by Hart, Callie
When Kacey comes to a halt before me, she doesn’t meet my eyes. She tosses something at my feet, sighing tiredly. It’s my purse. “What did I tell you?” she spits.
“Wh—what?”
“What did I tell you before, in the bathroom with Zen? I said he wasn’t for you, didn’t I? I told you not to get involved with Jake. Now look at the steaming pile of shit you’ve landed yourself in. I’m sick of your crap, Silver. Honestly, I am.”
Halliday dips her head, crying quietly. She looks from me to Kacey and then back at me, as if what she’s seeing take place cannot be stopped, but she can’t look away.
Kacey finally looks up. She’s always been hard. Always had trouble dealing with her feelings. Anger has always been the only emotion she’s ever felt safe unleashing on the world, but even her anger is absent now as she looks me up and down. “You made your bed, Silver. I’m afraid you’re gonna have to lie in it. Go home. I don’t even want to look at you, and neither do the other girls. The Sirens can’t be seen to be hanging around with trash like you.”
It happens just like that. Quick, like tearing off a Band-Aid. Kacey leaves and she doesn’t look back. She does pause on in the doorway of the house, the light throwing her into shadow as she waits with one hand resting against the doorjamb.
“Halliday! Get inside this house now, or you’ll find yourself stuck out there with her forever.”
She doesn’t mean stuck outside the house. She means stuck on the outside, shut out from the light and warmth of her good graces, forever shivering in the loneliness of the long shadow she casts. Halliday gives me one last, torn look, before she leaves and follows Kacey inside.
The next hour is hell. Alone, I walk barefoot to the end of the driveway and wait for the Uber I order on my phone. The driver thinks I’m drunk and nearly doesn’t let me in the car. He threatens me with extortionate cleaning bills if I throw up, but finally drives me across Raleigh to the pharmacy on the high street. Just as Sam said it would be, Dillinger’s store front is lit up, the only business besides the gas station that’s still open at three a.m. on a Friday night.
The Uber guy knows I’m not drunk now. He’s actually kind of concerned for me, I think. “You want me to wait for you, kid?”
I haven’t even looked at him once. I’ve sat on the backseat, vibrating with terror because I’ve managed to trap myself in such a small space, alone with a man. “No, I’ll be fine. Thank you.” My legs threaten to ditch me in the gutter when I climb out of the car. It takes some convincing, but I manage to talk them into keeping me upright.
The Uber driver’s window buzzes down. A face appears there, but still I don’t look at him. “I’d prefer to see you walk through your front door if it’s all the same to you,” he says. “My name’s Harry. I got a daughter your age. I’d feel like a shit father if I didn’t make sure you got back safely. Looks like you’ve had a bit of a tough night.”
A tough night…
I try and think of an adequate word to describe just how tough tonight has been, but I don’t think the English language harbors a word brutal enough. It is possible to walk home from town, but it’d would be a miserable hike with no shoes, feeling like my world has just ended. I could call for another Uber, but chances are high the next driver will also be a guy, and maybe next time that driver won’t be so concerned about my wellbeing. Maybe he’ll see me as an opportunity and take advantage. I am so, so fucking tired. “Okay. I won’t be a minute.”
The lights inside Dillinger’s Pharmacy are too bright. A strong medical, herbal smell hits me as soon as I walk in, making my head spin. The dress shirt I stole from Mr. Wickman’s laundry basket has an ink blot above the left-hand breast pocket that’s shaped almost like a crescent moon. I dab at it self-consciously—ridiculous, since I’m naked underneath the shirt and the material barely hits me mid-thigh. Not to mention my face is still stained with the remnants of my mascara, I’m covered in blood, and my feet are absolutely filthy.
The woman behind the counter sees me and stops dead, a phone handset half raised to her ear. “Sweet Mary, Mother of God,” she breathes. “What on earth’s happened to you, child?” She’s in her fifties. Blonde hair, greying at her temples. Short. A little stocky. Not a lick of makeup on her face. Her eyebrows are out of control. I can’t seem to stop noticing the details of her. When I get close enough, arriving at the counter, I smell her—talcum powder and Altoids—and I almost burst into tears. I don’t even know why.
