by Nicole Thorn
Manny and I angled towards the sound without either of us making the conscious decision to. I noticed the smell first. Blood, thick in the air. It was a scent that I couldn’t mistake for anything else. I felt the power of it brushing against my skin, calling to me. Asking if it could do anything for me.
We came out through some other trees, then immediately stopped in our tracks. A body lay on the ground. Its throat had been slit, and blood had poured from the wound, down the white front of its shirt. Whoever they had been, they had dressed nicely. The suit still looked perfectly made. The buttons were done up, and the tie hung to the dead man’s bellybutton. It had stuck to the shirt front, thanks to the cold, viscous blood. He had died with his eyes open, staring at nothing, staring forever. I cocked my head and said, “Something about him is familiar.”
“He’s the man that was parked in front of my house,” Manny said.
When I looked again, I saw that she was right. The man who had his trunk full of jewels. I hadn’t thought of him again after we had walked away from the car. Manny hadn’t brought it up either, so I assumed that she hadn’t thought of him. “Why do you think he’s dead?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Manny whispered. She put her arms around her body. Worried that she might feel cold, I removed my jacket and handed it to her. The sweater I had given her had been left at home because it hadn’t gone with the rest of the outfit. As she pulled the jacket on, I knelt, getting closer to the dead man.
“What are you doing?” Manny asked.
Without fear of messing something up, I flicked the man’s jacket open. Diamonds fell out. Small ones, in a plastic bag. It had been coated with blood but that didn’t bother me. I picked it up, flipping the bag into my palm. Manny plucked it from my hands and opened the bag up. “They are real,” she said a few seconds later. “I wonder if he stole them from my parents.”
“Would that be enough reason for him to die?”
Manny looked at me sideways. “Are you asking me if my parents killed him?”
“Did they?”
She frowned. “I don’t think they are capable of something like this. I could have done it but I’ve been with you the whole night. I don’t know anyone else that would have hurt him for stealing from my parents.”
“Maybe he didn’t steal,” I suggested.
“How else would he have gotten these?”
“Your parents could have given them to him,” I said, rising to my feet. I stepped away from the body. It hadn’t started to smell yet but the blood had cooled into a congealed mess. I could warm it up again and make it flow into the ground, or back into his body. There wasn’t a reason for me to do either, unless Manny asked me to.
She frowned at me. “There’s something going on with them. I don’t know wh—”
The leaves behind us shuddered, and we were startled by a loud voice booming across the quiet trees. “Who are you!?”
Manny whipped around, trying to get a look at them. Her bare foot caught on a branch, and she started to go down. While she tried to gain her balance, I felt the cool edge of something press against my throat. I stopped, drawing my gaze away from Manny to the girl who stood in front of me. She stared at me with steady hazel eyes and a cool expression. Her hand was steady on the machete that she had held to my throat. One slice, and she could kill me.
Or she could try. I would not bleed if I did not want to, and Manny could seal my wound. I did not react to that, though. We would survive this better if these people didn’t know what to make of us.
The girl who held a blade to my throat spoke softly, “Don’t move. If you twitch a muscle, I’ll kill him.”
Manny had gained her feet. She must have realized the same thing I did because she didn’t seem worried. Her eyes burned with anger but not worry. She even put her hands up, playing along with the game.
I shifted my gaze back to the girl holding me still. Her light, blondish-brown hair stood around her head in a springy halo. She couldn’t have been much older than me. Three or four years at the most. She looked as if a strong breeze could knock her over but she stood with all the confidence in the world.
A man lumbered up behind her. He didn’t reach for Manny, or do more than glance at her. He had to have been fifteen years my senior. Big, burly, with ice blue eyes. He stood several inches over six feet and brought an air of calm into a situation that hadn’t felt tense to me in the first place.
“What are you doing here, kids?” he asked.
“You’re the one with the body,” Manny countered. “No one will question why we’re here. You’re the one that should worry.”
“Think so?” the woman standing in front of me asked, jiggling the handle of her machete. It brushed against my throat but I did not worry over it. She frowned at me, seeming to lose some of her confidence.
“Don’t hurt the boy to make a threat, Kentucky,” the big man said without glancing our way.
Kentucky frowned harder, while staring piercingly into my eyes. “Why aren’t you afraid?” she asked.
“Should I be afraid?”
“I’m holding a knife to your throat,” she said.
“That you are,” I told her.
Manny’s voice turned into a growl when she said, “Are you the same people that have been causing so many problems lately? Why are you doing all of this?” Her voice, like mine, was steady.
The big man cocked his head. “Why do you want to know?”
“Call me curious.”
“Curious you shall remain,” he said.
“If you aren’t worried about leaving bodies around, then what does it matter if we know why you’re here?” I asked.
“Hey, bud,” Kentucky said. “I’m not asking for much here but a little fear would be nice. It’s bad for a girl’s ego when the man she’s holding at knife point doesn’t seem all that impressed with her big weapon. I thought guys were aware of size complexes.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Should I be scared?”
“I could kill you,” she said.
