by JA Huss
“Lars, man—”
“They fokken did!” He loses his cool quite a bit. “They did, man. Don’t try to act like they didn’t. You’re the one who stole the diamond from Dad. You did that.”
“Yeah. I did.”
“Why? Was it just a joke for you? A fokken lark? Just to show you could?”
“Why we talking about this now, man?”
“When else, bru? You’ve never been there to talk before. You were always too busy jetting about the world with your dear, dear Danny and Christine.”
“Jesus, man. Please don’t tell me that’s what this is about. Don’t tell me you’ve been… what? Jealous? Fokenwil, man.”
I’m reminded of a thought I had when I was fighting my way free of the cock-up with Wallace. Some people harbor their negative feelings far too close to their hearts. And that is simply terrible business.
“All right, man. I won’t tell you that. Because that’s not what this is about. I mean, I hated you for all that, but I wouldn’t try to kill you over some kak feelings, bru.”
I want to tell him that it makes me proud to hear him say that, but this ain’t the time.
“No, bru. What I want is simple.”
“What’s that then?”
“Everything. All of it. All that you have, that’s what I want. Because, big bru, as Dad once told me—before you got him and Mom killed—this world… all of it… is mine.”
Fokken Zander van den Berg. Father of the fokken year.
“Christine? Come on out, luv.”
I look over my shoulder and there comes Christine. From behind a bush. A goddamn shrubbery. She’s lucky I didn’t blow her silly head off with my berserker display a moment ago.
“Where’s Danny?” she asks as she emerges.
I glance briefly in the direction from which I came. I know Danny is out there. I just don’t know where.
“Went back,” I say.
“What?” she asks.
“He said he didn’t want any part of it. Said there was no point in pursuing. Figured there was no good way for us to resolve this and didn’t want to do something he’d regret.”
“Like what?” she asks. I think she just needs to hear it. That’s fine. It’s true.
“Like hurt you. He loves you. He didn’t want to make an impossible choice. He loves you, Christine. He always has. He always will. So…”
There’s a moment in which I watch Lars watch Christine. Then I turn back to look at Christine, who still stares at me.
“I remember,” she says.
“You do?” I ask. “What do you remember?”
“Everything,” she says.
“Oh, good. Well, your timing is just bang on, luv.”
And at that, fokken Danny comes stepping out from the shelter of the trees, rifle at the ready. Danny, Danny, Danny. So very Danny of you.
“What do you remember?” he asks.
She looks around at the three of us. I’m not certain why Lars hasn’t shot me yet. I suppose it’s possible that he was waiting to make Christine do it. Either as some sort of test or simply because even after his little speech about resentment and power, he’d feel bad putting a bullet in his big brother.
“I remember you,” she says, referring to Danny. “I remember you leaving.”
Danny stares at her. She stares back.
“And you,” she says to me. “I remember you betraying me.”
She stares at me now. I know what she’s talking about. I regretted it then just as much as I regret it now. But a fat lot of good regret does anyone.
“And you,” she says to Lars. “I remember how you were there for me when Alec wasn’t.”
“I still am,” he says. “I’m still here. Let’s finish this now.” He nods at me, gives Christine a tight smile.
I stand. Slowly. Saying, as I rise, “Tell you what. I’ve got a brilliant idea, yeah? How about this? Let’s try to work this all out together. All of us. Yeah? We’re all family. Family by blood, family by choice. It doesn’t matter, does it? And this is a family business. So let’s figure out how to bury everyone’s hurt feelings and hang-ups about… whatever… and see how we can move forward as a unit. Kak, man. There’s a whole bleeding lot of dead bodies back there and the four of us… we’re the last ones standing. That has to count for something. We’re survivors. All of us. I mean… imagine what we could achieve if we all just found some common ground.”
I’ve never been much of a statistics enthusiast. Nor am I an “odds” oke. So I couldn’t begin to lay a wager on what the chances are that my preposterous idea might gain some traction in this moment, but quite frankly, I’m all out of moves.
The only thing that can kill Alec van den Berg is Alec van Berg. Maybe. Maybe not. There are four of us standing in the clearing on this chilly autumn night. And at least one of us is not going to make it. Unless I can find the part of our shared desire that all of us can lock onto.
The sound of the rushing waterfall crashing into the earth below is the only thing I can hear. I breathe. Fill my lungs with cold air. I have goosebumps. Must be from the cold. I don’t remember the last time that happened.
After what feels like quite a very long time indeed, Christine is the one to speak. She looks at Danny. Looks at Lars. Looks at me. I can’t tell what she’s thinking. And then finally, after several long moments…
“Sorry, Alec,” she says. “Can’t do it. A triangle only has three sides.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR - CHRISTINE
“That’s my girl,” Lars says. His face so handsome. His body so perfect.
I feel sick. So, so sick.
But I wasn’t lying. I do remember.
“Latch on to that anger, luv,” Lars continues. “The memory of how it felt when your hero, Alec, burned you. How he smiled in your face as he turned his back.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” That’s Danny. His rifle is hanging by his side. Like he’s got no interest in killing anyone.
