Nine Years Ago
I folded the tie slowly and stuck it in the Ziploc bag, followed by my Cove Ride-All-Day bracelet from last night, and the collapsed, empty box of Milk Duds he got me at the movie theater.
Squishing the air out of the bag, I sealed it, tears hanging at the corner of my eyes as I dropped it into an empty coffee can and capped it, setting the whole thing in the two-foot deep hole.
I couldn’t keep him close, but I couldn’t throw him away, either. Maybe someday I’d dig up my little time capsule and be able to laugh at how little any of it meant anymore.
I hope.
An engine roared to my right, and I looked up from where I knelt on the foundation of the gazebo and saw Damon’s BMW slide into a spot in the alley next to Sticks.
He jumped out of the car and walked inside, the whole place booming with activity.
My brother came home for a while this afternoon, finding me where I said I’d be and with my homework done and dinner ready, too. He barely said two words as he ate, showered, and redressed to go back out for another shift.
Tonight they’d need all the hands they could get, so he was pulling double duty. It was a blessing.
Grand-Mère assured me she was fine, I had a live feed of her on my phone, so I snuck out for the short walk to the village to get some work done.
Just needed to take care of something first.
I turned back to my hole, barely able to see the ground in front of me as I grabbed the gardening shovel and started filling it in. I was making the right decision, and thank God he said the awful things he said today, because I was about to break, and I needed the hurt to push through it.
I hoped he did replace me.
Tonight.
He should dance with her and slip his hands inside her clothes and love her crazy, because after that, I wouldn’t be able to look back. It would shatter my heart, so there’d be nothing left to hold him with me anymore.
Tossing the shovel, I gathered the rest of the dirt with my hands and scooped it into the hole, covering the coffee can and pressing the soil firmly. I took a brand-new floorboard and lined it up next to the last one, grabbing the nail gun and securing it to the frame. I moved quickly, all eight posts rising from their anchors around me as the floor came together, each board cut to my specs.
A loud whirring sound ripped through the air, and I looked over again, seeing Damon straddle a motorbike as Winter Ashby stood next to him, fastening a helmet.
I tensed, about to wonder what the hell he thought he was doing out here with the kid.
But as she climbed on behind him, he looked over his shoulder at her, something written in his smile I’d never seen in him before.
Tenderness.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and she squealed as they sped off out of the square, disappearing down a street.
I had to smile a little, remembering the pirate ship and how I’d sounded exactly the same last night.
I loved that feeling too, Winter Ashby.
It wasn’t the ride, though, honey. It wasn’t the ride.
• • •
Hours later, the square was empty and quiet, and I headed home for the second time, already having tread the shortcut through people’s yards and across streets to look in on my grandmother and collect some more supplies earlier.
Sawdust coated my hands, and I stuck them in the pockets of my jean overalls, the wind breezing through the knitting of my sweater.
“Up!” someone shouted.
I stopped in my tracks, almost to the back door, and set my bag of tools down, looking through the window at the back of the house.
Red and blue lights flashed, and I stopped breathing, quickly unlocking the door. Pushing through, I ran across the kitchen, dropping my tool bag on the table and casting a glance up the stairs before racing through the front door instead.
My brother stood on the porch in his uniform and thick, black jacket, and I stopped, watching paramedics load my grandmother on a gurney up into the back of an ambulance.
“Grand-Mère!” I shouted, racing down the steps. “Grand-Mère!”
They closed the doors, some guy in dark blue pants and a light blue shirt sitting with her in the back.
I pounded the doors, but he barely spared a glance before turning back to her.
I whipped around, facing Martin. “What happened?”
I had my eyes on her nearly all night. I came home earlier for a few minutes just to see if she needed anything and she was fine!
“Her oxygen levels dropped.” He descended a couple of steps, his hands in the pockets of his coat. “I called the ambulance when I came home for a meal break. Get inside.”
“No, we need to follow her.”
