Murder

by Ella James

  I turn and move as quietly as I can back toward my cabin, vowing to myself to stay away from him.

  BARRETT

  My knees slam down against the floor; I grab the toilet seat and barely get my head over the bowl before I’m vomiting.

  I know it’s Red Bull, but it smells like liquor. Tastes like liquor. Stings like liquor.

  My body’s numb and heavy. Still, I feel a door beside me, bumping my elbow as my body lurches.

  Bluebell grabs my arm. As my body heaves and puke splashes on my lap, I feel a heavy arm around my shoulders.

  “Fucking hell, man.” Blue’s hand comes under my right arm, holding me against him as the car swerves. “Dove, take the road right there. That one!”

  “Is that a road?”

  “Yes. Take it!”

  “Fuck, we’re gonna track.”

  “They’ll be gone in half an hour.”

  I feel Blue shift back against his seat and hear his voice closer to me. “Shit, Bear. Is it just the liquor?”

  Between hurling, I rasp, “Yeah.”

  I wrap my hand around one of the metal rods that lock the headrest of the front passenger’s seat into the chair and try to aim toward the floor. Far away, I feel the chaos of anxiety as my teammates buzz and the world riots around me.

  “All right,” Breck says roughly. “We’ll get where we’re going and there’ll be a shower.”

  Between gasping, I groan, “I don’t care.”

  That’s where it ends. I’m always sick until my throat is raw, my eyes and nose are running, neck and jaw are sore. I grip the toilet, moving between then and now, not sure where I’d rather be when I’m aware enough to monitor what’s going on. There with that or here with this.

  Breck’s gone.

  Re-realizing that prolongs my stomach’s rebellion. Sounds of retching echo in the bathroom, gasping, gagging, panting… Then it’s over and I just want to shower.

  With my right arm flung across the toilet seat, I tilt my throbbing head down, looking down at my chest through streaming eyes. The room feels like it’s tilting.

  You’re not drunk, you dumb fuck. Get up.

  I wipe my right forearm across my mouth and grab onto the partial wall between the toilet and the countertop. My throat and eyes ache. I squint and blink, then step over to one of the sinks to wash my hands and face.

  No shirt, I notice as I blink into the mirror. I must have torn it off while I was dreaming. Sometimes I do that, thinking that there’s blood on me.

  I look from the shower to the bedroom door. I dry my hands and face with a towel I find under the countertop, then I brush my teeth. Then, with one last look at the shower, I walk into the bedroom.

  My gaze rolls over the bed and side tables. Nothing broken. That’s good. The first time I fell asleep at this place, right after I came in from trying out one of the bows I found in the gun cabinet, I shattered a porcelain lamp on one of the nightstands.

  I look down to the floor beside the bed. All the covers are in a ball, including the blanket I was lying on. I don’t see my pillow at all. I look from the pallet to the bathroom door, trying to remember getting up.

  I can’t. I never can.

  I go to the dresser and pull open the top drawer. It’s the only one with any contents. The Haywoods left some clothes in their closet, but nothing in the dressers. I pull out a soft, thick, camo button-up my brother’s fiancé bought me. If it weren’t for her—a sweet, Georgia girl named Cleo, who insisted I needed some camo for my civvie wardrobe—I wouldn’t have anything to wear. All my shit is still in the apartment in Fort Bragg—a place I still pay rent for. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back in it.

  A glance at one of the windows shows me it’s still mostly dark outside, but the sky has a tinge of color to it.

  I peel my sweat-soaked boxer-briefs off, replacing them with clean ones despite the lack of shower, then tug on some dark pants and socks.

  Only then do I let myself walk over to the window closest to the bathroom and sit slowly in the armchair I’ve dragged up to it.

  I note two Red Bull cans on the floor against the baseboard. I don’t remember leaving them, but that’s not too surprising these days. I crunch them both and set them on the nightstand, in the blank space where the lamp sat. Then I lift my scope and bring it to my left eye.

  Habit.

  I tilt it down toward the trees and blink, trying to see the limbs and tree trunks, the pine needles, and the green rectangle my right eye sees so clearly, plain sight. My left eye sees nothing—a sheet of brown only a little lighter than the black I’d see if the eye was shut.

