He leads me to the kitchen and tries to hand me the curled snake. I shake my head, so he places it gently in one of those hanging baskets that is supposed to hold fruit. I’m not big into snakes, so I’m glad I already ate my banana. Wyatt’s culinary skills are pretty lacking, but it’s hard to mess up buttered toast. I sit on a bar stool, rubbing my feet on Matty’s back and keeping an eye on the snake as I watch Wyatt inhale half a bag of bread and an entire stick of butter. I guess he’s the reason six-slice toasters exist. My own toast turns to concrete in my stomach as I huddle behind my coffee mug, breathing in the warmth, hoping it will give me the energy I need to start this conversation.
And the guts I need to end it.
“So,” I say.
“So,” he echoes.
“Where’s your dad? Do you need help with anything? I’m . . .” I swallow down the toast like it’s a giant, bitter pill. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask before.”
He winces in pain, inclines his head to the back porch, his jaw tight. “We have a freezer for deer meat, from when we used to hunt. It’s been empty a while. Has a lock. It was the best I could do.” He stares at his hands a moment, tears in his eyes, and I imagine what it must be like to hold your parent’s dead body in your arms. I hope I never have to find out.
“I’m sorry, Wyatt. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t say that anymore. Not your fault.”
He wipes away tears and slides my coffee closer, and I drink it, forcing the toast back down.
“So I don’t want to kill your brother.”
“I know.”
“Yeah, but . . . I’m not talking philosophically. Like, I obviously don’t want to kill anyone. But I don’t even want to ask him the question and show him the card.”
Wyatt looks happy, then puzzled, then cagey. “What changed?” he asks.
“Well . . .” I take a sip of coffee. “I want you to kill me instead.”
Wyatt splutters out his coffee, staining his white shirt with brown splotches. I’m kind of pleased with myself—if he’s surprised, then maybe everyone else will be surprised too. Plus, I really do hate that band.
“I can’t do that,” he says, and he’s more scared than I’ve ever seen him. “You can’t do that. There has to be another way.”
“I have a plan. But I need you to trust me. And I need to know I can trust you.”
We stare at each other, knee to knee. Matty sits between us.
“Can I trust you?” I ask. “For real?”
“I . . . It’s just . . .”
“Spit it out. Yes or no.”
“You can trust me. But I need to tell you something.”
I shrug. How bad can it be? “Okay. Tell me.”
“Just promise me you’ll hear me out.”
“No.”
“My God, you are a harsh woman,” he says, half annoyed and half impressed. “I’m going to try anyway. Okay, so Max is on your list, right?”
“Right.”
“He’s my brother. He’s . . .” He looks down, bites a cuticle. “He’s severely autistic. Like, only aware of other people for a few minutes a day, maybe. Most of the time, he’s either watching The Dark Knight or lost in his own world or a major rage Hulk, really violent. He has to stay under constant watch or he’ll hurt himself. Or us. Or me, I guess.”
I look up as if I had X-ray vision and could see through the kitchen ceiling. “So he’s not actually here?”
Wyatt shakes his head. “As soon as my dad . . . got hurt . . . I called Max’s doctor and took him to Calloway House, the hospital facility where he stays when no one is home to watch him. I didn’t know he was on your list. I just knew I couldn’t take care of things here if he was around. I mean, the only reason I was home when you showed up was because my dad couldn’t handle Max alone, and his credit card got rejected at Calloway again. My dad has . . . had . . . a bad back. I’m the only person in the family who can handle Max when he gets dangerous.”
“Then why would Valor send me here?” I ask. “Every single person on the list has been exactly where the GPS said they would be, exactly when I showed up. Why would he be completely out of the picture? And how can a severely autistic kid apply for a credit card?”
Wyatt takes a deep breath and sets down his toast.
“He was supposed to be home, but I took him to Calloway. Because he didn’t take out the credit card. He didn’t run up the debt.” Wyatt swallows hard, and looks directly into my eyes. “I did.”
