I think he liked it better when I was fighting him the entire time.
A couple months later and I’d become entirely complicit. You could even say I was eager. Twisted, sure, but in my own sick way, I’d quickly come to enjoy the attention I’d been starving for all these months.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re disappointed in me, aren’t you? I was supposed to be different. I was supposed to get out and make something of myself.
Yeah, and Leo was supposed to, too, but look at how that turned out.
Look at what he went and did.
By the time summer of 2015 rolled around, I’d finally snapped to my senses. I’d seen my reflection in the window one afternoon, naked and panting, Damon behind me, and I had been horrified. It was like I was waking up for the first time since that night and really seeing what I was doing. What we were doing.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” I’d said to him. “This is wrong.” Mom was home by then, packed away in the den, her breathing machine hissing in the quiet of the night.
He’d just laughed. A sound that was pure reflex. A sound that contained no joy.
The same way my laugh sounds now.
“I mean it,” I’d said, my palms slick with sweat, my voice unsteady. “We can’t do this. Even without all the other fucked-up stuff, I don’t love you. I don’t even like you.”
He gave me this look, and it made me feel so fucking cold inside. The way snow looks upon a field of flowers every winter and says, ‘I will smother you from the sun’s rays until I destroy you.’
“You’ll learn,” he’d said, his voice far too calm for all that fury that raged in his eyes.
“To what? To love you?”
He chuckled bitterly. “No. You’ll learn that it doesn’t matter if you love somebody or not. They’ll still love you. I’ll still love you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
LEO
It isn’t until we bring Hannah home, three days later, that I tell Pike the truth.
It’s dark outside, and all I can think about is Jennifer. How they clearly think I had something to do with her disappearance. How, if I don’t act now, I may never get another chance at making things right.
Not that they could ever be right. Hannah will bear the scars of this for the rest of her life. She will live forever knowing that her child died and almost killed her. She will carry the trauma of being cut open and stitched shut by strangers.
We are in my room, Pike and I. I’ve told him to dress in black, and he doesn’t disappoint. We look like we’re about to go rob a bank.
In reality, we’re about to do something much worse.
“We’re going to make this right,” I say to my brother. “We’re going to fuck him up, and we can never talk about it again. Do you understand?”
Pike nods. “Now?”
I pick up the tire iron from the bed in one arm, Pike’s shotgun in the other. I hand him the gun, then fish a black ski mask out of my pocket for him. “No time like the present, right?”
“Right.”
Hal’s house is less than five minutes from ours. Pike parks down the block and we skulk down the empty sidewalk, two grim reapers armed with crude weapons. Once we’re positioned in front of Hal’s back door I look at my brother, his balaclava-clad face staring back at me, and I smile, baring my teeth. He grins back. I take his shotgun for him as he jimmies the door open with his lock pick and busts the fucker wide open.
Hal has his TV up so loud, he doesn’t even hear us. He’s eating a TV dinner, alone, the smell of fake mashed potatoes and string beans hanging on the warm recirculating air the heater is pumping out. I think about telling him why we’re here, why this is happening, but I figure he’ll realize soon enough. He doesn’t even have time to swallow his mouthful of food before I lay the first blow into the side of his skull.
The entire time I’m bludgeoning Hal Carter on his living room floor, I’m thinking of poor Hannah. Of her baby. Of Cass and Damon fucking in the window. Hal’s wife is at her weekly card game with the rest of the old bitches she calls friends, and that’s a good thing because the Chihuahuas go fucking mental in the laundry room as we smash their owner apart. Hal begs for his life as I beat his head in with the tire iron, and when I’m finally done, I hope to God that he’s dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CASSIE
Sleep is a thing that is my refuge in this life.
A solace.
If I could sleep forever, I would. It’s the only time when I can relax, loose-limbed and buzzing from whatever chemical stimulant is helping me to fall asleep, the artifice something I don’t worry about anymore. Whether it’s vodka or sleeping pills, I know all I need is something to nudge me along and give me some blessed relief from the cruel light of my winter days.
