by Karina Halle
All hope drained out of me. Esteban was in the kitchen with no idea of what was going on. I wondered who this man was, and if there was just him, or were there others. Was he just a burglar? Or was he involved with Esteban somehow?
The man ripped me off the bed and I let out a muffled cry, my feet trying to find purchase on the floor. The man’s arm was very strong and the grip was very tight.
“So he thinks he can just fuck with me,” the man whispered, snarling into my ear with an American Southern accent. “That isn’t how we play it.”
So this wasn’t a home invasion. No, this was something much worse.
I watched in horror as Esteban slowly came back into the room. He was holding something in his hand, a small teapot, I think.
“Lani, I decided to make you some tea,” he said breezily. “Chamomile.”
Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks. He saw us, taking in the situation in an instant, then he inhaled, his body tensing.
“Put the gun down,” Esteban said in a very calm voice. “She has nothing to do with this. Do not hurt her.”
“Do not hurt her?” the man yelled, nearly blasting my eardrums out as he sprayed my skin with spit. “I will hurt her, I’ll hurt her and make you watch. Then I’ll kill her and I’ll kill you. Unless you tell me where Natasha is.”
“I will tell you if you let Lani go,” Esteban said, as if he had been in this exact situation many times before. He was so calm, and I was so scared. “Please, just drop the gun and we can talk.”
“I’m not talking to you, I don’t trust you.”
“I’m naked,” Esteban said. “How could I do anything? You obviously have me in a tough situation.”
The man pressed the gun harder against my head and I cried out, but the sound was muffled. I was so fucking afraid.
Though it was hard to see Esteban in the shadows, I could see him frowning, the glint of worry on his brow. “I’ll tell you where Natasha is if you—”
“No!” the man screamed. “No ifs. You tell me now or she dies. It would feel really good to see her brains splattered on that wall over there.”
And in that moment, I saw it. I saw him pulling the trigger, I saw the explosion, the bullet going in, my brains going out. I saw my death, my very violent death, the death I’d been attempting for weeks. It was finally here, but I didn’t get to choose this.
Esteban’s words echoed in my head, from the time we were at the lookout. It’s a good sign to be scared. When you stop feeling fear, that’s when it becomes dangerous. That’s when you die.
And now, I wanted nothing more than to live.
“Fine,” Esteban said. He never came closer, just shifted a bit, but despite my horror I noticed something strange about the way he was holding the teapot. His posture was strained and the more I tried to focus on it, trying to make shape out of the shadows, the more I realized there was something wrong about the teapot in general.
Esteban went on. “Natasha was in the wrong place at the wrong time for the second time. The first time was when she tried to take off with our profits when she was just supposed to stay put. The second time was last night, when she sold you out in an attempt for forgiveness. But I don’t forgive that easily.” His voice sharpened, his body stiffening as he told the man, “Natasha is dead.”
The grip on my mouth loosened by a tiny bit. I felt like it was my time to try to do something, to try to fight, while this guy was in shock.
But Esteban didn’t leave anything to chance. He moved, quick as lightning, and there was a burst of light and a dull pop of noise.
The man loosened his hand around my mouth, slowly easing away until he fell away to the ground, collapsing in a heap.
I leaped back, falling back on the bed as I tried to get away.
Suddenly Esteban was at my side and he was holding my arms, trying to get me to look at him. It was still dark and I couldn’t see him all that well, but I knew enough. There was a dead man at my feet. I’d almost been killed. Esteban somehow shot him with a teapot.
He was talking to me, but I wasn’t listening. He shook me. “Lani. Please. Are you okay?”
I nodded absently, trying to find the words to speak. “Who . . . who was that?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Was he your job? Are you a contract killer?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m not. That’s someone else’s job, but he’s been gone. This wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
“You killed someone,” I said in horror, the realization slowly coming over me.
“I had to,” he said. “You would have been killed. Raped and then killed, that’s how these people work.”
“These people,” I repeated. “You are these people.”