Suddenly, it all adds up. Wyatt was a bad boy. He was in trouble. He did horrible things that he’s ashamed of. He illegally took out credit cards in his disabled brother’s name, and now that brother is on my hit list. That pretty much makes Wyatt a murderer.
“Shit,” I whisper. “Does that mean I was supposed to kill you all along?”
“Hell no,” he says fiercely. “I would do the exact same thing you did. I would take the deal. In a heartbeat.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I throw myself into his arms, which he isn’t expecting at all. He catches me and pulls me roughly against his chest, and the spilled coffee bleeds cold into my own shirt. His jaw moves against my head as he says, “Not the reaction I was expecting.”
“No,” I say, nearly breathless. “I mean, you were a total dick to do that to your own brother. But that was a long time ago. That’s not who you are now.”
“I’ve been making payments. For the last year, I’ve been trying to pay it off. I swear.”
“Too bad they decided to eff you over and call it in anyway.”
“My dad kept giving me my allowance like nothing was wrong, like he wasn’t already in debt. So I just sent it all in to Valor. Sold my bass and my amp, too. I hadn’t used that credit card in years, up until you needed it this week.”
“I couldn’t believe you’d be taking out any more debt, even for Matty. But now I get it,” I mumble into his chest.
“They couldn’t do anything worse to me than they were doing to you.”
I hug him again, hard. He hugs me back and murmurs, “What’s that for?” into my hair.
“That’s for making me feel human again. Because if you would take the deal too, then I’m not a horrible person. Or, at least, I’m not the only one. This whole time, I’ve known that I didn’t have a choice, but I still felt guilty. Every single second, so much guilt. But if you think it’s worth it, if you agree that it’s better than the alternative, that it’s worth it to fight . . .”
“Then I think you’re worth it too,” he finishes for me, pulling me close again.
Matty whines, and I reach down to rub her ears as Wyatt strokes my hair.
“So do you forgive me?” he asks.
“If you forgive me,” I say. Then, more quietly, “And I trust you.”
He pulls my chin up and brushes his lips against mine, and I lean in to him and pull him closer for more. We teeter together, filling the space between the tall stools, our mouths tentative but smiling as they meet.
Matty barks, and we break apart, laughing. But it’s a joyous bark, and we each reach out to pet her, making a complete circle.
“Will he ever get better?” I ask. The fridge has a few photos, one of which shows Wyatt with his arm tight around an almost identical version of himself. Max has thick glasses and side-parted hair, and they’re standing on top of a mountain. The other kid is looking away, eyes unfocused, as if he might jump off the cliff without Wyatt’s arm holding him down. “Max?”
“He doesn’t need to get better. He’s himself. He’s just different,” Wyatt says, sounding affronted, and I realize he’s probably said this many times. “He’s as good to me as he can be, even though I was a pretty annoying brother, wanted to follow him everywhere when he always needed lots of space. He really loves Batman and the Transformers and likes to
build robots and draw their insides, really complicated stuff. When my parents divorced, they made me choose who to go with, and I chose my dad because I wanted to give my mom freedom, give her the chance at a real life where she wasn’t weighed down by her asshole husband and her difficult kid. I thought I’d have more freedom with my dad, too, that he wouldn’t care how much trouble I got into while he was taking care of Max. And I was right. But living with him—I hated him and I wanted out. I tried to change my mind, so I could move in with my mom instead, but my dad said Max and I had to stay together. He said I’d made my decision and had to deal with the consequences. Kind of ironic, really.”
“Jesus,” I say. “That all . . . just plain sucks.”
“Well, at least it means you don’t have to shoot him.” He reaches out a hand to catch the snake stretching across the counter.
“But I think it means I’m supposed to shoot you, Wyatt Beard.”
“But you want me to shoot you instead.”
“Exactly,” I say. “But put down the snake and kiss me first, before I lose my nerve.”
11.
