BOSSY BROTHERS: JOHNNY

by Huss, JA

  “Not gonna talk, huh? I will say this,” he says. “You either don’t know your last name or…”

  I raise my eyebrows at him. “Or what?”

  “Or you’re just a very good liar.” He pulls his knees up and wraps his arms around them. Squints his eyes at me. “OK. Let’s skip the name since you’re obviously dwelling on other things. Can you at least tell me why you were there in the cell? And what happened before they abandoned you? Some kind of clue that might help me?”

  “What do I get?”

  “What do you want?”

  I think about this for a moment. What do I want?

  “I’ll take that as you have no idea what you want.”

  “I know what I want,” I say, irritated that he thinks he can read my mind.

  “Tell me.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Osprey Cay.”

  “You live on Osprey Cay?’ He blinks at me in surprise. “Are you a veil?”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  He waves his hand in front of his face. “The veil. Do you wear a veil?”

  “All the Way women wear veils.”

  “No,” Johnny says. “Well, yeah. Sometimes. During the parties and ceremonies. But… you take it off, right? Like… for your normal life?”

  Normal life. I spend way too many seconds trying to figure out what that means. Because I wear that veil all the fucking time. Even to work. Even to bed. And now I’m suddenly nervous because he’s seen me. Aside from my father Johnny Boston is the first person to ever see the real me.

  “OK,” Johnny says, when I don’t respond. “So you’re a veil?”

  “I don’t know what that means,” I say with way too much hostility. “I’m not a whore.”

  Johnny nods his head. “But you dressed like one?”

  “I had a job, OK? And it didn’t involve sex.”

  “You sure about that?” he whispers.

  “What the fuck? Of course I’m sure. I’d remember if I was being used as a sex toy.”

  He releases his locked hands around his knees and puts them both up in the air. “Fine. Whatever.” And then he lies back on the sun lounger and resumes his super-relaxed position. “So what was your job?”

  “I was… in accounting.” I decide to withhold information about the lab. At least for now. Because that lab job is too close to the real reason I’m in this situation in the first place. But I can talk about the job I did before the lab. That was years and years ago when I was just a kid. I can’t just not tell him anything. I have to give him something.

  “Hmm. Interesting. I thought I knew all people involved in the money. At least on this side of the world.”

  “Not money,” I say.

  He sits up again. “What else does an accountant keep track of?”

  “The people.”

  He glances over his shoulder. And even though it’s dark and there are no lights anywhere on the horizon in that direction, I know what he’s looking at.

  The prison island is that way.

  “The people,” he says, his voice low. Like he’s not really talking to me.

  “The prisoners,” I say, trying to explain. “I keep track of the prisoners.” But saying that out loud makes it seem a lot worse than saying it in my head, so I hastily add, “But that was a long time ago. Now I’m a lab tech.”

  “A lab tech? What kind of lab tech?”

  Shit. I should not have said that. But I’m in now. And I need to keep going. “You know. Blood samples, and microscopes, and stuff.”

  “I don’t understand. Why were you taking blood samples from prisoners?”

  “I didn’t take the samples. There were nurses for that. I mean—” I pause to gather my thoughts. He’s making me nervous. “I was just a kid and all I really did was enter prisoner names and test results into a database. I just… processed them.”

  “OK. But still. What kind of tests were they doing?”

  “How should I know? I just did what I was told. Isn’t that what you do, Johnny Boston? What you’re told?”

  He sighs. Loud. “You know what? I’m fuckin’ tired. I’m sure you’re tired too, so how about we just go to sleep and figure it out in the morning.”

  “And then what?” I ask, getting nervous, my heart beating fast again for no apparent reason. “Are you going to drop me off at home?”

  “Osprey Cay?” He laughs again. This time not so loud. “Are you crazy? They probably think you’re dead. Whatever it was you were doing on Osprey—”

  “I’m not a fucking whore!”

  “—whatever it was—it’s over now, Megan. You’re done. That life is gone.”

  I just stare at him. This statement. It’s not a newsflash. I understood this. I just… didn’t think about it. Never really thought I’d get out of the dungeon. Never really thought I’d be here, doing this, that’s for sure.

  “What am I supposed to do, then?”

  He turns over on his stomach and props his cheek up on the back of his hands. Using them as a pillow. Like he’s going to sleep out here. “Whatever the hell you want, I guess.”

  And then he closes his eyes and doesn’t say another word.

  I suck in a long breath and hold it, wondering if I should keep him engaged in more conversation or just let it go and try again tomorrow.

  But what could I tell him that would keep him talking?

  “They kidnapped me from my bed,” I say hurriedly.

  He opens one eye and stares at me.

  “The Way? They raided our island… well, I’m not really sure how long ago. I sort of lost track of time in the dungeon. So, maybe a week? But a whole team of people stormed into my bedroom, put a hood over my head, and then zip-tied my wrists and dragged me out of the house and on to a boat.”

  “Why?”

  I swallow hard. “My father… he did something.”

  “What did he do?”

  “I’m not exactly sure.”

  Johnny shakes his head and closes that one eye.

  “I’m not lying. I know some things, just not everything.”

