Alistair
I went to therapy once.
Once as in, one single appointment that lasted maybe twenty-five minutes before the psychiatrists refused to work with me any longer.
I was twelve, five inches shorter than I was now, and I tried to stab my nineteen-year- old brother in our kitchen during a Christmas party, after I’d broken his nose and my right set of knuckles.
It’s funny, I don’t remember much of it besides what I’ve been told and in perfect vision I recall sitting on the kitchen floor watching as connected people tugged strings calling the best plastic surgeons and doctors money could buy.
My mother was bawling, holding Dorian’s face in her hands while he held a blood soaked handkerchief to his face, waving her away from him. They rushed out the door, everyone leaving shortly after and not a single person even looked for me. Not for punishment. Not for worry. Not even to ask why I did it. Nothing. The only reason I’d been put in therapy was because my grandmother insisted it to save the Caldwell name. Claimed I had temporary explosive disorder, anything to make it look better.
They all waltzed right past the kitchen where I sat, clutching my shattered knuckles in my hand, watching them look right through me like I was nothing but glass. Something to only look through, never at. Not like Dorian, who was nothing but pure gold.
That had been my first punch. My first explosion of rage that I couldn’t contain. I physically could not swallow it any longer, I had to do something. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to kill him.
I’d walked to the fridge grabbing a bag of frozen peas, knowing the cold would help the swelling go down. Rook had taught me that before I was even seven.
Dorian was in his second year at Hollow Heights and he’d decided he wanted an office, to study, fuck girls, whatever bullshit he’d told my parents. Instead of taking one of the fifteen thousand other free bedrooms, he took my conservatory. He picked it because he knew it was the only place in that fucking house I could stand. He didn’t even want an office he just wanted to show me, once again, that everything in my life was nothing but his to take.
The conservatory was all the way on the west end of the house, it was a small circular extension of the original house. My grandfather had built it for my father when he was my age, and it had never been used until I was five.
I stayed in there all the time. I never came out unless I wasn’t at home.
I liked to listen to the rain pelt the glass case that surrounded it, watching the lightning strike trees and the thunder shake the small green couch inside. There wasn’t much in there besides the couch. A few dead plants and useless bookshelves, but it was mine and it was the only place I had.
And he took it from me.
At the same age he was when I attempted to murder him, I still couldn’t step into that room. When he left for graduate school, they left all of his shit in there and truth be told it stopped being mine the second he requested to have it.
The short list of places I could escape to, had grown even shorter that day. It’s still just as short.
The Graveyard was only for weekends, I ruled the ring. Never beaten. Never touched. But it wasn’t mine. Not really. Occasionally I would go to Thatcher’s house but even there I felt out of place with all the one-of-a-kind sculptures and Victorian decorations.
The only place I had now was Spade One.
It was a tattoo shop just outside of Ponderosa Springs, shoved between an old barbershop and a general store. The neon sign that clung to the side of the window buzzed and cast a purple glow through the shop windows.
With two layers, the bottom being the waiting room with black leather couches, the reception desk and a small storage closet.
The upper floor was sectioned by tall glass plates, giving each artist their own space to decorate their station as they saw fit. Most of which was custom designs framed on the walls, stickers and tattoo equipment. And in the back was a wooden desk where I stayed unless I was cleaning the shop or helping out.
The reason I’d been so furious at Dorian all those years ago, the reason he’d pushed me to throw my first punch, to truly awaken that rage inside me that won’t leave, is because it’s where I’d sketch.
I didn’t keep it a secret because well, it’s not like my parents gave a fuck what I did. So I would hang them on the glass panels of the conservatory walls. Each one covered with a cream sheet of paper and some sort of design I’d drawn. Dorian knew about it. He’d seen it.
By twelve I had covered the space with them. So, when they remodeled it into his office, I never saw those pictures again. They had all been thrown away. Just another nail in my emotional coffin.
Not wanting him to win, never wanting my doodles to ever fall into their hands again, I started drawing on myself. My fingers, my hands, arms and thighs. Wherever I could reach.
I often wondered if my father and mother even glanced at me, saw that I actually had talent. But I could have been an MIT graduate at ten with an IQ that rivaled Einstein and it still wouldn’t have been enough to equal my brother. There was nothing I could ever do that would be good enough for them.
I think it was better I learned that at a young age instead of living my entire life vying for their attention when it would never happen. They had everything they needed in a child when they had Dorian. I was just waste.
Since I was seventeen I’d started coming here. I found it one night while I was driving my car around late, contemplating running it over a popular jumping cliff with me inside of it. I had nothing I wanted to live for.
