at a glossy black-and-white of his high cheekbones and panty-dropper features, hair swept back in a perfect wave.
“It’s, uh-” I stumble.
The captain jams his finger into the photo. “This prick. He’s your in. Find an angle, gain his trust and gather intel. I’ll be running point on this one personally, fat wallet, whatever you need.”
How can they not know we’re related, or do they? Brock has always kept my stepmother’s name, hasn’t even been around for years. Since that night I’ve tried my best to forget him, done everything in my power to disconnect us, but here he is infiltrating every area of my life again.
I’m about to claw my way out of this, confess we’re family, when the captain dips his head and looks up into my face. “I want someone who’s on their game, Collins, not a fucking mute. Can you handle this?”
And it’s now I know I cannot let the captain down. This could make my career, my future, and it would save a lot of lives. If Brock really is involved in all this, and it’s very likely, am I not in the best possible position to keep an eye on him? But if he’s done, he’ll go away for a long time. Good, I muse.
Surely they know we have a connection, but then again I remind myself this is the police, the kind of institution where one hand’s not always communicating with the other. It could have slipped by, easy as that.
My spine stiffens and I raise my head. I snap the folder closed. “I’m in, captain. I’m your man.”
The captain looks down to my cleavage. “Hardly, but put those puppies to use and you might just get somewhere.”
He starts to walk to the door, continuing to speak. “Full briefing in an hour.”
Just before he reaches the door, he spins around. “Oh, and Collins?”
A push a kind of semi-smile onto my face. “Yes, sir.”
“Just one more thing.”
CHAPTER TWO
It’s almost dark when I get back home, the clouds smoky cigars above. I’m still thinking over the captain’s final words. I should have confessed right then and there, saved myself the future drama.
I’m walking down to the granny flat when a girl in short short-shorts passes me, shirt tied under her tits like a Dixie Chick reject. She gives me a little wave. “Hi.”
Brock, you fucker.
I storm in to find him, shirt off, sitting on my couch with my bowl and my spoon and my Cheerios all over the bench. He looks like he’s sixteen. I can probably expect to find a semen-stained tube sock under his pillow. Dixie Chick probably saw to that end of things already. ‘Ew,’ my internal Disgust replies.
I throw my bag down and he finally looks up as if everything is well in the world.
I kick his feet off the coffee table. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Relaxing. What does it look like?”
“It looks like you’re eating my Cheerios and kicking back after running through ol’ Duke Of Hazzard I passed on the driveway.”
He waves his hand in the air like he’s trying to clear a smell. “Linda? She’s just a friend.”
“Well, you’re not allowed any,” I put my fingers up in inverted commas, “‘friends’ here, okay?”
“Says who?”
I give him ‘the look.’
“Fine, fine,” he mutters, but my temperature continues to rise.
“If you’re going to stay down here, there are going to be rules.”
He laughs, like I am the ridiculous one. “Rules? What is this? Junior High?”
“You’re a child, so it makes perfect sense.”
“I am no such thing. I am an educated man of the world.”
I almost step out of my skin in shock. “Educated?! Man of the world? Give me a fucking break.”
I can’t help but notice through the red mist of my anger he’s actually looking pretty good, tessellated abs, bulging biceps. Had plenty of time for it in prison or wherever the fuck he was probably.
I tick my fingers off. “One, no visitors.”
&n
bsp; “Understood.”
“Two, you want to eat something, you buy it yourself.”
He nods. “I can live with that.”
“This isn’t a negotiation, Brock.”
He puts his hands up. “Continue.”
“Three,” I huff, “under no circumstances are you to enter my room or the bathroom when I am inside.”
“There’s only one bathroom in the flat.”
“I know. If I’m in there, you can wait.”
His eyes grow a little more defined, the quiet growing between us and something cooling. It’s a touchy subject, that of personal space between us, and he knows it. He puts his hand on his heart in a gesture that’s actually quite sincere. “You have my word, Maddy.”
He stands, his jeans loose and a trail of hair running into the dark domain below. For a millisecond I think of what he’s hiding in there, actually picture his dick, and then I’m back. “Now, I have work to do.”
