“I was ashamed of the drugs. Each and every time you looked at me, I saw love. I lost my mom and dad to death. I lost my second mom and dad to their control. I couldn’t lose you, too. I’m strong, Elle, but I’m not that strong. You’re the only family I have left.”
Unfortunately, I’m feeling more and more like an orphan with every minute that passes.
“I have regrets—the drugs, some of the words I said to your dad, but I don’t regret leaving, taking control of my life and joining the army. I love my life now, and I’m stronger because of it, but I’m scared for you. I’m watching as your parents tighten their grip on you like they did with me. I’m terrified what’s going to happen to you when that hole becomes too big and you feel like it has to be filled or you’re going to die. I never want you to feel as lost as I did.”
He’s too late. That dark abyss he’s talking about—I’m already in free fall.
My cell vibrates in my hand. A quick glance at the screen and my forehead furrows.
Drix: This is Holiday. Call now. It’s Drix. There’s trouble.
Dizziness overtakes my brain. “I’ve got to go.”
“Wait, Elle.”
“I’m serious. I have to go.”
“I know, but listen. I’m here. I may not be reachable sometimes, but I’m always here. Whatever you need, I’ll help. I promise.”
A traveling soldier living on base. There’s only so much he can do, but his offer is a lifeline that I grasp on to. “Thank you. Be safe.”
“Always.” And then he’s gone.
I breathe in deeply to try to push all the dull and sharp aches and pains away, then dial Drix’s number. Holiday answers on the first ring. “Elle?”
“It’s me. What’s going on?”
“I messed up.” She pauses, chokes on a sob, then continues, “Drix is in trouble. He showed me the picture of Jeremy robbing the store, and I got mad and Drix left. He’s gone and left his phone, and nobody can find him. I was so hurt that I confronted Jeremy. It was stupid, but I was mad and I wasn’t thinking and I told him Drix had proof he robbed the store. Jeremy got angry and he asked if anybody else knew and I freaked. I knew I couldn’t drag you into it, so I told him Drix found the proof on his own and Jeremy lost it. He grabbed a gun out of his dresser. He’s going to kill him. I know he’s going to kill him. The boys are out looking for Drix, but we need more help. We need the police, but the boys are scared to call. We don’t know what type of problems that will cause for all of us, specifically Drix and Kellen. The system doesn’t work for people in our neighborhood, but it works for people like you. Please, Elle. We need your help.”
I turn my head away from the phone, and I dry heave.
Please, God, no.
Hendrix
I throw the driftwood down the muddy creek, Thor chases, then drops into the dirt and gnaws on the wood. He gets the concept of catch. It’s the returning he hasn’t mastered yet.
It’s a long walk to the creek, yet it wasn’t long enough. Don’t know how many miles it will take to get the demons clinging on to my back off. Maybe those demons are there to stay. Maybe they’ve just been quiet, riding in silence, waiting for the right time to rear their ugly heads. Mostly, tonight, they whisper...failure.
I attempt to ignore the whisper and instead listen to the gentle lapping of the water. Success. Failure. What does any of that mean?
Failure? Forever being the guy everyone will judge first as a criminal. Five steps behind on the game board because of a past I can’t change.
Success? Liking who I became.
The world doesn’t view that as a success. The world only values climbing the mountain, getting the win, being in the band that was wanted by music labels. So does that mean my hard-earned success this past year isn’t real?
Thor’s head jerks up. One ear points up, the other flops down. He tilts his head, and I try to hear past the water and frogs chirping into the night. This part of the creek is more trees than people, which is why I chose it. Closer to the neighborhood, people party, people rebel, people do an illegal deal. But I’m not that person anymore, so I walked farther into the woods. This must be where people like me go to disappear.
Thor’s ears go back and he emits a deep growl. He trots over, but keeps low and stares into the woods. A sixth sense of evil runs over my skin—a cold black wind, and the hair on my arms stands on end. Quick glance around. There’s nowhere to go besides the water or into the forest, and there’s no telling what I’d run into in there.
Someone’s coming, a shadow that appears human. A car passes on the road farther up. The headlights hit the trees surrounding us. Jeans, T-shirt, shaved head, near my height and build. A million other guys, but only one has a tattoo of a cross with a vine wrapped around it and would be searching for me.
I lower my head and silently curse my sister. I should have known. Should’ve have seen her telling him, but I didn’t think far enough beyond saving her.
He steps into the clearing and sizes me up. I don’t need to do the same. I’ve memorized every hateful thing about this guy the moment he started dating my sister. Plus, he has a gun in his hand. That makes him the winner by default.
“How’d you find me?” I ask.
“I visited some of your old haunts. Figured you had to be at one of them.”
I make a show of looking around. “This wasn’t one of them.”
“It wasn’t, but at the party, someone saw you going in this direction. A guy and his dog. Sounded something old-school.”
“Yeah.” Once upon a time, I was great at small talk, but I’m not anymore. I should be more scared than what I am, but there’s a numbness in the ironic. This kid keeps ruining lives. Fitting that he ends mine. “How’s this playing out?”
