Still Waters

by Ash Parsons

  I pulled out more drawers, found more. They all went into the bag.

  The crashes in the hall doubled. I went back to the door and glanced out. T-Man was ripping the framed art from the walls. He smashed the glass, picked up a hammer, and darted into the waiting room. As the door swung, I caught a glimpse of him taking aim at a television mounted on the wall.

  Michael shoved me aside, barreling into the surgical suite. He kicked over the stainless steel rolling trays and jumped on them, warping them.

  “What are you waiting for?” he yelled. He climbed onto the surgical table and yanked at the lights.

  They fell with a crash. Their cords dangled.

  Michael jumped off the table and ripped the monitor from its mount. He swung a mini-sledgehammer at the microscope. He shrieked at the empty room as he wrecked it. He didn’t even see me leave.

  I walked into the hall. There were holes in the Sheetrock all the way down to where Cyndra kept watch.

  I went to the front office. It was completely trashed, the counter broken and dangling from the wall in two pieces. Papers strewn on the floor. Broken glass from the reception window glittered across the carpet.

  The waiting room was equally destroyed. Fish lay gasping on the ground, their aquarium glass, water, and gravel spilled across the sofa and floor. LaShonda ignored them, watching out the front windows.

  My lungs squeezed.

  T-Man lugged paint cans in through the back door, pushing past Cyndra.

  I went back and forth, first helping Beast wreck the bathrooms, then helping T-Man slop paint onto the furniture, floors, and walls.

  LaShonda’s scream pierced the sound of shattering porcelain. “Someone’s coming!”

  I dropped the paint and ran up to the waiting room. My heels skidded on wet gravel and dead fish. I fell against the chair next to LaShonda.

  Outside, headlights threaded through the medical park. The car passed under a streetlamp, and the crest on the door was briefly illuminated.

  T-Man scooted around Michael and stood next to LaShonda. He caressed the back of her hooded head. “It’s okay, baby.”

  Paranoia gnawed on my synapses. I went to the front door into the office, gave it a tug to make sure it was locked. My eyes snagged on the writing on the glass. The words were backward—meant to be read as you walked up to the door from the parking lot, not as you stood inside looking out.

  “Stay calm,” Michael was telling the others. “He’ll drive away, whoever he is.”

  My eyes tracked the words from right to left: Beautiful You Cosmetic Surgery and Dermatology Associates. There were three doctors in the practice. Dr. Singh Patel, Dr. Sam Reaves, and Dr. Michael Springfield.

  My brain felt like it was twisting, warping in my skull.

  Dr. Michael Springfield, who named his only son after himself. Who was never home in his mountaintop mansion.

  Plastic surgeons wouldn’t keep birth control medication in their offices. Cyndra and her stepdad had nothing to do with this. Michael had lied about all of it. Hadn’t said it was his own father’s practice we were planning to rob.

  Did it matter?

  I stalked to the window, glaring at Michael as the car got closer. It turned onto our street.

  “We’re bailing,” I told him. “Now. Everyone, go to the van.”

  The security guard’s car drew closer.

  “Relax. It’s a rent-a-cop.” Michael didn’t even glance at me. “Maybe even Trent.”

  “T-Man, LaShonda, Beast. Go to the van. Get Cyndra to start it,” I said. They scuttled out of the room.

  “I’m not done here, Ice.” Michael turned cold eyes to me. His hand went to his waistband.

  The security car turned into the office parking lot. Headlights swept the plate glass.

  Michael and I dove for the floor.

  The car parked and the driver’s door opened. The security guard passed in front of his car’s headlights, making them flicker in the window.

  He was too tall to be Trent.

  Michael swung the gun toward the door. I crouched like a racer, weight braced on my fingertips.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed. “Let’s go!”

  I eased around the bank of chairs toward the hall and the back door.

  The security guard stopped at the door and gave it a tug. He turned on a flashlight and aimed it inside.