  My fingers tighten on the scope. Dizziness peels through my head. I breathe. I move the scope to my right eye and peer down through the trees at her green roof. I can see half-squares of light through two of the windows, which are the size of Saltine crackers from the third story of this house.

  My pulse quickens at the sight. I haven’t looked at my phone—knowing the time makes it pass more slowly—but with my pedigree, it’s almost impossible not to gauge the time from the sky. I’d put it at about 4:45. Maybe 5 a.m.

  This is early for her.

  I watch the patches of light bleeding through her windows. I watch the home’s front door until it opens. I watch her until the trees and morning fog engulf her. Then I rest my head against the window pane.

  FIVE

  GWENNA

  In the dream, I’m in the bag room: this enormous room of Birkin bags, hundreds of $80,000 bags on shelves from floor to ceiling.

  Unlike real life, I dream of being there alone - my body thin and taut, my hipbones sharp under my sheath dress, my coppery hair straight, chopped short to my chin. I’ve spent my hours with the hair and makeup team, and I’m aware, despite the absence of a mirror, that I look better than I have in all my life. Gone the pudgy little red-haired girl with big front teeth. Gone the awkward girl who curved her shoulders in and wished for winter all year ’round so she could cover up her moon white limbs.

  I look like a bombshell, and I know it. It feels fucking good.

  So now I need to choose a bag: my takeaway from the job, my gift for gracing Hermes with my face. I stand there, looking up at all the endless shelves, and giggle at the thought. I’m a model. How ridiculous - and how amazing.

  Up, up, up the shelves rise. All around me. The shelves twist and separate until they’re more like giant stacks of cards. I still see the bags, the Birkin bags in all the colors.

  “Pick a bag,” my own voice says.

  I see the green, the color I DID pick, but I don’t reach for it. There are so many other colors. Whites, purples, browns and blacks. I could choose any bag, any bag of all these, and I don’t know which one to pick. I’m standing there, my legs cold in the chilly air blowing from the air vents done in bamboo like the smooth, slick floor. My dress flutters against my thighs. I smell the fresh, delicious scent of oiled, crocodile-skin bags.

  I can see the snow. Not see it…sense it. I can feel the snow, the cold, cold snow. I choose a white bag and it disappears as soon as I start pulling it toward me.

  I whirl around. What’s going on here? Am I dreaming?

  I go for a purple bag with shaking fingers. Get it now and GO. Time is running out!

  I grab the bag and hug it to my chest and then it’s gone. Black, brown, green: I grab them all and feel them slip away like ghosts. I try grabbing the green one two more times, aware that it’s the right bag, it’s the one I really chose. But I can’t hold onto it.

  The shelves tremble and a bag falls by my feet. And I know, I know right then, I have to run. I can’t take a bag, but I can save myself.

  I wake up soaked with sweat, feeling both triumphant and bereft...

  With my damp, stiff hand, I shut the spiral notebook, set it back on my nightstand. My heart feels tight and heavy. My head aches from clenching my jaw while I was dreaming. I could grab my phone and check the time, but everyone knows that’s a losing proposition. Time cr
awls by when I know exactly how early it is. I can tell by the absence of light through my curtains that it’s sometime in the wee hours.

  I want to get up and make some hot chocolate or tea, but first I fold my legs into a meditative pose, straighten my back, relax my muscles, and rest my hands on my knees. I shut my eyes and do a thing I learned in therapy.

  Shut your eyes. Inhale. Smile inwardly. Exhale.

  Smiling inwardly is a weird concept—you just imagine yourself smiling—but the exercise works almost freakishly well. I do that twice, and when I feel more peaceful, I pick the notebook back up, flip to a blank page, and attempt to draft a more favorable version of the nightmare.

  I go into the bag room and I get a bag. I do the shoot, and during it, I let myself feel beautiful, not just on the outside, but also inside. I try to treat everyone with respect and love, try even harder than normal. I enjoy the way that heavy necklace feels around my neck and when I close my eyes so they can refresh my makeup, I inhale and try to bottle up the smells inside my brain so I can remember this. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, one I can always remember fondly. I try to feel peaceful and good during the shoot, and when I leave, I go home, put my Birkin bag inside a plastic bag, and list it for sale online. I put the money in a savings account marked “Bear Hugs Inc.”

