She rolls her eyes and she calls out, “You’re getting what you deserve.”
“You never know when to stop, do you?” Joshua reprimands, and I’m not sure if he was talking to me or Clara and I don’t care.
Elsie’s My Little Pony bedsheets are twisted around her legs, and her nightshirt, which is actually Liam’s old T-shirt, dangles off her shoulder. The night-light plugged in on the wall near her bed casts a faint glow over my youngest sibling. Her face is red, her eyes swollen. Tear tracks mark her face.
She lifts her arms in the air, and when I’m within jumping distance, she launches herself at me and buries her head in the crook of my neck. Hot wet drops land on my skin and I close my eyes as I hug the little girl I wanted desperately to evade months ago.
I sit on her bed and she keeps herself curled around me, but the sounds of despair have ceased. Across the room, Zac watches me from the bottom bunk, Paul from the top. Both of them peek out from under their covers like owls terrified to wander from the safety of their nest.
“Is it true?” Paul asks. “Are you dating someone from the Reign of Terror?”
Elsie throws her fears into the mix. “Are Mommy and Daddy going to be mad at you forever?”
“Are they going to make you leave?” asks Zac.
Elsie’s dark eyes fill up again and her lower lip trembles. “I don’t want you to go.”
More questions pour from them about Razor and my parents and leaving and then the light flicks on. Liam and Joshua stride in and Clara hangs back to cock a hip against the door frame. From downstairs, Dad yells something about how Mom never has enough time for him and Mom shouts back asking why she should spend time with someone who doesn’t acknowledge her existence or worth.
I smooth back Elsie’s hair from her hot, sweaty face and consider laying my palms over her ears until the argument is over. Joshua picks up a pillow and swats Zac with it until he allows him room to sit and Liam rests his back against the frame of the bunks.
“You should be at work,” I say to Liam.
He hooks his thumbs into his jeans. “Getting a text telling me that there’s a picture of my little sister making out with a guy from the Terror at a bar changed my plans.”
“We didn’t do anything that night.” The making-out portion had come much later. “And Thomas is more than a member of the Reign of Terror.” Using Razor’s real name feels like a better strategy than his road name.
Joshua’s eyes narrow into slits. “They’re killers.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about them other than what people say.”
“Is it true?” Liam barks, and I rub my hand along Elsie’s back when she shudders. “Did you tell Mom and Dad you’re in love with this bastard?”
Anger tightens my muscles. “His name is Thomas, and yes, I am in love with him. He’s in love with me, and if you’d give him a shot, you’d find out what a great guy he is.”
Liam throws out his arms. “He carries a gun!”
“So what if he does? He’s a million times better than half of the people at school!”
He bangs the back of his head against the bunks so hard that the frame shakes. “Jesus, Bre, you’re too smart to be brainwashed. You’re too smart for any of this, but evidently you’re having a brain lapse and it’s time for you to get your head out of your ass!”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You gotta break up with him.” Joshua squishes Zac’s pillow in his hands. “One—he’s dangerous. Two—the people he’s around are lethal.”
“I’m not going to break up with him.” I press my lips to Elsie’s forehead when she sniffs like she’s going to start crying again. “I’ll introduce him to Mom and Dad. They’ll see how great he is and how smart he is and—”
“Mom and Dad are sending you away.” Liam cuts me off and the breath is knocked out of my body.
“What?”
“The private school. The one you were accepted to. I’m here because they called me over to see if I would move home so I can pick up the slack that will be left when you leave.”
It’s what I wanted. Months ago. My mouth gapes, and like when Kyle had tried to squeeze the life out of me earlier, no sound leaks out. If Liam had told me this in August, I possibly would have leaped into his arms and cried like a newborn, but now I’m encased in cold numbness.
The bunk squeaks when Paul hops out of the top and scurries to Elsie’s bed. He tucks a pillow to his chest and doesn’t look at anyone. A few seconds later, Zac bolts over the invisible line that has always separated me from everyone else.