  Crouched behind the row of chairs, Michael kept the gun trained on the door.

  The flashlight glinted off the shattered glass of the television.

  “What the—” The guard’s voice was muffled. He fumbled at his belt, pulled out keys.

  A percussive blast ripped through the room. A second shot answered it. The door shattered. The security guard fell backward with a scream.

  “Time to go,” Michael said. His eyes gleamed with jittery triumph. He lowered the gun and whirled.

  We sprinted down the hall and crashed through the back door.

  Outside, the van waited with Cyndra at the wheel.

  Michael and I leapt in. He pulled the sliding door closed, straining against the acceleration as Cyndra spun the steering wheel.

  She steadied the van, heading toward the driveway back to the main road.

  “No!” Michael handed me the gun and wrenched the steering wheel hard. The tires screeched. The van skidded in a circle.

  I fell against the door, half expecting it to shoot open.

  Michael pointed out the windshield. “Over the scrub. They’ll be looking for us on the roads.”

  Cyndra nodded and turned toward the curb. She took it too fast, bottoming out on the concrete.

  “That way.” Michael pointed. “Head toward the radio tower. Turn the lights off. Don’t worry, it’s safe. I used to walk out here when I was a kid.”

  Cyndra hit the switch. The lights went dark. The van bounced and lurched over the scrub.

  The moon was bright enough to show a little of the ghost landscape outside the windshield.

  I gripped the gun as the van lurched over hummocks and washouts.

  After a few moments, Michael pointed again. Cyndra adjusted course, and the road suddenly smoothed to the whisper-jar of a dirt road.

  “Access road for the tower,” Michael explained, shooting bright, junkie-with-a-fix eyes to the rest of us. He turned back to Cyndra. “Turn on the lights. Punch it.”

  The lights blazed as Cyndra floored the accelerator. Pebbles pinged the side of the van.

  I ejected the gun clip. Popped the slide and palmed the bullet in the barrel.

  LaShonda watched with saucer eyes. T-Man nodded like he knew the first thing about guns.

  We wound down the hill. The tires bit and spit rocks. At the base of the hill, a gate hung open where the pavement started.

  Cyndra slowed and followed Michael’s directions. Everyone pulled their hoods and gloves off.

  I kept my gloves on. Held the gun, clip, and bullet.

  Michael directed Cyndra to a box store off the main road that bisected town. Parked in the lot were T-Man’s Lexus and Cyndra’s silver Mercedes.

  T-Man whooped and held a hand out to Michael.

  A worm, edged with razors, burrowed into my chest.

  The cars were here. He’d brought the gun.

  The lie about helping Cyndra, all to get me to be invested, somehow. When it was his own father’s practice he’d targeted all along. As if suspicion somehow wouldn’t focus on him, or his friends.

  Or me.

  The well-executed escape. Almost like he’d planned everything. Even getting interrupted. All so he could save us and get his adrenaline fix. Hero worship, adulation, and brain buzz in one great needle.

  Me, the perfect fall guy.

  And even though Michael didn’t know about it, now Janie and I couldn’t leave. Or if we did
, it’d be a whole other proposition. Because it was one thing to leave town as nobodies. Something else entirely for me to disappear as a suspect in a crime.

  And I never saw it coming. Idiot.

  “Okay, Cyndra, you’ll take Beast and follow me in your car.” Michael turned to me. “Ice, you go with T-Man and LaShonda. I’m going to ditch the van and meet you back at my house.”

  I shook my head. “This is where I get off.”

  “What?” Cyndra’s voice reduced by the acid in mine.

  I threw the clip at Michael. Then the gun. And the bullet.

  “Fuck off, you psychotic bastard.” I got out of the car and then took off the gloves, shoving them in my pocket with the hood.

  “Wait.” Michael jumped out and ran up behind me.

  I whirled, hands up. “You going to shoot me, Michael? Is that next? What the hell was that?”

  “Shut up,” he hissed. “Keep your voice down.”

