by Tijan
“Of course.” Seth answers calmly as I roll up the sleeves to my shirt. I’m careful and meticulous, but even so, I know I’m on edge. I’m on the verge of losing it and I haven’t even touched the surface yet. He adds, “One of our first regulars,” when I don’t respond.
I made the mistake of watching the video Marcus sent me the second I got out of the park. I brought Hal here and waited. I didn’t sleep, I didn’t go home. I just waited until Seth said Hal was alert enough to go through with this.
Like always, he’s standing behind Mr. Hal, who’s in the interrogation chair. Although there’s no interrogation today.
There are no questions for him. No need for a shirt to smother his screams. I want to hear them. I want the memories of tonight to somehow mask the memories I have of Angie’s last day.
“You remember her?” I question Hal, feeling that crease deepen in the center of my forehead as I pick up the hammer. It’s an ordinary hammer.
The tool of choice is fitting. Angie’s dad worked as a carpenter. When he died, she went off the rails, that’s what she told me once when she was struggling with her sobriety. It was easier than dealing with reality and the party drugs she bought for weekends became necessary every day. And then a few times every day. And then harder drugs. Just so she didn’t have to think about her dead father.
So it made sense to me to choose a hammer.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” the man answers. Confidently, stubbornly, like somehow he’s got the upper hand here. Maybe he thinks I actually have questions, but I don’t. All I have for him is a story.
I watch the light shine off the flat iron head of the hammer as I walk closer to him. There are no cuts on his wrists from trying to escape, nothing that shows any fear. And that’s fine by me. I don’t want him scared, I want him in pain. In fucking agony the way Angie was.
In the same agony Bethany’s stuck in. The thought strikes me hard, and I hate it. I want it to go away. More than anything, I want her pain to stop.
My arm whips in front of me, the metal crashing against the man’s jaw and morphing his scream into a cry of agony in a single blow.
The left side of his jaw hangs a little lower and the man fights against his restraints as he screams from the impact.
Glancing at the splatter of blood across my dress shirt, a huff of a breath leaves me, trying to calm the rage, trying to calm the need to not stop.
But Bethany’s pain never stops. It never fucking ends.
“Marcus showed me a video. Only one. You knew her,” I say and shrug, like it’s not a big deal. Like he wasn’t forcing himself down her throat while she was high and crying on a dirty floor.
“You knew her better than me,” I comment. Thinking back to who she was before it all went downhill and trying to get the loathsome video out of my mind. If I could bleach it away, I would.
“She came in a lot, but only to get what she needed,” Seth speaks from behind the fucker. He’s reading me, his eyes never leaving me as I pace in front of the chair, waiting for Hal to stop his bitching and moaning.
“I want him to hear this,” I tell Seth, raising my voice just enough for him to know not to console me like he’s trying to do. I don’t need that shit. I don’t need to be told I couldn’t have helped her or I couldn’t have stopped it. I could have. I know I could have if I wasn’t so fucking high on power and young and stupid. It’s more controlled now. But back then, there was no protocol, and we sold to anyone and as much as they wanted.
“She was young, I had the drugs, I couldn’t tell her no at first. She was the first person I told no. The first one where I realized I ruined her life.” I’m staring at this asshole, and he’s not looking at me. He’s whimpering, looking down at his bare feet that are planted on the steel grid beneath him. He’s not paying attention, so I swing the hammer again. Down onto his right foot. Crack! And then the left. The clang of the metal and the crack of small bones ricochets in the room. The black and blue on his skin is instant.
He screams and cries, but all it does is make me angry. He didn’t care that Angie cried. He didn’t care about what he did to her. He can mourn for his own pain all he wants, but it’s not enough.
I have to walk away, seeing Bethany’s face and knowing she wouldn’t approve of this. What alternative is there though? To let this world turn with no consequence?
