The Rules of Burken

by Traci Finlay

  He opens the door, and Nikka flies inside. “What happened? You had my key, I couldn’t get in. Did you find my timecard? Who saw a little spider? Should I call the exterminator?”

  I’ve finished packing and zip the bag up. Throwing it over my shoulder, I approach Nikka and Jack with shaking hands and crazy eyes. “I have to go, now. I’m really sorry. Nikka, thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I’ll never forget you.”

  Nikka blinks at me, speechless. Jack reaches into his pocket. “Can I take you somewhere? Where do you need to go?”

  I throw my arms around him. “Oh, Jack, that would be amazing. So much safer and quicker than running. Cars are against the rules, but this is no longer a game.”

  Nikka’s jaw puddles. “Can someone tell me what’s going on?”

  I put my hand on her shoulder. “Let’s just say the last time one of my friend’s timecards went missing, she was dead a few months later.”

  Nikka’s jaw drops even farther, and Jack snatches his phone and calls someone to cover for him at Oliver’s. Then he throws it back in his pocket. “Okay, Charlotte. Let’s go down to my car.”

  Tears are smoking in my eyes. “But what if he’s out there?”

  “If who’s out there?” Nikka asks.

  Jack pulls a Glock .45 from a hidden holster. “Then he gets a face full of this,” he says as he racks it. “Nikka, are you coming?”

  “Is he going to kill me? Is he going to give me my timecard back?”

  “He’s not going to kill you, Nikka. He’s going to kill me,” I answer.

  “But you said your friend—”

  “We don’t have time for this!” Jack shouts. “Are you coming or not?”

  Nikka nods, and Jack opens the door. We sneak downstairs, and I’m hiding behind Jack and peeking for signs of Ian. “Since when do you carry a gun around?” I whisper.

  “Since you unofficially hired me as your bodyguard,” Jack answers, guiding me to his car and opening the door. “Get in.” I duck inside and bury my head in my lap. Nikka slips in the backseat, and Jack jumps in, revs the engine, and when he merges onto I-75 he tells me to sit up.

  I lift my head and peek at the asphalt and trees as they whiz by, blending together like gray and green muscle fibers. I sigh loudly and let my head fall against the window.

  “Where are we going?” Jack asks.

  “Wherever. The farther away from Bay City, the better.”

  “Charlotte, what is going on?” Nikka demands, and suddenly I feel two pairs of eyes lighting me up like interrogation lamps; they both just dropped everything to leave with me. It’s time to tell Jack and Nikka the truth.

  “My brother’s trying to kill me.”

  They’re quiet for a moment, then Jack huffs. “What did you do to him?”

  “Nothing. He just decided one day while we were playing outside that he was going to kill me. He told me to run and never come back. I thought he was joking, so I went back home. He chased me around with an axe, and I’ve been on the run ever since.”

  “Wait a minute, hold up. You were playing outside? What were you, like, five? Have you been on the run for nineteen years, or what?” Jack asks.

  “No, Ian and I made up a game when we were little. It’s called Burken, and it’s like hide-and-seek.” I briefly cover the rules, explaining to Nikka the significance of the Little Spider phrase she read.

  She shivers and whispers, “Damn.”

  I keep talking because I’m going to cry if I think about this for another second. “I know it sounds stupid, but we hadn’t played it since we were teenagers. We went through the motions for nostalgia’s sake, and it turned deadly.”

  “It doesn’t sound very nostalgic. He killed your friend with the timecard, didn’t he?” Nikka asks.

  “Oh, boy. No, Ian didn’t kill Chrissy. My dad did.”

  Jack slams his palm against the steering wheel. “Shut up! Both your dad and your brother are murderers? What about your mom?”

  “No, not that I know of. I haven’t seen my mom since I was thirteen. She left.”

  “I don’t blame her,” Jack remarks, and Nikka smacks him on the arm. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

  “So did your dad ever try to kill you, too?” Nikka asks.

  I snort. “My dad was the nicest person ever. He was the administrator of our high school. Everyone loved him. He was this huge nerd who was laughing all the time. But when Ian and Chrissy started dating, something happened.”