Patsy Klein
I’m back in the truck, buttoning on my Postal Service shirt for the last time. Matty knows something is up, and she runs back and forth from the truck to Wyatt’s front door. If I could put this nasty shirt on without touching it, I would. I hated it from the first second I felt the cheap, sharp collar against my neck and the scratchy eagle patch against my chest. Now the stiffness is gone, but the essential horror of the thing is exponentially worse. I shove on the mail cap and twirl the camera button between my fingers, wishing I had looked more closely at the one I found spread out in pieces in Alistair Meade’s trailer. What exactly can Valor see and hear on the other end of this connection? How well can it see at night? For now I leave it unbuttoned and flopped over against my chest. These final minutes are private.
I grab my signature machine and the last card, the one for Maxwell Beard. Every movement is familiar, rote, just like putting on shoes and socks and tying the laces in a bow. The last thing I do is tuck the gun in my waistband, the weight now as familiar as a hand in mine. I know exactly how hard to squeeze the trigger.
“I’m sorry, girl,” I say, tying Matty’s leash to the truck’s trailer hitch. She strains against it and whines, and I double tie it just to make sure.
Since my first step onto this cracked sidewalk, I’ve made all sorts of mistakes, all sorts of fumbles. It was unavoidable. There’s a learning curve to killing. Every time you pick up the gun, your hands shake less, you don’t second-guess yourself as much. Each time it hurts less, until it’s just a job, just one more thing scratched off the list, just another justification for something you know is wrong.
But you do it like you do anything: step after step. Because you have to. And with each kill, you lose a little piece of yourself, forever.
I remember when I was little, asking why I had to go to school, and my mom explained that you didn’t have a choice.
“I don’t want to go to work,” she said. “I’d rather stay home and watch TV, clean the house, watch the bird feeder. I’d rather make cookies for you every day and be home when the bus gets here. But adults have to go to work, and it will be that way for the rest of your life, so you might as well get used to it. You might not like it, but for now, school is your work. So do a good job, and one day, you’ll be rewarded for your hard work.”
It feels weird, knowing that I will never go to school again.
That I will never get to wake up and go to a harmless job I don’t like.
That there was never a reward waiting anyway.
My mom said do what you have to, and the world said do what you love, and I ended up a murderer.
I take one last look around the blue truck. I almost miss the mail van, with my old posters and pillows and turtles. But I still have my yarn bag and the scarf that I’ll never stitch around the school flagpole. There’s my old backpack, full of dirty white underwear and T-shirts stained with dirt and blood and nervous sweat. I squat down and hug Matty hard.
“I love you, girl,” I say. She licks my face happily. It’s sweet, how dogs don’t understand good-byes.
I adjust my cap and stand. My fingers are numb as I button the shirt, all the way to my throat, a hug that strangles. The sidewalk stretches out before me like a tightrope walker’s wire, a long straight line that can lead to satisfaction or utter doom with one false step. I do what I’ve done all along, what I’ve done my entire life: I put one foot in front of the other, step by step, until I stand again at the front door, under the porch light. There are two small bloodstains on the stairs, and I wonder for just a moment if Bob Beard will haunt this house forever, restless and dissatisfied and angry at everyone but himself.
I reach out and knock, counting the breaths until the door opens.
“Are you Maxwell Beard?” I ask.
“Yes.”
He’s wearing baggy sweatpants and a black shirt with the Bat symbol on it, his hair side-parted over thick glasses. He shuffles his feet and scratches his back like his shirt tag itches him and looks over my left shoulder like I’m not there.
“Sign this, please.”
He takes the signature machine, signs it, and avoids my eyes as I click the accept button.
“Maxwell Beard,” I say, just a little too fast. “You owe Valor Savings Bank the sum of $18,325.63. Can you pay this debt in full?”
He shakes his head, his hands in fists and his movements jerky. “Debt. Money. ‘You’re garbage who kills for money.’ The Dark Knight, 2008.”