It’s not nearly as sad as you think. I mean it happens every day. People die, you get over it.
I’d been wanting to die since I found out the reason I was even given life. I mean the boys would’ve had each other. I wasn’t needed and I was tired of fighting for a life I hated. And that’s when I saw the shop.
So, if you believed in Hollywood bullshit like fate, you could call it something like that.
When I walked in, met the owner, Shade, and started showing up with a fake ID just to get tattooed, I’d realized I finally found something that was truly mine.
Not my brother’s. Not my parents’. Not even the boys’.
It was all mine, and no one could take that from me.
Shade let me work here when I had the time, free of charge on my part, and the only time I ever used a dime of my parents’ money willingly was when I applied for my internship here after I found out I would be staying in Ponderosa Springs for the next year.
The original plan, before Rose, was leaving for New York. Shade had taken a liking to my work and said he would set me up with a shop on the east coast for my internship. It was like someone had lifted a lifelong weight off my chest and I’d finally felt the wings they’d clipped as a child start to grow back.
Then someone had to go and murder my best friend’s girl. A girl I’d saw as a little sister. And that entire plan was put on pause.
I was going to get the fuck out of this place, away from all the bullshit and just start a life where nobody knew me. Where no one knew my last goddamn name.
The pencil in my hand snaps into two pieces, splintering onto the worktable and my unfinished tattoo design. It was a thigh piece I’d been working on since I got here today. Every tattoo that was on my body, I’d either done or drew myself. My entire body was my portfolio. I’d let Shade do the ones I couldn’t, but my legs were all me.
“Good time for a smoke break?” Shade says from his booth, looking up from the guy’s leg he is blasting.
I nod, “I believe so.” Pushing my chair back and standing up into a stretch.
“On your way back up grab me some more gloves out of storage, make sure—”
“The black ones. I do remember things you know?” I call as my feet carry me down the steps and out the front door.
The foot traffic is slow, leaving me with some peace and quiet as I light a Marlboro Red, letting the familiar smoke fill my lungs with the first draw.
I thought I was going to have peace and quiet.
My phone started buzzing in my front pocket on my second puff and I can’t not answer. Not with everything going on.
I place the smoke on my lip, holding it between my teeth as I slide my finger across the screen, placing the speaker to my ear,
“Yes, wife?”
I hear a scoff, “If I was your wife you wouldn’t dress like a retired motorcycle club president with a drinking problem.” Thatcher informs me.
“You sure do bitch like a wife.” I slide down the wall, squatting down and resting my back against the floor to ceiling windows outside the shop, “Why are you calling me?”
“Better question, where are you?”
“Why?” I answer his question with one of my own.
“Because you’re supposed to be here helping us supervise Rook. You know, making sure he doesn’t blow my house to tiny million-dollar pieces, while he makes chloroform in my basement.”
Fuck.
I forgot about that.
Granted, it was pretty important, but I’m sure they could handle this one thing without having me be there.
Chris Crawford, the teacher’s assistant our snitching drug dealer told us about, was the only lead we had left. Saying it like that made us sound like vengeful detectives. Taking the law in our own hands, save the badge and give us knives.
All week we’d been following him around, just trying to catch him doing something out of the ordinary and we’d almost stopped, gave up on him, until Thatcher scored pictures of him going through product in his car after school. Whether he was our killer was to be determined. But he was supplying the drugs that killed Rose and that was better than nothing.
We had to have something to cling to. Anything. If we didn’t, I was scared of what Silas would do.
“He’s a chemistry major, Thatcher. It’s just acetone and bleach, your dead grandma could do it. As long as he doesn’t get trigger happy, you’ll be fine without me for a few hours.”
As hungry as I was for retaliation, I couldn’t help but hope this was the end. That Chris drugged Rosemary trying to get in her pants and it ended terribly. We could torture him until he died slowly. Then we could get on with our lives.
Except Silas, of course. It would take him years.
I’d watched them grow up together, Rose and him. She was the only one who really understood his schizophrenia. When they were together, it was like they were in their own little, twisted world.
I wasn’t sure how long it would take for him to get over. If ever.
“You never answered my original question, Alistair.”
Oh, here it comes.
“I thought I made it very clear you’d make a shitty wife.” Trying to distract him, but it’s all in vain, I should know that by now.
“Where are you?” He deadpans, making it clear he doesn’t want to ask again.
“I’m out.” I exhale, looking around me.