“That’s very true,” I said. “You could kill me. Stray lightning could kill me. A bus could kill me. Many things could kill me, and none of them have yet. The edge of your blade could slit my throat, or I could fall and break my neck.”
Both people stared at me.
“I cannot fear everything that will kill me, and I cannot fear death. It will come on me when it does. I’ve stared it in the face too many times for the prospect to have a hold on me now. Your blade can cut me but it will not hurt.”
“Just an FYI, you hurt him, I’ll hurt you,” Manny said.
Kentucky snorted. “Will you? I wasn’t aware that tiny slips of girls could do more than hide behind their parents.”
A thin line opened up along Kentucky’s arm. It trembled, and the blade shivered against my throat. Death, losing its hold on me. The big man stepped forward, shoving Kentucky behind his body. He stared at Manny and me. “You’re a flesh worker,” he stated.
“That obvious?” Manny asked. “If you don’t want all your skin exploding off your body, I highly suggest you back off. Now.”
The man’s eyes shifted from her, and back to me. “You’re too calm, boy. She’s furious but you’re too calm. Why don’t you care?” He leaned closer to me, and I got the whiff of some kind of smoke. Not cigarettes, or even pot. Something more herbaceous. I noticed the white streaks through his black beard and hair. My estimate of his age went up a year or so.
“I am not scared of you,” I said, simply.
“Why?”
“You offer me no pain that I haven’t felt before.”
Both people stared at me. Kentucky had a hand pressed to the slice up her arm, and she looked worried. The big man didn’t seem that concerned with us; it was more like we were puzzles he was trying to make sense of. when he realized that he couldn’t, he finally stepped back.
“Tell ya what, kid,” he said. “When I finish with my work here, I might come see you. Talk with you
a bit.”
“Why?” Manny demanded. She stepped up next to me, and her hands balled into fists. I took her wrist in my hand, running circles along it with my thumb. She started to relax but I could tell that she didn’t want to.
“Because I can,” the big man said. “Kentucky?” He made a gesture with his hand. Kentucky lifted her chin, and the air shifted. Dirt whipped up so hard that it wound up in my eyes and nose. It temporarily blinded me. When I looked up again, both people were gone. How they moved silently through the trees, I didn’t know. Nor did I care.
Manny wrapped her arms around me and breathed out heavily. “I totally would have killed them for you.”
I smiled, stroking a hand down her hair. “I could have done it myself but thank you.”
She put her chin against my chest so that she could stare into my eyes. “I don’t care. I still would have done it for you. C’mon. Let’s go before the birds find this body. There are some things I’d still rather not see in my lifetime.” She took my hand, and we marched through the forest, back to our spot. Everything that we had brought had been left there. I gathered up my pens, while Manny folded her blanket up. The two of us left quickly.
It was after midnight, and I worried that my father would be irritated that we had been out for so long. “Do you think they’ll come back for you?” Manny asked as we got back into the car.
I cocked my head. “Why would they do that? You are the one that should worry. They might want to kill you, or your family.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Manny said.
“I have to worry about you,” I told her.
“Why?”
“Who else do I have to worry about?”
Silence stretched between us for several seconds. Eventually, she reached over to take my hand. She threaded her fingers through mine and said, “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you don’t have to worry about me.”
“But I like it. You’re always on my mind, and I like it, and the way it feels.”
“How does it feel?”
“Like it matters.”
The smallest smile picked up the corners of her lips, and Manny dipped her head, so that I couldn’t see her face. I drove us home in silence. My porch light was on, bright as could be. I pulled in and parked in the driveway. My father was still awake, which worried me more than it should have. He wouldn’t do something to hurt me but I feared that he and Manny didn’t get along.
We found him in the living room. He sat in one of the chairs, with one of his legs draped over the opposite knee. A book rested in his lap but I couldn’t tell if he had actually been reading it. My hand tightened around Manny’s as I pulled her into the house with me.
Dad looked up, smiling at her. “You look lovely,” he said.
“Thank you,” Manny responded. It sounded like a curse.
“Did you two have a good time at the dance?” he asked.
“It was boring,” I said. “But we enjoyed spending time together. I don’t understand why people make such a big deal about standing around in the gym, with drinks and bad music playing.”
Dad laughed and rose to his feet. “I’ve never understood that either. I didn’t go to any of the dances when I was your age. Mostly because I hadn’t found any girls that I liked. I’m glad that you don’t have that problem, Becket.” He came over to me and cupped my face in his hands, so that I had to stare at him. “You’ve turned out so much better than I thought you would have.”
When he dropped his hands, Manny pulled me away from him. Her eyes narrowed, full of emotions that I couldn’t name. I squeezed her hand to show that everything was fine.
“Follow me, Becket,” Dad said, walking into his office. “Manny, feel free to join us, if you want.”
Manny pulled on my hand when I started towards the office. When I looked over my shoulder, she stared at me with wide, worried eyes. “Is something wrong?” I asked her.
“Don’t go in there,” she said. “Please.”
“I have to. You can stay here, if you want. He won’t hurt me.” I brought her hands up to my mouth, kissing her knuckles. “I promise.”
