Machete

by Nicole Thorn

  Crimson’s eyes flared with anger. She stepped forward, hissing low. “Don’t think anyone would care if I hurt you right now. You think the creep would do anything? He’s probably just waiting for the right opportunity to take all your insides out and put them in jars or something.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “That would be very messy, and unnecessary. Not to mention, body parts in jars would rot. They would need to be in some kind of formaldehyde solution to keep everything preserved.”

  Crimson stared at me like there was something broken in my head.

  One of Julian’s friends shoved me from the side. I stumbled a step backward, further from Manny than I wanted to be. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he said. “Talking about your girlfriend like she’s some kind of zombie fuck buddy?” He shoved me again, into another guy, who shoved me back. They played that game for a few seconds before Manny tired of it.

  “Get away from him,” she warned in that dangerously low voice that drew my attention.

  Julian stepped over to her, wrapping his arms around her middle. He hauled her against his body, and my entire focus narrowed down to the two of them. “Don’t worry about the creep. If you wanted to have some freaky action, there are willing people. I’d almost be willing to forgive you this whole week, if you asked very, very nicely.”

  “You have two seconds to let go of me before I make sure you regret your entire life,” Manny said.

  Julian leaned over, his mouth to her ear. He whispered something low enough that I couldn’t hear. Then that thing in my head, the one that I had worried about, shattered. All the glass shards rained down not on me but the people around me. The guys shoving me back and forth stopped as I reached through their skins, grasping for their blood. The girls quit laughing, and their mouths hung open.

  It was easy, calling their blood. It flowed from their noses, from their mouths. It dropped from their ears and flooded their eyes. Their skin turned a dark crimson, and it made me smile thinking of the girl who had taken that as her namesake. The blood dripped on the ground and started inching its way over to me, moving in a slow, steady crawl.

  Julian had backed off of Manny so fast that he slipped in his own blood, and he went tumbling to the ground. He landed hard enough that his teeth sliced into his tongue, adding to the blood that I could call. Adding to my power.

  “Becket,” Manny said. She reached for me. I didn’t know what she would have done because before she could touch my arm, someone else hollered my name.

  “Becket!” my father’s voice broke the silence of the moment. It sliced right through my skull, and my eyes moved over to see him. He had parked in front of the school, and strode towards me with quick, angry steps. “Stop!” he screamed so loud that his voice quavered.

  I stopped. The blood no longer flowed across the ground. All the people around us stumbled away. They screamed or cried but they did not stay. They ran like the devil himself were on their heels. I didn’t pay attention to their departure because my father’s eyes took up my entire attention. The burning fury in his gaze sliced right through me.

  “Get in the car,” Dad said.

  I looked at Manny, and she stared at me with fear. Not of me, I thought but for what might happen. “I’m sorry,” I said before walking away and climbing into the car.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sweet Little Tot

  Manny

  It was difficult to describe how uncomfortable it made me to have no contact with Becket. After the first three hours, I started getting twitchy. Six hours, and I wouldn’t leave my bed. Twelve hours, and I could barely get a full breath into me. When I finally fell asleep, the ability had surprised me. There had only been flashes of dreams in my mind, and the only thing I could remember from them was blood.

  When I woke up, I checked my phone for texts, or calls, or anything to let me know Becket was okay. My brain came up with awful things, and terrifying reasons on why he wasn’t picking up when I tried calling him. Not a single reply to a text or my voicemail. It made my throat dry.

  I’d forced myself into the shower, so that I could at least not feel grimy for the rest of the day. It didn’t do much for me but at least I got to stare at myself in the mirror, seeing the drawings Becket had given me. I could look at myself and not feel disgusted for a few moments each time.

  I dried off carefully, trying not to ruin the ink. It would have killed a little part of me to lose any of it, and Becket would have been unhappy, too.

  I decided I needed to dress up for him, so that he would feel better when we were at school. There was a small chance we would have gotten in trouble for what happened with those pricks yesterday but my father would get us out of it. He wouldn’t have tried for Becket but I knew my status well enough to know that the school would have let him go too. All I had to do was make a fuss.

  His father had to have done something to him because I couldn’t see another reason he wouldn’t get back to me. Not now. It had been about a week but we were close. Maybe because neither of us really had anyone else to talk to. It didn’t matter the reasoning, or the time because a fact was a fact. The boy had already become my best friend, and it was my job to keep him safe from the world. Which those monsters at school were trying to make harder.

  I felt it then, when they were gathering upon us. That rage that swelled in me made it so clear that I could have hurt them and not cared at all. Maybe not kill them but I could have punished them for their words against Becket. He should have been left alone to live. He’d never earned any of the hate.

  I slipped into a black skirt and a yellow top. One that showed off a lot of the work on my shoulders and the top of my chest. No one would know why the drawings were there but it wasn’t for them. I wanted Becket to understand how much it meant to me. He needed to know that someone could care about him in the right way.