Zac encircles his arms around my waist as Elsie tightens her hold on my neck. I’m leaving them. I glance around the room. Joshua has his head down and Liam’s staring at the ceiling as if we told him of an impending death.
“What did you tell them?” I whisper.
“I told them I’d do it. I’ll do anything to keep you safe.”
My mouth feels like a desert and it’s difficult to breathe. “What if I don’t want to go?”
Liam meets my eyes. “It doesn’t matter what you want. The decision’s already been made. You’re leaving this week.”
RAZOR
We need to talk about Kyle as soon as you get back. That was the last text Breanna sent before I hauled ass to Snowflake.
Sitting on my motorcycle in the student parking lot, I can hear the time bomb ticking in my brain. There was no other contact from her. No other text, no voice mail. Kyle did something to shake Breanna and each second of silence from her is causing my mood to become deadly.
A growl of motorcycles and two bikes from a pack of Reign of Terror driving past the school break off and turn in to the parking lot. Only one wears a three-piece patch and, from his bike, I can tell it’s Oz. Chevy rides beside him. They fly into the empty spot beside me and I do little more than glance at them as they dismount. Where the hell is Breanna?
“Where have you been?” says Chevy. “No one’s heard shit from you since Friday.”
No, they haven’t, but I can’t deal with the club. Breanna’s best friend, Addison, slips out of the passenger side of a car and her gaze hits mine. The wires that are crossed inside me cause the ticking to speed up. Everything is wrong.
“Razor!” Oz steps in front of me. “What’s going on?”
I push past Oz and he easily gives as I stalk toward Addison. She waits for me and the lone sign that she’s nervous is how she adjusts the backpack she carries on one shoulder.
“Addison!” her other friend chides as she looks at me as if I’m the devil bent on stealing their souls. “Let’s go.”
“Go on without me. Thomas and I need to talk.” Addison rips her glare from me to behind me, and because we have always backed each other up, I have no doubt Chevy and Oz are coming up on my six.
Her friend leaves and I don’t waste time. “Where is she?”
“Home. Reagan and I pulled in to pick her up this morning and her older brother Liam came out and told us she’s not going to school.”
An edge of worry shakes my frame. “Is she sick?”
“He said she’s not going to school anymore. Breanna’s parents are sending her away.” The perfect cheerleader leans into me like she’s the Riot willing to go to war. “I’m assuming they found out about you, and if you’re the reason why I’m losing my best friend, I’m going to make sure you pay.”
She wants a piece of me, she can have it, but not now, not until I know how deep this hole goes. “Have you talked with her?”
Addison grimaces like I struck her, but she’s quick to recover. “I was allowed to hug her goodbye. Thirty seconds. I’ve been her best friend for years and because of you I got thirty seconds and you know what she told me to tell you? That the warning shot was sent. Not sure what that me
ans, but I hope it means you’ll rot in hell.”
My entire body straightens as pissed-off energy rolls off me in waves. “Did she say anything? About Kyle? About a picture?”
Addison’s head ticks back. “No, but what do you mean Kyle and a picture? Is Breanna in trouble? Is—”
No time. The seconds are counting down in rapid succession. The explosion’s imminent and Kyle will be part of the damage. I’m through the crowd, scanning faces, and there’s footsteps behind me, and unlike on Friday, they aren’t trying to stop me, but they’re moving with me as if we’re a synchronized machine.
The son of a bitch is by his car, chatting with a freshman girl who believes he’s God.
“Get her away,” I growl, and Chevy maneuvers past me, catching the arm of the freshman and navigating her away with a smile and a daisy popping out of thin air. She’s confused and amused, and she’s officially out of the impact zone.
Like the moron he is, Kyle’s dumbfounded as he regards Chevy’s show and he doesn’t see my fist until it makes contact with his face. A smack of flesh against flesh and Kyle falls sideways into the hood of his car.
