DECEIT (B723)

by Hazel Grace

  It’s a thing of mine, waiting, giving me a reason to give up control on the other person.

  When Mac has my back, he sucker-punches me in the neck to which I’m already ready for because I quickly pivot and slam my knuckles into his jaw.

  My uppercut is next, sending him tumbling backward a step before he lunges for me. I dodge, letting him lose his balance, but he catches himself before face-planting into the ground.

  My body shakes at the cool air against the sweat that’s beginning to form from the adrenaline.

  I’m going to end this motherfucker tonight.

  Not only did I watch him take Dad for no reason, but I recall struggling against one of their goons. His hard dick pressed into my back because watching someone die got him off.

  I barely got away that night, was about to get passed around when I poked the dude holding me in the eye, and Kyson showed up. He helped me fight off another guy before we both sprinted towards the woods.

  Two young kids who had to punch, kick, and bite just to survive.

  Mac swings with his right as I evade him, responding back with a stiff jab to his ribcage.

  Then Kyson shows up behind him, pinning his arms back and leaving him exposed just like Cam.

  “Yo,” he snarls as blood drips from his face. “We said man against man.”

  “We changed our minds,” Kyson replies, his tone emotionless and distant.

  It actually kinda freaks me out as he stares at me, waiting for me to make a move—any move—that I want to.

  “It really wasn’t man-on-man when you went after my dad, was it?” I hiss out. “I remember three of you kicking him while he was on fire after he jumped from the car. I think we should return the favor, but with a little twist, what do you say, Ky?”

  “You’re speaking my language now, brother.” That triggers Mac to start thrashing around, attempting to pry himself free and hurling his heels into Kyson’s shins.

  I flick my knife open and jab it into the soft flesh underneath Mac’s ribs, shanking him at least five times before Kyson lets him go. Mac immediately reaches for his side, crimson covering his palms as he turns a paler shade of white.

  “I’m gonna kill you, Bishop,” he sneers through his crooked teeth.

  I toss him my knife, to which he quickly and surprisingly catches. “Go ahead.”

  The speed that Mac acquires with his new advantage is monumental as he rushes me.

  He swings horizontally, his attempt clumsy to get me across the chest or in the gut, but I recoil just in time. With his right palm still on his wound, he gets more sloppy, lurching and veering the sharp weapon every which way.

  The more he moves, the quicker he bleeds out.

  I lift my hand and twirl my finger to tell Kyson we need to wrap this up. When Mac gets close enough to me, I knock the knife out of his grip while Kyson grabs a fist full of his hair, yanking back on his head.

  My best friend’s blade comes up to his neck as he begins to peel the skin off his throat. Mac screams, thrusting his elbow into Kyson’s body.

  Then I flick my Zippo and pull out the travel-sized aerosol can of hairspray that I keep with me in case of emergencies.

  Mac is so preoccupied with the scraping of his flesh that he doesn’t notice me.

  Kyson’s gold eyes meet mine, and he nods, quickly stepping away before I spray the can on Mac’s clothes, then swipe the flame underneath to create a homemade torch.

  Fire roars in the air as Mac’s clothing sets into the reds and yellows of heat.

  I circle him, making sure he’s cased in it. Kyson makes his way to the truck to check on Cam while I finish this shit.

  I empty the can, all together getting Mac’s face in the process. I listen to his screams of agony and cries as his skin begins to melt like my father’s did while his only son watched and heard them for months afterward.

  No one cared.

  No one had the balls to come out of their trailer to stop the Three Terrors, as they called themselves.

  Well, I just eliminated one.

  I received a random call from the St. Anne’s hospital that my ex-girlfriend, Camilla, almost overdosed.

  It wasn’t what totally pissed me off. I found out that Emmy split in the middle of the night, causing my morning to be filled with a mixture of both bitterness and repentance.

  Two fucking things I don’t need right now, but they’re there, and I’m left with nothing but to face them.