“She won’t wake up tonight,” he told me, “and she’s in good hands. We’ll go in the morning before school.”
The engine revved behind me, and I twisted around as the driver shifted into gear.
No.
“She’s fine, Emmy.”
I didn’t like his tone. Why was he so calm?
“Thank you, Janice,” he called out to the driver as she turned off her lights and waved to us. “Tell Ben thank you.”
They drove off, and I started after them.
“Move another muscle,” he warned, “and she’s never coming back.”
I stopped, swallowing the lump in my throat.
“Get inside now,” he ordered.
I stood there, hearing his footsteps and the front door swing open, and I shook my head, wanting to run after her, but he’d find me.
I closed my eyes, the weariness of all the years and the past several days weighing heavy, because Will showing me how happy I could be if things were a little different made all this so much harder to bear.
I was tired.
I almost swayed on my feet. I was so tired.
A curtain slowly fell between my eyes and my brain as I went through the same rage, anger, hurt, pain, sadness, and despair I’d felt a thousand times before.
But now I understood something I never did.
Nothing made sense.
Martin, my home, the terror… It just was, and sometimes you were just that person whom things happened to.
I walked into the house and closed the door, not tensing or clenching or bracing, because it didn’t help.
“That was for last night,” he said as I entered the kitchen and watched him take off his jacket. “Just a warning.”
I blinked once, staring at him. “You did that to her.”
It wasn’t a question. I knew the answer.
His hand curled around the chair back, and his knuckles turned white as he squeezed.
“She’s the only control you have over me,” I told him. “If she dies, there’s nothing keeping me here.”
“And without me, she’d be in hospice or some state home, neglected and in agony.”
We stood on opposite sides of the table, locked in the challenge. What did he want?
Was this really all he had? He acted like he hated me, but would he suddenly be happy if I were no longer here?
Was he going to try to stop me when it was time for me to leave?
“You ran away from me yesterday,” he said. “You were seen at Homecoming, and you were seen at the Cove last night.” He steeled his spine, lifting his chin and tightening his lips. “And I know you know what happened to that crypt.”
So, he got rid of Grandma for the night to show me how much noise he could make without her here.
My jaw ached, I pressed my teeth together so hard. People pushing me. People pulling me. People, people, fucking people….
I told him to deal with me. I said I was to blame.
I told them all to leave me alone and stop pushing me and pulling me, over and over again. No one listens.
Blood rushed to my face, something crawling under my skin with its claws. I rubbed my eyes.
“Take it out on me,” I gritted out. “Leave her alone.”
“But that’s how I take it out on you,” he replied, a smile playing behind his eyes, laughing at me. “And mark my words, there is still so much more I can do.”
I let out a scream, seeing red and too furious to care as the tears filled my eyes. Grabbing the edge of the kitchen table, I shoved it across the floor, the tools in my bag clanking as the table pinned him to the counter.
He growled as I crushed his legs, and I reached into the bag, snatching out a hammer as he threw the table on its side, all the tools in the bag crashing to the floor.
“You stupid little bitch!” he yelled.
I raised the hammer, but he launched out and grabbed my wrist, punching me across the face with the other hand as the tool spilled out of my grasp.
Fire spread across my cheek, but I whipped back around and shot up my knee right between his legs, not wasting a second.
Stop.
Just stop.
He buckled, and I shoved both hands into his chest, sending him flying to the floor. Tears blurred my vision, and I spun around, running from the house.
“Emory!” His bellow hit my back, and I let out a sob, charging down the porch, across the lawn, and as fast through town as I could race.
I hurried past the village, down the road, and deeper into the dark forest, hearing the echo behind me fade more and more as he tried to find me but couldn’t.
“Emory!”
I dove through the trees, the branches whipping my face, and I fixed my glasses as the lights of the town disappeared and sweat covered my back.
My legs ached and tears dried on my face as stitches pulled at my side. I slowed to a jog, eventually falling into a walk.