  “What happened?” Jack prompts.

  I shift. I haven’t talked about Chrissy’s death since … The Night That Never Happened. “Asphyxiation happened.”

  “So your brother started dating your best friend, and your dad killed her?” Nikka sums up.

  I nod. “I couldn’t even go to her funeral. I never went to the court cases. Ian would try to tell me about them, how he was in the witness stand—”

  “Whoa, your brother was there when it happened?” Jack interrupts.

  “Yeah.” I’m not supposed to be talking about this. I swallow the twitches in my throat.

  “And you’re sure your dad killed her and not Ian? I don’t know this guy, but it sounds like something he’d do. And frame your poor dad for it,” Nikka comments, and Jack nods.

  I chuckle. “There’s no way Ian killed Chrissy. This all went to court. If there was even a question of Ian killing her, he would’ve been tried.” I shake my head resolutely, but my internal warfare begins, because coupled with the events from The Night That Never Happened, Ian could very well have killed her. Only no one knows about that Night. Because it Never Happened. Inadmissible Evidence.

  What am I doing? It’s time to stop denying the truth. I’ve been lying to myself for Ian’s sake, and I’ve been paying for it ever since…

  “Listen, Trevor, I appreciate you asking, but I’m not going to prom,” I confessed sadly, leaning against the doorframe. “Don’t take it personally. It’s not about you, okay?”

  Trevor stood on my front porch, his face falling along with the bouquet of pink roses. “Is it because you’re grounded again?”

  I shook my head, but I couldn’t remember if I was grounded or not. It seemed I’d been on lockdown since Dad went to jail last year, leaving Ian in charge of me.

  And then there were two.

  After Chrissy’s death, I didn’t leave the house for two months. When I finally did, I went to a friend’s house and got so drunk, they had to call Ian to pick me up. I threw up in his truck, and he had to carry me into the house. The next morning, I stumbled into the kitchen and plopped down at the table, and he handed me a mug of coffee with two aspirins and told me to drink it. Then he held out his hand and in the same tone, demanded my phone. He was so calm, I had to look up to make sure it was really him.

  “You’re sixteen, nowhere near legal drinking age. Anything could’ve happened to you. You’re grounded for six weeks. No phones, no friends, no internet, and you’re cleaning my truck.” He flicked his fingers, palm outstretched, and I was so shocked at how eerily quiet he was, and so grateful he wasn’t screaming at me that I placed my phone (along with the rest of my freedom) in his hand without a word.

  That was a year ago, and somehow, that punishment still seemed to manifest whenever Ian deemed it necessary or convenient. But my decision to skip prom had nothing to do with that.

  “Is it because of Chrissy?” Trevor asked.

  I nodded.

  “You haven’t gone to any school functions since she died, and we’re seniors now. You know Chrissy would be so upset if she knew you weren’t going to senior prom.”

  I laid my forehead on the doorframe and cried.

  “Charlotte, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.” Trevor rushed to place his hand on my back. I sobbed softly, and he gathered me in his arms.

  An entire year, and I still cried every time I thought about Chrissy. Every time. “We were going to rent a limo for senior prom. We wanted to drive to Traverse City to go dress sho
pping. Trevor, you don’t understand,” I wept into his shoulder. “We’d been planning a trip to Chicago for graduation since we were fourteen. Go to college together in New York. I feel like half my body’s missing.”

  “I know, Charlotte. I know. Chrissy’s loss was hard on everyone. Especially you. Especially under the circumstances,” he said, rubbing my back.

  I suddenly repelled myself, swiping my sleeves across my eyes. “It’s fine. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “So what do you say? About prom?” he asked softly, rubbing my arms.

  Trevor would never understand. “I’m not going, and that’s final. If you want to go, you’re welcome to go by yourself or with someone else. But I’ll be in my room, sleeping.” I slumped through the door like a sentence fragment, leaving Trevor as a dangling modifier on the porch.

  The night of senior prom was just as miserable and lonely as every other high school event I’d skipped since eleventh grade. I sat in my room and stared into my wretched, wretched mirror.

