Crow’s Row

  Cameron’s already treacherous mood exploded like a volcano. “He wouldn’t have shot himself if my orders had been followed.”

  “It was an accident, Cameron,” Spider reminded him, quickly, patiently.

  “I said no guns! What part of my order wasn’t clear?”

  Rocco got up from the couch and limped toward the patio doors.

  “Where are you going?” Cameron demanded, the anger of his voice ricocheting off the living room walls.

  “To bed. It’s too loud in here,” he responded groggily. He opened the patio door, limped through, and disappeared into the darkness outside. Carly and I watched Spider and Cameron stare each other down. The tension in the room was now thick and unnerving.

  Carly smartly excused herself and left through the kitchen doorway. I followed her lead and went to check on the patient out on the deck.

  It was pitch black outside. At first, I couldn’t see where Rocco had gone, but as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw his elongated shadow lying on a lounging chair. There was no moon; the sky was softly lit by a million twinkling stars. It was amazing how quickly it came—my sense of insignificance in the grand scheme of things.

  I sat down next to him and watched the sky. It smelled like summer now, like the woods were breathing, too alive to sleep the darkness away. Rocco drowsily mumbled and tussled on his improvised bed. After a few minutes, he went silent. I assumed that he had finally fallen asleep.

  “He loves you,” he garbled.

  At first I thought he was still mumbling to himself, but as I turned to look at him, I saw that he had twisted onto his side and had been staring at me. His hair was disheveled—with one side completely flattened while the other stood straight up on its ends.

  “Who are you talking to?” I asked, playing along with his drugged stupor.

  “You, stupid. Who do you think?” he grumbled and turned on his back and squinted, like he was trying to figure out what those twinkly things above were doing on his bedroom ceiling. He gave up trying to focus on anything and sighed, “I think Cameron has for a long time.”

  I couldn’t remember how it went: inebriated people always tell it like it is, or never trust what someone under the influence tells you? Maybe the truth was, as always, somewhere in the middle. Either way, my heart thudded.

  He scratched his nose and then his ear. “That night, when I knocked you over the head, I seriously thought that Cameron was going to kill me … I screw stuff up all the time … so I guess that wasn’t really weird … Except that he made me bring you here, you were more than just some chick he picked up off the street. I think it’s driving him nuts having you here. He must have called me a thousand times in the middle of the night to check up on you last time he left to go to work.”

  “You should really get some sleep, Rocco,” I suggested unwillingly.

  “Before you came here,” he continued, ignoring me, his sole audience, “Cameron used to work all the time and then left us whenever he wasn’t working. We used to assume that he just wanted to be alone. Since you’ve been here, he doesn’t disappear anymore.”

  “Don’t you think it’s strange that, out of all the people in the park that day, Meatball would run after you?” he asked me. “I mean, I’m not really good at math, but it seems pretty slim odds that the dog would jump on the one girl whose brother just happened to be the dog owner’s best friend. I think Meatball knew who you were a long time before you actually met. He likes you better than everyone else, that’s for sure.” Was he still talking about the dog? He turned to me, keyed up. “You know what else?”

  I shrugged, because I didn’t know what else there could be, because I was holding on too tight to my bottom lip to play along anymore.

  “I overheard Tiny tell Spider that someone told Tiny …” I was having trouble keeping up with this given my state of mind and wondered how he managed given his state of mind. “ … that Cameron was in the projects a lot even when he wasn’t working. After you came here, it all stopped … and,” he added like he was expecting a drumroll, “Tiny told me that when they went to get your stuff from your house, Cameron knew exactly where you lived and where your room was in the house. Tiny was the only one Cameron even allowed in the house. But no one was allowed to go near your stuff. Cameron packed it all himself.”

