by Voss, Deja
This guy isn’t your long-lost friend, I remind myself. He’s just amused that you’re not fat anymore.
“Where’s my sister?” I ask.
“Your sister?” he asks. “Was she a dancer here? The club’s been closed for almost a year now. I don’t remember you having a sister.”
“Where is Josie? My dad said you guys took her.”
He puts his face in his hands and groans. “She’s fine, I promise. Brooks is just, well, he’s going through some shit.”
I can’t help but think the worst. What the fuck would a man my age want with a teenager?
“He’s old enough to be her dad, Gavin. Where is she?”
“Come on,” he says, his hand resting on the small of my back as he ushers me out the door. “We’ll go get her.”
The night air is cold, and the way the stars shine in the darkness here is enough to take your breath away. He revs the engine of his motorcycle, breaking the silence, reminding me exactly where I am and who I’m dealing with.
“I’m so confused,” I shout over the roar.
“Trust me, we all are. Brooks included. I’ll explain when we get there.” He nods at me, encouraging me to get on the back with him. I have no idea if this is a good idea. For all I know, he’s taking me to my sister, not so I can bring her home, but so he can kidnap me, too. So many red flags are going off in my mind, but I’m just going to have to wing it. As much as I’m trying to look at Gavin like a hardened criminal, part of me only sees that boy I went to high school with.
We don’t ride too far, just up a dirt road to a little blue house. It almost looks cozy. It looks a lot nicer than the trailer. It looks like a home. All the lights are on inside. I get off the bike, my legs trembling and my heart pounding.
“Hey,” he says, grabbing my arm as I charge to the door. “It’s really not what you think, Helena. We’re really not bad people. I promise he didn’t lay a hand on her. Nobody did. Brooks hasn’t been thinking so clear lately.”
“I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but you do realize you kidnapped a teenager, right?” I stand on the porch, not knowing what I should do next. Is this a situation where you knock? Or do you bust in like a wild woman and do whatever you have to do? I feel the weight of my gun in my holster, and hope I’m not going to have to do it.
Gavin pulls the door open, and walks in. I follow behind him, looking around with strange fascination. It looks like a woman lives here, from the fuzzy pillows, frilly curtains, and candles burning. I can see the top of Josie’s head from the back of the couch, but she doesn’t turn around. She must not notice us. Maybe she’s bound and gagged.
I sprint to the couch. Josie’s sitting there on a laptop computer, big headphones over her ears, doing something on the laptop while she pets a big orange cat. If she didn’t have two black eyes and handprints on her neck, I might have thought she was just a normal teenage girl doing normal teenage things.
As soon as she sees me standing there, her jaw drops to the floor.
“Josie!” I shout. “What the heck happened to you?” I reach out my arms to hug her, but she just sits there looking at me like she got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She sets the laptop down on the coffee table and slides the headphones off her ears.
“Come on,” I say, reaching my hand out to her. “We’re going home.”
“Helena,” she stammers. “What are you doing here?”
I really thought she’d be a lot happier to see me. Instead, she’s acting like she’s looking at a ghost or something.
“I’m getting you out of here,” I say. “What happened to your face?” If these idiots beat her up, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but it’s not going to be pretty. “Did he hit you?”
“Oh, this?” she asks, brushing her hand over her eye as she winces. “Dad did this. Old fucker still got some fight in him.” I feel like I’ve been stabbed in the stomach. My dad never really beat up on me physically. That must be some new quirk of his. I feel so guilty leaving her with him. Josie is so much tinier than I was. He probably could’ve broken her neck if he wanted to.
I sit down on the couch next to her and wrap my arm around her, but she is stiff, like she doesn’t want me touching her. I’m sure, after all the trauma she’s been through with getting kidnapped, that’s probably normal. I know for certain that wherever we end up, she’s definitely going to need some major therapy.
“Well, you don’t have to worry about dad ever again,” I say, resisting my urge to just scoop her up in my arms and drag her out of here. Maybe she’s scared. Maybe they told her if she says anything they’ll hurt her. “Or these guys. We’re moving far away, Josie. Somewhere safe. Come on.”
“Helena, I am really happy to see you…” she says, trailing off.
“I don’t know how long you expect me to keep on doing this,” a woman’s voice shouts from upstairs. I hear a door slam, and footsteps coming down the stairs, and we all turn and look. “I’m not your fucking whore, Brooks.”
“Don’t talk like that in front of the kid,” a man yells behind her.
“You’re bat shit nuts. That’s not your kid.”
The tall brunette glares at the three of us with disgust before running out the door. She’s all long hair and legs, her cutoff jean shorts not even long enough to cover the pink polka dot underwear she’s got underneath. Personally, I’m a little surprised. Girls like that don’t tend to wear underwear.
Stumbling behind her is Brooks, and he looks pissed. Back in high school, he was always the laid-back counterpart to Gavin, but this man just emanates anger. It’s kind of hot, but that might just be my twisted taste in men. His beard is long, his eyes are dark, and when he spots Gavin and I, he stops in his tracks.
Gavin looks amused, and lets out a laugh while Brooks stands there trying to make sense of the situation.