  Ian was gone, and now that we were the only occupants of the house, I found myself alone often. My schedule consisted of school and track; I quit working at Ashby’s as soon as Chrissy died (quit would be putting it formally—I flat-out stopped going), and I hadn’t applied anywhere since.

  I clumped my hair on the crown of my head and pulled down a few strands, pretending Chrissy was there and we were getting ready for prom together. Glancing at my dresser, I saw a pile of bobby pins. My fingers trickled toward one like a mouse, and I snatched it up and slid it in. Then another. Another and another until my hair was loosely secured on my head, save a few cascading strands around my face. Chrissy would’ve loved it. Although she would’ve done a better job, then she would’ve told me to wear smoky eyeshadow.

  “Chrissy, you know how stupid I look in sultry makeup,” I said out loud, sifting through my cosmetic bag and grabbing the Twilight Trio compact. “Charlotte, shush. I can’t put this on you when you’re whining,” I mimicked in Chrissy’s voice, and began applying it in gentle, concentrated strokes.

  I grabbed the blush and dragged it up the apples of my cheeks—another term Chrissy used—and glazed my lips with a sparkly peach lip gloss. “Okay, Charlotte, you’re done! Let’s do this!” I imitated again.

  The doorbell rang. I looked at my door and back at the mirror. I’d successfully turned myself into a fool—my face decorated like royalty and my body donning a pair of skimpy boxers and my old softball shirt. Whatever. I trudged to the front door, anyway.

  I threw it open and there stood Trevor, dressed in jeans and a polo. He held a tiara in his hands. “I … I didn’t go to prom. Alex called and wanted me to pick this up.” He held out the tiara. “Chrissy won Prom Queen.”

  I bit my fist.

  “They want you to have this,” he said, extending his arms. “Everyone—I mean, our whole senior class—said to tell you hi. And they love you. They really miss you, Charlotte. They miss Chrissy, too. We all miss you two.”

  I closed my eyes as tears timbered down my cheeks. Trevor smiled sadly and stepped toward me, placing the tiara in my hands and a soft kiss on my cheek. “It’s yours,” he whispered.

  I took the tiara and wrapped my arms around him. He inhaled to say something, but I grabbed his face and kissed him. His hands found my waist and he kissed back, stepping over the threshold and moving me farther into the living room. I dropped the tiara on the coffee table and wrapped my arms around his neck, kissing him harder and pulling him toward Razzle Dazzle.

  He pulled away, breathing heavily. “Charlotte, are you sure? You’re very vulnerable right now.”

  I sniffed and smiled at him, my eyes sluggishly rolling from his eyes to his lips. Sweet, sweet Trevor. He’d move mountains for me. He’d marry me in a heartbeat, and in that moment, I’d have married him, too. We’d grow old together, have babies and grandbabies, tell everyone we were high school sweethearts at our fifty-year wedding anniversary … but there’d be no photos from our senior prom. I grabbed his hand and pulled him through the kitchen and out the back door, running toward the barn. I owed him at least a senior prom.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  I stopped in front of the barn, where the trees had opened into a wide, grassy space. “Dance with me,” I whispered, then wrapped my arms back around his neck and laid my head on his shoulder.

  “Okay,” he complied, placing his hands on my lower back. We slowly swayed back and forth in the circumference of the trees, the moonlight glaring into the opening like a flashlight into a peephole, the sounds of chirping crickets and croaking bullfrogs as our musical accompaniment.

  “I’ve been wanting to do this with you for a long time,” Trevor breathed into my hair, pulling me closer.

  “I know.” I nestled my face into his chest. “I like you, Trev. I really do.”

  He sighed. “I’ve always liked you. Since the day I met you.”

  I smiled and closed my eyes. “Thank you for being so patient with me, I know I’ve been difficult. But losing Chrissy and my dad has been the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with. Worse than losing my mom.”

  He put his finger under my chin and tipped my head up. “Shh. Not now. This is too perfect.”

  I kissed him again, and he drove his hands up my back and into my hair, taking in every bit of me.

  “Hey!”

  We both jumped and looked around.

  Ian’s form submerged from the shadows of the trees, a baseball bat dangling from his grasp. “What’s going on?”