It’s the fact that we feel pain when others feel nothing. This man feels nothing. The regret is hard enough and the guilt too, but walking around in a world where it isn’t acknowledged, where those feelings travel alone… it’s a hell that hides in every corner.
Hal cusses at me, spitting at my feet and sneering an expression of hate. He can’t hold it long though. I slowly draw the sharp edge of the hammer across his throat as I speak.
“It was my fault, Hal. My fault that she got hooked and when she did, I sent her away. We’d only just begun in this game. We were bound to make mistakes. And Angie Davis was one of them.”
Fuck, the guilt comes back full force just saying her name.
“I told her no, only a few months after I met her. I gave her the sweets, I told her to get better and then she could come back. Instead, she found you.”
If she hadn’t come to me, if Angie had gone to Bethany instead… My fiery woman, she would have known what to do. “Angie wanted help, she really did.” I equate her to Jenny in this moment. Wondering if it really would have been different. If she really wanted help and if Bethany could have fixed her. I wish I could go back.
I can smash this hammer into his head, but I can’t take her pain away. There’s not a damn thing I can do to take Bethany’s pain away
I think the words Hal’s trying to say are, “Please, don’t,” as he spits up blood. It only reminds me of the way Angie said it in the video I saw hours ago. Please, don’t.
“It’s fine to party and have a good time, but she was slipping. She wasn’t herself. Addiction grabbed hold of her and wasn’t letting go. Anyone and everyone could see it.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Seth comments, nodding his head even as looks at me like he has nothing but sympathy for me. Fuck that. I don’t need sympathy. I don’t deserve sympathy.
“I remember. She was clinging to you crying, begging you for more.” Seth still hasn’t accepted what I have. Every word he says sounds like an excuse. “You sent her away with a way to help her.”
Fuck, I should have known better. I wasn’t in it like Carter was. I’d only just started and I didn’t realize the ripple effect and the tidal wave it was capable of creating.
“I was young and I was stupid. I gave her whatever she wanted and however much she said she needed. Even when I knew it was getting bad. It took a long time before I sent her away…”
“Jase,” Seth’s tone is warning, cautioning me in where my mind is going, but I cut him off.
“No.” My response echoes in the room even though it’s pushed through gritted teeth while I tap the hammer in my hand, blood and all, as I add, “I take that blame. It’s my fault. All of it.”
Lifting the hammer up, I point it at Hal. “But you,” I start to speak. I can’t get the rest out though. I can’t voice where this story inevitably turns.
Instead I crash the hammer onto his knees. Bashing them relentlessly. Then his thighs. His arms. Every bone I can break.
Screams and hot blood surround me. The man’s cries get louder and louder. Does he cry in front of me at the memory? Or at the realization that there’s no way he’s getting out of this room alive?
It’s what I’ve wanted for so long, some kind of justice for Angie, but I thought it would feel different. I thought it would feel better than this.
Instead the pain seeps into my blood, where it runs rampant in my body. The memories refuse to stop.
With a deep inhale I back away, letting the screams dull as I think about how sunken in her face was when she came to me after a month of being gone. I didn’t know. I didn’t take responsibility for what I’d d
one, and I let her walk out, thinking she’d be fine.
Because that was the story I wanted to hear.
“She told me things you had her do, but you didn’t have a name then. How you took advantage of her. You had others come in while she was tied down on the table. She told me how she didn’t even care when you tossed the heroin at her. That she remembers how badly she needed the hit. Even as you and the other men laughed at her and what you’d done.”
Seth isn’t expecting the next blow I give to the guy, straight across his jaw. He lets out a shout of surprise as the blood sprays from the gushing wound, down Seth’s jeans and onto his shoes.
The once clean, bright white sneakers with a red streak are now doused in blood.
He takes a step back, getting out of my way and keeping his hands up in the air. He’s acting like I’m the one who’s gone crazy. But how could I be sane if the very thought of what happened didn’t turn me mad?