“Dear, is everything all right?” She puts the phone’s handset back in its cradle. “You look like you’ve been in the wars.”
“I—” My voice breaks. I have to clear my throat. “I need…the morning after…”
The woman’s face leeches of all color. Her facial muscles relax in the weirdest way, like when an actor in a film pretends to die and everything about them just sags. She braces herself against the counter, steadying herself for a second. Then she reaches out for me and takes my hand. “Why don’t you take a seat by the cough medicine over there, sweetheart. I think I should probably call the police.”
“No! No. I just want the get what I came in here for and go home. I—” My throat’s closing up. No matter how hard I try to speak, I can’t seem to get the words out. The pharmacy clerk wobbles, the edges of her distorting strangely. I think I’m going to pass out, but then I realize that I’m crying. “I just…I want to go home.”
“Okay, okay. Dear Lord in Heaven, help me,” the woman mutters. She lets go of me long enough to hurry down one of the narrow shelves behind her, stand on her tiptoes, and retrieve the correct box. She places it gingerly down between us, looking ten years older than she did when I walked in here a few moments ago.
“Can you—will you open it?” I ask stiffly. The box is sealed in thick plastic, the kind they package razor blades in. You always need a pair of scissors to get through that stuff. I have no hope of ripping into it with my teeth. The woman peers at me from beneath tightly banked brows.
“Don’t you want to wait until you get home, sweethear—”
“No.”
She nods, her hands moving quickly as she produces a boxcutter from the pocket of her white jacket and deftly slices through the thick plastic. She removes the box from its casing and hands it to me. I can hardly hold the damn thing still as I fumble to get it open. It takes three attempts to rip the cardboard tab up, and then another two tries to successfully tug the sealed blister pack that contains the one tiny pill free from inside.
“Here, let me get you some water.”
I don’t wait for water. I pop the metal foil on the back of plastic sheet, thumbing the pill free from the other side, and I throw it back as quickly as I can, swallowing hard.
I walk out of the pharmacy without another word.
It isn’t until I’m home, sliding my key into the front door, creeping my way up to my bedroom, desperate not to wake Mom and Dad, that I realize I didn’t even pay for the pill.
A distant siren wails, setting me on edge as I retreat from the waking nightmare. I’m back in the cemetery, back in the freezing cold, staring down at Samuel Hawthorne’s grave. It’s all still so fucking fresh in my mind. It feels like it happened yesterday. Sometimes, it’s as though no time at all has passed and I’m still stuck inside my own paralyzed body outside that window, looking in, unable to move or turn away as I watch my friends turn against me.
“What the hell did you say to her, hmm?” I whisper at the headstone. “What the fuck did you say to Kacey to make her react that way?”
I’ve been asking myself that question for a very long time now. It must have been bad. Really fucking bad. I asked Kacey once, in the days after the party, and she’d spat in my face. Literally.
From his cold, lonely grave, Samuel Hawthorne refuses to confess his secrets.
I sigh, setting the bag down that I’ve been holding onto tight this entire time. Metal clanks on metal as I unzip the top of it, taking out a chisel and a hammer from inside. Dad�
��s tools, borrowed from the garage. Most of his time’s spent in front of a drafting desk these days, but back when he was in college he took a stone masonry class. He’s been promising himself that he’ll get back into it at some point, but so far he hasn’t had the time.
I have no idea how to use the chisel and the striking tool I’ve taken out of the bag, but I understand the general premise. Plant the chisel. Hit the chisel. Leave a mark.
I get to work.
It’s more difficult than I imagine it would be, but twenty minutes later I achieve what I set out to accomplish. My stone working skills leave a lot to be desired, but the word I’ve chipped deep into Sam Hawthorne’s headstone is perfectly legible.
Devoted Son.
Beloved Friend.
Talented Sportsman.
RAPIST
Mallory Hawthorne’s a fucking amateur. She thinks no one knows that she’s the one who sneaks into the Raleigh Gardens of Rest every Tuesday night and scrawls the word murderer onto Leon Wickman’s headstone. While red spray paint might look rather dramatic, it does come off with a stiff brush, soap, and a little elbow grease.
