by Monty Jay
I grab the door handle to my car. I have no idea where I’d go, but I know I need out of here.
Pulling the door open to my car, I shove the keys inside the ignition. Just before shutting the door I look at my father.
“I hate you,” I cry. “I hate you for using the only thing I care about in this godforsaken town against me. I fucking hate you.” I seethe.
I slam my foot into the gas pedal, my speedometer climbing as I eat up the gravel beneath my car, uncaring if I reach an insane speed and flip this thing or wrap it around a tree.
Death feels easier than this right now.
I pull at my shirt collar, opening the buttons and scratching at my throat as I try to catch my breath. My chest is aching as the reality of my life slices me open with a dull blade. The pinpricks on my feet almost distract me from the throbbing inside my brain.
I’d been having episodes like these since middle school, and I once used the school computer to Google my symptoms because I thought I was pregnant, only to find out they were called panic attacks.
Me, having panic attacks? There was no way. Until they kept happening, over and over again.
I’m used to getting them now, but not like this. Never this severe. I feel like there’s something inside my body mauling me to get out, leaving nothing but tatters of ripped skin and leftover intestines like roadkill on the side of the fucking road.
I’m going crazy. I have to be.
How else would I explain where I ended up? How else could I explain pulling into the hidden drive to find the open field where at least seventy other cars are parked.
Crazy is the only way I could explain why I’d shown up here, looking for him.
“You know where to find me when you realize just how bored you are in your glasshouse, Sage.”
Thinking clearly had gone out the window as I climb the grass hill, my heels sinking into the mud with each step. I can feel people staring, their whispers almost as loud as the car engines. All of them are thinking the same thought: what the hell am I doing at The Graveyard?
The Graveyard is an abandoned racetrack on the outskirts of Ponderosa Springs—a place where girls like me have no right to be. Everything that happens here is illegal, under the table, sketchy. People race on the broken asphalt and fight each other to bloody pulps in the center. Drugs are exchanged like candy, and cigarette smoke replaces oxygen.
You come here if you’re looking for trouble.
The wind nips at my heels as I push past the rickety metal fence that prevents bystanders from going on the track. My eyes scan the pits where cars and bikes wait for their heat. I know he’ll be there. He’s here every weekend. Never misses a race and never loses. You’d have to be deaf not to hear about his reputation at the track.
I spot him without having to try. His hood is up, smoke rolling from his mouth, all alone and off to himself. Even when he tries to stay away from people, they seem to be watching him. He’s hard not to watch.
Not caring about the rules or where I’m supposed to be, I cross the track towards the pits, making a straight-line for him, even if there is a set of cars racing headed around another curve and circling back to me.
“Girl, you can’t be back there!” someone shouts at me, but I continue to ignore everyone else except him.
There is no fear. Just a knowing feeling that when I enter Rook Van Doren’s own personal kingdom of the wicked, I’ll be stuck there for a while.
An angel seeking Lucifer for freedom.
“Van Doren!” I call over the sound of roaring machines, my feet stepping off the track away from the incoming traffic.
Rook had been right when he told me I was bored in my glasshouse. I’m two breaths away from dying of lack of excitement in my life. It’s always the same men, with their pressed suits and business conversations. The same gossip at brunches, the same faces, the same lies. All of it is recyclable bullshit, and I am so tired of it all.
I am tired.
I’m afraid because that would be my life. Not just for the remainder of the year, but for the rest of my existence. I would be stuck on the Ponderosa Springs’ merry-go-round forever, all because my parents are broke and I don’t want my sister to suffer.
Except for this moment right now. I have this moment.
And Rook is anything but boring.
His eyes follow the sound of his name until they find their target.
Me.
God, I want to choke the smug grin off his face. That “I knew you’d come looking for me” stare that eats up his entire presence. But I hate the feeling of drowning more than him being right about me.
“What the hell are you doing here—” He stops abruptly, pushing off the side of his bike and meeting me in the middle. His eyes search my face, zeroing in on my streaming mascara and obvious tear-filled eyes. Something in his body language shifts, going from full of himself to tense.
“What did he do?”
The way he shifts towards me more, examining the contours of my face. I’m getting another up close and personal view of those eyes everyone is so afraid of.
It’s poetic almost, how the outer edges are pure green like new earth, but as you fall closer, the inner portion is a starburst of amber fire, swirling and eating up the green, all spiraling into one solid black pupil.
And that’s what Lucifer saw when he was cast out of Heaven. The green of our planet before entering the flames of Hell. The story behind Rook’s catastrophic nickname ties into him more and more.
I know he means Easton, and that’s the last person in the world I want to speak about right now. Trying to laugh it off, I wipe at my face. “No, no, it’s nothing like that. I—”
“Then what the fuck are you here for?”
I’m taken aback by how harsh his voice is, the way it slices through my attempt to cover up my pain, ripping my facade into shreds.
Did I do something wrong? Did I do something to make him angry?
Was I mistaken for coming here?
I sigh, shrugging. “Looking for a change of pace, I guess?” I offer a small joking smile, hoping we can brush over the reason I’m here.