“Seth, she ever tell you the things she did when we sent her away?” I ask him. Feeling a pain rip my insides open.
He shakes his head. His dark eyes are shining with unwanted remorse.
“She said she did shit she was so ashamed of, she couldn’t tell me. She said she didn’t deserve to live.”
I smash the hammer down onto Hal’s shoulder. But he doesn’t scream this time and that only makes me hit him harder. Still, he’s silent. His head’s fallen to one side and I don’t care. Maybe his ghost will hear me.
“All the money and all the power in the world, and I couldn’t save her,” I scream at the man. “You know why?” I keep talking to him. To the dead man. Feeling my sanity slip. “Why I couldn’t save her?” I ask him, knowing Seth’s eyes are on me, hearing his attempts to calm me down but ignoring him.
“Because she couldn’t live with the things she’d done when she wasn’t sober. She remembered it all. And she couldn’t deal with it.”
There is never true justice in tragedy.
You have to live with yourself after what’s done is done.
“Angie couldn’t do it,” I tell him. “She couldn’t live with the memories and she couldn’t forgive herself.”
I locked her in a room to help her get over the withdrawal. I gave her the pills and I gave her a safe place.
She killed herself.
“She had a sister. She had a mother who needed her. I couldn’t even get out of the car at the funeral because of how they were crying.”
It’s the endings that don’t have an honest goodbye that hurt the most. They linger forever because the words were never spoken.
I don’t know who I’m talking to at this point. Seth or a man who didn’t feel remorse for what he’d done, only for himself. I should have made him suffer longer. I should have controlled myself.
I hate that I ever sold her anything. I hate that the beautiful redhead at the bar would never smile again. All because of a dime bag of powder that took her far away from the world she wanted to leave. All because I sold it to her.
Every blow, I would take too. I deserve it.
Bethany should do to me what I’ve just done to this man. I led Jenny down that path. We sold her drugs, we bribed her with them for information. Even if it wasn’t her first or her last, I know we sold her something and then let her walk away.
The thought only makes me slam the iron of the hammer down harder and more recklessly. Crashing into his face, his shoulders and arms. Every part of him. Over and over again, feeling all the anger, the pain, the sadness run through me, urging me to do it again and again.
When my body gives out and I fall to the floor on my knees, heaving in air, I finally stop. Letting my head fall back, and closing my eyes.
I could never tell Bethany. She deserves to hate me. I don’t deserve her love, let alone her forgiveness. Not any of it.
Bethany
The very idea of leaving three hundred thousand dollars in the back of a car makes me want to throw up. People kill for this kind of money.
I can hardly even believe I actually have that amount. I didn’t count it and I don’t intend to. I don’t want to touch it. All I did was unzip the bag once and then close my eyes again, pretending like I didn’t see it.
Three hundred thousand dollars. I don’t know what Laura did to get this money, but maybe I can give it right back to her. I don’t think Jase gives a shit about the debt. A very large part of me believes it’s more than that.
I won’t know until I do this. Although sickness churns inside of me at the possibilities, I focus on the one thing I want to happen. I hand it to him, telling him honestly where it came from. He hands it back, telling me it’s not my money and he doesn’t want it.
“That’s what will happen,” I say for the dozenth time under my breath to no one. Maybe the dozenth is the trick, because I’m starting to believe it.
He wasn’t home when I got back last night and he wasn’t home when I woke up after only sleeping a handful of hours. He didn’t answer my texts. He’s nowhere to be found. The money was in the car while I paced inside waiting and waiting. I finally had to come out and make sure it was still there. I ended up getting in, just to kill time rather than pacing and pacing. I drove past the graveyard a few times, but I never got out of the car.
Pulling out the keys from the ignition, I stare up at the large estate, going over the dialogue in my head one more time.
The debt is paid. The time we had together was time I spent with you and nothing more and nothing less. That’s what I’m going to say to him. I can do it.
