“They were in the house, weren’t they?” I asked.
He nods. “They were too fucked up to answer the door. I buried what was left of their belongings here. It wasn’t much. Just some clothes and shit. The worst part was after the initial shock faded, I felt relieved. I no longer had to wonder if they were coming back. They weren’t. I made the decisions from then on out. I was happier because they were dead.”
“I'm so sorry.”
“Why? Because I accidentally killed my parents? Don’t. I’m not. Not anymore.”
I’m thinking that the incident with his parents was the first step in the transformation from boy to the unhinged man standing before me.
“You were a child,” I tell him. “You shouldn't feel bad. You were eight years old. You had no nurturing or supervision. It’s not your fault. There’s nothing to feel bad about.”
“You don’t know a thing about it,” Smoke snaps.
I push against his arm. “Not about what you went through, but I know a thing or two about being alone! After my mother died, my father checked out on me. He worked in the basement and for years, I would only see him when he was giving me money for groceries. He didn't tell me what to do, but he also never told me what not to do. I was barely out of the toddler stage, but I was raising myself, so don’t give me this ‘how would you know’ bullshit because I know plenty.”
“Then how did you end up so…”
“Don’t you dare say normal. I don’t think that word has ever applied to me.” A few moments of silence passes between us before I speak again. “This is going to sound ridiculous, but I used to pretend my mother was there. I used to pretend she was telling me what to do. I went to bed at 8 PM every night because I pretended she was giving me a bedtime. I took my baths, I ate my vegetables, all because I imagined I had a mother who wanted the best for me.”
“What about when she was alive?”
“I don't know how she was when she was alive. I don't remember her. I tried and tried and tried to remember her; I’d stare at her picture in the hallway every day trying to remember one thing: a word, a look, even a yell or scold, but nothing. The only mother I know is the mother of my imagination. So you see, just like you, I raised myself.”
“But, we still ended up very different people.”
“Yes,” I agree.
You’re on one side of the gun, and I'm on the other.
Smoke looks back down at the grave. For a nano-second, I feel the heat of his palm on my lower back before he drops it, flexing his fingers and cracking the knuckles instead.
Is he trying to comfort me, or is he seeking comfort of his own? It feels almost like an apology for something horrible to come. Dread builds in my gut and jolts into my heart.
I’m not sure why the sudden confession from Smoke or why he’s shared this part of his life with me, but I’m very aware now that there’s much more to him than I’ve realized. There’s only one reason why he’s choosing to be personal with me now, and it’s not a good one. “You’re still taking me to him, aren’t you?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“I…I don’t know.” There’s no emotion in his voice.
I take a step back and suck in a ragged breath. I hold my stomach like he’s just kicked me in it.
“Well, thank you for your honesty, Smoke, but you can keep your stories to yourself. I didn’t need you before. I don’t need you now.” I almost trip on a rock. Smoke looks like he’s about to help steady me but stops himself as I quickly recover. “I’ve never been a big fan of consolation prizes.”
My throat tightens as I turn and jog back to the house with hot tears streaming down my face and disappointment burning in my heart.
“I told you nothing was going to change,” he calls out.
His words stop me in my tracks. I turn back around.
The stars are twinkling overhead. A wolf howls in the distance. Crickets chirp all around us. Proof that horrible things can happen in the most magical of nights.
I march right up to him and stab my index finger into his chest. “But everything has already changed!”
“I told you I don’t have a choice,” he grates. I see the pain in his face and hear it in his words, but it’s not enough, and it won’t ever be enough.
“Why?” I ask, rethinking my question. “You know what. That doesn’t matter. You always have a choice.”
He shakes his head and lowers his voice to a whisper. “Not always. Not in this fucking case.”
I push on his chest and walk away.
“Yes, you do. You just won’t choose me.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“It may be hard to believe, since you think the world revolves around you, but as much as you want to make this all about you, it’s not,” I yell at Frankie, hot on her heels. She doesn’t understand what this is all about. She doesn’t understand what needs to be done in order to set things right. She has a right to be frustrated, but that doesn’t make the guilt or anger I’m feeling any easier to choke down.
“Then, who is it about?” she asks, spinning around to face me. We’re in the kitchen now. Her back is against the counter. “Because the last time I checked, I’m the only one here being held against her will. So, tell me, Smoke. Who the hell else could this all be about?”
I grab her by the shoulders. “It’s about my kid!” I blurt.
Frankie’s jaw drops open. She doesn’t speak, just stares at me in disbelief. She’s squinting at me as if she can’t quite see me even though I’m right in front of her.
See me, Frankie. Please. See me.
“What?” she finally asks in a whisper.
It’s the last shit in the world I want to tell anyone, never mind Frankie, but I can’t keep it from her anymore. The hurt written on her face is strangling me from the inside. I’m twisted up. Telling her won’t change anything, but maybe, it can change the look of betrayal in her eyes.