I shake my head and hold up a blood-stained green card. “By Valor Congressional Order number 7B, your account is past due and hereby declared in default. Due to your failure to remit all owed monies and per your signature just witnessed and accepted, you are given two choices. You may either sign your loyalty over to Valor Savings as an indentured collections agent for a period of five days or forfeit your life. Please choose.”
His hands uncurl as his face goes red. He takes a step out toward me, and I take a step back because he’s freaking scary. “Choose what? That doesn’t make sense!”
“Just calm down,” I say. “I didn’t have a choice. But you do. You can either pay it right now or work for Valor Savings as a bounty hunter. Or else I have to kill you.” I look meaningfully down at the bloodstains.
“No! You’re a villain!” he shouts, spit flying from his mouth. Everything about him is off balance, the way he’s moving and the rough childishness of his deep voice. “You hurt my dad. Wyatt told me. Wyatt said you would come back, and I told him I was going to do what Batman would do. You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Harvey Dent said that.” He shakes his head like he’s beating it against a wall. “No, No! You can’t just shoot people because a paper says so.”
“Max, c’mon,” I say, holding out my hands in front of me. “Calm down. We can talk about this. Take the deal. It’s not that bad. You can be a hero.”
He steps inside the house and comes back pointing a gun at me with both hands, his arms shaking, his face a rictus of fear and rage. I whip mine out too and aim for his chest, but I’m not fast enough. He looks me in the eyes for the first time.
“I’m not a hero!” he yells.
His gun goes off, and my gun goes off, and I’m deaf as I tumble backward into the dry bushes. Overhead, the sky is flat black poked through with white bullet holes, peaceful and cold. I’m numb all over as I lay there and wait for whatever is next.
12.
Valor SAVINGS
Matty barks like crazy. As I lay there, half on the sidewalk, a bare foot kicks me bonelessly over to my stomach. Once I’m there, my face scratched by dead leaves and my hands buried in bark, I carefully reach in a hand and pop the top button off my shirt, burying it deeper into the mulch. Once it’s com
pletely covered with dirt, I sit up and scrape more bark and mulch and dry leaves over it until there’s no sign that anything ever happened there.
“You okay?” Wyatt whispers, and he gives me a hand up and pulls me tight into a hug. Max’s Batman shirt smells weird, like a kid’s banana-scented shampoo, but I hug him back gratefully.
“Yeah,” I say. “But that bullet almost nicked me. I heard it whistle past.”
“It had to seem real,” he says. “Same thing you told me once. That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“I’ve done worse,” I say, thinking back to Amber’s fingernails curling into the carpet. “But it’s close. Let’s hurry.”
When I was coming up with this plan, I thought back to each kill. The only ones that seemed to have reactions from Valor were the ones who took the deal, the one at Chateau Tuscano, and Alistair. All the others, including Wyatt’s dad and the neighbor of the lady at the vet—they left the bodies behind. They only seem to care if there’s something they need from the name on the list.
We carry Amber’s body from inside the house, and I shudder at the cold, clammy touch of her wrists. She’s going stiff, and my skin crawls, to see her so Amber but not Amber. Dressing her in my old tee and jeans was almost impossible, but we did it. I’m starting to believe we can do anything.
I unbutton my Postal Service shirt and thread it over her arms. Wyatt helps me lift and turn her body facedown in the spot I’ve just vacated, and I tie my flagpole cozy around her neck like a scarf and step away from her for the last time. Splayed out in the mulch, right where I was lying a few moments ago, her dark hair cut with my yarn scissors, she looks just like me. I shudder, thinking how close to the truth that is. I throw the mail hat down beside her. I guess my last act as a yarn bomber is to remind Valor that they couldn’t change me, much less kill me.
We could have been sisters. Maybe we were cousins.
One had everything. One had nothing.
Now the situation is reversed.
I stand over her, tears streaming down my face for so many reasons. Wyatt seems to understand that I need a few moments, and he just stands behind me, his hands on my shoulders. A few cold drops fall from his wet hair onto my neck, shocking me out of my stillness. A few warm tears fall too.
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