I stomp my foot once, turn and march away.
There’s a resigned flutter of syllables from my errant stepbrother, but I’m not in the mood to listen.
I’ve already closed the door to my room and pressed myself against the back of it, a hot and certainly unwelcome tingle spreading from a tender spot between my legs that hasn’t seen life since Attila The Hun roamed the earth.
I start an internal dialogue.
Did you just stomp your foot, Maddy?
So?
That’s very childish.
Shut up, Inner Voice. Shouldn’t you be cleaning up my memories or something? They sure as fuck could do with a good scrub-down.
*
Brock’s nowhere to be seen when I get up for work the next morning. I come into the living room and kitchen, unlock the doors as always. See, I have a bad habit of sleep-walking. I’m talking zombie-grade bullshit. If I don’t keep these doors locked I could happily walk my way to Chicago.
I brew a coffee of nuclear proportions. I’m officially on the job now. He is my job, to be precise, but I’ve still got to go into the office and make appearances at least during the day when all these street racer teeny-bopper boys are sleeping or jerking off over their precious cars.
It’s a glaringly bright day outside, the kind that turns the sky to glass.
I make my way up past the main house to my weapon of choice parked against the curb—Champers, my 1995 champagne-colored Hyundai Excel with about as much muscle as a lawnmower. But Champers has served me well. He doesn’t get clingy. He doesn’t whine and leave his clothes around… just a bit of oil every now and then. He’s dependable, or at least he was.
Champers decides today of all days is the day to pack it in. I turn the key over and over expecting by some voodoo magic Champers will kick into life, but nothing.
Fuck. Fuckedy fuck fuck.
I rush to the main house, hand raised to knock on the door when I remember no-one’s home. Dad and Michelle are staying in the city for their wedding anniversary.
I look at my watch, Mickey Mouse’s spindly arms telling me I’m very fucking late.
There’s only one thing to do.
I look up to the heavens, asking, “Why?”
I knock twice on the door to Brock’s room, but there’s no response.
“I’m coming in,” I announce, and open the door.
It’s quite amazing how in just one day Brock has managed to turn the room completely upside down with refuse and clothes and all kinds of icky boy things. He really is a teenager. Worse, he’s sleeping commando, lying stomach down and the sheets only halfway up his white whale of an ass. It’s actually kind of adorable. There’s a large tat across his back I’ve never seen before. It reads ‘Midnight.’
I clear my voice. “Brock?”
When that has no effect, I kick the bed.
He rolls over, the sheets sliding away and yep, everything on show.
I look away, staring as hard as I can at a poster of a kitten in a pot I’ve had since I was six.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” comes his husky voice.
“My car won’t start.”
“I see.”
The prick’s really going to make me beg for it. “I thought maybe you could take a look at it.”
“What was it you called me last night? A child? I don’t think a child would have the necessary mental capacity to fix a car.”
“Cut the bullshit. Can you help or not?”
I can hear him lifting himself out of bed, a belt jangling around. “Fine, fine.”
He brushes past me on his way out, still with no shirt. Maybe he doesn’t own any.
“Enjoy the show?” he smirks, cupping his package.
“Crayons aren’t really my style.”
“I’ve forgotten how funny you are.”
What’s under the hood of a car is a complete mystery to me. He tries, but Dad’s no better. But Brock’s dad? A different story. He used to be a NASCAR driver back in the day, a successful one too, but the fame did him in. Before long he was hooked on heroin. He cut his wrists having written just one letter on a Post-It. It was a ‘B.’
Naturally, Brock’s never been big on talking about his father. It’s a touchy subject, but one night he opened up to me over a bottle of dirty tequila (never again). We took turns taking shots, each time delving deeper and deeper into each other’s past, our crushes, our fears. For a couple of teenagers it was some serious D&M action. That was the start of the connection, a connection that has long since been lost.
Brock slams the hood back down. “Try it now.”
I swing into the driver’s seat and whaddyaknow, success. “Thanks.”