Before he can recover, I grab him by the lapels of his football jacket and drag him to his feet. “You’re a fucking dead man.”
His eyes widen with fear, but his lips twitch like he’s attempting to laugh. “Only sent the picture to her parents, but if she doesn’t write that paper, it’s going live.” He puts his hands over my wrists. “I’m in control of this game now. We found the back door you placed on our phones and we won’t be falling for your shit anymore. Because you care for her, you won’t do a thing to me. If you do, I’ll make sure everyone knows that she’s your whore.”
I go cold on the inside and the world tilts. He’s dead. The guy in front of me is inhaling air, but he’s as good as dead.
My fingers curl tighter, but there’re hands on my shoulders. The power of horses pulling me away and Chevy’s in my face. “Not now. We’ll take care of this, but not now.”
Kyle is ripped from my grasp and the world is in fast-forward as the pieces on the board shift to his side. I promised Breanna I could save her from this. I promised I would protect her. Like everything else in life, it’s completely fucked-up.
The asshole works his jaw. “I’m going to the office to get your ass kicked out over this. Have fun working on your GED, asshole.”
My gut cramps and I circle to find Oz and Chevy acting as if they’re ready to catch me when I fall.
“What’s going down, brother?” Oz asks.
The world grows hazy on the edges, but my bike becomes clearer as I walk toward it. I mount it and Oz is in front of me with his arms stretched out wide. “What’s going on?”
“Find me Pigpen,” I say. “He’s the only one that can help me.”
Oz yanks out his phone and Chevy pats Oz’s arm as the two of them head for their bikes. My motorcycle grumbles beneath me and I tear out of the parking lot as if I’m being chased by the flames of hell.
Breanna
MOM WENT TO WORK and so did Dad. Elsie, Zac, Paul and Joshua are off to school. Clara and Liam have been tasked with babysitting me, but like they did when I was younger, they suck at it and I’m sitting on the front porch.
I used to love autumn. The sound of the wind chimes tingling as the northern wind gently pushes through to the south. The way the leaves float to the ground and the constant chirping of crickets.
In essence, fall is the signal of everything dying, but I love how the world seems more vivid then. But today, I don’t enjoy the subtle warmth of the air or the radiance of the leaves. I feel only empty and alone.
I overheard Mom and Dad this morning and Dad mumbled something about how he never thought I’d be a Terror whore. I lower my head as my heart hurts. He believes I’m a whore.
The front door opens and Clara yells, “She’s out here sulking.” Then to me, savoring her power trip, “We didn’t give you permission to leave the house.”
They didn’t. “Why do you hate me?”
I expect myriad answers and excuses, but it’s the silence that surprises me enough to glance over my shoulder.
“I don’t hate you,” she says quietly.
“Yes, you do.”
Clara nibbles on her top lip, then closes the front door as she struts out. “I hate how everything comes easy for you, so sue me for enjoying something being hard for you for once.”
I laugh and then laugh harder when I realize how crazy I sound. “You’re mistaken on the easy.”
She snorts and leans on the porch railing. “You have no idea what hard is. Do you know what it has been like to be your older sister? Everyone’s like Look how smart Breanna is, Why can’t you be more like her? and then there’s my favorite pitied comment of Poor Clara, everything will always be a struggle for the poor dear because she’s stupid.”
I flinch. “You’re not stupid. You’re as smart as I am. In fact, you’re smarter—”
“Save it,” she spits. “Mom and Dad have been giving me the pep talk for years. You know what the world looks like to me? Chaos. My mind tries to merge letters together, it starts to do math problems from two years ago. I can’t focus. Not like you. I’ll never be you.”
For years, this is the same conversation we’ve had. That somehow I’m responsible for her misery and I’m sick and tired of the guilt. “I’d switch brains with you if I could.”
She chokes on a laugh. “Sure you would.”