“You’re going to give me the evidence you have, you keep your mouth shut, and then I won’t hurt you or your family. Plus, Kellen stays out of jail. If I go down, she goes down with me. Don’t lie to me, Drix. There’s no way she didn’t tell you guys.”
Fine. I yank the folded-up piece of paper and throw it at his feet. Jeremy tracks it and hesitates before picking it up and opening it.
“Where’d you get it?” he asks.
“Stole it,” I lie. “The governor had a file on me, I flipped through it, and when I saw that photo, I knew you were the one who did it.”
“Who else knows?”
“Besides my family? No one. And it’s obvious that no one in power knows either, governor’s office included, as I’m the one who went to jail.”
“How do I believe you?”
“You’re not arrested yet. I’m thinking that says a lot.”
He twitches. Jeremy has no intention of letting me walk out of here. I know what he’s done, I’ve cost him his girlfriend, and he’s still holding a grudge for that scar on his face from me.
A year ago, I would have welcomed this fight. Now, there’s no hunger for blood. “I was arrested for the crime and I did the time. The deal you just offered is accepted. You go home, and I’ll go home. You hate me. I hate you. You stay out of my way. I stay out of your way.”
“Yeah, I’m not ready for that yet.”
Didn’t think he was. Thor rubs against my leg as if he’s aware what’s about to go down. Thor’s getting bigger, but he’s still a puppy. I should have left him home, but I didn’t, so I do the best I can by him. I pick up a small piece of driftwood and throw it farther down the creek. Thankful he hasn’t learned how to come back. “Go get it, boy.”
Before I have a chance to see if he does, Jeremy lifts his arm, and there’s a bang that vibrates through my entire body.
Ellison
My blood swishes in my ears and drowns out any other noise: the sound of my feet as I race down the stairs, across the foyer, and slide into a wall as I round the corner. My father’s office door is open, but he
’s not there. My mouth moves. My lips and tongue forming words to call out for him. Then I run for the kitchen, and there’s a single heartbeat of fear when I spot him sitting at the island.
Dad has the power to save Drix. He has the power to end all of this right now. He has the power to make himself my hero again, but all that power belongs to who I thought he was. This man is somebody else, yet there is a vain hope that the man I admire still exists.
He lifts his head from the binder in front of him, and his eyes meet mine.
“Drix is in trouble and you have to help. The details don’t matter, but the guy who really robbed the convenience store found out that Drix knows he did it. He’s going after Drix with a gun, and no one can get ahold of Drix.”
Dad closes his binder. “What do you want me to do?”
“Call the police.”
“And tell them what?”
The answer is so strikingly easy that I feel like an idiot saying it. “The truth. That Drix didn’t do the crime. That the person who did is dangerous and is going after him.”
“It’s a big city. Where do we tell them to look?”
“The creek near his neighborhood. Since being home, his sister Holiday said Drix likes to walk the creek. Have the police go search for him there.”
“Surely his family can go look for him.”
“They are, but it’s not enough.”
“How did you learn about this?”
“From Holiday. She called me. She had a fight with her boyfriend when she found out he was the one who robbed the store and—”
Dad raises his hand to cut me off. “You want me to involve the police because Drix’s sister had a fight with her boyfriend, a person who may or may not have been the one to rob the store, and now her boyfriend is mad after their fight? Elle, even as emotional as you are right now, you must still have the ability to take a step back and realize how dramatically juvenile this all sounds. Teenagers fight, especially when they think they are in love. They get mad. They say things they don’t mean in the heat of the moment.”
There’s this strangling inside me, taking root in my feet and growing, throttling every organ in my body until it reaches my brain, and then I explode. “Dad! This is a life! We are talking about somebody’s life!”
“You’re being overdramatic, and you’re too close to the situation. Too emotional. This is teenage drama. At worst, the two boys will probably get into a fistfight. It happens.”
“It happens?” The world spins. “Jeremy has a gun, and he’s gone after Drix. He’s shot at someone once before—during the robbery. He’ll shoot again.”
“You don’t know that.”
An icy numb enters my veins, and I start to shake, yet my heart picks up speed. “You honestly don’t care, do you?”
“I do care. I care about this state. I care about the people in this state. I care about the hundreds of different programs that help thousands of other people. The odds of what you are saying is really happening are slim. Until now, you have always made good choices in friendships so you were saved from severe melodrama. I make that phone call, I allow melodrama, words said in anger between two teens, words that mean nothing in the heat of the moment, to sink my career and what will happen then? The state elects someone who is more interested in lining his own pocket than helping the people who voted him in? Sacrifices have to be made in order for improvement to happen. I’m sorrier than you can imagine that Hendrix is a casualty, but there is no other way. I can’t risk my career and the programs I know are working for one person.”
“For two people,” I whisper. “Hendrix and me. If you don’t help him, I will never forgive you.”