  Images were running through my head—images of what had, might have, already happened; images of what could be … it took me a while to remember how to speak. Rocco was—absurdly—making a lot of sense, or at least that was what my heart wanted, very much, to believe. My head, on the other hand, was shielding the rest of me, challenging the mere possibility. For Cameron to—and I had trouble saying this even quietly to myself—love me, was, as Rocco had used, slim odds. Cameron was everything; and I was, not enough. My mind was looking for ways to protect me from the reality of my shortcomings.

  “Why would Cameron send Meatball after me?” I contradicted, but there was no answer. While my innards had been fighting, I hadn’t noticed that Rocco had gone quiet. I looked over—he was asleep.

  A serene voice in the darkness did answer me. “I didn’t.”

  Cameron had been standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, listening to Rocco and me.

  “Meatball got away from me after he spotted you running.” His shadow moved past me to the furthest end of the deck.

  I could only watch.

  “Taking advantage of my brother’s state to extort information?” While he had spoken from the darkness, I had listened for traces of anger but deciphered nothing like that. I exhaled just a little.

  “He offered,” I corrected and went to investigate him in the darkness. From what I could see, he was standing with his arms casually resting over the side of the rail, looking toward the shadows of the trees. Other than the lights coming from Carly’s house, the landscape was blackened, and I could barely make out Cameron’s face—just his dark eyes that twinkled under the stars.

  “So what were you doing there in the first place? In the projects, I mean,” I probed, trying to keep my voice casual.

  “Checking up on you. Making sure you were safe,” he answered, his voice mastering casualness.

  “Did you do that … often?” I asked him.

  Cameron didn’t answer.

  “How long have you been doing this?”

  “Since Bill died.” His tone was still unbearably unruffled.

  I gasped. “That was six years ago, Cameron! You’ve been doing this for that long?”

  Cameron took his time. “Bill made me promise a long time before he died that I would look after you if anything ever happened to him. I kept my promise.”

  I was trying to analyze his intonation again. This was even more difficult when I had nothing but a darkened face to match the voice with. “Is that the only reason?”

  Cameron remained silent again and kept his dark eyes fixed on the imperceptible landscape.

  “If Meatball hadn’t gotten away from you that day, would you have ever introduced … shown yourself to me?”

  Cameron turned and faced me. I couldn’t see his eyes anymore.

  “No,” he said without an inch of doubt. “You had your own life.”

  “Not much of a life,” I mumbled and pouted.

  “Better than this.”

  “So you just decided all of this on your own, without consulting with me. You had no right to make that decision for me.”

  Cameron chuckled, but I caught a glimpse of his uneasiness. “You would have never known the difference, Emmy. Your life would have gone on without ever knowing that I was there or that this … life even existed. It’s not like it was easy to do, especially after you moved into that hellhole in Callister.”

  “It must have been inconvenient for you to have to spy on me in a grubby part of town,” I quipped.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “At least if you would have done what you were supposed to and gone off to a good college, lived in a nice place, and e
ventually met a good guy, I would have felt a lot better about letting you live your life. But imagine what it was like for me to see you so miserable and not be able to do anything about it.”

  “So why didn’t you do anything about it?”

  I felt Cameron’s hand move smoothly over my cheek, displacing a strand of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail.

  “You and I are just too different.”

  I didn’t know if it was the wine that I had shared with Carly or the fact that Cameron and I stood in the darkness, hidden from the world and each other, but I suddenly felt very brave.

  “So is Rocco right? Do you love me?” I brazened into the night, though disbelief still encased my voice.

  Cameron chose silence.

  “Answer me,” I demanded.

  But Cameron would not be ordered.

  It was surely the wine, because I stood on my tiptoes and searched in the darkness and found his face. He moved his head forward in instinct, and his face all of the sudden emerged from the dark. He looked as nervous as I felt. It was the way he looked at me, like he was searching for something—like he had just found it, that made my fingers tingle with ants. With his face inches away from mine, Cameron paused for an instant, and his darkened eyes stayed fixed on mine. He closed in, my eyes closed themselves, and he parted my lips with his. He kissed me too softly at first, like he was expecting me to break into pieces. But I was quite suddenly strong and inched myself closer to him. I felt his hand loop around to the small of my back while the other gently pushed my head toward his.