The look I’ve put there.
The world has stopped spinning. It’s just me and this beautiful angry girl staring at one another like we’re either about to fuck or claw each other’s eyes out.
Maybe, both.
Who can blame us. We’re supposed to be on opposite sides, but things have changed.
The only side I want to be on is hers
Mind. Soul. Body.
Her pain is my pain, and I’m fucking drowning in it.
“Your what?” she asks again, louder this time as if maybe she didn’t hear me correctly. Although from the surprised look on her face and the way her eyebrows unfurrow, I know she has.
I lift her up by the waist, propping her up on the counter. I maneuver myself between her legs for two reasons. One, because I need to be touching her while I tell her what I’m about to tell her, and two, because I need to keep her in place so she won’t run away on me again. I need her to stay and listen to every word I’m about to say.
It’s that fucking important.
“Morgan,” I start, feeling my throat tighten. “She was…a friend of mine. Well, I guess more than a friend. She was in the business, too, mostly tech stuff. Occasionally, she helped me out. She didn’t love me. I didn’t love her, but we trusted each other, and trust was better. At least, to us it was.”
I cringe when I come to the part of the story I’ve never said out loud before.
“Keep going,” Frankie urges me on. She lightly grabs hold of my bicep, and every time she does something to comfort me I feel like I’m both living for the first time and dying a slow motherfucking death.
I clear my throat. “I was away working clear across the country for several months. I go dark when I’m working certain jobs. No phone. No Internet. No communication with the outside world at all.”
She nods against my chest, and I cradle the back of her head with my hand, threading my fingers through her hair.
“When I got back, I went to see Morgan, but she…” I feel my fingers tighten around Frankie’s hair as the images of what I found in the ho
use flash through my brain like a twisted picture show. “She was...”
“But she wasn’t alive,” Frankie finishes for me.
I nod slowly. “No, she wasn’t. Far from it. There was nothing in her house but smeared blood. More blood than I’d ever seen, and I’ve seen my fair share. I had to look closer to realize what had really happened.”
I nod and wrap my arms around her waist and pull her to the edge of the counter so I can press her soft body against me. I think she’s going to fight me, but she sighs into my chest instead. I rest my chin on the top of her head and breathe her in.
“What really happened?” Frankie asks.
“Morgan. She was pregnant. I didn’t know. We hadn’t spoken in months. I was away. That’s why there was so much blood. She was hacked to pieces. Every inch of her.”
“Oh my God.” Frankie gasps. “Why? Why on earth would someone do that?” She’s sobbing against my chest. I’m now comforting her. Holding her.
I don’t tell her it happened because the world is an evil place because I’ve committed my fair share of evil. I don’t tell her it’s my fault for getting close to Morgan when I shouldn’t have. Her attachment to me was a risk I shouldn’t have let her take. It made her a target.
“The baby…it was yours, wasn’t it?”
I nod again, unable to say the words out loud. I reach into my wallet and hand Frankie the blood-soaked letter I found at Morgan’s house under her body.
Frankie unfolds it slowly like it’s something delicate that can be broken easily and not a creased piece of torn notebook paper. Her lips move as she reads it to herself. I don’t even have to carry it with me anymore. I’ve read it a thousand times. I know exactly what it says, having memorized every word.
You,
I don’t know why I’m writing this since I expect you back soon. I guess I’m writing it more to myself since I’ll probably see you before I can give this to you. But just in case I can’t find the words, this will be my backup.
You should know that I look like I’ve swallowed the entire Golden West buffet, but I love it. I love being pregnant. Truth is that I’ve always wanted to be a mum. For the first time in a long time, I’m excited about what the future will bring, and this child of ours is the best reason I could ever have to start a new life.
I’m leaving this life. I’m going someplace safe where I can raise this most beautiful and welcome mistake. I’ve got some money saved. I’m going to leave the state and buy a house somewhere in the suburbs on a tree lined street in a town with more than one stop-light. Who knows, maybe I’ll be one of those suburban mums who wears tennis skirts every day but don’t play a lick of tennis. You know, the kind who brag about the tech in their new mini vans and who complain about the misspelling of their names on their coffee cups at Starbucks. Of course, mine will be a teacup. I am British after all.
In all seriousness, I find myself very ready for this new adventure. A new challenge. You know me, I can do just fine on my own. I’ve been doing it my entire life. However, you can be a part of this is you want. I don’t expect or want us to be an actual couple. You and I are far too realistic for something like that. But we can be good friends and attempt to be good parents. At the very least, better than either of us had. Although that bar has been set pretty low as it is.
Whatever you decide is fine with me. Just know that there’s no halfway. Not with this. I won’t risk it. I can’t. You have to be out of the life to be in our lives.
I’ll give you some time to think about it. It’s only fair since I’ve had months to ponder all of this, and you’re just now finding out. You’re probably still doing that angry eyebrow thing you do when you’re thinking over something. I’m quite sure of it. Don’t give yourself wrinkles, old man. If you decide to come with us, I’m sure the two of us will give you our own fair share.