I should’ve gone to the cathedral. The key was in my pocket, and if everywhere didn’t hurt, I’d laugh at how useful that place had become when I seemed to survive fine without it a few days ago.
I squeezed my eyes shut, blinking long and hard.
What could I do? He was going to kill me.
Or worse.
My grandma would be at the hospital now. I needed to go, even to just sit in the waiting room until they let me see her, but that would be the first place he’d look, and being a minor and all, he could carry me out of there without any argument from anyone.
God…
I walked and walked, hearing the cars on the other side of the trees make their way up and down the road, and even though I didn’t look up, I knew where I was going.
It was as far as I could go.
Crossing the bridge, over the narrow but fast river, I climbed the incline up toward the cliffs where the mansions sat. The Fanes’, the Crists’, the Torrances’, the Ashbys’, blah, blah, blah…
In no time at all, I’d found my way to their quiet, dark lane, lit only by the flickering gaslit lanterns hanging from their high walls and gates.
Will didn’t live up here. His family owned the fortress on the other side of town, near the high school and up in the hills. The massive house that stood high above us all.
I should’ve met him that night he wanted to take me to his house to watch movies. Seeing that place from the inside would’ve surely set my stupid brain straight and solidified my resolve before it was too late.
Sleeping with him only made it hurt more now.
I followed the road past the estates, past quiet and deserted St. Killian’s, and then I cut through the forest, past the Bell Tower, and into the cemetery.
I had no idea what time it was, but all that remained were the remnants of whatever party the Horsemen had had here earlier. It couldn’t be any later than midnight or one, and St. Killian’s was dark just now. They weren’t at the catacombs anymore.
I strolled through the cemetery, seeing the damage we did to the crypt and Edward McClanahan’s freshly dug grave was filled back in because he was staying right there. My brother couldn’t have the discounted hole anymore.
But darkness covered every corner of the graveyard, the moonlight barely visible through the clouds.
Quiet.
Empty.
Lonely.
Was that why I’d come here? I knew they were partying here tonight. Was I looking for him?
I walked between the headstones, moving silently over the grass and barely noticing the engine that purred, growing louder and closer second by second.
I blinked, looking up, and then stopped.
A matte black car creeped down the small lane, its headlights off and the driver invisible through the dark tinting of the windshield.
My heart skipped a beat, and I darted back a couple of steps, shielding myself behind a ten-foot-tall grave marker.
They didn’t speed up, turn on their lights, or stop, just kept crawling down the path toward me until it got close enough that I could tell it definitely wasn’t my brother.
They stopped, and after a moment, I saw the trunk pop open and a man exit the car, the hood of his black sweatshirt drawn over his head. I watched as he rounded the car.
Who was that? The cemetery was closed.
Of course, that didn’t mean anything, since the ground was littered with red Solo cups, candles, and other shit. Maybe he was cleaning up.
He lifted open the trunk, pulling something out over the edge, and I caught sight of bare feet dangling.
A cool sweat hit the back of my neck. What the…?
He lifted the body out, throwing it over his shoulder, her long black hair falling out of the sheet, down his back, and her long legs bare in her outfit.
I squinted, seeing the black strapless costume—like a ballerina or something.
Was she dead? I covered my mouth with my hand, my legs fighting with the urge to bolt, but fear kept me rooted.
Walking to the grass, he leaned over and threw her to the ground, her body hitting hard right next to the already disturbed soil around McClanahan’s grave.
I reached into my pocket, not taking my eyes off him as he trudged back to his car and pulled a shovel out of the trunk.
But my phone wasn’t in my pocket. I blinked, feeling the key, but I didn’t have my cell. I searched the other one, coming up empty, as well.
Shit.
I didn’t know if I wanted to call for help or record this, but either way, I was out of luck.
He came back to the grave and started digging up the soil again, and I clutched the sides of the tall headstone, watching him.
Who was he? God, was he crazy or just stupid? We lived on the coast. Take a boat out, weight the body down and toss it overboard, for crying out loud.