“Lani . . .”
“You killed Natasha.”
“You don’t know who Natasha is. She was no better than he was. There are things about my job that I don’t like, but we all take loyalty very seriously. We also take our safety seriously. For ourselves and for others.”
He sighed and looked away. “I guess I should have told you. But I was hoping to spare you the knowledge. This man and Natasha, I was supposed to . . . fix them last night. I’d only gotten Natasha. This man had left. I would have found him tonight . . . I was supposed to. But then there was you . . . and I’m a weak fucking man when it comes to you.”
I shook my head, trying to understand. I looked at his hands. Up close I could see he was holding a gun with a silencer. Behind him, an empty teapot lay on the ground. “How did you . . .”
“I told you,” he said, “that we take our safety seriously. I had the gun by me all night . . . after . . . well, after we used it, I loaded it, put on the silencer just in case. There’s another gun under your bed. I put this one in the kitchen. There’s another one by the door. All hidden, but I knew where they were. You can’t be too careful.”
“You hid it in a teapot.”
“Quick thinking,” he said, giving me a smile that didn’t belong at a crime scene. “I was naked, I had to improvise as soon as I heard the scuffle.”
Thank God for thin walls.
“You’re still naked,” I whispered, my attention going back to the dead body on the floor. I stared at the man with the bullet hole in his head. My eyes glazed over, unwilling to take him in, to pay attention to details. I didn’t want to see him, the man who almost killed me, the man I’d seen get killed. I didn’t know him, but I’d never had death at my feet.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“Well,” Esteban said as he sat on the bed beside me. “You go make yourself an actual cup of tea and I’ll take care of the rest. Lani, this shouldn’t have happened to you. You shouldn’t have been a part of this. You shouldn’t have known. This was my problem, my job, my reason for being here. I fucked up. I got involved with you and I lost my head for a moment. I’m sorry.”
I nodded absently. I knew he was sorry. And I was, too. But I knew what I was getting into when I first saw him, when I first learned his name, when I first learned what he did. I knew he was bad and yet I wanted him. I wanted the thrill, to know what it felt to be alive.
And now, I finally had it. Now I had seen death, though not my own.
But it was enough.
I didn’t want to die.
Chapter 7
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me, see me off?” Esteban said.
We were sitting in my kitchen, drinking coffee as the sun streamed in through the windows. He had just set down his empty mug and was getting out of his seat, making all the big motions that he was about to leave.
Leaving me alone.
I took a sip of the Kona brew and shook my head. I wasn’t afraid anymore—not of that. I believed Esteban when he said he’d take care of everything. He’d spent the whole night making sure there wasn’t a trace of the incident, while I spent the whole night cowering in a state of shock. I definitely was still in shock, but I was coming around in ways I hadn’t
anticipated.
I don’t know what he did with the body, or where he went for several hours in the dark of night, but I knew a man like him made no mistakes. He was the smart one, the good one.
He’d saved my life again, even if he was the one who invited danger in.
But then again, I was the one who had beckoned the danger the moment I stepped on the plane to Kauai. I had wanted nothing but oblivion, a place beyond death. Black space, dark shadows. I flirted with death so many times, from a mere handshake to full-on penetration. I wanted change in the most dramatic way; I wanted death to take me from my meager, loveless existence.
Until I realized that my existence never had to be empty.
Love was still out there, as were hopes and dreams and everything else I pretended I no longer wanted. Esteban opened my eyes, and he did so by showing me death, the devastating permanence of it. He dealt with death every day in his job, and here I was pretending I knew something about it. Pretending that death was a choice I wanted. It shouldn’t have been anyone’s choice. Not the choice of the man who tried to kill me, not Esteban’s. Not mine.
In the few days I’d known Esteban, he’d schooled me on what life was, and more importantly, what life could be.
Light.
Colors.
Paradise.
I slowly got out of my chair, not wanting to say good-bye. I knew I’d never see him again. He had my painting of golden seas to remind him of me.
I had nothing.