  Before I gathered up my stuff for school, I tried calling him one more time. It was a vain hope, and one that proved to let me down when I got to his ice-cold voicemail greeting. It stated his name and requested I leave a message. So, I did.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” I said, trying to keep the shakiness out of my voice. “I was gonna come get you for school but you don’t seem to be picking up. I guess I’ll just go alone if you don’t get back to me. Maybe you’re sleeping, or sick, or something. Can you call me when you get the chance?” I took a breath, sighing. “I hope I see you soon.”

  That was it. Hesitating would have only made me late for school.

  I started for my stairs, my eyes on the ground as I thought horrible things that I couldn’t stop. It was my fault that yesterday happened, and I knew it. Becket would have probably been left alone for the most part if I hadn’t been there with him.

  My hand wrapped around the banister, and the nail that stuck out poked into my palm. I pressed harder.

  It was me. It was always me who started trouble. I opened my mouth, and things got worse from there. If I’d been a good girl and just stayed quiet, then Becket wouldn’t have had any reason to hurt them. His father wouldn’t have freaked out, and Becket would be sneaking out my window with me so that we could go to school. Or, if I were a better person and didn’t burden him with me at all, then he would be heading off to school, unharmed by his father. At least Becket would figure out soon how little I did for him, and what a waste of time it was to keep me.

  I winced when I realized how deep the nail had gone into my skin. It must have hit a little bone, and I ripped it away from the banister, tearing up my skin in the process. I held my bleeding hand, trying not to get any on the carpet. My parents would ask questions, and be angry with me for causing the damage.

  Quickly, I sealed the wound, doing the best I could to fix it up. I couldn’t stop all of the internal bleeding but it would be fine for now.

  Once I was clean, I went up the stairs, turning the knob to open the door.

  Voices carried, and I left the door open only a crack when I heard my father cursing. I knew bet
ter than to let him see me when he was angry, so I would wait until he left the area before I rushed off to school. But I noticed he didn’t seem angry at anyone specific, and my mother was there too.

  “Don’t drop it,” he told her. “I’m not cleaning this shit up if you do.”

  “I know,” she grunted. “It’s just heavy. Lane, get your ass over here.”

  I listened, and heard the backdoor opening. “I have two boxes here. Give me like thirty seconds.”

  She scoffed. “Those boxes are small.”

  I opened the door slightly, seeing my family hauling several boxes with our store name on the side, by hand. The boxes were sealed and had several layers of tape holding them together.

  My family bickered, as they headed up the stairs past me. They didn’t see me there, which was fine by me. I emerged from my room when they were out of sight. When I heard Lane muttering my name bitterly, I started following them.

  “She should be helping,” he went on. “You let her lazy ass hang out in her room all day long.”

  Then we were all on the top level of the house, and I stayed behind far enough to not be seen, ducking behind walls and furniture. I still couldn’t make out what they were doing but they stopped at the entrance to the panic room.

  “She’s getting ready for school,” Mom hissed. “How about you stop worrying about her all the time and do your job?”

  He glared when she wasn’t looking, and then I made a mistake.

  My curiosity taking hold of me, I made myself known. I played it as casually as I could, making it look like I’d just gotten up the stairs. “Hey, I heard my name,” I said with a smile. “Do you guys need help with something?”

  Everyone’s face went carefully blank, and I watched my father calculating. “Um, morning.”

  “Morning,” I said back. “What are you guys doing?”

  I got a very distinct Cindy Lou Who feeling, catching The Grinch stealing the tree. But I didn’t say anything because pure instinct told me it was a better idea not to.

  My dad set the box on the floor, while my mother still worked the keypad for our panic room. I didn’t like going in there because I could remember every single time Lane had locked me inside.

  When I was little, I used to think that shadows were monsters. So, I was obviously scared of the dark. That was before I figured out that it was the light that brought that kind of darkness. But Lane liked to have fun with me, and trapping me in small spaces was one of those ways. There wasn’t a cabinet he hadn’t shoved me into, holding the door closed. One time, he was meant to watch me over the weekend when my parents went out of town for a conference. He was fourteen, and I was about eleven. All I did was ask him to move his shoes from the hall, and he grabbed me and threw me into the room.

  My parents didn’t let me out until Tuesday.

  No light, no food, and no sound at all. It was like the world didn’t exist in there, and all I had was my head. Over and over again, I opened wounds on my arms, smelling the blood, and feeling it slide down my skin before I would seal the cuts up again. I learned control in that room.

  “We’re fine here,” Dad said. “You can head off to school.”

  “She should help,” Lane griped as the door opened. “We have six more boxes.”

  “Of what?” I asked because I was stupid.

  Mom and Dad looked at each other, and I saw a question in his eyes. Mom shrugged at it, and he sighed before looking back to me. “We’ve had too many incidences at the shop lately,” he said. “Those psychos are breaking in and harming our people. Killing them. It’s not safe anymore, so we’re storing some of our inventory here.”

  My eyebrows popped up. “In the house? That’s a lot of stuff. Is it any safer here? Doesn’t that put us in danger?”

  “I don’t think so,” Dad said. “We’ll have it locked up, and no one knows we took it. The store seems to be the target here. Not our home.”

  Lane was complaining to Mom. His voice had gotten loud enough to interrupt Dad. “Make her do it,” he demanded of our mother. “I’m so fucking sick of having to make up for her work just because she’s pathetic and can’t do shit for herself.”

