by Schow, Ryan
What was her reason for living, if not to experience things like joy, wonder and love? Lying in bed, the night warm against him, he began to wonder if the Georgia he once knew was gone forever.
She took his hand into hers, surprising him.
It was hot.
Brayden’s voice cracked when he said, “Don’t you want to be there for Abby when she wakes up?”
Whatever social proof he developed in Vegas, however much he had come to appreciate himself through the pick-up artists’ mindset, he was quickly losing. Popularity ceased to matter. He was not a player. He was no Damien Rhodes, no Jake Teller. He was no Titan or Romeo. Truly, he was nothing important anymore, not against what happened. Not against what was now happening. The thing about horror and tragedy, about misdeeds in the face of God and humanity, is they have a way of stripping you down to the bone. He was but an amoeba. Barely even a thought.
Georgia said, “What if Dr. Gerhard does to Abby what he did to me? What if he changes her, or turns her into something bad? An unfeeling, unpredictable killer?”
Holding her hand tighter, he scooted close enough to pull her into a hug. She did not hug him back. It was like her skin was formed of plastic, all of her nerve endings rendered numb when Gerhard turned her into a doll, into a tool for some unknown and perhaps diabolical purpose.
“Why would he turn you into a weapon and then let you roam the world freely?” Brayden asked.
“Who knows why he does the things he does?”
She was right. It wasn’t for money. He didn’t seem to care about money at all. What were his motivations? To change and observe his subjects? To let them find their own ways and then catalogue the progress?
“We’ll watch him closely with Abby,” Brayden reasoned. “Me and Netty, anyway.”
“You can’t,” she said, moving out of his arms. Her dark eyes narrowed. Her skin was too warm against his, too hot almost, and he was too affectionate. Laying there in bed, his body began to sweat.
She isn’t human, he reminded himself.
For the first time that night, she spoke with real emotion in her voice. It was anger. One of her defining emotions, as she so eloquently explained earlier.
“That…monster…will do whatever he wants. You have no idea the measure of his cruelty. He is something worse than evil. He’s…the devil.”
“Or maybe he’s just a mad genius who found a way to conquer death.”
She moved far enough away from him to look right at him. Her back, it was pressed against the wall. He rode the edge of the bed. “You haven’t seen him the way I’ve seen him. When he forced me to kill that boy, it was like…I don’t know…it’s like he was getting off on it. I can’t describe the sheer sickness of it. How wicked he looked. It was like he was killing through me, savoring all the ways it was destroying me.”
“The dude’s a monstrous freak of nature, for sure. I mean Josef Mengele?! Trust me when I tell you, you can save the sales pitch…I’m a believer.”
For a minute, Brayden saw a shine in her eyes, like maybe she was going to cry, and he held his breath. If she could cry one tear…would that open up something in her? That thing she was missing?
“It’s just, the damage he did to me, Brayden”—she paused for the longest time, and right when he was about to see that shine become tears, her eyes all but dried out—“I think it might be irreparable. I think something is permanently wrong with me.”
Brayden’s heart broke for her. Is that how it was? She’d teeter on the edge of emotion, and then right before the full weight of it could move her, everything would vanish and she’d feel nothing again? That was how she described it, but to watch it occur in her? It was truly heart-rending.
“I can talk to him,” Brayden said.
“No you can’t. He likes the torturous things he does. I know he does. To him, torture and perversion is…well, it’s his version of heaven on earth.”
“I can’t imagine—”
“Whatever you think you know about him, he is infinitely worse.”
Brayden slept fitfully all night long. Perhaps because his dreams were more like nightmares, or perhaps because Georgia slept like a furnace next to him. He couldn’t stop sweating. The sheets were practically soaked.
2
That morning at the airport, as Georgia was gathering her luggage, Brayden waited curbside with his hands stuffed into his pockets. Netty waited in the car because she didn’t really like Georgia. Georgia pulled her luggage from the trunk, then wheeled it up on the curb and over toward Brayden. Instead of giving him a hug, she kissed him on the mouth. Her lips were so soft. So inviting. This surprised him, how tender she was with him when she could literally incinerate everything. More surprising, however, was that she would even know to do such a thing.
Of course, he kissed her back, lightly, unassuming. When he put his hand behind her head, laced his fingers in her hair and tightened the grip ever so much, a breath escaped her and she pulled back. He told himself she was just being a friend in whatever way it was this new version of her could be a friend. Still, did she feel something? Anything? Was this her trying to connect with him?
“If I could miss you,” she said, somber, “I would. But I won’t.”
“I hope you don’t feel bad me saying this,” he said, taking her hand in his, “but I’m really going to miss you.”
She tightened her fingers around his and didn’t let go. It was like he could do whatever he wanted to her and for the most part she’d go along with it. If she got mad, though, the girl could roast him to death in seconds. He let go of her hand, thinking: what a strange life she’s been forced to live—being so powerful, yet suffering such helplessness.
“I’ll call you when I get home,” she said.
“Okay.”
“If something happens with Abby in the mean time, just text me.”
“I will.”