  “Megan.” He sighs. “I’m tired, OK? It’s been a long day, I’m no closer to finding the answers I need, and I have a feeling if you keep talking right now, you’re just going to piss me off. And I don’t want to be pissed off right now. I’ve got a headache, I feel like my blood pressure is going through the roof, and I need a night of silence. So…” He opens both eyes. “Just go downstairs and leave me alone.”

  I toss and turn in my bedroom down below, just listening to the slosh of waves against the hull of the boat because the sea seems agitated now. Like it can sense the disruptions in my life and now it’s feeding off my uncertainty and distress. My body is still buzzing from the interaction with Johnny Boston up above, the brutal reality of my situation suddenly clear.

  I don’t wanna think about it. I don’t want to think about the lab, or the dungeon, or the prisoners, or the jobs I’ve been a part of, or the mansion I grew up in, or any of it. So I push the future aside and think about the man up top instead.

  Boston. I’ve heard of him the same way I’ve heard of Charlotte Kane. They are both important families in our world. Though for different reasons.

  I know of Johnny Boston, but that’s about it. He, like everyone else in the Way, is just another cog in the machine. Bostons are Way bankers. Kanes are Way contributors.

  My family, the Machettes, are researchers and would be one rung above bankers and two above contributors.

  So I outrank Johnny Boston.

  Not that it matters. One’s importance in our world is often overestimated.

  But he’s different than me and all the people I have known in my short twenty-five years of life because he’s a public persona.

  Of course everyone who came to Osprey Cay for the brothel had a public life outside their white-masked secret one. But the Bostons are different. They are the face of the Way should any of our
secrets ever go public.

  Not that anyone on Earth would believe the crazy shit we’re a part of. They wouldn’t. But even so, it’s never a bad idea to have a convenient scapegoat.

  If the Way goes down, the bankers go down too. That’s why we have them. That’s how this works. And the world loves a fall guy. They love to tie up messy situations with a neat little bow. They love to point fingers at one man—just one—and say, “That’s the bad guy.”

  Of course, behind every public face of guilt there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of others who took part in the same sick debacle. But that’s the point of a fall guy, right?

  He gets crucified while they go free. Live to plot another scheme.

  I don’t know what influence Johnny wields when he’s in his element, but it doesn’t matter because he’s not in his element. He’s out here and not wherever he’s supposed to be, doing whatever it is he does, so perhaps his status and position in the Way has been recently… downgraded.

  Like mine.

  Why is he looking for Charlotte Kane? I should’ve asked. I should’ve kept my wits about me and tried to get more information.

  A crack of thunder outside startles me. Then another, and another, and the boat begins to sway with more conviction.

  I’m no stranger to boats. It’s how I commute between islands for work. But even someone with the most steadfast sea legs gets queasy when a boat this size starts rolling up and over large waves.

  It jerks to the side and the plate on the bedside table goes crashing to the floor.

  I get up, steady myself, and then rush towards the door and slide it open.

  I might not know Johnny Boston but he’s all I have right now. And I need him. I’m not gonna let his dumb ass go overboard and leave me to deal with this shit show by myself.

  I stumble down the hallway, but just as I reach for the handrails on the stairs he jumps down, landing mere inches in front of me.

  “Shit!” I say, taking a step back. “You scared me.”

  And got my attention.

  He’s wet. Thoroughly wet. Rivers of water spill down his neck and then ride the curve of his muscular shoulders until they slide down his chest.

  I get lost watching that for a moment, then take a breath and force my eyes up to meet his.

  He’s smirking at me.

  I take a step back, stumble when the boat lurches to the side, and quick—like scary quick—Johnny reaches out and grabs my arm.

  “Be careful,” he says. I look down at his hand on my arm and he pulls it back. “Sorry. I just… you were falling.”

  I don’t say anything because everything about this moment has me feeling conflicted. His touch, his shirtless chest, the water dripping down it. It makes me want to stare at him. Memorize the moment and maybe even enjoy it a little.

  I take a deep breath and turn away before I say or do something stupid.

  “There’s a storm,” he says. “I wasn’t going to sleep inside tonight to give you some room but…”

  “I get it,” I say, taking a step back from him. “It’s your boat, anyway.”

  “My father’s, actually. But he died five years ago.”

  “Oh,” I breathe out. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I mean… I’m just sorry.”

  “No need to be,” he says, leaning up against the closed door to the guest head. He tilts his head and studies me. “We weren’t close, so.” He shrugs. “You said you had a father?”

  “Everyone has a father,” I say. Because that’s a weird question.

  “Yeah.” He kinda laughs. But it’s one of those not-laughs. More like a huff of cynicism. “We have fathers, just not mothers, right?”

  “Hmm,” I say. “I suppose that’s true.”

  “You suppose? Did you grow up with a mother?”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “Just me and my father.”

  “And you were close to him?”

  Why is he asking me this? What is he looking for?

  “You must’ve been,” he says. “Because you sympathized with me when you found out mine was dead.”

  Shit. He’s one of those people. The kind who reads between the lines. I decide to be truthful about this. Because I’m on day one here and I need to get to day two. “Yeah. We’re close. He’s all I have, actually.”