He wipes his hands on his jeans. “No problem, but I’m afraid this means you owe me.”
“Owe you?”
“Sure.” He doesn’t elaborate. He just strolls away.
My cell goes off. I pick it up thinking it’s the captain wondering where the hell I am.
It’s Michelle. She sounds off.
“Everything okay?” I query.
“It’s your dad, Maddy.”
CHAPTER THREE
“Peter Collins?” I throw at a nurse.
“Room 202.”
I swing into the room with Brock in tow. I expect to find Dad hooked up to machines, hoses, but he’s sitting there doing a crossword as if nothing’s happened at all. Only his gown and the patches attached to his chest suggest he’s just had a heart attack.
“Oh, hey, petal,” he says calmly.
Michelle’s sitting by his side. Her eyes look a little wider than usual.
I come to the side of the bed and take Dad’s hand, Brock standing by the door. “Jesus, Dad, you gave me a real fright.”
“You? I’m the one in hospital.”
“Is it stress?”
“I don’t know, hon. You know doctors, all mysterious.”
“Maybe it’s time to cut back on the jerky.”
He laughs. “Never.”
It suddenly dawns on me what it would be like to lose my father, my only blood relative left alive. A tear rolls in a hot line down my cheek, falling from my face to the linoleum floor.
He holds my face. “Maddy, there, there. Come on. I’m fine.”
“I know,” I sniff. “I just can’t lose you.”
Dad looks to Michelle and Brock. “Can you give us a moment?”
The two of them leave and I’m alone with dad. “Maddy,” he starts, taking my hand, “I’m okay, really, but things are… difficult at the moment.”
“What do you mean? Is it Brock?”
Dad shakes his head. “Your stepmother’s taken the brunt of that stress, but I’m afraid our financial situation isn’t fantastic.”
“I thought you’d just been promoted?”
He looks away, fiddling with a line running across the mattress. “I lied, hon. I was fired, two weeks ago.”
“Fired?” I can’t quite believe it. Dad’s been working for the same concrete company for ten years. Nothing’s been so
stable.
“And you’re behind, the mortgage?”
“A few months.”
“Months?”
“I owe the taxman, too. You know me, Maddy. I’m no good with this financial stuff, neither’s Michelle. Your mother was always…” he trails off.
“Did you get a payout?”
He shakes his head. “They’re saying I was incompetent.”
The hairs bristle on the back of my neck. I’m raging hard, ready to storm down there in my uniform and set things straight. Dad senses it, squeezing my hand harder.
“There’s nothing you can do, Maddy. Let us sort it out.”
“You can’t just let them do that, Dad. You’re entitled.”
“I know, and I’m going to fight them.”
I want to press for more details, but then again I don’t want another heart attack on my hands either. “Just rest, okay, Dad. We’ll both take a look at it when you get home. For now, concentrate on getting better.”
My phone buzzes again. It’s the captain. I haven’t even called in yet. I’m suddenly caught in a hard place, the pull to stay with Dad strong but the need to make him proud even stronger. He does look normal. “I’ve got to go, Dad. You sure you’re okay?”
“Fine.”
I go to leave, but he’s still holding my hand. “And Maddy, go easy on your stepbrother, hey?”
I’ve never quite understood why Dad’s always been so lax on Brock. Maybe he’s the son he always wished he had. Some son.
“I’ll try.” Like hell.
I pass Brock on the way back down the hall. Michelle’s MIA.
For once Brock looks generally concerned, a cup of coffee in his hand I imagine tastes like an ashtray. “Peter okay?”
“He will be.”
“You going back to work?”
I notice I’m shaking a little. Brock sees my hand twitching, the keys rattling. “Why don’t you let me drive?”
I don’t really know why, but I pass the keys over. “Why not?”
The ride to work is quiet. I’ve got a headache now the truth is out, now the transferal of stress is complete. I had a feeling something was wrong. In a way I’m glad it’s just money, that Michelle and Dad are okay, but in another way it’s just as bad. If they lose the house, I lose the flat. We all lose.