  I haven’t spoken to Camilla, but the brief moment she discovered me under Bubba’s engulfed in flames body.

  I said her name, she gaped at me in utter shock and disbelief then ran away.

  Literally sprinted.

  Then there was the time I found her buying cocaine in the basement of the daycare two days ago.

  With Emmy there.

  We didn’t communicate the whole way I drove her home to Shitty Grove trailer park, where she claimed she was staying with a friend.

  So why I’m one of her calls to pick her up—question of the century—but since she’s the only female that’ll speak to me right now, I start with her first. I’m allowing Emmy a day to herself to be pissed at me so we can go back to our semi-normalcy.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Camilla mutters, staring down at my dark oak wood dining table. “I’m putting you out.”

  She is, but I’m not going to verbalize it.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Your brother was staying here for a little while, yeah?” My body grows frigid at the mention of Hardy.

  I don’t want her in my life anymore.

  I left her behind for a reason.

  We’re not gonna become friends, so the mere mention of my brother, who she knows all too well I silently mourned for as a kid and teen, isn’t a conversation we’re going to have.

  “I’ll be out by the end of the week,” Camilla adds in when I don’t answer her question.

  “Just stay until you figure out your next move.” Since my siblings and Madelyn are staying with me at the house, the trailer is useless at this point, and I’m going to sell it by year’s end.

  Camilla gives me a weak smile and picks at the chipped red nail polish on her fingernails. “Haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”

  This is awkward as all fucking hell.

  Not only did Cam and I have a lengthy and painful past, but her actions led to half the reason I shut myself down to feeling anything but anger.

  It’s one thing to watch your mom snort coke and be non-existent. It’s another for your high school sweetheart to know how much it bothered you, only to fall right down the same path.

  I believed I saved her from it.

  I thought my love and plans for the future—our future—would help guide her back to me.

  I could take it, helping her in any which way because Camilla became my world when Scarlett and Hardy were absent. She was my new reason for waking up in the morning and filling in those holes that laid hollow.

  She wasn’t strong enough.

  I wasn’t patient enough.

  Camilla took a shit on me and claimed I needed to deal with it because I had with Mom. Fuck that, she was tearing me up inside. That I bought her a ring and was going to propose after we graduated.

  My feelings meant dog shit.

  And Emmy craves them more than anything.

  I met my wife at the wrong time but glad that Em didn’t have to grow up in the throngs of heinous men and petty crimes.

  When Camilla was held back our senior, I asked Kyson to wait. Our plans were to join the military, and with the benefits of being married, I’d be able to take care of Camilla too. With the three of us, we’d leave this shithole behind and start a new existence.

  It didn’t fucking happen.

  I had to gain my life, and Kyson had already waited for me to graduate, being a year older.

  So I left.

  I left what I thought was the love of my life. I dropped our plans and sold the engagement
ring.

  I disappeared and never reached out to her again.

  “Have you considered…” I let my sentence fade off because I know nothing about this woman anymore and what she’s tried to do and hasn’t done with her life.

  Camilla locks gazes with me and straightens her body. “No.”

  Just like Mom.

  Taking a seat across from her, I settle myself down into a somewhat calm state. Her wavy dark blonde hair is tangled and in need of a comb. The faint sweep of freckles splay over the bridge of her nose, and she’s exactly the same, only over two decades older.

  And if I was an idiot—for her still anyway—I’d still think she was worth it.

  “You think what you’re doing is the best way to be spending your time?”

  “Kace…”

  Alright, fuck this.

  “You’re going to a rehab facility.”

  “Wait, what?” Camilla sounds like I just told her that Santa Claus doesn’t exist and the reindeers don’t fly.

  In complete denial about her addiction and the pretty laid out fact that she needs help.

  Help I can’t give her.

  That I won’t spend my time on because she’s not it for me anymore.

  “I didn’t stutter.” My phone begins to vibrate in my jean pocket, but I don’t make a go to retrieve it.