I blinked, remembering myself. It wasn’t like I’d thought about it or anything.
The wind kicked up, blowing the sheet off her face, and I looked down at her, my mouth going dry. She didn’t look familiar, but I wasn’t really close enough to tell. At first glance, she looked my age, but the way the skin fit around certain parts of her body told me she wasn’t. Maybe twenties or thirties.
I looked around, hoping the caretaker might be making the rounds or kids would be coming back to party some more, but we were completely alone out here now.
He dug for another minute and then stopped, his shoulders slumped as he stared down at the body, almost in a daze.
And all of a sudden, I was him. In his shoes, standing where he was. I’d just killed someone, and I was getting rid of the evidence.
Raising his black boot, he slowly lowered it to her neck and pressed down, watching her and baring his teeth.
Anger.
He was angry.
And despite everything in my head telling me this was a horror, I couldn’t run. I couldn’t stop watching.
He could be a serial killer. A rapist keeping her quiet forever. A predator of innocents.
She might not even be dead yet. I could run, get help, and save her life. At the very least, put him behind bars.
But then he started sobbing, shaking and gasping, and I was him. I would be him if I let Martin push me enough.
Someday, at some point, it was coming. I’d lose my mind and just fight. Fight until either he or I stopped breathing.
A breeze swept through the trees, his hood blew off his head, and I blinked, seeing Damon Torrance standing there with the shovel in his hand and the body of a dead woman at his feet.
I sucked in a breath and his eyes shot up, his whole body freezing as our eyes locked.
Shit.
My blood drained, and I couldn’t inhale.
He dropped the shovel and headed toward me, charging hard and steady down the small hill as I stumbled backward, too scared to take my eyes off him.
Something caught my eye, and I looked behind him, seeing the woman’s hand flop over and her head move.
“She’s moving,” I choked out, hitting the back of a crypt.
He stopped about two feet from me, holding my eyes for a moment.
Slowly, he turned, looking over his shoulder at her. Her finger twitched, and I noticed the tears still hanging at the corner of his eyes.
The wind continued to glide over the headstones, the scent of his cigarettes wafting around me, and at this moment, I thought I would’ve liked to be him.
He was going to get away with this. What would we all do if we could get away with it?
Maybe I was lucky to never have to find out. Maybe he was because he could escape his pain.
“Who is it?” I asked softly.
I took in their hair. Hers and his. The same jet black, so dark it almost shimmered blue in the moonlight. The same skin, pale and translucent like they were made of marble.
I looked at her costume. “Your mother?” I whispered.
I’d heard she was a ballerina back in the day.
He turned back around, guarded but trembling a little.
I tried to catch my breath. “Did Will have any part of that, Damon?”
He shook his head.
He stepped toward me, and I held my breath, closing my eyes and waiting for it.
But he didn’t touch me.
He just closed the distance and hovered, and I couldn’t move if I tried. My head swam.
“Not going to fight me again?” he murmured.
It took a moment, but I raised my eyes, meeting his. “It’s easier to pretend that we’re in control of everything that happens to us.” I repeated his words. “It’s almost peaceful. To just let it be.”
He stared at me and then… nodded. He touched my face, and I jerked away, but then he brought up his hand, showing me the blood he’d wiped off.
I touched my face, too, patting the scratch. Was that from Martin or the escape?
“Does Will know?” he asked, rubbing my blood between his fingers.
“No.”
He lifted his gaze to mine. “Because he’s the one pure, beautiful thing untainted by ugliness,” he repeated his same words from the shower. “And we love him for it.”
I remained still despite everything shattering inside and the ache in my throat from the cry I held back.
Turned out that maybe the Horsemen weren’t what I’d thought, and while money may pay off the consequences, it still didn’t prevent some kinds of pain.
He turned his head, looking at the body again. “She started fucking me when I was twelve,” he whispered. “After a while, you get tired of pretending that you’re in control of everything that happens to you.” He paused, turning to me again. “And you start being what happens to everyone else.”