“Helena,” he stammers. “Is that you? Helena Anderson from Miller High?”
“Don’t mind him,” Gavin says. “He hallucinates a lot these days.”
“Fuck off,” Brooks says. “I just never thought I’d see you again. You kind of disappeared after high school.”
“I’m about to disappear again,” I say, not as amused by this scene as Gavin is. “I’m just here to collect my stepsister.”
“Oh,” he says. He’s staring my body up and down, his glare conflicted.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I say. “Come on, Josie, get your stuff.”
“Be careful, guys,” Josie says. “She’s a cop.”
I don’t know what the hell to respond to that with. This girl is out of her mind. Obviously, she’s developed Stockholm’s or something in her short stay here. She’s just sitting on the couch, petting the cat, smiling at me contentedly. I don’t know if she’s trying to get me killed or what, but I suddenly feel severely outnumbered.
“I’m not,” I stammer. “I swear. I got fired. I’m just a normal human being, here to take my sister home. Go get your stuff, Josie.”
Gavin bursts out laughing. At least someone is finding amusement in the situation. I certainly am not. Brooks paces towards me, his eyes locked on mine. The hair on my arm is standing up on end, nervous goosebumps covering my body. He doesn’t look pleased.
“Who the hell are you to come in my home and start barking orders?” he asks. “You got a warrant or something, cop?”
“I’m not a cop, I swear,” I say. “And you can’t just kidnap a fifteen-year-old. I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but I’m pretty sure it’s not legal.”
“Nothing is going on here, Helena,” Josie pleads. “Please don’t make me go.”
“She’s not fifteen,” Brooks says. “She’s going to be seventeen. If you gave a shit, you’d know that. I’m not letting you take her back to that dump. That fucking scumbag has no right to have a kid, and if you were so concerned, you’d have known that yourself.”
Those words hurt. I knew my dad was awful, and I knew leaving was selfish, but it w
as what everyone wanted. At the time, I thought I had made the right choice. Talking to her every day, it seemed like I made the right choice.
“You can’t just stay here, Josie. These people aren’t your family. Besides, they’re going to miss you at school. Then what?” I ask.
“I dropped out,” she says defiantly. “A while ago.” There’s no remorse on her face. She actually looks kind of pleased with herself for being able to lie to me for so long. “Brooks is making me do cyber school, though. See?” She holds up the laptop and shows me a screen full of multiple-choice questions.
“That’s great,” I say, “But you’re not staying here. Get your stuff, and come with me.”
“No,” Brooks says.
“No?” I repeat, putting my hands on my hips, staring him down. I don’t know who he thinks he is, but he doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know me. He has never known me, even back in high school when I sat behind him in pretty much every class. It’s not his say as to what happens to my sister.
“Come on, dude,” Gavin says. “That’s her sister. I’m sure there’s a good explanation for everything. This has gone on long enough. Let her go.” Gavin shrugs and looks at me, and I appreciate his effort.
“What do you think, Josie?” Brooks asks.
“Helena, I don’t want to make you mad,” she says slowly. “I know you’ve done your best to be a good sister to me, but I’m not like you. I’m not smart. I don’t have any idea what I want to be when I grow up. Honestly, I’d be perfectly happy being a bartender or something and getting married and having a baby. I don’t want to travel the world, or fight bad guys. I just want this.” She motions around the room. “A life like this is my destiny.”
“Josie, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. Except she does. She knows exactly what she’s talking about. My whole life, I just wanted to graduate high school and get out. Fresh starts excite me. Getting the best grades at the police academy, employers fighting over me, being the best at what I do… that was what I thrived on. “You’re so young. You know one day you’re going to change your mind. You’re going to have regrets. You are smart. You can be whatever you want to be.”
“She’s old enough to decide for herself where she wants to live,” Brooks says. “She’s safe here. Nobody’s going to hurt her. I don’t mind having her around.” The way he touches my shoulder nearly brings a tear to my eye. This man, who doesn’t know my sister beyond my scumbag father, is showing her a kindness that not even I was able to show her. He’s giving her a chance. I don’t understand why anyone would do that. “Just go and do what you need to do, Helena. Nobody’s going to fault you for having a career, or a life outside of this town.”
I’m overwhelmed. The walls are closing in around me, and I gasp for air. I flop down on the couch next to Josie and start to cry. I failed her so hard. I failed everyone so hard being so selfish. Now she’s living in a den of bikers who are taking better care of her than I ever could have. I feel like shit.
“He already told me he’ll never have sex with me,” Josie says, patting my back.
Gavin starts to laugh again, and I can’t help but giggle through my tears. Brooks hands me a tissue and I blot at my eyes.
“Great,” I say.
“It’s really nothing against you, Helena,” Brooks says. “I didn’t even put two and two together that you guys were related. I knew your dad’s place looked familiar to me, though. Last time I was there, we were just kids. I was dropping off something with Gavin’s dad, and you just sat on the couch, reading a book. You didn’t even look up, even when Moe and your father started fighting.”