  I was overwhelmed, too overwhelmed to notice the patio door open—but Cameron noticed. Footsteps approached; he grabbed my shoulders and pushed me away. He rushed past me. I was left blurry.

  Griff was standing over Rocco. He was startled when Cameron emerged from the darkness and fleetingly glared at me when I followed Cameron, attempting to rapidly fix my disheveled ponytail.

  “Get away from him!” Cameron ordered.

  Rocco, who had been awaken by Cameron’s loud voice, sat up and skimmed confusedly from Griff to Cameron and me.

  Griff looked terrified and angry. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t see you … standing there. I just came to check on the Kid.”

  “You’ve done enough for one day. Leave,” Cameron commanded.

  “Sir … I wanted to apologize for what happened earlier today …” Griff stammered.

  Cameron’s eyes became crazed. “I said leave! Now!”

  Rocco and I both jumped as Cameron lost his cool.

  Griff glimpsed at me with fury and quickly spun around, leaving just as Tiny and Spider came running through the doors.

  “What’s going on?” a dazed Rocco asked.

  I looked through the crowd of panting angry men. Instinct told me that I needed to get out of there—quickly.

  So I turned to Rocco, “You need to go to bed. You can’t sleep out here.”

  “Out where?” he wondered.

  I helped Rocco off the lounge chair and painstakingly held him up as we dragged ourselves back into house. I made sure to close the patio door behind us, sensing that the tension bubble between Cameron, Spider, and Tiny was about to burst.

  After I heaved Rocco into his bed, I hurried back to my room to be alone and let the men air out their differences. I was still quite high—though I wasn’t sure whether to dance around my room or lock my bedroom door. I plummeted onto the bed, tracing my fingers over my lips over and over until I drifted to sleep, before I could drift back to reality.

  That night, the disfigured monster came back into my nightmares. I woke up screaming, but no sound came out of my mouth—in fact, no air came into it either. A large hand covered both my mouth and nose. I fought back, kicking and punching my unseen assailant. The intruder struggled to switch my tiny ballerina lamp on, knocking it over in the process. The light was on, and Griff was standing over me with his hand over just my mouth now, anxiously scanning the room and shushing me erratically.

  “Emily! It’s me! Chill out!” he hushed.

  When I could take a few breaths through my nose and my heart had finally slowed to an almost normal tempo, Griff let me push his hand from my face.

  “Griff, what are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night!” I demanded in a half-whisper and half-sleep.

  He got up and started pacing back and forth, looking at the floor while he collected his thoughts. “How could you do this to me?” He looked up, wretched. “I should have known that when the boss asked for me to go with them today, then he kept glaring at me the whole time, that he meant something by it. I’m such an idiot. I’ve been racking my brain for weeks, trying to figure out what these mongrels want with you and how I was going to get you out of this place, when it turns out that you’re the boss’s concubine.”

  I shot straight up in bed. “What did you call me?”

  He moved over to me with a look of disgust on his face. “I’ve been putting my life in danger for you while you’re messing with the boss like a concubine.”

  Before I knew it was happening, my hand was raised, and I heard it smack Griff across the cheek. “I’m not messing with anyone, Griffin! Not that that’s any of your business. I’ve already told you, I don’t need to be saved, and I certainly didn’t ask you to do anything for me. Don’t pretend that your choice to slack off has been entirely for my benefit.”

  Griff rubbed his cheek and glared away.

  I tried my best to calm myself down. “What on earth happened out there today?”