I, on the other hand, have thought this through long and hard. There’s no way in hell anyone’s washing this away.
TEXT MESSAGE RECEIVED:
+1(564) 987 3491: your not gonna make it to graduation, silver. your gonna wind up wishing youd never been fucking born.
2
ALEX
I’ve done some pretty shady things in the past. Up until now, I’ve never fucking killed anyone before, though. In my hand, the gun Monty pressed into my chest as I left the Rock an hour ago feels like a ticking time bomb. It’s a thing of beauty, all sleek lines and cold, unforgiving black steel, but I fucking hate the thing. I want nothing to do with it.
Some people might assume my hatred of guns comes from my recent brush with death in the Raleigh High School library. At night, when I’m alone in the trailer, I sometimes find myself pressing my fingertips into the neat, violet scar I earned myself that day, flinching, my body jolting with the memory of the burning metal hitting my chest. I still feel that same breathless, creeping cold, seeping through my veins when I close my eyes sometimes, too. However, that isn’t the reason why I have to grind my teeth together, battling to keep my arm steady as I aim the gun at the back of Peter Westbrook’s head tonight.
No.
I hate guns because of what happened the day I came home from school, a skinny six-year-old with both front teeth missing, and I found my mother lying in a pool of her own blood with half her fucking head blown off. Compared to that memory, the knee-jerk recall of the moment six weeks ago when Kacey Winters shot her ex-boyfriend and inadvertently hit me in the process, is a walk in the fucking park.
“Listen, man. I don’t know what Monty told you, but I don’t owe him shit,” Westbrook grouses. He doesn’t seem all that bothered by the fact that I’m pointing a gun at the back of his head. He seems a little bored. Clearly, he doesn’t think I’m going to shoot him, but he did drop reluctantly down to his knees when I barked out the command ten minutes ago. “He placed an order. He got what he paid for. Five cases. I know Monty’s not too shit-hot with math, but this is simple fucking kindergarten stuff, kid. One, two, three, four, five.” He shrugs, sighing under his breath. “Maybe the stupid bastard should stick to slinging shots and shooting porno down in that basement of his. You can tell him from me, he’s not very good at—”
The butt of the gun makes a dull cracking sound as I bring it down on the back of Westbrook’s head. I could have split his fucking skull open with such a heavy monster of a weapon but I’ve opted for mild concussion instead. “What’s the point in opening your mouth, Pete, if all you do is lie? I don’t have a clue what Monty ordered. All I know is that he’s missing a black duffel bag. I don’t know what’s inside the bag, and I don’t wanna know, either. I was told to come here and collect it…and I was told to make life really uncomfortable for you if you didn’t hand it over.”
A thin stream of blood runs down the back of Westbrook’s neck, leeching into the white fabric of his collared shirt. I can’t stop staring at the redness of it. The man turns his head ever so slightly, his face in profile, a knowing, smug smile pulling his mouth up at the corner. “And how the hell are you planning on doing that?” Clearly, he thinks I’m wet behind the ears. Inexperienced. So green that I’ll hesitate the second things begin to get violent. Over the past month, Monty’s tasked me with all kinds of fucked up assignments, though. I’ve been recovering from a goddamn gunshot wound, aching every time I twist without thinking, but my boss at the Rock hasn’t given me much of a break. Seems like I’ve been getting my hands dirty every other fucking day. If I have to make Westbrook hurt so I can get the fuck out of here and back to Silver, then I won’t fucking hesitate.
There isn’t much I wouldn’t do in order to get back to Silver.
Casually leaning back against Westbrook’s desk, I consider how best to deal with the lying sack of shit. Monty’s careful with his words to the point of paranoia. He’s never told me to break anyone’s bones. He’s never commanded me to put someone in the hospital directly, but his intentions are always very clear. If I don’t come back from Bellingham with this black duffel bag, Monty expects me to wreak havoc here tonight. He’ll be sorely disappointed if I leave this guy standing.