She started to walk into the terminal, but then she stopped, turned and looked right at him and for the first time, he saw something resembling life in her eyes. He didn’t know what it was. He wanted to feel encouraged, but then her eyes fell flat again, the depth disappearing.
“Will you…watch over her?” she said. “Make sure Dr. Gerhard doesn’t…do something bad to her?”
It was an impossible thing she was asking, especially after she told him the night before that he couldn’t do it.
“I will,” he said. Inside, he knew Gerhard would do whatever he wanted to her. It would only be a matter of time before anyone knew exactly what that was, and what she would become. If she ever woke at all.
As for watching over her? He’d try. That much he would do. But to what effect? He was just a kid, and Gerhard? Gerhard was a horrendous stain on human nature, a deviant of the worst kind. No, he was worse. He was a sadist. A heartless, soulless, downright evil son of a bitch.
As he stood there watching Georgia go, he wondered, does Abby even stand a chance?
3
Sitting at airport drop-off in Abby’s S5, the engine purring as she waited to pull into traffic, Netty asked how Brayden was, and not necessarily because she cared, but because he was being a tight lipped black hole of a human being.
He shrugged his shoulders, refused to blink.
She checked her blind spot, then eased into traffic. While switching lanes, she signaled, sped over, then braked hard and dropped quickly back down to five miles an hour because traffic was that tight.
“These people suck,” she barked. “Learn how to drive!” she shouted at the guy in front of her.
Brayden couldn’t bring himself to speak and he knew it was getting to her. Combine this with airport traffic, and chances were her panties were twisting pretty damn tight.
It was only a matter of time.
Brayden’s friend and mentor, Titan, once said, “The thing about women is they can’t go like five seconds without wanting to know exactly what you’re thinking. It’s like dangling a string in front of a kitten then asking
that pussy to oppose its own nature.”
This wasn’t Vegas, though.
Netty was cute, super cute actually when she wasn’t skulking around the house raging, but he wasn’t gaming her. No, he was quiet because he was trying to wrap his head around his effed-sideways life, which felt as much like the weight of a thousand terrible memories as it did a death sentence.
Finally, thinking of Georgia, he forced himself to speak. He said, “I didn’t really want her to go. In fact, I’m kind of depressed about it.”
Traffic started to move. Netty found an opening, slid into the gap, passed a Toyota 4Runner on the outside lane, then got stuck behind an old VW bug with brown exhaust.
“That girl scares me,” Netty said, crawling again through traffic with everyone else. A jet roared overhead and no one even looked.
“She wasn’t always like that, you know,” Brayden said. The car started to chime, so he put on his seat belt. “Actually, she used to be really sweet, and caring.”
“But?” Netty said, not looking at him. Brayden thought she had a nice profile.
“But, she worries me, too.”
After Netty was set straight by Gerhard (i.e., nearly choked to death), after they discovered Abby was alive but in a coma or maybe brain dead, Netty didn’t seem so manic. She wasn’t so snappy. For a minute there, he thought she was seriously going off the deep end. Good news gave her hope, though, and that hope started putting things right.
“Despite how she is,” Brayden replied, thinking of the way she cooked that kid in the lab and nearly burned them all to death, “I’m really going to miss her.”
Netty spotted the freeway entrance, accelerated around a good looking blonde in a white C300 Mercedes Benz, then once on the on-ramp, mashed the pedal and shot out onto the highway. Brayden gripped the oh-shit handle, his body tensing. She didn’t even bother to signal a three lane changeover, that’s how big and hairy Netty’s girl nuts were.
“I don’t want to step on your dick or anything,” Netty said, her Russian accent noticeable, “but I seriously won’t miss her at all.”
“What have you got against her?” Brayden heard himself ask. He couldn’t take his eyes off the road. The way they were weaving in and out of traffic at the speed of sound, any minute now some butt plug in a Prius was going to switch lanes and end all of their lives. He wanted to tell her to slow down, considering his colon was now lodged firmly in his throat.
“I’m sure she’s all sugar and spice,” Netty said. “It’s just, we went to a club the other night and she didn’t have a fake ID so she basically burnt the doorman’s guts so bad he hunched over in pain.”
“Really?”
“Really,” she said, shooting him a look. “And then she walked in the club like it was no biggie. I was like, are you freaking kidding me?”
“She might not have a soul,” Brayden said. “I mean…whatever Gerhard did to her…I think it changed her. Like, it seriously changed her.”
After that, Brayden sat there like a wart on a frog’s ass, all green and useless, not even moving. Just along for the ride. For God’s sake, at that point, he couldn’t even qualify for passable conversation.
And why do I feel the need to defend Georgia? he wondered.
Maybe because they were friends, or maybe because once upon a time he’d been crushing hard on her. Either way, it got him thinking about what she did to that kid in Gerhard’s lab. How after she roasted that hairless fucker, she was literally split at the seams, exposing lines of fiery light inside her.
Whatever Gerhard turned her into, whatever supercharged genetic material was swimming inside that sexy body of hers, she was something much worse than Netty could imagine. Something far worse than even he would let himself imagine.
Netty finally broke the silence. She said, “How can he do that to her? I mean, I understand a nose job, or fixing deformities, but giving someone super powers? How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know. It’s just, the things Gerhard must have done to her, she’s only doing her best to understand it, and not get swallowed up by it.”