  Nah, Camilla is going to fight me on this, and I need all my focus on not tossing her out on her ass right now.

  “Kace, no.” She swings her head back and forth. “They don’t work.”

  “You don’t try. And I don’t have time to babysit you.”

  Why the hell I’m doing it now is a combination of bad decisions, old flames, and the fact that I need something to occupy my fucking time since Emmy pulled a Houdini on me.

  “I’m not going,” Camilla retorts, scooting out of her seat and rising to stand. “If you think that this is going to help, it’s not.”

  “Says who?”

  “Me.”

  “It’s time someone lit a fire under your ass, Cam. I’ll just make sure it’s not as much as I inflicted on Bubba.” Her eyes span wider at the bleak reminder. “Time to face the music.”

  “I asked for a fucking ride,” she gripes with contempt. “Not a lecture.”

  “Yeah? Well, where are your other cronies at?”

  Her face twists—she’s pissed—and she starts for the door. My palm slams into her chest above her breasts, and I thrust her spine into the drywall.

  A gasp escapes her lips as I ungraciously let her soak in whatever pain I may have just inflicted.

  “I have a job for you to do since you wasted my time,” I leer, tightening my grip on her pink tee. “I need you to keep your ears and eyes open around here. If any people are riding up in here that don’t belong, let me know.”

  “Why—“ I pull her frame forward a bit, then slam it back into the wall, alluding for her to stop asking me dumb questions.

  “Do it…and you can stay here. Snort snow in here, and I’ll have you out on your ass. Fuck around with me, Camilla, and you’re going to find out what I grew up to be.”

  She tsks, remembering me for who I used to be and not what I’ve become.

  Two different human beings right there.

  “You’d never hurt me, Kace.” Her words are confident as she rises a little on her toes, allowing me to remember us this close before. Two young teenagers in love with the whole dark and unforgiving world ahead of them.

  Her soft but dry lips brush mine before taking my bottom lip between her teeth. She tugs, coaxing me to recall the violent motive that Cam and I have when we’re together.

  To forget everything.

  I don’t remember her moving, but my spine slams into the opposite side of the hall.

  Her arms wrap around my neck, and a flurry of mixed memories flood through me.

  How much she loved me.

  How many times we spent the night in the woods to get away from Shady Grove.

  When I killed for the first time, it was justice for her.

  The dozens upon dozens of occasions she picked cocaine over me.

  “Still, my hero,” she whispers against my lips. “And my biggest regret.”

  A crest of anger blankets over me, and I shove her back into the other side, but our union doesn’t break—no, it intensifies.

  My rage for everything Emmy and how Camilla made me second best. How I know to mirror some of Camilla’s bad habits with bottling up anything or anyone else in a way where we can just hurt and enable ourselves.

  Camilla with her white powder.

  Me with violence.

  Our bodies barrel into my bedroom door, but I spin us around so that my frame is always in control.

  Never again will Camilla have the upper hand on me—ever.

  My teeth sink into her tongue in warning to not push me any further. That we’re not the same people anymore.

  That I’m not the Kace Bishop who worshiped and adored her.

  He’s dead.

  “Keep your eyes open, Camilla. I’m not going to ask again.”

  “These are the streets, Kace.” Her palm trails down my sternum and to my stomach. “And they don’t rat.”

  “Call it being old acquaintances. You’ll make yourself useful to me.”

  Her lips slow against mine, demanding me to feel this—us, in the same room. The same space we first had sex in. Where we used to cuddle up at night and talk.

  “I want to be.” Her fingers find the waistband of my jeans. “I always did.”

  I mentally shake my head. I’m not talking about our bullshit past but the present.

  She falls back and takes me with her by the loops of my pants. My legs straddle her sides as possessive arms wrap around my neck.

  “Fucking me isn’t going to get me what I need,” I snarl into her mouth.

  “I can’t…Kace. The streets aren’t forgiving.”