  (It’s my daydream. I know what’s coming and I’m ready for it. So there).

  I shut the notebook and set it on the nightstand. Then I take a long swig of my water and stretch slowly. Still no daylight peeking through the blinds. Not even a hint of blue.

  I give in and check my phone. It’s 4:02 a.m.

  Well, then.

  I don’t feel sleepy. Not at all. In fact, my brain is churning. I tug my black cotton shorts out from wedgie position and straighten my hot pink sports bra before grabbing my fluffy purple robe from the corner of the headboard. This robe always makes me feel so cozy. It’s the little things. That’s what I’ve realized, I think, as I slide down off the bed, aiming my feet at my R2D2 slippers. This house has hardwood, and I’m thrifty, so I keep the heat on 65 at night—meaning it’s cold when I get out of bed. Colder if it’s 4 a.m. and the sun isn’t up.

  I walk into my office, which adjoins my bedroom. There I turn on the desk lamp and push the curtains open. I drift into the den, turn on my half-moon lamp—the one that sends small dots of light all over everything, the lamp version of a disco ball—and walk into the kitchen, where I whip up some cranberry oatmeal muffins and make myself some minty green tea.

  I spill a long tendril of local honey into my tea and stir, then take a seat at the small, round, wood table I bought at a pawn shop and painted dark powder blue. It’s bare except a stack of napkins and a set of squirrel salt and pepper shakers. After the first muffin, I pull my phone out of my pocket and navigate to YouTube, then type Elvie Wesson.

  I listen to his latest hit—“Dirt and Girls”—while I polish off another muffin and drain my teacup.

  Elvie’s voice is everything I remember. Better now, of course, with years more practice, studio polish, and some of the best producers in the country on this last album. I don’t hate him anymore, but I’m not happy for him either. Feeling like a knot’s been loosened in my chest, I play “24 Frames” by Jason Isbell. Him, I’m happy for.

  Robe tied tightly, I make myself another cup of tea and do some dishes. Memories of Elvie and me keep popping up in my brain, so, ironically, I sing. I’m feeling slightly masochistic, so I go with “Hallelujah,” the Leonard Cohen song Jeff Buckley covered so famously. It’s what I sang for Aaron Tomlin, head of Lighthouse Records, when he saw my stills for End of Day and finally listened to the demo my agent had been pushing on him. It’s this song, combined with pictures of me in the movie, that got me a record deal.

  My post-accident articulation isn’t perfect, but in my own house, I don’t care. I sing “Hallelujah” with the full force of my pipes, which hasn’t diminished much because I still sing almost every day. It’s who I am, even if no one wants to pay me for it anymore, or watch my messed up lips move as I do it.

  While I sing, I step into the laundry room that adjoins my kitchen to water the gardenias I keep under the fluorescent light there. I’ve got six plants now, so there’s never a time when the laundry room doesn’t smell overwhelmingly sweet.

  Once upon a time, gardenias were my favorite scent, and then after the accident, I couldn’t stand them. And by couldn’t stand them, I mean the first time I smelled one, I fainted dead away—and in a downtown Memphis restaurant, no less. My brother Rett loved that.

  I freaking love gardenias, though, so I powered through. I water them and tend their leaves, and I like feeling busy, so I keep on cleaning. The kitchen is clean enough, so I move into my small living room. I straighten the pillows on my burgundy leather couch, move a pair of boots off my plush, beige rug and over to the shoe rack by the door, and re-fold the turquoise throw blanket over the arm of my khaki and white chevron-patterned armchair.

  I grab the dusting brush I keep on the bottom of the wide, horizontal bookshelf that houses my small flatscreen TV and sweep it over the half-dozen frames on the top two shelves, lingering a minute longer than I need to of the image of myself, Rett, and my parents. I’m wearing a graduation robe and cap. My hair is boy-short, and the scar above my left eyebrow is still slightly pink. I’m smiling, happy and relieved. My parents are on either side of me, and Rett is standing by my mom. My eyes rove our four faces, then lock onto Dad’s. I feel the stinging heat of tears in my eyes, followed almost instantly by heaviness in my chest: the oddest blend of dread, regret, and want.