I back away, acutely aware that Lars and I are very close to the edge of the rushing river, the thundering sound of the waterfall down below like a soundtrack to a sick, sad ending. I trip over a rock and Danny, because he’s the one I’m looking at, reaches out with his hand. Like he can pull me in across the distance and stop my tumble.
And it works. Because I don’t fall.
“Where are you going?” Lars laughs.
“I remember you too,” I say, not taking my eyes off Danny. “I remember the things you said. All the things you said to get me on your side.”
“My side? Luv, this is our side. It’s us against him, yeah? Remember that? That was you, Christine. That was all you.”
I sigh, still backing away. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to look at them. I don’t want this rifle, I don’t want this life, I don’t want—“That wasn’t me,” I say. But it’s a very weak denial.
“What the fuck,” Danny spits, “is he talking about?”
“I’m talking about the—”
“Shut up!” I yell it. And even over the crashing waterfall, it is loud. “Shut the fuck up!”
“We talked about this, Christine,” Alec says. I won’t look at him. I refuse to look at him. I can’t see that pretty face of his right now. Not now. “I told you I was sorry. And you forgave me, nunu. If you remember what I did, then you remember that part too, yeah?”
“Lies.” Lars laughs. “All he’s ever fed you was lies.”
“Christine,” Alec says, walking forward towards me.
Lars starts backing away now too. Trying to catch up to me. His pistol is pointed at Danny, not Alec. Which I take to mean… I’m covering Alec?
And I guess I am, because that’s who I’m aiming at. Not real carefully, I admit. But this is an automatic rifle, so aiming isn’t really necessary. I could rip his body in half with one squeeze of the trigger.
“Put the gun down, Christine,” Alec says. “We’re family, remember?”
Family. I almost lau
gh. But I’m still looking at Danny. Still focused on him for some reason.
“He betrayed you,” Lars says. “You were so hurt. You cried for months, luv. You stopped eating, you stopped laughing, you stopped—”
“I said I was sorry,” Alec says, voice calm. Too calm. “I made it up to you, Christine.”
“With a diamond,” I hiss. “You gave me a bloody fucking diamond!”
“It wasn’t just any diamond—”
“Fuck you!” I scream. “Fuck you! I don’t need another goddamned diamond!”
“That’s right,” Lars says. But I swing my rifle in that general direction and squeeze the trigger. A barrage of bullets rip through the trees. “Jesus fokken Christ!” Lars yells. “What the fok are you doing? We’re on the same side!”
“Stay away from me,” I say, my voice as shaky as my hands. “Stay the fuck away from me!”
“Look at me,” Alec says. I’ve pointed the rifle back in his direction as I ease myself away from the river’s edge and get my back to the woods. His body turns with mine. Lars turns too.
I’m still looking at Danny when I say, “Over there. Get over there by them.”
“Christine,” Danny says, our eyes locked. “What do you think you’re gonna do here? Huh? Kill us all? For what?”
“Do it!” I yell.
He still has his rifle. It’s still hanging by his side. I don’t ask him to drop it and he doesn’t make to lift it. He just exhales. I don’t hear it as much as see it.
Danny deflates and walks forward. Stands to the right of Alec. I motion with the rifle. “Get closer together.”
“Come on, Christine,” Alec says. “Just… let’s put the guns down and talk, OK? I didn’t know you were still upset. I didn’t know. We talked it through, yeah? You were fine. Lars is lying, and you just don’t remember. He’s feeding you—”
“The truth!” Lars says. “He fokked you, luv! He fokked you good and hard. And then he turned his back. And who was there to pick you up? Eh?” He laughs. “Wasn’t Danny, was it?”
Danny shakes his head. “I don’t know what the fuck is happening right now.”
“Lies,” Alec says. “Feeding you lies! You took a tumble, right? You hit your head, lost your memory—”
And that’s when I stop listening.
That’s when the whole world goes black.
And the questions start running through my head like ticker tape in an old movie.
Who are you?
What did you do?
Why are you here?
And then the final question comes to me like a slap in the face.
That’s when the choppy lake goes still, and the hazy fog lifts, and the thunderheads surrounding me back away.
“Do you ever feel like… crushing pretty things?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE - DANNY
When I look at Christine I see her sitting in the grass back at that foster home, poking the blue beetle with the stick.
I need to know what makes it so pretty.
She’s been staring at me this whole time. Minutes, probably. That feel like years. Time has a way of doing that. Going fast and slow whenever it wants.
It’s not supposed to be blue.
But now she’s looking at Alec and Lars.
Two pretty, blue beetles.
It’s a mutant. That’s why it’s blue.
I’m running towards her before I even realize I’ve moved. Time is funny like that. Because it’s not a number, it’s a series of events. It’s motion, and I’m in motion. It’s forward motion, and I’m moving forward.
But she’s stuck in the past.
It shouldn’t be possible. Not in this light. Just the moon hanging low overhead. There shouldn’t be time. Me rushing towards her, frantic and afraid.