Spinning back around, he walked over to his mother, crouched down next to her body as he faced me, and wrapped his hand around the front of her throat.
I watched as his fingers curled, tightening, and the whites of his knuckles flashed in the dark.
He lifted his eyes to mine, watching me as I watched him. My toes curled, my reflex to run, but…
I felt it. My hand, not his. My fingers hummed, slowly balling into fists, and I breathed heavy, feeling my heart pound and the bile rise up my throat, but…
God, I wanted to be him. I wanted to do it.
I liked this feeling.
I wanted to kill, and I squeezed my fists until they ached, but I didn’t move until she stopped jerking and gasping and shaking, one of her legs dipping over the side of the grave.
Damon held my eyes the whole time.
The part of me that always gave in to tears was gone. Tears solved nothing.
I didn’t know when I started toward him, but in a moment, I was next to the grave, holding out my foot and helping him push her into the hole. Her body hit the soil, dirt smearing her legs, feet, and arms as he grabbed the shovel. I dropped to my knees, hurriedly helping him push the earth on top of her with my hands.
We didn’t talk. I didn’t even think we really realized what was happening or what we were really doing, but it was too late now. Even if I turned him in for murder, I’d helped him dump the body. It was too late to panic.
And although I feared what I’d feel tomorrow in the light of day with a clearer head, I couldn’t push the dirt in fast enough tonight. I wanted her to fucking die.
When we’d covered her as much as we could, Damon carried the sheet and the shovel back to the trunk, while I stepped on top of the grave, packing the soil.
I gazed at the grass around us. It was a mess. They must use a blower or something to clean up the soil scattered around the grass, but we didn’t have that right now. What if they noticed?
Just then, a drop of rain hit my face, and I looked up to the sky.
A few more drops of cool water hit, and I closed my eyes, almost smiling.
Damon rushed back over, helped me finish flattening out the dirt, and then pushed me off, dropping to his knees and running his hand over the grave, getting rid of our footprints.
“The rain will muddy it,” I told him. “Maybe they won’t notice it was dug up.”
He nodded. “Get in the car. Now.”
God, he was probably going to kill me next, but I didn’t think. I ran over, opened the passenger door, and climbed into his BMW.
BMW.
I’d seen this car before. Somewhere.
But I shook my head.
Of course, I’d seen it before. Everyone at school knew the Horsemen’s vehicles.
Damon slammed the trunk shut and climbed into his seat, rain starting to pummel the roof, and I stared out the window at McClanahan’s grave, dirt kicking up at each heavy drop.
We shouldn’t have dumped her here. Where did he get that idea?
That grave was important. Damon and his pals revered it. How could he put her there? Wasn’t that like desecrating McClanahan’s memory or something?
I mean, I guess it seemed smart. Hide a body where no one would think it was odd to a find a dead body, especially since that grave was freshly dug and there was a good chance no one would notice it had been disturbed again, but anyone could’ve seen us. Maybe someone did.
I looked around, scanning the tree line and hedges. Looking for any flash of movement among the crypts and headstones.
I stuck my thumbnail in my mouth tasting the dirt on my finger and feeling it in my sweater.
I looked over at Damon, who still hadn’t started the car.
He gripped the wheel, his bottom lip trembling as he stared through watery eyes out the windshield.
“I didn’t love her,” he said, almost to himself.
But his face was twisted in sadness and despair as tears spilled over, falling down his dirty face.
“I don’t know why it hurts,” he told me. “I didn’t love her.”
“You did,” I said, but it came out as a whisper. “You learned how to love from her.” I turned my eyes back out my window, staring at the grave. “This is what it looked like.”
My parents raised me, but so did Martin. He shaped me.
No wonder I couldn’t give Will what he wanted.
Tears finally hit my eyes until everything was so blurry that I couldn’t see.
Damon took off, and I didn’t know where we were going, but when he pulled into the school parking lot, I was a little relieved.
I didn’t want to go home.