I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m going to have to lay into Westbrook, when he disrupts my thoughts. “You’re the Moretti kid, aren’t you?” he says. “Jack’s boy.”
The fact that he’s used my father’s nickname doesn’t really mean much. Giacomo’s hardly a common name around these parts; most people were more comfortable referring to him as Jack. It doesn’t mean he knew him. I still hesitate, though. My father fled Washington State so long ago that it is unusual to come across anyone who remembers him. Hearing him mentioned here, in this dark, seedy office, with its lacquered wood paneling and its plush cream carpet underfoot feels...just fucking…wrong. “Your Pop never liked Monty,” Westbrook says mildly. “He’d probably spit teeth if he knew that limp-dicked bastard had laid a claim on you.”
“Shut the fuck up, Pete. My father’s irrelevant. Do you have the bag or not?”
Smiling, Westbrook lets his head hang loose, his chin resting against his chest. He’s in his forties—a well-dressed, well-made, solid looking dude with hands the size of fucking shovels. I think he used to be a bare-knuckle boxer back in the day. He certainly made a lot of his money placing bets in rigged fights. “I’m curious. Has Monty ever explained why he took you in, Moretti?” he asks.
I clench my jaw, grinding my teeth together. “The bag. Tell me if you’ve got it, or I’m gonna fucking rip your arms out of joint.”
“He used to do runs for Monty, y’know. Your old man. Just like you are now. Though Jack was a little more convincing when he showed up on a guy’s doorstep with a mind to threaten him. It was his eyes. So fucking dark and soulless. There was something primitive about ol’ Jackie boy. When you looked at him and he looked back at you, you lost all hope. You saw right away that he wasn’t like other men. He operated on a level that the rest of us have evolved away from. Sex. Food. Money. Power. Those were the only things that mattered to Jack. The bare essentials required for survival. There was no appealing to his empathy. No sense of injustice. He didn’t possess either. There was only the bottom line for Jack. God help you if you ended up on his shit list.”
I was five when my father bailed. Old enough to have a few memories of the man stored away in the back of my mind, but young enough that the edges of those memories seem soft and blurry, like they might not even be real, or perhaps I imagined them. I remember feeling glued to the floor when the sick fuck was mad at me, though. I remember panic crawling insidiously up the back of my neck every time he raised his fist to strike me…because I knew with a concrete certainty that he was going to follow through.
Westbrook’s barking up the wrong fucking tree if he thin
ks bringing up my father is going to endear him to me. If anything, he’s making this situation much, much worse. “You got kids?” I ask, my voice as stiff as my posture.
Westbrook laughs. “If I say yes, are you going to spare me the torture of this bullshit interrogation?”
“Answer the question.”
“Yeah, I got kids. Three. Two boys and a girl.”
“Nice. You beat ‘em? Abandon ‘em? You raise your fist to their mother?”
He doesn’t say anything now. The smile slips slowly from his face.
“Probably best if we don’t talk about my father and we concentrate on the matter at hand, huh, Pete?”
The ice in my tone must chill him. He swallows thickly, adjusting his weight. “There’s always bad blood between a father and his son. There’s always a reason why one hates the other. Jack didn’t abandon you, though, Moretti. He ran because Monty—”
I’ve officially had enough of this bullshit. I won’t listen to another word that comes out of his mouth. I’m done. I’m used up and spent by men like Peter Westbrook—men who renege on deals, who waltz around in their thousand-dollar suits, driving their Mercs through the gates of private, guarded communities, where they’re safe and protected from the outside world. Westbrook’s the worst kind of stuck up asshole. A bigot, through and through. He wasn’t born into a life of comfort and luxury. He was born in the gutter, just like me. He’s raised himself pretty damn high over the course of his lifetime, and I respect that, but fuck me if I’m going to let the motherfucker think he’s better than me because of it.
I discard the gun; the metal clunks heavily as I set the weapon aside on Westbrook’s desk. The flick knife I pull from my pocket doesn’t fill me with the same discomfort as the gun. I actually feel a little relieved as I turn the handles over, flipping the blade open, pivoting the knife so that the spine of the metal is pressing against the edge of my hand.