“Lani,” he said gently, his eyes swimming with compassion. He pulled me into him and wrapped his arms around me tightly. We held each other for as long as we could. Shallow, silly parts of me wanted to beg to go with him back to Mexico, to be a part of his life. But we knew our lives weren’t meant to intertwine that way. They were meant to meld for a sweet moment, nothing more.
He pulled away and kissed me softly on the forehead. “You’re valuable,” he said as he placed a cold green jade stone in my hands. “Keep painting.”
Then he turned and walked away. With my heart prickling, I heard him get on his motorcycle. The familiar roar filled my ears and then he was gone, the sound fading into the bird calls of midmorning.
I sighed, my chest feeling like an anvil had been placed on it. I squeezed the jade in my hand, knowing I’d never let it go. Slowly I turned and went to the back steps and sat down, staring at the paradise in front of me. The chickens pecked at the grass, not caring about my presence. They just . . . carried on.
And that was when I realized that Esteban hadn’t left me with nothing. I gave him a painting, but he gave me everything.
I fished my phone out of my pocket and dialed Doug.
I dialed home.
Doug picked up on the second ring.
“Honey?” I said into the phone, my voice soft. Tears were threatening my eyes, my lungs were starting to feel choked, aching for release.
There was a long pause. Finally Doug said, “Lani? What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t heard concern in his voice for as long as I could remember. It was enough to open the floodgates. I cried, tears streaming down my face, and just bawled, everything flowing out of me, my tears taking me to another place.
“Doug, baby,” I finally managed to say, gulping hard for air, my lungs screaming. “Doug, I want to come home. I want to live.”
There was more silence, maybe just to let me sob, maybe to gather his thoughts and figure out what to say. Then Doug said something I didn’t think he would.
“I want you to live, too. I love you.”
The tears continued to come.
So much grief, so much sadness, so much betrayal, so much guilt. So much in my life had gone terribly wrong.
And yet there was so much hope.
And value in my hands.
THE END
Defying the Dust—A Camden & Ellie Story
I never thought much about hope.
The word never meant that much to me.
Until I met Ellie Watt.
Suddenly I knew what hope was. It was something that could save me from my classmates, save me from my parents, save me from myself.
It was a crazy hot day in August when I first met Ellie. In Palm Valley, California, most days were crazy hot and I often made it worse, dressing the way that I did. It was because of my “questionable” attire that my parents decided it was about time to haul me off to the town’s quack, Dr. Edison. I knew it was a matter of time and I really didn’t care anymore. When the whole town thought you were a freak, what was a trip to a psychiatrist’s office?
“Now remember to be honest with the doctor,” my stepmother, Raquel, had said from the front seat, not bothering to turn around and look at me. She rarely looked at me. She only had eyes for her daughters, Kelli and Colleen, two little ten-year-old brats from hell. Even though she’d married my dad four years earlier, she still treated me like I was a nuisance, a waste of space. It would have been nice if she didn’t perpetuate the evil stepmother stereotype, but no such luck there. Not that Raquel was evil. She just didn’t give a shit about me. But I suppose when you’re dealing with a teenager, that can be seen as the same thing.
I grunted in response and looked down at my nails. She’d confiscated the black nail polish I bought from the drugstore, so I had to fill in my nails with black Sharpie. I know she still hated it, the fact that it looked like I’d painted my nails when I was a thirteen-year-old boy. But I liked it. It made me feel dark, dangerous—different.
“We don’t want you starting the ninth grade looking like a faggot,” my father sneered from behind the wheel. I looked up at the rearview mirror and saw his eyes blazing in it, full of disapproving fury. Normally, I was scared when I saw those eyes with that kind of fire behind them, but I knew he wouldn’t dare hit me here in the car, not in front of Raquel and not before I was about to see a shrink. Raquel damn well knew he knocked me around when she wasn’t looking, and though she never did or said anything about it, I don’t think she’d stand for it if she actually saw it happen.
Then again, what did I know?