  “Stop it,” Mom ordered him, voice harsher than normal. “You need to knock it off right now. If we wanted Manny’s help, we would have asked her.”

  Dad turned to him, and the thunder in his voice made me flinch. “You better cut this out right now, before I do something you’re going to regret.”

  My brother shut up but he glared over at me. I’d said nothing at all to him but the fury in his eyes said it all.

  Calmly, Dad spoke to me again. “Don’t worry about this, honey.”

  I hesitated before speaking. “What about the security guys? Can’t you call them, and make sure everything is safe? If you’re too busy, I can call.”

  “No,” he said before I finished talking. He put his arm around my shoulder. “While your mom and brother do this, let’s you and I have a little talk.”

  He brought me into his office, and my heart pounded in fear. I had to remind myself that I didn’t do anything wrong, that he didn’t seem to be mad at me. If I stayed quiet, then I wouldn’t get into any trouble.

  Dad sat on his desk, and I stood in front of him while he talked to me. “I need you to be a grown-up girl here, sweetie. This...” He gestured in the direction of where our family was. “... is family business. You can’t go running your mouth off to people about it. Not only would it put us in danger from killers but it would risk the business we’ve run for generations. See this?” He looked all around his office. “See the paintings, and the nice wallpaper? Do you like that black credit card we gave you? I got the bill, and saw that you used it.”

  I gulped, trying to talk. “I’m sorry. I needed to pick up...”

  He waved his hand. “No, it’s fine. You spent in two years what Lane blows on a Saturday at dinner. But the point is that this world has fragile things in place. You fuck something up, and we can’t fix it. So be a good girl, and don’t tell anyone what you saw here today. Do you understand? Not even that boy.”

  My dad’s eyes found the art on my body, and he glowered at it. While he wouldn’t know that Becket did it, if he saw my credit card bill, he would know it was for art stuff. I hoped that he wouldn’t put too much together.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Of course, I wouldn’t say anything. I don’t want to fuck anything up.” Not any worse than I normally did.

  “Good,” he said with a grin. “I knew you would be smart. I never have to worry about you going against me. It’s your damn brother I have to look out for.” He laughed, and I had to as well.

  Standing, he looked back at his desk. “One more thing.” Dad picked up a little flyer, and then bent it in his hands. “Your mom booked the hair lady and the makeup person for you guys.” Handing me the flyer, he added, “So make sure you’re ready. If you need a dress, I can have some sent over to be looked at. Mom gets final approval.”

  I stared down at the paper in my hands, cursing internally that I’d forgotten about this. The Lakewood Founders Ball. I hated going but it was once every five years, so I got over it. My parents paraded me around with them, meeting strangers, and being nicer than I wanted to be. They raised money for a different charity each time, so at least someone got something out of this.

  “You have a plus one this year,” Dad said. “You need to pick out a respectable young man. Not... Not that boy.”

  When his eyes locked on the art again, I feared for myself. “I... Okay...”

  “Manny,” he nearly growled. “I mean it. I don’t want you dragging trash to an event like this.”

  Oh, well okay then. I hadn’t planned on making Becket go because I didn’t think he would have enjoyed it. But now, there was no way in fuck he wasn’t going to be my arm candy for the whole damn night. I would bring him all around, introducing him to everyone as my boyfriend, and making sure people knew how proud I was to have a boy like that on my arm. He’d
get some good food and a gift bag worth more than his home, and I would get to piss my dad off. Win-win.

  I smiled grandly at my father. “Daddy, I promise you that I will find the perfect boy to bring.”

  He patted both my cheeks. “I know you will. My sweet, good little girl.”

  I nodded. “Anything for you, Daddy.”

  “Good. Then go clean that stuff off your face.”

  I turned, and then I left the room with no intention at all of clearing away the art Becket made for me. I would have tattooed it on my skin if I had the option.

  Entering the hallway, all my thoughts went to the boy not at my side right now. It made my heart race again but in a good way. Something about the way it made my stomach turn, and made my steps feel lighter.

  My brain picked the memory of him drawing on my skin. I felt utterly safe and comfortable lying there, him over me, and making marks wherever he wished. I would let him do it again when the ink faded, and for as long as he wanted after that. My skin liked his touch.

  Which made me regret the other night. Not the drawing part but the part where I didn’t force him under the covers with me. He commented that he would have touched me if I had, and he didn’t give me the chance to grant him permission. I wanted it, and I knew that I wanted it. Something in me said it was wrong to want for the broken boy because he needed someone to be his friend and not expect anything from him. I would have been happy just to spend time with him, so I would settle for anything he gave me.

  Still...it didn’t chase away the new thoughts forming in my head of what could have been if I’d told him I wanted more. If he’d kept kissing me in the woods, or if I’d gotten him closer to me in bed. The thoughts brought me peace, a light that I could only normally see when I was lying under stars.

  A hand came around my throat, pulling me into the bathroom. I didn’t have time to do much more than gasp when the door shut, and my back slammed into a wall. Lane had his hand tight around me, pressing hard. He left it like that.