But none of that matters. Because I see what I see.
Her finger tightens and then the bullets scream out of her rifle in a spray of hellfire.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX – CHRISTINE
Danny barrels into me, but it’s too late.
Who can you trust?
That’s the final question I have in my head when the instincts take over.
When the world has conspired against you for so long you lose all sense of self and purpose, who can you trust?
The full weight of Danny’s two-hundred-plus pound body made up of nothing but muscle slams into my chest. I hit the ground so hard, the stitches in the back of my head split open and…
Life leaves me.
I choke on its absence. Trying to inhale as Danny gropes and grabs for the rifle. I don’t even have enough left to fight him for it.
I have lost all sense of self and purpose.
And then I’m still. My eyes closed. My head swimming in those flickering dots you see when you’re about to lose consciousness.
It feels so good, too. So right. So much like home I want to embrace that darkness. Be that emptiness. Die right here and now and never think of anything ever again…
“Christine!” He slaps me across the face. “Breathe!”
I gasp, sucking in air. My throat burning, my chest screaming with fire. My eyes stinging with tears because I’m crying.
“Look at me!” He’s sitting on my legs, leaning over my chest, hands flat against my cheeks on either side of my face as he presses his forehead to mine.
I open my eyes and look at him.
Who can you trust?
I answer that final question. Because there is only one truth left in my life.
Just one.
And his name is Danny Fortnight.
So I say, “You.”
EPILOGUE - DANNY
LONG TIME AGO
The Cook Islands are something to behold. I looked that word up when we first got here. Behold. Because it came out and I didn’t really know what it meant. I just said it because I’d heard it somewhere. From someone. A book or maybe a movie.
Something to behold.
Something impressive and very much worth seeing.
Christine, even at age ten, was something to behold because she was impressive and very much worth knowing. A little girl with a stick and the desire to poke the pretty out of a beetle that wasn’t supposed to be blue.
When we sailed into Aitutaki’s main boat passage I held my breath and thought, This is it. This is the real paradise. I thought, I might never leave. I might stay forever.
Of course, we were coming off a job and even though we’d sailed into many a paradise over the last two years, we never stayed long. It was just meant to be a place to bask under the heat of the sun while the real heat died down back where we came from.
We stopped in Arutanga to pick up some supplies. Christine bought a yellow dress from an old woman selling them outside the fishing club.
She’s wearing the dress right now. Been wearing it every day. The ruffled edge of the hem flutters along her tanned-brown thighs as I watch her trace letters in the wet sand down near the surf.
Alec, Christine, Danny.
She traces it over and over again. And every few minutes the waves come in and she jumps back, cursing nature for sweeping her letters out to sea.
But she persists.
Alec. Christine. Danny.
“So,” Alec says.
“So,” I say back.
We’re lounging on chairs under an old palapa. The thatched roof has holes in it, so a stray beam of sunlight shines down on his arm.
“Wanna go to Europe?”
“Why not?” I laugh.
“I found another school for Christine.”
“Oh,” I say.
“I thought you wanted her in school?”
“I do, of course. But…”
“Yeah.” He sighs. “I know.”
Alec. Christine. Danny.
“What will we do?” I ask.
I kinda feel him shrug. He’s not that far away from me. A few feet, maybe. “Whatever we want, I suppose.”
I turn my head and look at him. So perfect. Well-mus
cled body. Sun-bleached strands of hair blowing in the breeze. He’s not pretty. Not exactly. But he is at the same time. I don’t think he knows what he’s got. I don’t think he even knows who he really is, for that matter.
I mean, yeah. He knows he’s got more money than he could ever spend. He knows he’s in charge of his own future. He knows he’s unstoppable.
But he doesn’t quite understand his privilege.
“Ya know,” I say, “I never really asked you why.”
He smiles. Eyes closed. “Why what, bru?”
“Why us?”
“You mean… why you?”
“Sure, I guess.”
He opens his eyes and turns his head. Amber meets blue. He stares at me. For too long. So long I get an uncomfortable feeling, like he can see through me. “I’d been watching you.”
“Yeah?” I say.
He nods. “About two weeks, I reckon. You were in that gym quite a bit. But you did other things too. Beat people up. Stole shit. Picked your little sister up from school every day and walked her back to that ratty motel. I thought she was your little sister. I thought you had parents. I thought… well, I thought a lot of things.”
I wait for him to go on, but he doesn’t. So I drop it for a while. But he never answered my question. So eventually I say, “Why then?”
“Because you had it all, bru. You had everything.”
I laugh. “What are you talking about? I had nothing but Christine.”
He juts his chin towards the surf. “She was all you needed.”
“You wanted me for Christine?”
“No.” He laughs. “I just wanted what you had. Her. You. Someone who was all I needed. I wanted to be part of that. Your family.”
“Brothers then?”
“A different kind of family.”
“What other kind is there?”
He shrugs. Turns away, then turns back. “The kind you choose, Danny. That kind.”
“Oh,” I say. “Yeah, then. OK. That’s what we are. The kind you choose.”