  “Ian,” I called, then screamed when I realized he was lunging for Trevor, swinging the bat over his shoulder. I jumped in front of Trevor and grabbed the bat, holding on for all I was worth while Ian tried shaking me off. But wild bulls weren’t going to get me off that bat, and Ian finally dropped it and turned to Trevor. He swore repeatedly at him, jabbing his finger into his chest.

  “Ian, stop! Don’t do this!” I begged.

  “I’m gonna kill you!” Ian shouted. “What are you doing with my sister out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  Trevor stuttered in a panic, and Ian kept taking jabs at him. “I’m gonna kill you, son! You will never touch my sister like that again!” He reared up to punch him, and I jumped on his back.

  “Charlotte, get off me!” He reached over his head and grabbed me by the hair, flipping me over his shoulders. I hit the ground and bounced on my back, the wind ripping from my lungs. I lay there gasping, paralyzed, as Ian lit into Trevor.

  I shut my eyes as tears drained down my temples, listening to what sounded like a club bludgeoning a side of beef. By the time the stars stopped spinning, I sat up to see him straddling Trevor, punching his face over and over.

  I stumbled to the bat and grabbed it, running toward Ian and wielding it like Barry fucking Bonds. “Ian, so help me God!”

  He looked up to see my crazy eyes, the bat in perfect trajectory to his head, and he dove at me, ripping it out of my hands, and I fell back into the dirt.

  Ian took the bat to a tree, slamming it repeatedly until it broke—splinters exploded, the top half spiraling through the air and landing in the woods. Ian whipped what was left of the handle right behind it.

  I pulled myself up, bobby pins dropping in the dust. “What have you done?” I wailed. “Why did you do this?”

  He turned past the pile of Trevor and barreled toward me. “He’s a predator!” he screamed in my face. “He took my little sister out to the barn! Not on my clock, Charlotte! Not on my timetable!”

  “I brought him out here!” I yelled. “He brought me Chrissy’s tiara! She won prom queen and they wanted to give me her tiara. I hate you!”

  “Fuck prom! I will not have some asshole out here groping my sister!” He grabbed fistfuls of his hair, looking at Trevor’s crumpled body then at the upstairs window in the barn. “It’s Chrissy all over again. It’s just like the night Chrissy died.”

  “What? This is nothing like Chrissy!”

&nb
sp; “Oh, Charlotte! You have no clue what happened that night. You’re stupid, just like Chrissy. And look where she is now! You trust people you shouldn’t, because you don’t even know the beginning of what happened when she died. You know why? Because you’re too dependent upon people, and one day it’s gonna get you killed, too.”

  “You’ve lost your mind.” I pushed past Ian, running and kneeling beside Trevor. His face looked like a Halloween mask. Blood smeared like black gelatin from his shattered nose across his face, giant purple knobs below his eyes. His lips I had just kissed now sliced open and swollen. His eyes fluttered, and his throat constricted as if he were trying to talk. “Help him! He needs help!”

  Ian rushed over and pulled me away from him, and I slapped Ian as hard as I could across the face. “What is wrong with you! Look at him! Why did you take him from me? And Jason, and Jeff, and Eddie? Why can’t I date? I’m seventeen, and you’re not my dad!” I hauled off to slap him again, but he caught my arm.

  “Hit me one more time so you can see your best friend again.” He shoved me away, turned back to Trevor—who’d begun to stir—and spit on him. Then he disappeared toward the house.

  That night I lay in bed, the event rotating and lulling in my mind like a carousel of torture-faced horses. I actually hated Ian. I hoped that Trevor pressed charges and he’d go to jail. And besides the hearty “Fuck you” and the pair of birds I flung at him when I re-entered the house after the ambulance left with Trevor, I didn’t speak to him the rest of the night.

  I stared at the ceiling when I heard my door crack open, and a stick of light splayed across my face.

  “Chuck?” he called.

  “Get out.”

  He thrust the door open and approached my bed, kneeling next to it. I was about to go apeshit on him, but his face held such terror, I froze. “Listen to me,” he said, softly but sternly. “I need you to do something for me. I need you to forget this night ever happened. Okay?”