-Me
Frankie
“Holy shit,” I say, piecing together the connection between the security video Nine and I found and the story Smoke is telling me. My heart breaks for him. For Morgan. I feel a depth of despair I’ve never felt before and an overwhelming need to take it away from his heavy eyes. I sniffle and get my tears under control.
“This right here,” Smoke says, taking the letter from my hands and folding it back up. He tucks it into his back pocket. “It’s why nothing changes.”
“I still don’t understand the connection. What does this letter have to do with me? With my father?”
Smoke walks over to his duffle bag and pulls out a photo which he pushes into my hands.
It’s a black and white still image from the same bloody surveillance footage Nine and I found. Same date and time stamp in the upper right corner.
“Oh my fucking god,” I gasp, holding my hand over my mouth. I don’t have to pretend to be shocked even though I’ve seen it before. It’s just as gruesome now as it was the first time.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I say, holding my churning stomach.
“Your old man didn’t just steal from Griff. He stole from me,” Smoke points to the corner of the image.
This picture is different than the one I found with Nine. The background is the same. The body is the same. The blood is the same. But the man in this image is a very different man than the one from the video. There’s no hat with black stripe. It’s a different man all together.
Someone had tampered with the image. One of them is fake.
And when I recognize the man in the image, I know immediately which one.
I begin to hyperventilate; my chest feels like someone’s sitting on it. “No, no. It can’t be.” I start to say.
“Yes. It can,” Smoke argues, slamming his hand down on the counter.
I understand now. Why Smoke is doing this. Why I’m here. What he wants out of all this.
Revenge.
Because the man in the photo isn’t just vaguely familiar. He’s very familiar.
He’s my father.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Frankie looks up at me with tear-stained cheeks.
“Don’t cry. That bastard doesn’t deserve your tears,” I say.
“I’m not crying for him,” she sniffles. I see my reflection in her glassy eyes. “I’m crying for you.”
I’m done. Dead. I’m been dealt a death blow. Something I can never recover from. My stomach lurches, and my breath leaves my body.
I’m crying for you.
I don’t remember the last time someone has cried for me instead of because of me. I don’t like the way it feels in my chest. Tight. Uncomfortable.
I’m suddenly feeling very claustrophobic in my own damn skin.
I don’t give a second thought to wiping away Frankie’s tears with my thumbs, resting my hands on either side of her face. I pause for a moment, enjoying the way my tattooed hands look against her creamy clear skin. The slope of her long slender neck. The feel of her quickening pulse against my palm.
“Ask me again,” she says, drying her tears with her hand.
“Ask you what?”
“Ask me to tell you where my father is.”
I’m frozen in shock, but she’s serious.
“Frankie, where’s your father?” I ask, cautiously.
Frankie is silent while my heart hammers in my chest. She looks to her hands then up to me. “Okay,” she whispers.
“Okay what?”
She straightens her shoulders and looks me in the eyes. “Okay, I’ll take you to him, I’ll take you to my father.”
Chapter Forty
Silence.
It used to be something I enjoyed. Something I craved. I’d sit alone in a room somewhere hours after the world had gone asleep and just breathe. For hours, I’d just be. It had always been enough for me.
Until now.
Until I find myself in the van with Frankie in the passenger seat. She’s staring out the window. There hasn’t been a word spoken between us in over two hours. Her plump lips are turned down in a frown. Her ey
es shine with unshed tears.
I want to be mad at her for keeping this from me until now, but I’m struggling with staying angry at her when I’ve kept my fair share of shit to myself this past week.
I’m still processing it all. Her. Frank. Morgan. It all seems so different now and it’s suddenly as if I’m looking at it all with a fresh pair of eyes.
I don’t know what the fuck Frankie has to tell me, or why she’s decided now to take me to her old man, but I know she’s wrestling with something big. I’ve waited this long to get to Frank Helburn. I can wait a few minutes longer.
Even so, the trip is taking forever. Every bump under the tires is jarring. Every beeping horn in the distance sounds like a freight train descending upon us.
We arrive at the townhouse under the cloak of night. The same house I watched Frankie go in and out of from afar for weeks.
I get out and slam the door. I stand in front of the van and wait. Frankie doesn’t follow.
“You coming?” I ask, knocking on the passenger door. After a few seconds, it opens and Frankie slides down from the seat.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why we’re here?” she asks, straightening her shirt. She looks up at the dark townhouse. Her eyebrows crinkle like she’s looking it over for the first time.
“No,” I answer. “Because I know you’re going to tell me. That’s why we are here, right? It’s truth time.” I hold my hand out to her. Frankie pauses, looking between my face and my hand.
“Come on, hellion,” I say, wiggling my fingers.
She puts her hand in mine.
It’s truth time.
Chapter Forty-One
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