Gun Shy

  I catch Damon’s hand with loose fingers. He looks back, confusion on his face, irritation.

  “I have to go,” he says.

  I start to cry again. “Idontwantyoutogo.”

  I won’t remember most of this in the morning. The pill will leave me with a thankful case of near-amnesia. I will recall flashes of things, single words picked out of the fray, but that’s it. That is the greatest mercy and the biggest lie of all. I will not remember. But now, encased in the thick rush of euphoria, of whatever he’s given me frothing in my veins, I need him to stay.

  “Please, don’t go,” I beg, my words slurring under the sedative effect of the drug. I beg him! I am a sick girl. I am ruined. I will take my captor because he is the only person left in the world. I see the hesitation in Damon’s eyes, the hard reality of what’s to come when he reaches the foot of the stairs and steps in his brother’s blood. He can’t stay, but he doesn’t want to go, either.

  He relents. He strips off the plastic blue overalls he was wearing, naked underneath, and slides into the bed beside me. His hands are hot on my cold skin, despite my hot bath, two shots of bourbon and three extra blankets. I am as cold as Jennifer’s bones in the icy ground. The moon casts an eerie sliver of light into the room through the gap in my curtains, a sliver that illuminates Damon’s face.

  His head rests on the pillow beside mine, his hand under the blankets on my bare hip. He slides his palm down, cupping between my legs.

  “Did it hurt?” he asks. I nod.

  “Do you want me to make it better?”

  These damn pills and the haze they cloud you in. In ten minutes they can turn you from an unwilling victim into a begging slut.

  Do you want me to make it better? I do. I nod.

  And then he’s on me and in me and the room is spinning, my knees pressed wide, my hips protesting at the way I’m spread apart. But none of it registers as pain anymore, not when I’m flying high above Gun Creek in a hallucinatory daze. Damon uses me as I use him, as he scratches an itch deep inside me that nobody can ever seem to find. He takes and I take and no wonder we are all so empty, so barren, so dead inside. His thumb finds the magical spot, right above where he’s pushing inside me, and I finally feel whole again.

  I bite down on my tongue so I do not say Leo’s name. I come quickly, loudly, and when Damon kisses the moan from my mouth, there is blood.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CASSIE

  The morning brings a blue tinge to the world, a fresh layer of snow, a kitchen and a staircase scrubbed clean of any crime. I want to ask where Ray is buried, or burned or submerged, but I don’t. I make coffee instead, and sip it from my Disney mug like nothing ever happened. My body is humming pleasantly, thanks to the two Percocet I took before I got out of bed. The heat is blasting through the house, I can’t feel the rope burns on my wrists and ankles through my buzz, and there’s a gentle snow falling outside the kitchen window. The dining table Ray tied me to is gone, probably firewood now, and our plastic outdoor table sits in the spot where it once lived.

  Damon hasn’t slept by the look of him. I sit down at the new table, across from him, wincing as my bruised thighs make contact with the dining chair.

  “Did you sleep?” Damon asks.

  I return his vacant stare. “Like the dead.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Too soon?”

  “Just shut up and make me some coffee.”

  I mock salute him, standing up from my chair. My sweater is loose, and it drops down my arm, exposing my bruised shoulder. Damon looks at the bruises, then at me. I hold his gaze for a moment before I make him coffee, slamming it down on the table in front of him.

  I resume my spot, drinking coffee as I size up the man who thought it was a good idea to roofie and fuck me after his brother raped me.

  “Cassie,” Damon says sharply. “Say something.”

  Something, huh? Okay.

  “What did Ray mean about that junkie creek bitch?”

  Damon’s eyes cloud over and he looks at the floor.

  “It was Karen, wasn’t it?” I prod.

  Damon looks at the ceiling and nods, his eyes glassy as he blinks. “Yeah. It was Karen.”

  Something inside my chest tightens so hard, I can barely breathe. “Did you kill Karen, Damon? Did you kill her and dump her body on Leo’s property so it would look like he had something to do with it?”