I do not wake up for anyone. Damon’s tried before on a few occasions when mom’s breathing machine flipped out and he needed me to help him set it straight. I slept through. She lived anyway. And then she died while I was at work. Funny how these things happen. But tonight, when a voice pierces my cotton-wool wrap of drugged sleep; I sit up in bed like I’m on fire.
I’m not; on fire, that is. I feel like I am, though. I’ve been bunched up in a thick duvet while the heat’s been blasting. I’m so hot my hair is damp from sweat, a thin sheen of moisture prickling on my forehead. There is movement above me, in the attic?
I know something sharp and loud woke me, but now that my eyes are open and I’m rubbing my face I can’t for the life of me remember what was so urgent that I snapped awake alone, in the dark.
Until it comes again. CASSIE!
It’s Damon. He’s screaming my name. I haven’t heard somebody scream my name like that since they were trapped in a well with a dead girl.
Mom.
Is it my mother? Is she dead?
No, that’s right — she died already.
CASSIE! HELP!
Damon’s voice is definitely coming from upstairs. From the attic. Has he hurt himself? What could he have possibly done to himself in the attic? There’s nothing in there except my father’s ghost and some old shit I keep meaning to box up and sell, or burn. Old family photos and my mother’s wedding dress are about the only things I would keep from the piles of junk up there.
The drugs make my brain slow. He’s called me three times now, and I’m still sitting up in my bed, sweat pouring off me, my feet tangled in sheets. I extricate myself from the mess of blankets and feel the sudden urge to pee, but there’s no time. I shuffle over to my door; fling it open, and take the stairs two at a time. The hallway light is on and it burns my eyes. I squint as I make my way up the rickety stairs, marveling at the way they don’t creak anymore.
The attic door is open when I reach the landing, a lone lamp illuminating the low-ceilinged space where old things go to die.
It’s different than I remember. It’s tidy; devoid of clutter, everything pushed against one wall and itemized thoughtfully. I see clear plastic boxes full of vinyl records; the front cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors presses against the side of the closest container, begging to be let out.
The smell of dust and must that is usually present is gone, replaced by a thick metallic smell that makes my stomach twist.
On top of the stack of neat containers sits the heart-shaped box that holds my mother’s wedding dress — her first dress, the one she wore when she married my dad.
Away from the window, there is a large pine box, it’s lid ajar; built for storage but a box that looks eerily coffin-like in its shape and dimensions. Above me is the thick wooden beam that my father used to hang himself from.
Beside the pine not-coffin box is Damon, blood on his palms as he kneels on wooden planks that are full of splinters.
And in front of Damon there is a horror I cannot fully comprehend.
“She’s dying,” Damon chokes, his blue eyes bloodshot and wild, her blood all over him. I open my mouth to speak but no words will come, so it just st
ays open like that, a shocked O as I try to blink away the bloodbath in front of me.
I look at the dead girl cradled in Damon’s arms and that’s when everything slams into place. I meet her eyes; she’s not dead after all, just dying. Her eyes beg me for help; eyes I’ve seen before. She is the spitting image of her older brother, even down to the shape of their lips, their straight white teeth, the color of their eyes.
“Jennifer,” I choke.
I look back to Damon. “What did you do?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CASSIE
Jennifer Thomas is no longer missing; at least not to me.
She is no longer a smiling face printed onto a stack of posters that I left in the trash. She is flesh and blood, emphasis on blood, and she is breathing in a way that suggests she is gravely ill.
I look Jennifer over, but I can’t see any wounds. “Where is all the blood coming from?” I ask breathlessly, kneeling beside Damon. He puts a hand on her stomach — her swollen stomach — and that’s when I realize she is pregnant.
“She’s having a miscarriage?” I ask. Damon runs a bloody hand through his hair. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
I touch Jennifer’s hand; it is drenched with blood, warm and slippery. She hasn’t uttered a word yet; as my eyes adjust to the dim light, I can see why. Tape on her mouth. Tape around her wrists. This poor girl isn’t just bleeding to death; she’s doing so completely unable to move or speak.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” I whisper, realizing I’ve got my phone in my hand. I must have carried it up here. I stand as I unlock it and start to dial, nine, one, but I don’t get to punch in the third one. Damon follows my movements, snatching the phone out of my hand with his wet fingers, Jennifer’s blood streaking across my palms like angry lashes of a cane.