My throat runs dry and I swallow, but it doesn’t help. “I don’t sleep.”
“What?”
“I don’t sleep. In fact, I don’t remember sleeping. I mean, I do and it’s enough to get by on, but it’s hard to fall asleep, and when I wake up, I can’t go back because my mind starts working on things, but I didn’t want you and Nora to know, so I would lie in bed for hours counting the plastered dots on the ceiling. There are four hundred and thirty-eight over my bed.”
Clara sleeps. It’s one thing she has been able to do. Her forehead wrinkles, but she quickly recovers from her shock. “So there’s one drawback for you.”
There is and there’re so many others. “I’m like you...more than you know. When I’m not working on something, it’s like a painful itch I can’t reach. Sometimes my head hurts when I can’t find the logic in the every day. There’s a throb in the front of my head and it shifts to my temples and then I’ll feel like I need to vomit because I don’t understand how it doesn’t make sense. And if none of that was annoying enough, I would freaking rip off my arms if, for thirty seconds, I could fit in with someone, somewhere.” Like I have with Razor.
I briefly close my eyes as all of the taunts from my past pound me like a wave. “At school. At work. At home. With you. All I’ve ever wanted was to be a part of this stinking family, but all you have ever done is made me out to be the freak show and maybe I am. Maybe I am the weird girl who no one will ever like, but at least my family should love me. At least somewhere in the deep recesses of your soul you should like me.”
A knot forms that cuts off my breathing. My eyes water and I try to blink the tears away, but more appear in the corners.
“Bre...” Clara starts but then stops.
“Home is supposed to be safe. Home is supposed to be the one place you can go and know that the horrible things people say to you won’t be said to you there. It should be that place that forms a protective shield and it’s okay to be quirky and messed up and...and...accepted.”
Yes, I stood up in seventh grade and I explained how I made an operating telegraph. I smiled as I explained my experiment. I stumbled over my words as I attempted to chase the thoughts in my mind, and I even experienced a slight high when I saw several classmates’ faces light up when they saw it truly worked.
My heart sinks when I recall the first
insult and then nausea strikes me in the stomach when I recall the laughter. But if it’s the truth that is to be told, it’s when I walked into the house to find Clara crying alone in the kitchen over her ACT score that my life changed.
“You’ll score higher than me. You could take it now and score higher than me. I know the answers. Everyone knows that I know the answers, but I can’t focus. I lose my focus. I can remember all these things and it makes you smart and me stupid. Everyone is always better. Everyone knows that you’re better. And I’m tired. I’m so tired of never measuring up.”
It wasn’t her words that shredded me, it was Clara hovering over the kitchen sink. It was her wrist poised over the basin. It was the knife that was being held at her wrist.
I loved her. Even though she blamed me. She was my older sister and I loved her.
Clara had looked over at me with wide eyes and she pleaded. Pleaded so much that it appeared her legs were about to give. “Can you try to not be you? Can you just try to be less?” She choked on the sobs and red-hot tears began to flow over my face as they ran over hers. “Maybe then I can keep up. Maybe if you pretend to be less, it won’t be so bad.”
And then she threatened to go through with killing herself if I told anyone what I saw and her burden became my burden. Her pain was my pain.
My head falls into my hands and the same tears I cried that day threaten to spill over now. “I tried, Clara. I tried to be less. I tried to be quiet and to be someone else and I’m sorry it wasn’t enough for you, but I can’t do this anymore. I did what you asked. I never told anyone what you were going to do. I never told anyone how I spent months terrified I’d come home and find you dead and I never told anyone that the reason I stopped being me was that you asked, but I can’t do this anymore because I’m dying. I can’t continue to kill myself in order to save you.”
When I lift my head, Clara’s completely pale and she holds on to her elbows like she’s about to break. She gently rocks back and forth. “I didn’t know that still haunted you.”
Every second of every day. “There are some things I wish I could forget, but, like you, I’m cursed.”