  He shakes his head tightly. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t.”

  “Did you rape Karen Brainard?”

  He gives me a withering look. “You don’t need to rape girls like Karen, Cassie. You just need the right currency. Hers was any kind of upper she could get her filthy little hands on.”

  “You’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead.”

  Damon snorts. “I think we drove off that bridge a long time ago.”

  Something about the way he says that rattles me. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I’m deeply unsettled.

  “Is that why you killed Ray? Because of what he did to Karen?”

  He finally meets my gaze again. “I killed him because of what he did to you, Cassie. You. I thought… I didn’t know if I’d be able to stop him in time.”

  You stopped him, all right. Stopped him all over the kitchen. Now there are pieces of his skull bone stuck in my hair.

  “I hate you,” I say plainly.

  “I know that,” he replies.

  “You knew that, and you still killed your brother for me?” I should be thankful, but I’m just confused. “Your brother.”

  Damon looks at me and I see the little boy in his grown eyes. The fear. The dread. I didn’t find Daniel Collins when I visited his empty grave, but I have found him now.

  My skin breaks out in goosebumps as his words sink past my bruises, down into my bones, where they settle, heavy like lead.

  “He wasn’t my brother,” Damon says, pushing his coffee away. “He was the one who made me get into that van.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CASSIE

  Damon, sadly, has to work. Which means I am dropped off at the diner for my ten a.m. start, just in time to walk into a fucking shit show.

  The place is teeming with truckers, waiting out a snow storm up north before they carry on with their loads. Everyone wants to eat, waffles and bacon and endless refills of coffee. I don’t want to be here, and I’m limping more and more as the painkillers wear off.

  Everything hurts.

  Even the tips of my fingers feel bruised from where I tried to fight Ray off. I can’t close my eyes without seeing the mess Damon’s gun made of his face, the blood. I beg an early break from Amanda, who directs me to a booth in the back. She can tell I am sick with something. I wonder what she’d say if she knew I was sick with having almost been murdered in my own kitchen less than twelve hours ago. I’m folding a stack of napkins when he appears.

  “Cassie,” a low voice says, startling me to attention.

  “Fuck,” I mutter, knocking over the black coffee I just poured for myself. Hot liquid goes everywhere, all over the table and my stack of neatly folded napkins. I stare dejectedly at the scene in front of me, not bothering to clean up the mess.

  “Shit, I’m sorry,” Leo says. He fetches a wad of napkins from the pass, mopping up the coffee as I watch his hands move.

  “Cassie, are you okay?”

  I jerk my head up to meet his gaze. God, he’s like a fucking teddy bear. His eyes are soft and imploring. I just want to jump into his arms and beg him to take me away from all of this before Damon kills me, or worse, kills him.

  “You’re scaring me,” he whispers, looking around the diner. We’re alone in this little corner for the moment, but who knows how long that will last.

  “I’m scaring you?” I say scathingly, staring up at six foot and three inches of muscle and flesh. My God, he survived prison, and he finds me frightening?

  “You’re not you,” he says, balling up coffee-soaked napkins an
d dropping them on the table between us. “What happened last night after you went home?”

  “I can’t do this anymore,” I say. “I can’t see you again.”

  “Bullshit,” Leo says, sliding into the booth opposite me. “What. Happened.”

  I stare out of the window, into the forest, where the police and an army of volunteers have searched three times for any trace of Jennifer.

  “Did he hit you?” Leo says, reaching across the table, his hand cupping my jaw as he studies the swollen left side of my face, bruises and swelling that my bangs and a thick application of concealer only half-hide.

  “I walked into a door,” I say vacantly. I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t open that can of worms. It will ruin everything. If Leo provokes Damon, Leo will end up back in prison, and this time, it might be forever.

  “Cassie, just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

  Take me away. Hide me. Love me. Save me.

  All perfectly acceptable responses for the way I’m feeling. For the violent brutality I’ve been subjected to. I just want to go somewhere dark and safe and silent with Leo, bury my face in his chest, and sob.