I’m burning up in the car, the sweat along my skin won’t quit. I know part of it is from the duffle bag in the back. I look over my shoulder once again, just like I have the entire drive down here last night and even an hour ago to make sure it didn’t magically disappear.
Part of this anxiousness though is because I don’t know what Jase will say or what he’ll do with me once the money’s handed over.
It’s not just a debt. I know that. It can’t be just a debt to him.
Opening the car door lets the cool air hit me and I relish in it. Calming down and shaking out my hands.
This world Jenny brought me into… I’m not fighting it anymore. I’m walking into it, ready for what it will bring me. It’s another step forward. I can feel it. Just like telling Laura everything. Maybe it’s a small step, but it’s one I’m taking.
My heels click on the paved path to his door. The door that I open on my own.
He could take that away, but why would he? The doubts swirl and mix with the fear that what we have is only about the debt. Maybe he likes holding it over my head; maybe he thinks he won’t have the upper hand if I pay it off.
That thought actually eases the tension in me. He’s never going to have the upper hand when it comes to me. He should know that by now.
Calm, confident and collected I walk into the foyer and then past the hall, listening to my heels click in the empty space. The clicks, the thumps, they all only add to the urgency to tell him. To get it off my chest and to get that cash out of the back of my car.
“Jase,” I call out his name, seeing the bedroom door open, but he doesn’t answer.
A chill follows me, bombarding me even as I stand in the threshold of the dark bedroom and see only the light from the bathroom.
There are moments in time when you know instinctively everything is wrong. You know you’re going to see something that you don’t want to see. It’s like there’s a piece of our soul that’s been here before. A piece that’s preparing you for what’s to come. Warning you even. And maybe if I was smarter, I’d take the warning and I wouldn’t step foot into his bedroom.
I’m not smart enough though.
With the sound of running water getting louder as I approach, I creep quietly to his master bath.
The water’s so loud I’m sure he couldn’t hear me. That’s what I tell myself.
Thump, my heart doesn’t want to be here. Thump, it wants me to stop. I test the doorknob, a
nd it’s not locked. Something inside of me screams not to take this step. Not to go forward. It’s the wrong time, I’m not ready for it. I can feel it trying to pull me away.
But I’m already turning the knob and with a creak, I push the door open.
I catch sight of his clothes on the floor first; he’s still hidden from view from where I’m standing. The mix of bright and dark red splotches and smears wraps a vise around my lungs.
I can’t breathe, but I still move forward.
Blood. There’s blood on his shirt. That’s blood, isn’t it? Fear wriggles its way deeper inside of me, like a parasite taking over.
“Jase,” I barely speak his name while taking a small step forward. My gaze moves from the blood on his clothes piled on the tile floor, to his naked body seated on the edge of the tub. He’s covered with the way he’s sitting, and his head’s lowered, hanging heavy in front of him. I’m not sure he heard me the way he’s sitting there. Like he’s stunned, like his mind is elsewhere, lost in another place or another time.
Despair is crippling and I swallow hard. My trembling fingers reach out to pick up his shirt, wanting to believe it’s not blood. There’s not a mark on his skin, no cuts or bruises that are fresh. The cut I gave him is scabbed over.
The warmth of the air flows around me as I step closer and lift the shirt off the floor. It can’t be blood, Jase isn’t injured. Jase is fine.
But it looks like it. I don’t understand. There’s so much blood, in different patterns. Smeared and stained into the undershirt. I still don’t want to believe it. I wish it would be anything else. My head spins as I grip the shirt tighter, staring at it as if it’ll change, it’ll go back to being clean if only I look at it the right way. But it’s blood. There’s so much blood, my hands are wet with it.
“Bethany.” Jase’s voice catches me off guard and I scream, pulling the shirt into my chest out of instinct before shoving it away when I realize I’ve pressed the bloody clothes to my own.
I could throw up with the revolting disgust and fear that sink into my bones. The blood is on me.