  Past meet present.

  My hand snatches up the pillow above her head, and I break from her greedy lips.

  Covering the cushion over her face, I pull down on either side before leaning over to say, “Neither am I.”

  Camilla immediately begins to thrash underneath me, but my weight keeps her from making much of an effort.

  I’m done with playing nice.

  I won’t be fucking around when I have the only blood family I have left under my protection.

  The front door of the double-wide opens, announcing Kyson’s arrival to be my mental backup.

  That and he wouldn’t take no for an answer when I told him I was bringing Camilla to my trailer for a place to crash.

  Tossing the pillow to the side, Camilla’s gasps for air is like a demon just got exorcized from her frame.

  I’m off her and at the end of the bed when I say, “I had Kyson pick up a few of your things from your friend’s trailer.” Camilla comes up on her elbows, and I watch her cower when I lean in. “Fail me…I dare you.”

  Her bulging blues flick behind me, alluding to my friend’s entrance. She must remember how it used to be—he and I were inseparable. Not only was he my best friend, but he was my brother.

  Through thick and thin and even Camilla’s bullshit, Ky was the rationality, the rock, and the voice I needed to get me through.

  He’s the reason I’m still alive.

  “Here’s your shit,” my best friend leers, not hiding his resentment for the woman who tore me apart piece by piece and tossing a small brown duffle bag onto the bed.

  Camilla raises her chin. “I don’t need—“

  “Take it,” Kyson grits out. “You’re more trouble than you’re fucking worth.”

  He pivots on his heels, clearly already having enough, and I follow, needing some space and my own drug to muddle up my rising temper to less dangerous levels.

  When the door clicks shut behind us, Kyson immediately starts on his tangent.

  “Let’s not make this a repeating offense, Bish. We’ve dealt with this bit
ch once, why are we doing it again?”

  Call it old habits die hard, I don’t know.

  “Not right now.” I wave a hand in the air to get him to shut up. “I’m not in the mood, and I just might kill you.”

  “She doesn’t deserve your kindness after the bullshit she’s pulled.”

  “Again—“ I yank out my antique cigarette case from my back pocket and pluck out my rolled blunt. “—shut the hell up.”

  Kyson steps up on me, almost level to my eyes but, thank fuck for small things, I’m an inch taller. “The fuck is your deal?”

  I flick my Zippo lighter. “My what?”

  “You think I don’t know?” Kyson furrows his red eyebrows at me. “You think I’m that blind?”

  “Later.” I clasp my lips around my joint, then blaze the end.

  “This can’t wait.”

  I pivot, needing to clear my head. “Yeah, it can.” Kyson palms the back of my tee and yanks, causing me to whirl around, baring my teeth. “What the fuck did I say?”

  “You wanna do this?” He erases the rest of the space between us until we’re almost nose to nose. “Beat my ass over this bitch now? Pull your head out of your ass, Bish, or you’ll never get another chance.”

  I push at his chest. “A fucking chance for what?”

  “Emmy.”

  My eyes shut on their own. Like she has this spelled casted on me to cause my mental pain just to think about what we don’t have anymore.

  I don’t want to think about it or her or anything.

  Camilla proves to be the best distraction for the events, or lack of that are happening with my wife.

  I failed her like she pestered me. We didn’t communicate, we fought, but it would end up in one of us leaving or screwing each other to ignore the real problem.

  The humane thing to do would be file for divorce and allow Emmy a chance of happiness.

  The selfishness in me refuses to grant her any space, man, or peace without me.

  “I’m only going to say this once,” I seethe, feeling a discomfort in my jaw from clenching it so hard. “Then I’m not saying it again.”

  “Alright.”

  “She doesn’t want me. Do you know what that means? It means no future. That she just craved the bad boy with fucking issues. I’d be better off with Camilla because at least I’d be aware of what I was getting myself into, and I won’t need to hide it from the world or my best friend.”