“For the last time, I’m not gay,” I told him, my eyes trying to hold his. But like an Old West showdown, I looked away first. It was hard to be contemptuous without pressing my luck.
“Then why do you have to dress like that?” my father whined. For being Palm Valley’s sheriff, he often sounded more like a spoiled dog than a man.
“It’s called self-expression,” I said, sighing loudly. I pressed my forehead against the window, feeling the heat searing through the glass, and shifted in my seat. My pants were black and skintight, covered with patches I’d sewn on myself: Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, The Ramones, The Cramps, Korn, Deftones. I loved them but even I was starting to realize that my clothing choices weren’t the smartest for the end of the summer. My balls were sweating like nobody’s business.
“Well what the fuck are you trying to express?” My dad said.
“George,” Raquel warned.
“Oh, shut up,” he sniped at her. “Like you’ve never sworn in front of your kids.” He looked back at me. “Well? You going to tell me or do I have to guess?”
I swallowed hard. “I’d rather tell the shrink. That is why you’re sending me there, isn’t it? So that you don’t have to deal with whatever I’m going to say. Whatever truth there is? You can just put me on medication, hoping I’ll stop listening to evil music and drawing on things.”
My dad just shook his head. I was right and he knew it. He couldn’t handle me; he didn’t know what to do with me. I was like a vermin problem, a rat that refused to get caught in the traps. And I knew what the cheese was—what he was offering. He would treat me better if I acted normal. Maybe he wouldn’t beat my ass once a week. But I knew that wasn’t true. I was always Dad’s little scapegoat, even when my mother was around. Hell, he hit her more than a few times too, before she died.
I hoped I’d never turn into him.
We rode in si
lence the rest of the way before we pulled up to the medical building at the end of the main drag. Clouds of dust blew up around us as we parked and Raquel got out. She, not my father, would take me in to see the doctor. Heavens fucking forbid someone should see the sheriff bring his son to Dr. Edison.
I got out of the van and followed her through the shimmering heat of midday. Raquel was a frail-looking woman with wicked lines by her eyes, and though I didn’t remember my own mom too clearly anymore, I knew she was prettier. Raquel favored handbags that looked fancy but you could tell were cheap, and high heels that made her look like an idiot in our neck of the desert. Rancho Mirage or La Quinta, sure, but Palm Valley? She both tried way too hard and didn’t try at all.
She opened the door for me to go into the building just as an elderly woman with a walker was slowly coming out. The elderly woman looked at me and nearly had a heart attack. She then looked to Raquel who gave the old lady a sympathetic smile. I know she wanted to say, “He’s not my son,” and she’d be right about that.
I just grinned at the old woman, hoping she’d see the real me underneath. I may have dressed like a goth but I wasn’t about to knock her over and steal her handbag.
Raquel jerked her head, motioning for me to get inside. The old lady was frozen in place, unblinking, as she took me all in. For once I was grateful that I wasn’t wearing black lipstick or eyeliner. Lately I’d been on a big Robert Smith kick and had been trying to emulate The Cure singer’s looks.
“Excuse me,” I said to her as politely as possible as I walked past. She flinched at me as I came close and then shook her head, making a disgusted noise with her toothless mouth. I should have been used to the stares and whispers I got. In fact, most of the town had seen me, or at least I’d thought they had. But it didn’t stop me from feeling bouts of shame, and it didn’t stop them from making their pithy observations.
Raquel walked through the open foyer and up the stairs to the second level of the building and into a small waiting room. The frosted glass door with the words Dr. Edison painted in garish font clicked behind us with a sense of finality. Thankfully, the waiting room was empty, the table strewn with a mix of Reader’s Digest and Psychology Today magazines, the walls covered with dull landscape paintings. If the doctor let his patients decorate his office, he’d probably be blown away at their originality. But that’s what being original got you these days—a trip to the shrink. While Raquel went to go check in with the receptionist, I sat down and picked up a copy of Reader’s Digest. The “Drama in Real Life” stories were the best.