“Guess it was just a normal day in the life,” I sighed. I remember that day, though. I was so mortified that Brooks was in our disgusting trailer. I was sure he’d think I had lice. I did my best to keep the place as clean as possible, but it needed more than a little elbow grease. It needed burned down then, just as much as it needed burned down now.
It’s kind of touching he remembered that, too. Brooks has never been a bad guy. I don’t know why I doubted him for second. I just can’t believe that he would do such a kind thing for Josie.
“Why my sister?” I ask. “Why did you take her? You know exactly what you did for her. You knew you weren’t going to get ransom off my dad. You knew exactly who you were dealing with.”
He looks really sad, squinting his eyes, like he’s trying to calculate his next words as carefully as possible. “Guess I’m just trying to do a good deed here and there mixed in with my usual shit. It’s what Esther would want.”
“How is Esther?” I ask. “I haven’t seen her since high school.”
Josie does a simple little throat-slitting gesture with her fingers and I immediately wish I could shove my fist in my mouth. Those two were always really close. I wonder if maybe they were together at some point and she left him.
“She died,” Brooks says. Just like that, he gets up and walks out the back door of the house.
“Gavin, I’m so sorry,” I say. “I know you and your sister were tight.”
“I think we’ve all been walking around a little shell-shocked. Brooks is taking it the worst though. Those two were married, you know.” I think I can feel my heart shattering in my chest, shattering into a thousand pieces for her, and for Brooks. I have never even met a man I’d want to marry, but losing said person, that has to be the hardest thing in the world. “Doesn’t Josie kind of look like her?”
“I don’t think that makes me feel any better about her being here,” I say, a sad smile on my face. He’s right though, her curly red hair and her skinny frame do resemble Esther when she was that age. If anyone didn’t know any better, they would’ve thought Esther was her mom. Would’ve.
I feel so sad for the girl. I feel so sad for him. I have never really endured ‘loss’ in my life, but I also don’t let myself get close enough to anyone to let that happen.
I guess that would explain the random chick running through the house when we first got here. He was probably screwing his way through the entire population at this point trying to cope with his loss. It seemed like something a guy like him would do. I’m sure women flocked to him knowing that he was in a sensitive place.
Brooks comes back inside, his eyes bloodshot. He heads straight to the fridge and grabs a beer. “You want one?” he asks, nodding over at me.
“I do!” Josie says, raising her hand.
“Too bad,” he says to her. “We talked about this. Finish up your schoolwork so we can eat dinner.” Those are probably words that Josie has never heard in her life before, but they seem to work. She picks up the laptop and carried it off to another room, shutting the door behind her. Brooks gets to work pulling stuff out of the fridge, grabbing pots and pans from cabinets, and chopping vegetables while I just drink my beer and watch.
I know he’s in a fragile place.
Even though he’s seemingly lost in his food preparation, I have to remind myself this isn’t just a normal guy. This is a biker, a criminal, a dangerous man. I saw the condition he left my father in. Even if he did treat Josie with kindness, that doesn’t mean a life here wasn’t going to subject her to seeing things that no person should have to see.
“I gotta go,” Gavin says. “It’s good to see you, Helena. If you really are set on taking Josie with you, you have every right.”
Just like that, our high school reunion was over, and it was time for me to woman up and do what I came here to do. Josie is just a kid. Brooks is just a grieving man who isn’t acting in his right mind. And I need to do what I should’ve done all those years ago and take her away from this so we can start our new life together.
Brooks just starts chopping vegetables louder, slamming the knife into the cutting board with every slice. He’s acting like Josie is some shelter puppy he adopted, and I’m the wicked villain here to take her back to my underground dog fighting ring.
“Listen,” I say. “I really appreciate what you did for Josie.�
�� Maybe if I drown him in kindness, I can get him to budge. He’s ignoring me, pounding away at chicken breasts with a mallet. I don’t know if this is normal, or if he’s trying to prove a point, using the food in front of him like some sort of voodoo doll, stabbing and pounding me while the oven preheats. “You don’t need a kid around to look after. You need to be focusing on yourself right now.”
“Classic cop talk,” he says. “Trying to get what you want by making me think it’s my idea. How do you people sleep at night?”
“Listen, I’m here because I got fired from the police force I was working for. Technically I’m not a cop,” I say.
He looks up from the baking sheet where he’s seasoning the chicken.
“That girlfriend of yours,” I say, “do you really think she wants to have to take care of an adult child?”
“That’s not my girlfriend,” he says, slamming the oven door before washing his tattooed hands in the sink.
Nice, he’s single, that evil voice in my mind says. I immediately remind myself how stupid that is. He’s a widower. He’s a criminal. I’m pretty sure he hates me. I definitely don’t have legs like that broad who came running through the living room earlier today. And Josie was right, what she said, this kind of life isn’t for me. It’s not what I wanted. I fought so hard to get away from this town, to get out of this place, to do better for myself. Nothing about this man would further my goals.
Josie wanders from the spare bedroom, cat following behind her. She smells like patchouli and amber, a giant waft of perfume filling the air as she digs through the fridge.
Brooks turns pale, his skin so white, it’s almost gray.
“Are you okay?” I ask. He’s clenching his fists. His scowl makes my heart race. He looks like a coyote about to attack his prey.