  “Tell me what to do,” he repeats, his tone more urgent this time.

  I look up at him, wiping my face of emotion as if it were a blank slate. It has to be.

  If Damon thinks Leo has anything to do with me, he’ll kill him.

  “You’ve already done enough,” I say coolly. “Thanks for the napkins.”

  I think of Ray’s face. I think of Damon’s hands. I think of the way I punched Leo as I fucked him. Something breaks inside of me. I wonder how many days— no, how many years until Damon grows tired of me and lets me leave.

  I think of how peaceful Ray was after he died, leaving only a broken, empty vessel.

  How I was so horrified at the time. How now, I’m not horrified; I’m jealous. Furious, filled with the envious truth that he got to die and I had to stay.

  And I decide, very calmly, very matter-of-factly, that I’m done here.

  I stand, not bothering to collect my apron and order pad, both now covered in coffee. I won’t be needing them. I won’t be back here tomorrow.

  Leo stands too, blocking my path, and I take the opportunity to reach out and press my fingers flat against his chest, right above his heart.

  “I know it was an accident,” I say, smiling sadly. “I know you waited for me in that prison, all those years. I know you love me. Okay?”

  Leo’s jaw clenches, his eyes darken. Anguish. Oh, how well I know that feeling.

  I wish it could be different. This is my greatest unanswered wish, the thing that burned in some tiny part of my soul all these years. That someday, things might be different. But as I look at Leo, the boy I used to know, the man I still love, I search for that flame that burned quietly.

  It’s not there anymore. It’s gone. Just like Jennifer, it has disappeared. The love is there, but the hope – the hope has been smothered.

  “I’m so sorry, Leo,” I say softly. “You waited all that time to see me again. And I was such a disappointment to you.”

  “Cass, wait—” he says, but I don’t stop. I keep walking, through the kitchen, past the office, through the fire escape and outside.

  It’s cold, so very cold, but it doesn’t matter. I walk until I get past the dumpsters and into the parking lot, and then I start to run.

  I make it home in record time. Thirteen minutes - I don’t think I’ve ever run so fast. I slow only when I reach our front driveway, checking for signs of Damon.

  He’s not here. I saw his car parked in front of the sheriff’s office, and there’s no way he’d come back on foot. I still don’t have keys to my own fucking house, not that it matters.

  I go around back and find a suitable piece of firewood in the stack that leans up against the house, using it as a club that I swing into the kitchen window. It breaks on the third hit.

  Momentarily, I stare at the spot where Jennifer is buried and feel a pang of jealousy stab at me. I think, for a long moment, about how peaceful it must be under all that dirt, as I drop the piece of wood, hoisting myself up on a couple of old cinderblocks and into the kitchen.

  Cold air billows into the house, but I ignore it. I collect my supplies with military precision; a razor blade, a fifth of vodka, a chair, the bottle of Percocet I’ve had hidden beneath a loose floorboard in my bedroom. I take it all up to the bathroom, where not twelve hours ago Damon was scrubbing Ray’s blood from my burning skin.

  I hope he finds me, dead and bloodless.

  I hope he cries.

  I hope it rips him to shreds that his love, his darkness, was the thing that killed me.

  I take the pills while the tub fills with warm water, three at a time, washed down with vodka that burns as I gulp it. I can’t take so many pills that I start throwing up, but enough that it won’t hurt so much when I slip off, or under, or whatever the fuck it is that comes before my final sleep. I catch sight of myself in the mirror as I’m throwing pills down my throat, and the girl staring back at me makes me so fucking angry that I ball my hand into a fist and smash the mirror to pieces. My knuckles start to bleed, the pain sharp and hot. Good. Very good.

  I strip down to my underwear, the bruises and cuts littering my body telling a tale that I’d never be able to voice. I sink into the tub, steam rising from the water’s surface as it rises, taking the razor and pressing it down into the flesh at my left wrist before I can think, before I can hesitate. Oh fuck, it hurts. Even with the painkillers starting to take effect, it still hurts enough that I gag. Blood spurts from my radial artery like syrup, thicker than I expected, and faster. The room spins. Holy fuck. Maybe I won’t have to cut the other one after all.