  “Does your great plan involve me getting arrested for your little stunt tonight? Because I fail to see how that helps you with Cesare.”

  Although, I could see how my arrest would help Michael, just not with Cesare. I was his safety if the cops figured it out. A get-out-of-jail-free card. The kid with the record pulling the heaviest weight.

  “Calm down, Ice. No one’s getting arrested for anything. We got away clean.”

  I bit off a curse at his idea of clean.

  “You know what? I don’t care. I’m done,” I said.

  “Finish the job, and you can be done.”

  “Screw you. I’m done now.”

  Michael crossed his arms high on his chest. “Go ahead. Ditch. Don’t get the rest of your pay.”

  Rage arced through me like a lightning strike.

  Michael saw it and stepped back. Then he took another step back. “They were blanks, Ice. Blanks. No one got hurt. No one ever gets hurt.”

  The shattering glass. The fallen guard. Blanks my ass.

  He got back in the van. After a moment, Cyndra and the others got out. Michael screeched the tires as he drove the van away.

  Beast, LaShonda, and T-Man got in T-Man’s car and trailed the van out of the lot. Cyndra leaned against her car, watching me.

  After a few minutes, pulled like she was magnetic north, I went to her. She held out a roll of bills. “He said to give you this.”

  Her crimson-tipped fingers hung there, holding the money.

  The razor-worm writhed in my gut. I took the money.

  “I’m to drive you where you want.”

  I got in the car and turned down her unspoken invitation. “Take me to the school.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  That night I slept on the mats in the old gym. Mostly because I didn’t want to talk to Clay or Janie. Didn’t want to explain what had happened at the offices. Because that would lead to Janie getting upset that we couldn’t leave yet, and then me having to explain to Clay about Florida. And I was too tired to have that conversation now.

  I needed to think. About the offices, and leaving with Janie. And something, tugging at my mind like an unraveling thread: Michael had planned it all.

  Part of me expected a cop to show up. Was waiting for the blare of a siren, remembering the shots, the shattering glass, and the security guard. I was the perfect fall guy, after all.

  Another reason not to go to Clay’s.

  I texted Clay—asked him to tell Janie that I was okay and that I’d meet her at home after school the next day. Thanked him for taking care of her.

  It was cold enough that I went into the locker room and pulled on extra layers before huddling on the frigid mats.

  The gun, the shot, Michael’s eyes—shining at the turn of events. How he couldn’t have been happier, or more unsurprised. T-Man playing right into Michael’s “save.” Michael’s claim that the bullets were blanks. And Cyndra, the magician’s assistant.

  I didn’t sleep.

  Friday morning, the first tone sounded. I didn’t move. Just waited there.

  I knew. Through the tones that buzzed across campus after each class and at lunch.

  It wasn’t over.

  Just like I knew Michael would come to find me.

  When the first lunch tone went off, I folded up the mats. Shored them behind the heavy bag. Then I went into the locker room and stripped off the extra layers of hoodie and shirts. Like shucking skin.

  Came back out in one of my old shirts and thrift-store jeans. Walked back out to the heavy bag, taping my hands. Pulled on the gloves and began working the bag.

  Didn’t stop when the door behind me groaned and then banged.

  Michael edged into my peripheral vision. He watched as I put my shoulder behind a short jab, experimenting with flowing into the bag. Trying to deliver the most power in a tight move.

  I stopped after three more hits. Waited for him.

  “I thought you’d be here. Not the best idea, skipping class. If the cops come sniffing around, they might find that unusual.”

  I shot a vertical fist into the bag. Then popped out two more.

  “The second job’s tonight,” he said. “I can pick you up here or—”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.” I stood beside the bag, gloves up.

  Michael frowned. “I’m sorry about last night. It got a little crazy. Trent said it was just dumb chance that the other guy showed up. But it’s okay. We’re safe.”

  “What about the guard you shot?”

  “I told you. Blanks.”