Dad picks up his binder as if I didn’t just draw a line into quick-drying concrete. “You’re seventeen, emotional and have your first crush on a boy. You’ll see nothing happens tonight. You’ll see Hendrix will be fine and will be back out on the campaign trail next week. You two will take few weeks off from each other, and you’ll start school. We’ll allow the coding classes, we’ll win the campaign, and then maybe you’ll see Hendrix a few times. But then you’ll lose interest in him, and hopefully you’ll find focus on this new phase of coding. You might be mad at me for a while, but you’ll forgive me, and you’ll see your mother and I have been right in the choices we’ve made for you.”
A slice along my heart. That’s what my parents have said I always do—start something, then lose interest. I circle the bracelet on my wrist and think of Hendrix’s cuff. Axle gave it to him as a reminder that they’re family. That they stand beside each other no matter what.
Dad walks past me, and I say, “I’m eighteen.”
He pauses and glances at me over my shoulder. “What?”
“I’m eighteen now.” Realization rushes over me like sunlight over the cold dark ground that had been blanketed by night. “I can take the coding classes without your permission. In fact, I can do most anything without your permission.”
Eighteen—pulled back from starting school when I was supposed to because my mother and father didn’t believe I was emotionally ready for kindergarten. Who knows if I was or wasn’t at five, but I’m eighteen now, and I’m very capable of making my own decisions.
His skin turns an unusual shade of red. “You live under my roof. I pay for your schooling. For your lifestyle. Until you are financially capable of taking care of yourself, you abide by what I say. You may be eighteen, but your actions over the last few months have shown you don’t have the maturity level to handle the real world. You have persistently acted like a child.”
In the past, his words would have cut me to the bone, but there’s this new power filling me, and it gives me strength and refills the empty well of my hope. “Over the last few months, I have persistently gone after the things in life that matter to me and not to you. All my life, you and Mom have pushed me into activity after activity and demanded perfection. Did you ever stop to think that maybe the reason I kept failing was because your expectations were too high?”
“Don’t twist us wanting the best for you into us being bad parents.”
“You’re missing the emphasis in that sentence—the best for me. Shoving me into activity after activity and pulling me every time I didn’t turn out to be the shining star wasn’t what was best for me. It made me feel like a constant failure. That I could never measure up to you and Mom.”
“What were we supposed to do? Pay for lessons for something you were mediocre at?”
“Yes! That’s exactly what you should have done. If I liked doing it. Life shouldn’t revolve about being the best, and childhood definitely shouldn’t. You should have given me the room to explore who I was without the pressure of succeeding each and every single time.
“Do you not see what your program taught Drix? It taught him that it was okay that he failed because he learned from his mistakes, and it taught him that even after falling so low, that the world welcomes an improved person and will offer him a second chance. If you believe in that program so much that you are willing to risk his life, why would you never offer me or Henry the same second chance? Why do we always have to be the best the first time around?”
The blood drains from his face, leaving him pale, appearing to age him decades before my eyes, and pity fills my heart.
“Make the phone call. You save the greater good when you save one person because then everyone realizes their individual life means something, too. Life has value then.”
He slowly shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
He won’t. “Make the phone call or I will.”
“You’ll sound like a fool rambling to the police. Everything you say will sound like conspiracies from a teenage girl.”
So many times I’ve been called my father’s daughter, and I’ve taken it as a compliment. Thinking it meant I was compassionate to those in need. Maybe that’s not what peo
ple meant.
Right now, I am my father’s daughter because of how my mind is ticking toward calculating and manipulative. “I’m not going to call the police. I’m going to call the media and then send them a file containing everything they need to prove Drix’s innocence. I’m also going to tell them you knew the entire time he was innocent, and yet you didn’t care. Don’t think too hard and too long on this because I do have the information and I will do this. You can send me to my room, you can physically take my cell and laptop from me, and you might keep me from saving Drix tonight, but I promise you, I will personally ruin you if you don’t make that phone call now.”
Hendrix
I dive for the ground and roll. Another shot and it hits the mud next to me. I’m on my feet, running into the thick of trees. One more round. Wood splinters off the bark of the tree and becomes individual spikes into my skin. Stinging and there are a few trickles of blood, but it’s better than a hole in the head.
“Get back here!” he shouts. “Face me!”
But I keep my feet moving, my arms pumping.
“I’ll bring this fight to your home! I’ll bring it to your sister!”
I halt then. My boots grinding into the dirt. My breaths come out in short, rapid bursts. Getting out from underneath this son of a bitch has to happen because he won’t quit. Until I’m bleeding or dead. And even then it won’t stop. He’ll never stop.
My hands go to my pockets and I silently swear. No cell. Stupid.
“Drix!” he yells into the night, and there is a sound of an animal on the verge of going rabid. Growling and my heart tightens. Thor.
Barking, another growl and Jeremy is yelling at Thor to get away. My feet move again, faster if possible, but toward the noise, toward the sound, toward the one damn thing in my life that’s done nothing wrong.
Ferocious growls, a sound of attack, a silent prayer and then another shot, and I’m being torn apart with the high-pitched yelp and whine. Sticks snap in my wake, and tree branches smack my skin as I race back to Thor. Through another bush and the leaves clap and rustle when I break in to the clearing. Jeremy stands at the water’s edge, gun trained on Thor.