  “I get it. I have two brothers and a cousin. I wouldn’t call us close, but they are all I have as well. That’s why I’m here.”

  “I thought you were looking for Charlotte.”

  “Yeah, I am. But that’s because—” The boat lurches again but this time it’s Johnny who loses his balance.

  I wish I could say he fell into me, and I got to grope him for a few moments, and then we had this awkward moment where we realized we had some bizarre mutual attraction brewing and then we kissed. Or fucked. Or… whatever.

  But that’s not what happens. Unfortunately.

  He stumbles backwards the other way, crashes against the doorjamb of the master cabin, steadies himself, and just stares at me. Not in a way that hints at our nonexistent brewing attraction, but in a way that scares me and makes my heart beat faster.

  “What?” I say, when he holds my gaze far past awkward. “Why are you looking at me that way?”

  He shakes his head. “It’s not you. You’re just here. Sometimes,” he says, “sometimes I just wish I could make it all stop. Ya know?”

  The logical next question is… Make what stop?

  But it doesn’t even matter what the ‘what’ is.

  I get it.

  I cross my arms and say, “Yeah. Me too.”

  He takes one of those breaths. The kind where people pucker their lips a little, like they’re trying to get through something stressful. Then he lifts his head just enough to peer at me from under a tumble of wet hair. “Have you ever tried?”

  I squint my eyes, confused.

  “To make it stop? Have you ever really tried?”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  “Me either.” He pauses. Blinks. “But I’ve seen what happens when you do. And right now I’m at the point where I’m thinking… maybe it’s worth it, ya know? Maybe death is its own way out? You know that saying, ‘gonna do it or die trying?’ Well, maybe I’m there.”

  Then he turns, walks into the master stateroom, and slides the pocket door closed.

  I back up into my own cabin and slide the door closed. And for a while all I do is sit there on the bed. Unable to move. Staring at my door. Listening for any clue about what he’s doing behind his.

  But everything is silent.

  Eventually I lie back on the bed and stare up at the ceiling.

  The boat rolls with the stormy waves. Rain pounds the deck above me. I feel sick from the rocking and lurching. But eventually all the stress of the past few weeks catches up with me and I begin to doze.

  It’s in this moment—that pause between the waking world and the sleeping one—that I realize it’s not the boat, or the storm, or the waves making me sick.

  It’s everything else.

  CHAPTER FIVE - JOHNNY

  I saw a therapist once.

  I was in Chicago for business and there was an ad on the hotel TV. I’m not sure buying ad space on a hotel TV channel is the best way to use your therapist advertising dollars, but whatever. There it was. Some chick in a boring tan suit telling me about her amazing breakthrough therapy for relieving the stress of traumatic events—

  Oh, shit.

  That’s why she was advertising in the hotel. There was some kind of veterans thing going on in the convention center.

  Hell. I guess she’s not as dumb as I thought. But actually… that’s kinda fucked up.

  Anyway. I made an appointment and stopped off at her office on my way to the airport. And now that I think back on it, she did kinda treat me like a shellshocked vet.

  I probably qualify. Not sure anything I’ve done or seen would be called a service to my country. But it doesn’t matter. I walked in, did the who
le handshake thing. Sat down in a chair, and said… nothing.

  Not a damn thing beyond, “Hello.”

  She did all the talking. At first it was awkward and I was pretty sure she was gonna ask me to leave, but she didn’t. She just started explaining how our brains process unusual events. And how it sticks with us because it’s all so extraordinary.

  She talked about how a brain is like a database. And there’s folders inside the database. You got one called home. And work. And fun. And sex. And food. Vacations, cars, clothes. Basically you have a folder for everything, right? And when shit happens your brain files it away in the appropriate folder to keep things up there all neat and tidy.

  But when extraordinary shit happens you don’t know where to put it. So you either have to leave it there floating around outside all the other, neatly organized folders, or you have to make a new folder and put that shit in its place.

  Some people can’t make a new folder. They either don’t know how to do it or they become afraid of a new folder. Because if something has a new folder it suggests that eventually that folder will have more than one thing in it.

  They can’t deal with that either. So they don’t make a folder, they don’t put the memory of that experience in its proper place, and it just hangs out. Fucking up the whole, otherwise organized, filing system.

  It makes sense.

  I think about her analogy a lot. I’m pretty good at making folders. My shit is not floating around fucking up my system. It’s all neatly tucked away in its proper place.

  I started doing that young. Very young. Probably when Joey came to live with us.

  I mean, where the hell do you file ‘new baby brother?’ There was a folder for Jesse. But Joey… Joey wasn’t like Jesse. He didn’t look like Jesse. He didn’t live inside my mother for nine months and then pop out one day and come home bundled up in her arms. He just appeared that night, his sleeping head resting on her shoulder while she screamed and raged at my father.

  None of that fit into the Jesse folder so I just made a new one and went on with my three-year-old life of toys, and TV, and finger foods.

  But while I was in the middle of that one visit with that anonymous therapist in Chicago I realized something. I remembered the first time I consciously did this. I was twenty-two years old and my uncle had just died.