Why, of all people to run to in this town, I came looking for him.
“The truth,” he demands, just as he did in the theatre, refusing to let me leave without stealing a part of me that no one gets.
“Truth? I don’t think I’ve told anyone that in a long time,” I say, knowing he won’t give me anything unless I’m honest with him.
My heart rattles inside of its cage, a wild animal tired of being contained within the walls of my own chest, ready to bare its teeth, show the world what it’s made of.
When he doesn’t say anything, just stares at me expectantly and takes another hit of his cigarette, I tell him what he needs to hear.
The truth.
“Because I need you.” My words catch in a gust of wind as engines roar behind my head. My body pushes up from the bottom of the surface, emerging from the water with a gasp of air as I continue. “I need you to help me take the mask off. You’re the only person I know not hiding from the world. You burn for it. This place, it’s eating me alive, turning me into a person I don’t recognize. Show me anarchy, show me something violent.” I shake my head, needing to feel that escape. “Show me all your truths, Rook. And I’ll show you mine.”
His eyes turn into an inferno, burning so bright, so green, it’s hypnotizing.
“You wanna take the mask off?” He picks up his helmet, pushing it towards me, the cool material pressing into my stomach. “Then take me to the place you hate most in the world, and I’ll show you how to make it choke on the ashes of the girl they left to burn.”
Rook
I’d seen a lot of shit when I was stoned.
Sage Donahue walking out of a liquor store holding a bottle of strawberry-flavored vodka outside took the cake.
She had cleaned off her makeup in a gas station bathroom, the raccoon eyes far from sight, revealing every last one of he
r cinnamon-colored freckles. The glow from the artificial lights bounced off her skin.
This was an entirely new, Sage. One that, for as long as I’d lived in Ponderosa Springs, I had never seen before.
Pretty poison, Rook.
A creature made for deception. Made for killing.
Careful, I reminded myself.
The drive to her family’s lake house was quick considering she was in my ear, purring, Faster, faster, faster.
But the moments seemed to tick by because all I could focus on was the road and how she felt wrapped against me. Perched on the back of my bike, arms gripping me so tightly I could feel her nails digging into my hoodie. The tease of her force against my toned abdomen made my mouth water at the prospect of pain.
When we arrived, pulling into the gated drive of the lakefront home, I knew what was going to happen. There is a reason she brought me here. The question is, why this place? What does it mean to her?
Sage had hopped off the bike, asking me to get started, mentioning something about the bathroom before disappearing inside, leaving the door open for me to follow.
I move on autopilot. My actions are ones I’ve made many times before, the compulsion festering in my twitchy hands as I get to work. The steps are calculated; I’m a skilled surgeon at work when I unzip my bag and pull out the jug of gasoline, lighter fluid, and off-brand matches. Never my Lucky Stripes.
It’s a shame, really. The two-story mansion looks like a joy for a family vacation. All the expensive furniture, the dishware, the carefully placed photos, all are going up in smoke within the next half hour.
Burning down places with ghosts. With memories. Something with substance—those are all my Achilles’ heel, watching as all those suspended memories shoot up in a burst of orange haze, succumbing to nothing but ashes that would sink into the ground.
There’s no other way to rid yourself of the past like setting it on fire.
My phone vibrates in my hoodie pocket as I’m about to pour gasoline onto the kitchen floor.
Where are you?
It’s from Alistair. My first reaction is to say something funny, like giving a rich girl the night of her life. But then I pause, my fingers hovering over the keyboard.
I’m assuming he’s had a shitty day at home and he’s in need of some therapy. Any other time I’d say yes, meet him in his basement where he works out, and let him pummel me into a pulp.
Most friends have things that bond them. Ours just happen to work differently than others.
Alistair needs to hurt something every once in a while, slam his fist into a body so that all the wrath can leave his for a split moment, craving vengeance for a family that always treated him as “the other.”
He needs that, and I need the pain.
That’s how we work. How we all connect to one another. We understand what the other needs, no matter how dark and tormented it may be. We’re willing to do anything for each other.
Instead of my initial answer, I shoot him back a text letting him know I’m out for a ride and won’t be back till later and that I’ll meet up with him tomorrow.
I’ve never lied to him, any of them, but this needs to be felt out before the boys know.
The truth is, I don’t trust this girl.
But I trusted the girl in front of me at the track. The one who looked broken and distraught. I trusted the girl on that stage, and until the only version of Sage Donahue I get is the real one, she’ll be my secret.
However, we aren’t starting out on the best foot, considering she’d told me she was headed to the bathroom and I’m watching her throw her shoes off in the yard as she makes her way down to the dock that juts into the water.
She’s already bending the truth she so desperately promised me.
I set the jug down on the counter, walking out of the glass sliding door to follow her. The bottle of opened vodka sits beside her on the edge of the wooden platform, her feet dangling off the edge. It’s dark, just the moon lighting the opaque lake that sits still and peaceful.
“You know, the whole point of this was for you to set the fire. I’m just the manufacturer behind it.”