  “Blanks don’t shatter glass.”

  “That was the guard’s shot.” He started stretching, twisting at the waist, loosening his back. “But it doesn’t matter. It’s not even in the paper yet. Shows the priority the cops are giving it.”

  He made a fist. Thumped it into the bag. “Tonight. Late. Around three in the morning.”

  “Stop talking. I don’t want to know any more.” I squared off in front of the bag.

  “I’ll pay you a hundred just to listen. And I’ll pay you a grand to come.” He dug out two bills. Laid them across the top of the bag, threading them under the chains.

  I pulled a glove open with my teeth. “You have ten minutes.”

  He took fifteen.

  It was the second job for Cesare. He was quick to say that robbing his father’s practice had been for Cesare, too. That he did need the drugs to get to this point. To get Cesare to trust him. To see that he could do it. This one was personal. And a promise, straight from the man’s mouth, that this one would be the last. Would wipe the slate clean, and even set Michael ahead.

  It was a robbery. Someone who’d pissed off Cesare more than Michael had. Someone who needed a lesson, and that lesson was going to come due at their strip club.

  When Michael said that, my head rocked back, and for a moment I thought it was my dad. That somehow my dad had gotten into a pissing contest with Cesare. That in a strange, small-world way, it would be my dad we were knocking over.

  But the hit was too late at night. And the strip club was out of town, just over the river. A few rungs down from even the jet-trash airport strip club where my dad ran his sorry little kingdom.

  My father had nothing to do with it, and neither would I. I wouldn’t be going anywhere with Michael, and certainly not to a strip joint in the sticks, complete with its own jumped-up security and rackets.

  And I wasn’t fool enough to trust Michael again. That this would be all. That he didn’t have some other little adventure up his sleeve.

  And there was Florida, which I sure as hell wouldn’t be telling him about.

  “You have to come,” he said, ignoring my refusal. “You inspire confidence in the others. Of course, they’re all little adrenaline junkies now.” He smiled like a proud parent. “And I’ll pay you a grand. Big money, for little risk.
Then we’re clear. Completely clear of everything, and it doesn’t have to end. It can be just the start.”

  His eyes glinted like he was holding Cyndra out to me. Like he sensed the radar of my heart looking for her, missing her when she was gone.

  I threw the gloves aside. Drove a fist into the canvas.

  Michael placed himself behind the bag, steadying it. I punched again. Visualizing my punch going through the bag and into him.

  “Good,” he grunted. “But correct me if I’m wrong, here. It doesn’t matter how much you train or how good you hit. You’re outmatched. With your dad, I mean.” His eyes were innocent-wide, like how could he have been talking about anything else?

  My shoulders knotted. I threw another punch, pushing against the tightness.

  “Out of your class,” Michael continued. “It’s why lightweights don’t fight heavyweights. Not that you’re a lightweight. I don’t mean that as an insult.”

  I bit through the tape that bound my knuckles. Tore it off. “The answer is no.”

  “I didn’t hand over all the drugs. To Cesare.” Michael went on, as if I hadn’t said anything. “I could give you what I saved. I don’t have to help you, with your dad. I could give the drugs to you, and you could do it. It’d be like a tip. The money and the drugs.”

  “No. It’s too dangerous.” I looked in his eyes, letting him read the accusation there. The gun. His adrenaline high. His addiction to risk. That every word he said was suspect.

  And that although I may be outmatched, at least I understood that much. And it was enough to keep me from doing anything else.

  You can’t be outmatched if you don’t play the game.

  His voice cut. “So, what? You go back to your pathetic burnout life? No one will talk to you. Cyndra won’t even look at you.”

  He didn’t know me if he didn’t realize I already knew that.

  And I knew enough not to open my mouth about leaving town with Janie.

  Michael lunged and shoved the bag out. I slid back before it could slam into me.

  “Everything I’m offering. More money than you’ve ever had. Solving your problem with your dad. It’s all worth it.”