  He sat on the bed, still rubbing his cheek like a child, like someone who wasn’t used to getting paid to pummel or be pummeled by much bigger people than me. “It’s like I said. I got told last night that your boyfriend insisted I go with them today. Apparently I was supposed to keep an eye on the Kid while he learned the trade. Spider almost blew my head off when I said I didn’t want to go. So I followed orders and went like a good soldier. Your boyfriend stared at me the whole way down. It was getting creepy. Then we get to this house, and all the boys were told to hang back on the street while Spider, Tiny, and the boss went in to talk business. They were in there for almost an hour … the Kid was getting bored and asked to see my gun.” He shrugged defensively. “I gave it to him. I didn’t see any harm in it—it wasn’t like he was going to shoot anyone. But one of the boys thought it would be funny to set off firecrackers to scare him. The Kid jumped and shot himself in the foot. Spider came out of the house, screaming at me, something about no guns. How was I supposed to know the Kid would shoot himself?”

  “Roc … the Kid is fine. So what’s with the theatrics?” I said, plunging back into my pillow and breathing with care.

  “You don’t get it, do you? These guys have been looking for an excuse to whack me ever since you got here. Now I know it’s because the boss wants you for himself. With the Kid shooting himself today and Spider’s warning last time, I’m done for sure. They’re going to off me.”

  “Griff, don’t be ridiculous. No one’s going to do anything to you. I’ll talk to them tomorrow if you want.” I rubbed my tired, burning eyes and yawned.

  Griff was incensed and leaned in. “I’m not blind. Even I can see that the boss is a great-looking guy. You probably imagine yourself spending your days at his beck and call, and I’m sure a pretty girl like you could definitely keep him busy for a while. You also probably think that because the boss wants a piece of you, you’ve got some kind of power over him and that you’re safe. Wake up, Emily! The guy doesn’t love you and never will. The minute he gets what he wants, you’re done for too. I won’t be here to save you when that happens.”

  His eyes were bloodshot and looked like they were about to bug out of his head. He was panting hotly, and every muscle of his body was tightly knotted and he was very close to me.

  “Griff, you’re scaring me,” I admitted, my voice shaking.

  He stepped away from the bed and started pacing back and forth again.

  “We have to leave
tonight,” he thought out loud.

  I pulled the warm blankets up to my chin. “We’re not going anywhere—”

  “You need to pack a bag. We leave tonight. One of the night guards usually falls asleep against the tree. We’ll sneak past him when he does and follow the road from the woods and flag someone down on the highway. We’ll have to hitch a ride out of here.”

  “We’re not going anywhere … tonight. This is ridiculous. You’re upset and paranoid. Everything will be better in the morning. You’ll see,” I assured him.

  Griff sat back on the bed and looked at me closely. “Emily, if you don’t leave tonight, they will kill you. Maybe not tomorrow, but they will, eventually. There’s a reason they don’t want anyone to talk to you, makes for less witnesses when you suddenly disappear from the face of the earth. I’ve been looking on the news to see if anyone is looking for you, there’s been nothing at all about you. I don’t think anyone even knows you’re missing. I didn’t tell you this because I didn’t want to scare you.”

  I suddenly realized that Griff was right. I had watched enough television with Rocco to know that my face never appeared on any news bulletins. This had upset me for reasons beyond Griff’s grasp.

  He took my hands into his. “I’ll come back in three hours. Get your stuff together. Just the essentials. We have a long trek ahead of us.”

  I didn’t know what to say to him, except that I wasn’t leaving with him. I looked around for inspiration and noticed that something big was missing.

  “Where’s Meatball?” I asked him, when what I really meant was: How did you get in here without Meatball biting your arm off?

  He pointed to the patio door. My guard dog was contently lying on the deck outside gnawing on the gigantic meat bone that was nestled between his paws.

  Griff got up.

  “Remember, three hours,” he whispered again as he stepped out onto the balcony and climbed down until he was out of sight.

  I did set the alarm clock to go off in three hours. In three hours, I would have another chance to convince Griff that running away alone in a dark forest was a really bad idea. I had three more hours to sleep.