“Damon,” I say urgently, glancing down at Jennifer. “She’s bleeding everywhere. We have to call an ambulance. Now.”
“No.” He takes my phone and throws it down the stairs, all the way to the kitchen where I hear it shatter. I bite my lip and try not to cry as I look around the attic for a weapon, for something.
“Damon,” I try again. I keep glancing at Jennifer because I want to make sure she’s still alive. She is. She’s hyperventilating, her skin lily-white, her breaths dangerously shallow.
“No!” Damon roars. I slap him across the face, so hard that my wrist goes numb and fresh blood beads along Damon’s bottom lip. Good. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but she’s going to die.”
Damon takes a step back. “We need to call Ray.”
“Call an ambulance,” I urge him. “Or don’t. We can dump her in front of a hospital and leave. Damon, if you don’t get her to a hospital, she’s going to die.”
Jennifer Thomas is in my attic, dying. Damon was getting me to put up posters of her beaming face in the cold, in the snow, while she was in our fucking house.
I kneel beside her, ripping away the tape that binds her wrists until my fingernails break, unsure of what else I can do. Damon has a gun. I have nothing but a pair of threadbare pajamas and a full bladder. Damon dials his brother and hands the phone to me. “Tell him to hurry.”
He’s in Reno, I think. Or possibly Vegas. How is he going to hurry?
I swipe the phone from his hand and press it to my ear. Ray answers almost immediately. “Ray,” I begin before he can start.
“Oh, hey, little lady,” Ray replies, his voice taking on a predatory edge that I don’t like. “I was just thinking about you.”
I’m sure you were.
Ray,” I interject. “Listen. You have to call us an ambulance —”
His tone change immediately. “Is my brother all right? What’s happened?”
I roll my eyes, patting Jennifer’s shoulder with my free hand. “Damon is fine. Jennifer and her baby are not fine.”
Damon rips the phone from my hand. “No ambulances,” he barks, pacing the length of the attic. “You need to get here, now.”
I can’t hear what Ray is saying anymore. I look down at Jennifer, realizing she’s quiet because of the duct tape across her mouth. Wincing, I locate an edge of the tape and pull it from her mouth in one swift rip. She’s in so much pain already, she barely reacts.
“Jenny,” I whisper. “What happened? Who did this to you?”
Her eyes dart to Damon momentarily before looking back at me.
“You did this to yourself, Jennifer,” Damon mutters.
Jennifer cowers beneath my hands as Damon addresses her.
“Do you think you can walk if I support you?” I ask. Jennifer shrugs, tears streaming from her eyes. I’ve never seen so much blood in my life, and why won’t Damon call an ambulance for this poor girl? I can’t even fathom how she came to be up here. I can’t bear the thought that she might have been above me as I slept this entire time; that I could have somehow saved her before this.
Suddenly, Jennifer squeezes my hand hard enough that my bones hurt, a wail coming from her mouth. She’s bearing down, her face scrunched up, her eyes closed as a wave of something paralyzes her.
“Contractions,” I mutter. “Damon. She’s having contractions. It’s too early for this baby to be born.” I’m no doctor, but her stomach, although clearly protruding, is tiny. She’s barely in her second trimester.
“We have to call the police,” I say to Damon.
He grits his teeth so hard, I think they might shatter from the pressure. “I AM the fucking police, you stupid girl.”
The cogs in my sleep-addled brain are starting to turn. But I barely have time to voice my suspicions because Jennifer is screaming. I look to Damon, who responds by slapping his hand over her mouth to drown out the noise.
“Be quiet,” he hisses. She shrinks away from him, terrified. I know that feeling. Something tells me that Jennifer knows it much more intimately than me, though.