And I couldn’t like this. I needed to find some clean clothes. The clock on the dash read 2:02 a.m.
Damon drove around the school, to the rear, and parked between the buses and the field house.
He killed the engine, reached into the back and pulled out a baseball cap, and threw it at me as he pulled up his hood.
“Put it on,” he said. “And let’s go.”
I hesitated, my natural inclination to argue or demand answers, but…he seemed to have a plan, at least, and I couldn’t even remember my own name at the moment.
I slipped on the hat and exited the car, following him to the door as he pulled out a set of keys.
How he had keys to the school, I had no idea, and I didn’t give a shit.
He unlocked the door, and I hurried inside, following him through the boys’ locker room. He grabbed two towels and led me into a huge shower with multiple heads, slinging the towels over a divider.
I looked around as he started the water.
The girls had separate stalls. Some privacy, at least.
“Clothes off,” he told me. “Now.”
He pulled off his sweatshirt and started undoing his pants, and I opened my mouth to protest, but I clamped it shut again.
He wasn’t killing me, I guess.
He stripped off his clothes, and slowly, I did the same, just running on autopilot now.
I unhooked my overalls, pulled my sweater over my head, and discarded everything—my shoes, socks, and even my underthings, too scared of the slightest evidence.
We both dipped under our respective showerheads and rinsed, blood dripping off his body and down the drain. I spied a black rosary hanging around his neck and down his chest. Did he wear that all the time?
I closed my eyes, shivering under the water.
“You know who my father is, right?” he asked.
I nodded.
“And you know what will happen to you if you breathe a word of this.”
I opened my eyes and looked over at him, meeting his eyes through the locks of hair in my face.
“I know better,” I mumbled. “I don’t have your money to get out of this.”
He regarded me for a moment and then dipped down, rubbing at his legs and then arms.
I couldn’t stop shaking, my stomach churning as the water ran over the cut on my eyebrow, stinging.
“Maybe I’ll return the favor someday.” He stood back up. “When you’re ready to deal with him.”
His eyes fell down my body, taking in all the bruises he’d already seen.
“I’m a loose end,” I pointed out. “Why didn’t you kill me when you saw me see you there tonight?”
He looked like he was thinking about it.
But instead, he asked, “Why didn’t you run when you saw me?”
He was right. I’d willingly inserted myself.
And why? To help him? I didn’t even like him, and how did I know what he was telling me was the truth? Maybe his mom was the nicest person in the world.
I’d gambled everything on his word. And for what?
I shook my head, trying to clear it. “There’s a…” I swallowed, raising my hand to my head. “There’s a tear in the membrane today. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
He stared back at me, silent.
I dropped my eyes, remembering how it felt. How I watched him and imagined what it would be like to kill someone you hated.
“I wanted to see you throw her away,” I whispered.
He stood there, quiet, as if studying me or trying to figure something out, and then he sighed, rubbing the water all over his face.
He cleared his throat. “I have a sister,” he told me. “Her name is Nik, but everyone calls her Banks.” He met my eyes again. “If something happens, and I can’t be there for her—if they arrest me for this—you need to go to my house and help her. She doesn’t have anyone else. You understand?”
Huh?
“You’re asking me?” I looked at him, confused. “Why?”
He had tons of people he could count on.
But he just turned around, shut off the water, and raised his arms, smoothing his hands over his hair. “I’m not sure anyone else would’ve helped me bury a body,” he murmured.
Water poured over me as he stood there, and I looked up, noticing small scars on the underside of his arms.
Not even his friends?
“She’s your age,” he told me. “No one knows about her, and don’t ask why. She’s doesn’t have anyone but me. Promise me.”
It took a moment, but I finally nodded. “A sister. Nik. My age. Got it.”
He smiled, small but genuine, and he grabbed the towels, walking over and shutting off my shower, handing me one.
“A tear in the membrane…” he mused to himself, putting his arm around me and pulling me out of the shower. “Come on. Let’s go find Will.”