  I look at Mom. She seems so happy here. So peaceful. With a sigh aimed at my brother’s image, I move on to the next framed photo, this one of Jamie and I hugging at Fall Creek Falls. I dust the rest of the shelves, package two stuffed bears in my office, and still feel too wound up for sleep.

  I’m a disappointed by the nightmare and my early waking, but I tell myself it’s bound to happen sometimes. I did all I could, writing a better scenario in my journal. I’ve got therapy with Helga this afternoon. I plan to talk about the dream then…and, I realize as I dress in leggings and a light jacket, the guy next door.

  I try to analyze my feelings as I step outside and lock the door behind me. I feel annoyed by his presence here. Annoyed and…sad. Living out here in the woods the way I do is isolated. Lonely. I tell myself the benefit is that it’s also peaceful. This property is mine. I can be myself and do my own thing. When I’m at home or with the bears, I’m in my comfort zone.

  I walk around the corner of the enclosure and veer into the woods. The tall fence rises to my left, climbing up the wooded hill alongside me.

  When I’m here, I forget the way I look.

  There it is.

  As always, I feel superficial. Silly. No one cares how I look. No one but me. And why do I care? The answer whispers to me from the dark hole where I keep it buried.

  Because you’ll never find someone now that you look like this.

  I tell myself that isn’t true. I think about what the woman said to me in the meeting Tuesday. I’m still pretty. And I’m smart, and kind, and sometimes funny. I’m fun.

  Ooh, fun, my inner bitch mocks.

  It’s normal that I sometimes have sad days, a kinder me insists.

  I sigh loudly enough to drown out all my inner monologue and hike at a punishing pace until I reach the clearing midway up the giant hill. The peak of the foothill is maybe another 300 yards past my workout clearing, but my property doesn’t go that far up. Instead it expands southwest for 300 acres, bumping into the Smoky Mountain National Park on the south and west sides, up against my own backyard on the north side, and running about 100 yards from Blue Moon Road on the east side.

  Shit. I didn’t check the tracking app before I left the house. I look down at my phone, even though I know I don’t have service here. Without the cell phone signal booster in my house, I wouldn’t have more than a bar there either. />
  I tell myself the bears will be okay, remind myself I haven’t seen anything weird on the cameras since last time, and even then, it could have been a random hunter. Theoretically, at least.

  I start stretching in the gauzy gray of early dawn.

  I’m midway through my workout, sparring an invisible partner, when I see a dark blot on the web of trees in front of me. Man-sized. Moving. My pulse screeches to a halt, then tumbles into wild staccato. For a sickly long second, my head buzzes and I feel like prey. Then my self-defense training kicks in.

  I draw a slow, purposeful breath into my lungs and force my fear-numb limbs to keep on moving through the motions of my workout. My eyes size up the shadow and a bolt of fear shoots through me.

  God, he’s big. Like Sasquatch big. And shit, still moving toward me. My fear is cold, could freeze me. I refuse to let it. I modify my form, and like a figure skater or a gymnast performing an advanced routine, I work myself into a sparring sequence, each move chosen specifically for its ability to lead into a kick.

  I’m whirling so fast I lose track of him for split seconds at a time, but I’ve always been good at tracking moving targets, so even brief glimpses of him tell me he’s still moving my way. Fuck. My body flushes, head to toe.

  I’m going to have to nail him and run!

  When there are maybe eight feet between us, I pause for half a second, double-checking my left ankle before I jump into a modified roundhouse kick.

  He’s tall, and I’m not as limber as I once was due to the surgerized ankle, but I can still jump pretty high. High enough so my right foot makes a hook over his head, catching him just over his left ear.

  It’s not until he staggers back, his face twisted, his big hand clawing at the air beside his face, that I notice his hair.

  Dark, curly hair; a nice jawline. My heart stutters as I note the dark, thick brows, the luscious lips…

  He mutters, “Fuck,” and heat pours through me.

  My new neighbor.