That seemed to satisfy Netty because she suddenly had nothing else to say.
After awhile, Brayden said, “You know, Netty, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re really pretty.”
“I know,” she said, smiling. When she looked at him, he saw how deep a blue her eyes really were.
Traffic started to build again, so she slowed back down to the speed limit, slid over into the far right lane and set the cruise control. It was amazing how alike she and Abby were.
While doing sixty-three in the no-frills lane with hybrid cars aching for better gas mileage and old as death people creeping in sensible Toyota Corolla’s trying not to flame out and kill everyone, Brayden felt himself drifting. He was practically hypnotized by the road. Once again he found himself daydreaming about leaving everything behind: his friends, his family, even his future inheritance.
He would never be an oil man, like his father wanted. And he would never be Abby’s boyfriend, like he wanted. Who in the hell was he anyway? With this horrible, illegal past haunting him, with all the terrible stuff he’s done, who was he becoming?
“Can I stay with you and your mom,” he asked, “at least for little while?” It was out of sheer necessity that he risked such a request.
“You don’t have a home?” Netty said.
He shook his head. “Not really. I mean, I do, but I don’t know. It’s like, my step-mom is hot but she’s kind of dumb—”
“Gross!”
“It’s not gross, it’s true,” he said. “She’s really hot.”
“It’s still gross,” Netty said, grinning and glancing over at him.
“My dad, he’s more of a man than I’ll ever be and I just don’t want to go home and be the big disappointment, you know? That’s how I feel, like I’ve got this sign on me that’s screaming out those two words: Colossal Failure. I don’t think I can take it.”
“You can stay with us if you want,” she said. “I mean, my mom likes you, and you don’t bug the shit out of me yet, so—you know—do what you need to do.”
“So your mom, she’s okay with it?”
“She said it was nice having male energy around the house again. With my dad in jail, it’s just us two and, it’s like we’re on our periods together all the time, so she cries in her room a lot, and she’s always gone at night doing her stupid parties, so having some company might be nice.”
Ah, he thought, the swinger parties. Titan and Romeo would absolutely love her.
“I just want to see if Abby wakes up in the next few days. If not, I don’t know, I just have to go…be somewhere else. Be someone else.”
“Who will you be?”
“Anyone but me.”
The whole time, what he was thinking was, if the cops find me, if they ask about Abby, what will I say? And why hasn’t word of the Giardini’s murder/suicide found the news yet? He was itching, right down to his fingertips, to get into Netty’s computer and hack the Santa Monica PD’s servers. He had to see if the bodies were discovered yet. Surely someone was missing them!
When they got home that night, he and Netty made spaghetti together. They ate in silence, Netty in her world, Brayden in his.
Then, in the middle of dinner, Netty phoned her mother and said Georgia was gone, Abby had woken up and both she and Brayden were sane again.
She then asked if Brayden could stay for a few days and even though she wasn’t on speaker phone, Irenka spoke loud enough for him to hear her through the earpiece. She said, “Brayden can stay as long as he likes, but only if you can keep the tension down. The place was starting to feel half like a mausoleum and half like a madhouse.”
Netty had the best table manners of any girl Brayden had seen. Eating spaghetti to her, it was like an art form. Like there was a panel of guests looking on and measuring her etiquette. It was sexy and uncomfortable at the same time.
Note to self: Don�
��t get turned on by your best friend’s best friend.
Talk about rude…
Still, finishing the food on his plate, he couldn’t help thinking she was cute AF.
4
The next day, he busied himself cleaning the apartment top to bottom, then he bought groceries because he was feeling like a total schlub.
When Irenka asked who bought all the food, Brayden said he did. “What kind of person would I be if I didn’t help out?” he asked.
She smiled and thanked him. The thing about Irenka was she was even better looking than her daughter, and that left Brayden with impure thoughts. The kind of thoughts he did his best to bury, but not too far because he needed the distraction.
Netty watched the interaction between the two of them with curious eyes. When she was gone and Netty plopped down on the couch to watch TV, he went into the other room, laid down and slept.
Sleeping had become his savior. When he was asleep, his brain was not this quivering blob of worry and regret. He was not obsessing over Abby, agonizing over possibilities for her future, missing Georgia. He was just…out. Dead to the world.
Dead to himself.
But when he was awake, when his brain strained and suffered and positively ached, he felt like climbing the walls, or screaming. He was a white-knuckle drunk, minus the alcohol. He was seriously Jonesing to feel whole again. To feel right. But that would never happen, so he longed for escape from his thoughts. From the past that hobbled around in his brain like dozens of diseased rats.
When he couldn’t sleep, he imagined himself cruising the clubs and bars, losing himself to the night, the women and the alcohol. And then he felt better.
Sort of.
If only he could not think. Not feel. Not know anything.
The solution to that? Again and again it came back to him getting blind, stinking drunk. The kind of piss-drunk that required ambulances and stomach pumping. The kind of shit-faced, puking in the gutter kind of drunk where later the doctors would all look at each other and quietly wonder if “the patient” was trying to drink himself to death.