Yeah, I could tell my best friend I was at a tattoo shop where I was doing an apprenticeship. It’s not like I’m doing a drive-by, but it’s the principle.
The fact I have this one thing to myself. Something I don’t need to share or worry about being taken.
You never know how good ownership feels until you’re the one who is never allowed to have anything, the one who’s always being taken from.
“I needed a breather, went for a drive. You know what Ponderosa Springs does to me. Why are you so keen on knowing?”
There is a silence, before he speaks again, “So we are keeping secrets from each other now? That’s what we are doing?”
“No.” I breathe in the smoke, “If you needed to know, I’d tell you.” Running a hand through my hair because I know he’s about to catch an attitude with me.
I can practically hear his teeth grinding. I’m not even sure why he cares what I do, it’s not like he’s capable of actually caring about someone.
Everything inside of Thatcher is dead.
All emotion. Feeling. Remorse. Everything.
“Sure thing, friend.” He mutters coldly.
“I’ll meet you guys tomorrow.” I say, but he doesn’t hear it because I’m welcomed with the dial tone in my ear before I even finish off my sentence.
“Fucking dickhead.”
I stare down at my phone, seeing a missed text from Silas from earlier. I open it up, seeing a link and his text below it.
The stuff you wanted.
Tapping my thumb on the link it takes me to a document folder that I’m assuming Silas put together. A smirk slowly forms on my face, like when you’ve been hunting something for months and you just start to sink your teeth into it.
On my screen is everything Silas was able to dig up about Briar Tatum Lowell.
Other than knowing she had a smartass mouth and Easton Sinclair had a hard-on for her, I knew jack shit and I hated that.
Unknowns weren’t something I liked.
Her attitude towards me made it clear she wasn’t a local and while I liked a girl who could give it just as hard as she could take it, I was joking when I said she was toeing a line.
In order to get under her skin the way I wanted to, I needed to know everything about my opponent. The one so brave and bold, so sure she wasn’t afraid of me while her thighs quaked beneath my touch.
At first I was going to let it go, but even after that class she was gnawing at me. Bugging me with her multicolored eyes. A mixture of gold, brown and green swirled into one spiral. So I checked Facebook before I messaged Silas. I hadn’t been on Facebook in fucking years. I had to create a fake ass account to even look her up. Turns out she isn’t into social media either.
According to her high school transcript, she never missed a day of school, had a 4.0 GPA, and was on the swim team all four years. There was even an adorable picture from her freshman year when she had braces.
In all her school photos there wasn’t a single photo of her with a friend, it appeared my smartass was a loner. At her swim team senior night, she stood next to her parents, barely smiling looking like she’d do anything to disappear into the crowd. Trying to make her body look smaller as to not take up much space. I would admit, the double braids she wore in the pool were making my cock twitch.
I continued thumbing through the files, curious how she was able to afford a school like Hollow Heights due to her parents’ background. They barely had two coins to rub together. But I quickly caught up, finding out her uncle was a professor, Thomas Reid.
My eyebrows furrowed when a criminal record appeared, not just one but three. My tongue running across my top lip. I knew there was something in her that craved me realizing it wasn’t me, but the chaos that came with me.
She liked the shadows too. Liked to lurk there. Stay there.
One count assault and battery, which is not only impressive on its own, but it was also on a guy who’d tried to attack her mother. Another charge of vandalism which just looked to be a prank of some kind. And one count of petty larceny.
So she’s a fighter and a thief. How interesting.
I wonder how many strings Thomas really had to pull in order to get a criminal into this school. In order for your application to even be glanced at here, you had to have thirteen fucking clubs and an insane GPA matched with stellar test scores.
And yet, she was here.
Here in Ponderosa Springs where she did not belong.
Running her pink mouth thinking I’d just sit and watch. Thinking Easton Sinclair will help her while she’s being hunted by me. It’s going to fill me with such testosterone when she sees he’s no help against me, that I might combust. That little shit hasn’t been able to do anything to me since kindergarten, there are some things daddy’s money can’t hide and that’s pussy bitches.
I flick the butt of the cigarette onto the ground, embers dancing in the air as I do. I stand up to my full height and turn around to face the window of the shop.
The skull logo is transparent on my face, giving me a masked effect. The white skull covering my cheek bones and eyes. I tilt my head to the right and to the left, the skull seeming to move with me. A cruel representation of what I am on the inside.
Dead. Hollow. Empty. Merciless.
Except I don’t need a mask to be any of those things. I just am.
Briar Lowell may think she isn’t afraid of me because I haven’t given her anything to be scared of.
Not yet anyway.