Jennifer’s contraction subsides, and Damon takes his hand away. She tries to sit up, balanced on her elbows. “I can f-feel something,” she whispers. “I need to push. Oh, God.” Her hands are tied but her legs are free, and she’s trying to open them wider.
I look at Damon for a moment, before my instincts propel me. I scoot around so I’m in the juncture created by Jennifer’s legs, the dim light only showing me a vague outline. She screams once more, and something wet and dark slides out of her.
“Oh, Jesus,” I stammer. Jennifer’s elbows go out from under her, the sound of her skull hitting the floorboards sickening. A rush of dark red blood surges from between her legs, pooling beneath her.
“I think the baby came out,” I whisper. Jennifer isn’t moving anymore; her knees fall together, her eyes flutter shut. Damon, wide-eyed and probably in shock, shoves me aside as he discovers the avocado-sized lump on the floor that, in exiting its mother too early, has just caused her to die horrifically.
“No,” Damon whispers. “No, no, no.” He sits back on his heels, the tiny baby in his hands, Jennifer’s blood all over him, all over me, all over the attic.
Jennifer’s eyes are still open, staring at the ceiling, unseeing. I put two fingers to her neck to check for a pulse. Nothing. I use those same fingers to press her eyelids shut. I’m not a religious person, but I put my palms together and say a prayer for Jennifer Thomas anyway because if I don’t, nobody will.
RAY IS SOOTHING. Ray is kind. To his brother, he is these things.
While Damon refuses to let go of the tiny baby Jennifer birthed — while Damon loses his fucking mind — Ray speaks softly to him. I have never heard the kindness in him but he possesses it, in his own way. He takes the baby in his hands and gives it to me, even though I don’t want it. I take it, anyway, fresh shellshock running up and down my limbs as I stand in the middle of the attic.
Ray takes Damon away, out of the attic, and I am left alone with Jennifer and her baby. I hear the shower turn on, and a few moments later, Ray reappears in the attic. I place the baby on its mother’s chest, looking to Ray for - what? Permissio
n? Instruction? My own ending?
I knew the moment that Ray arrived that he might kill me. Damon might love me, but Ray doesn’t. I see the indifference in his eyes, the calculations. I am a loose thread. He is figuring out how to tie me up.
“Are we going to have a problem?” he asks me. I shake my head emphatically.
“I didn’t hear you.”
“No,” I reply. “No problems. I swear.”
“Good,” he says, apparently satisfied. “Find a box for that.” He jabs a finger toward Jennifer.
“For Jennifer?” I ask.
He looks impatient. “For the kid.”
“Oh.”
He leaves the attic again and I look around properly for the first time. My whole focus has been on Jennifer and her baby, but now I look past them, to the large pine box she was obviously locked in, the padlock hanging loose, the lid flipped open. I peer inside the box to see ordinary things, things you wouldn’t equate with death and dying. A pillow. Blankets. An iPod, ear bud headphones still attached. Gingerly, I lift one of the ear buds to my ear. It’s blasting music. I don’t listen long enough to hear what’s playing.
I search the room for a box. My eyes land on a stack of milk cartons in the corner, meticulously stacked, almost as tall as me. Making sure I’m still alone, I take one of the cartons from the pile.
It’s old and waxy, just like the one I found downstairs when Ray interrupted me last week. But this carton is different. The picture on the side hasn’t been rubbed out.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY?
Every hair on my arms stands on end as if I’ve been electrified. They used to put missing kids on milk cartons. Isn’t that exactly what Damon said to me in the kitchen the morning Jennifer’s disappearance broke on the news? I study the grainy black and white image of the kid pictured. Daniel Collins, aged ten. Went missing from the sidewalk outside his house on August 26th, 1987.
It was his tenth birthday. He’d been checking the mailbox, and then he was just gone.
I memorize the date and the name, putting the carton back in its spot and selecting another one. It’s identical. I check two cartons, then five, ten. They’re all the fucking same. Daniel Collins, born 1977, disappeared 1987. I don’t recognize the face on the photo, it’s so grainy and blurred, but I store the name in the recesses of my mind for future reference.