“He always hurts you.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Why do you think that?” This sounded like a plea. Like she wanted to drill into my head, to point out all the things that she thought so that I could understand them. It was a desperate sound, and I didn’t like it.
“There’s nothing left to hurt,” I told her.
Manny blinked, staring at me. “What?”
“There is nothing left in me that he can hurt. It’s all scars that don’t feel anything anymore.”
Her eyes filled with tears. I released her hand, then went into my father’s office. Manny followed right behind me. She was so close that I could feel the heat of her body wash against my back. Dad had pushed his desk back against the wall and had brought out a folding table. He had a cloth over it, so that I couldn’t see what he had hidden. I didn’t need to see it, though. I could figure it out.
A gentle smile showed for half a second when he saw Manny standing behind me. “I’m so glad that you could join us, Manny. I assure you that there’s nothing to worry about.”
I squeezed her hand again.
My father removed the cloth, showing us the table. It had been filled from one side to the other with different kinds of blades. I’d seen them all. My father kept them in an old traveling trunk in his closet. They had a lock on them, so that no one could steal something they shouldn’t. They had been polished since I left the house. I could tell because of the smell wafting from them. A highly metallic, astringent scent had filled the room.
“Pick one, Becket,” Dad said. “Any one that you want.”
He had hunting knives, cooking knives butchering knives. There were battle worn daggers and swords. Axes and tomahawks. He had a little bit of everything laid out for me to choose from, and I stared at it all. The knife used to skin game was out. It was sharp but I knew from experience how much it would hurt. I ignored all the swords and axes as well. They were too hard to wield in close range, for delicate procedures. I narrowed the field down to a paring knife that would scar but would slice easily, and an old dagger that wouldn’t cut as easily but wouldn’t go in as deeply either. A glance at Manny had me choosing the paring knife. It would be over much quicker this way.
“Good boy,” Dad said, taking the knife up. He tested the tip with his finger, then smiled. “Take your suit off.” The order came while he still played with the knife.
I started to unbutton my dress shirt. My jacket still rested around Manny’s shoulders. When our eyes met, her chest pumped up and down, frantic. She looked so worried. Her eyes begged me to stop but I couldn’t. He would only do worse later if I tried to run now.
Dad took the shirt, folded it neatly, and laid it on the chair. I knelt down to undo my shoelaces, then pulled my pants off. Manny looked at my father. “Please. Whatever you’re doing, just stop.”
“I’m not doing anything,” Dad said.
I turned around from folding my pants and stood in front of Manny in only my underwear. Every scar I had shown. Every imperfection on my body. She stared at me with tears in her eyes, and I waited for my father to tell me what to do.
Chapter Eighteen
Control
Manny
I thought I knew pain.
My eyes fixed on each and every mark Becket wore and didn’t seem to care about. I couldn’t find more than an inch or so between scars, and my mind sent horrid pictures of what it thought caused them. It made up stories and tears and pain that I would never know. I couldn’t remember a time in my life where someone didn’t want to, and actually did hurt me. But it felt like nothing at all when I looked at Becket. I would have taken a lifetime of beatings right now if it meant sparing him a single one of those memories fused to his skin.
I couldn’t look away from his chest, seeing a face smiling gruesomely at me. Something whispered to me tha
t it was fresh. So fresh that I was around for it, yet I’d missed it. I let it go when I shouldn’t have, and he kept on suffering for it. I let this happen...
“Becket,” I said, voice shattering weakly. I covered my mouth to keep a cry from escaping. I only barely managed.
“I’m fine,” he lied to me.
That was when it finally clicked for me, how lost he was. He had no awareness at all that he was being hurt. I thought, maybe, some part of him knew, and he was only making excuses. No, that was not what was happening. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with this, and I genuinely couldn’t understand how.
“You are not fine,” I whispered to him.
“He is,” his father said, reminding me of where to direct my anger.
It washed over me, this rage. I felt fire consuming all of the fear and sorrow in me, covering up what had already soaked in so deep that it would just be a part of me from now on. It would never leave me, the heartbreak of seeing the only person I loved so broken. That snapped into place as well. He was the only person I felt any kind of connection with, and I could say with absolute honesty that Becket was the only human being that I’d ever felt normal around. The only thing that made me feel like a human being. And this was how I thanked him. Letting him get hurt.
But I could smother that black pit of grief for a few moments while I looked at his father. The one person a child was supposed to be able to trust and have perfect faith in. He’d betrayed everything that being a father meant but I guess he had that in common with his wife. The abandoner and the abuser. Becket never stood a chance.
What I wanted was to destroy. I wanted to kill this man bloody, take Becket’s hand, and run far away from here. I wanted to wrap him up and give him all the love he should have had from the start. It wasn’t fair, his lot in life. I’d never met someone so innocent.
I could not kill this man. Not for any moral reason, or for fear of what would happen to me. But because Becket loved him, and it was not my choice to make. Becket didn’t understand, and killing his father wouldn’t change that. It would only strip him of the closure he would need to live his life. I couldn’t take something like that from him. I needed to be the one person who didn’t take from him.