  But Damon. He could come home at any moment. Find me. Save me. And then spend the rest of my life making sure I’m never alone again.

  Cut the other wrist, the dark voice inside me urges. It’s so hard to grip the razor in my left hand, what with the blood gushing from my left wrist and all, but I manage. I repeat the action on my right wrist, not getting quite as deep, but deep enough that this shouldn’t take long.

  I drop the razor somewhere in the water, letting my head loll back against the edge of the tub. I hold my wrists up in front of me, laughing, and then it all goes blissfully beautifully black inside. It was a nice life, before Damon. It was such a lovely life before him.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  LEO

  She explicitly warned me against going to her house. But something’s not right. Something is very fucking wrong. I don’t know what happened last night after Cassie got home. I watched as she got home, as she got inside and flicked on the light. I watched as Damon arrived home. I watched as the bathroom light went on, and Cassie’s bedroom, and finally as the house went dark. There was no noise, no struggle, no signal that I was desperately seeking. And so I went back to bed, Cassie’s panties in my hand as I jerked off and came all over the sheets where we’d just fucked for the first time in eight years.

  But the girl I watched jog up to her front door last night was not the same girl I frightened in the diner this morning. Something happened. Something bad. And I’m going to find out what he did to her.

  If only she’d open the goddamn front door. I knock and knock, pounding my fist on the door to no avail. I ring the bell. Something is wrong. There’s an anxiety gnawing at me. I need to get inside this house. I need to see with my own two eyes that Cassie is okay. When she left, there was a look in her eyes that scared the absolute shit out of me. A look I’ve never seen before, not even after the accident all those years ago.

  I go around back, trudging through melting snow to the back door. I’m about to try it when I notice the kitchen window has been smashed. Shit. If she’s in there, alone, and someone has broken in, I have to get in there and save her. I’ll kill them if I have to, to keep her safe. I don’t care if I end up on death row if it keeps her from harm.

  I climb up into the
window quietly, shimmying through the gap and dropping over the kitchen counter and to the floor as silently as possible. I check the bottom floor before creeping up the stairs, taking them two at a time, flinching when the boards creak halfway up.

  I can hear water running, and that’s where I go - to the bathroom. I try to open the door, but it’s jammed with something. “Cassie!?” I yell. Now that I know she’s in the bathroom, I’m not worried about an intruder — I’m worried about what a beat-up girl is doing in the tub at midday on a Friday. If she’s taking a bubble bath after a grueling work shift, if she’s listening to her iPod and can’t hear me, I will replace the door and apologize a thousand times over.

  But I know in my bones that Cassie isn’t relaxing or listening to music or having a fucking bubble bath. I saw the haunted look in her eyes before she took off running; I’ve known that feeling myself a time or two. In the days after I found Karen in the well. In the nights after I drove off the bridge and ruined Cassie’s mother. In the long years I spent in Lovelock prison, everything blurring into one long nightmare. I saw that look in her eyes. The look that said: I don’t know if I can go on.

  “Cassie!” I yell one more time, just in case. Nothing. I smash my shoulder into the door as hard as I can, again and again. On the third go, it opens slightly, just a crack, enough for me to see my beautiful girl lying pale and motionless in a bathtub full of water and blood.

  “Oh, shit,” I mutter, kicking the door until I’ve created a hole big enough to reach my arm into. I discover the chair propped underneath the door handle and unwedge it, opening the door and rushing to the bath. I hit the tiles with my knees, the shock vibrating up my body as I look down at Cassie. She’s so fucking pale, dressed in a bra and panties, cuts and bruises littering her body. But it’s not those I’m worried about now. It’s the deep gashes in her arms that are pouring with blood, blood that starts bright red and diffuses to a pinkish color in the tub of water she floats in. Her hair fanned around her shoulders, she looks like an angel. She looks dead.