She raises the bottle to her lips and takes a gulp from the foul-smelling liquid. I grin when she coughs a bit, her body shivering as it tries to reject the burn from the alcohol.
“It looks easier in the movies to do that without a chaser.” She coughs, wiping her mouth with the back of her palm.
“Yeah, well, in the movies, they use water,” I grunt as I ease down onto my ass, sitting next to her with the bottle between us. “And if you see someone who can down vodka without a chaser like that? They have wounds that sting worse than the alcohol.”
I look out across the lake at all the empty houses, their vacant windows and unlit back porches.
“We used to come here all the time when I was young for summer vacation. Rose and I would lie on this dock after we spent the day paddling through the water in the canoe, guessing the shapes in the clouds. Lay out here so long that we came in burnt to a crisp. Who knew the sun could pierce through clouds that much.” She laughs, grabbing at the neck of the bottle again, holding it between her legs.
It had been a long time since I’d heard someone speak about good memories of childhood. Even longer since I knew what it felt like.
I’d become a stranger to my own upbringing.
There are times I remember watching my mother prune her roses out back and how her lemonade tasted after I ran around the yard all day. Or the smell of fresh-baked bread in the kitchen and the sound of laughter.
I remember them, but it’s like they happened to another person.
As if I was a ghost in the home, watching my young self, never truly experiencing those moments of joy.
Now, they don’t even seem real. Mirages I’d made up so my conscious mind could deal with my current home life.
“When we came inside, giggling, sun drunk, happy, my mother looked at us as if we’d committed treason.” She swings her arm out, pointing to the bleak water, a stern frown on her face. “She’d say, ‘Girls! Women pay millions to fix wrinkles and saggy skin from staying out too much in the sun. You’ll ruin that tight skin. And Sage, you know better. Rosie’s skin is going to turn tan by tomorrow, and you’re going to look like an oversized tomato for weeks!’”
“So I was right all along. Your mom is a cunt.”
“She is. She always has been.” Sage laughs, nodding in agreement. Sobering up, she continues. “That was the first time I remember being jealous of my sister. The first time this ugly, green thing made me angry at someone I have always admired.”
I let her talk freely, listening to her words as she spills her guts out while simultaneously filling it with liquor.
“The jealously only grew over the years. After what happened here, after what they let him do to me when all the lights were out and the parties ended, I got mean and spiteful. Putting gum in her hair once while she slept. Covered her sneakers in mud. Said horrible things, all the while thinking why was I the one he touched. Why he passed her bedroom, only to sneak into mine.” Her voice chokes on tears she won’t let fall, refusing to be that vulnerable with me.
“It was a vicious cycle that led me here to this point of hating myself. Instead of wishing it never happened to either of us, I was furious it wasn’t happening to Rose. Envious that she was so blissfully unaware and happy. God, how awful is that? How awful am I?”
My fingers tighten around the Zippo in my hoodie pocket at the thought of an innocent little girl conditioned to hate her other half, groomed and defiled when she was only a child. While I’m not one to speak on good deeds or human decency, even I know how disgusting it was. How fucking nasty her parents are for letting it happen, for not choking that son of a bitch with their bare hands.
Sage is living a life without justice. Alone.
“I love my sister, Rook. I know how I felt, what I’ve done to her was wrong, and I’d do anything in the world to take it
back. I would do anything to protect her from something bad happening again, to protect her from our parents, from me—”
“Don’t compare yourself to them,” I interrupt, looking over at her. “You were a child.”
She meets my gaze, hair wild and knotted from the bike ride here. “But I’m not now.”
“And there is still time to be different, make amends. Rose loves you, defends your every breath. There aren’t burned bridges there,” I tell her.
We’d never seen the two of them argue in person besides the diner, but even when Alistair would make a snarky comment about Sage being a bitch, Rose would bite his head off.
They are twins, after all, no matter the hurt that lingers between them.
“I wouldn’t know how to be different. Not here. Here I feel like I’m drowning constantly, suffocating just below the surface. I’m under this lake screaming for someone to help, for someone to save me, and they all just sit at the dock. Watching me.”
Tension eats at me, ready to give her this tiny piece of revenge over the crimes committed. Ready to blast this house to fucking shambles and all the bad memories inside of it.
Maybe then she’ll be able to swim to the surface.
With a sigh, she stands up, legs wobbling as she tries to gain her footing. I swiftly grab at her waist while rising from my own sitting position, holding her steady so she doesn’t actually drown in the lake.
“Easy. Booze doesn’t make people the most coordinated creatures in the world, ya know.”
The softness of her body feels odd beneath my firm hands. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Sure, I’ve touched women, but they were all passing cars looking to get their ticket punched, there for the sake of saying, “I fucked a Hollow Boy.”
I can really feel Sage beneath my palms, breathing in her strawberry-scented breath, counting the freckles on her cheeks. For a girl the world thought was made of plastic, God, she feels so fucking real.
“I don’t think I’ve talked this much about myself or my past in, well, ever really.” She laughs. “This feels like a confessional. I think you missed your calling, Van Doren. You should’ve become a priest.”
