Eyes still on the heavens, Lenny kept speaking. Everyone stopped to watch her. She took a step toward the casket, hovering precariously over the empty grave. Tension thicker than the misty air clogged their throats as they watched her take another step toward the grave. Eli reached out toward her but she shook him off and fell to the ground, the only evidence of sobs her heavy shaking. They all watched like statues stuck in time.
The memory of Lennox falling to the ground, her black skirt flung out around her body gathering mud, would be carved into my mind more than any headstone. Her black dress had spilled around her body like a shadow. She gathered mud and wetness, but it didn’t seem to bother her. Nothing seemed to bother her and yet everything seemed torture. The gentle caress of a friend. The reassuring word from a sister. It all seemed crucifixion. When she’d fallen, I’d reached my hand out, grasping at raindrops.
Eventually Lenny had stood and flung an angry hand at the preacher. The preacher opened his book and continued. No one watched him. They all watched her. They watched her unshed tears. They studied the rips in her skirt. They studied the scrapes on her knees. And they studied the tension in her limbs ready to uncoil.
Slowly the funeral ended. The preacher closed his book and motioned for the guard. As they raised their guns and the casket lowered, Lenny screamed. The sound was so loud it could be heard even behind the trees, where I sat watching as only a ghost could. Still, in the end, my funeral was quiet and understated.
Except for one thing.
Lennox.
Her red hair was ragged and clung to her skin. Her eyes bloodshot. Her lips cracked. When her screaming ceased, she’d flung herself on the casket. In that moment I wanted to fling myself too. I wanted to fling every goddamn thing that I’d done and go to her.
Luckily I was too far away. I’d kept myself hidden between trees, cloaked under dark fabric. Grace and Eli had pulled Lenny off, and Lissie and Zoe kept her restrained. The preacher gave Lennox one last scornful look.
From behind the trees I’d watched. I’d watched as my friends struggled to hold my lover against falling back to my casket. I’d watched the love of my life break into pieces over and over again. My heels found the soft earth so I didn’t run up and grab her. I wanted to run up, hug her, comfort her, and let her know everything was going to be okay.
It was a lie, of course.
Nothing would ever be okay again, but at least they would be safe.
Keeping a low profile two cars back, I followed the group. I hadn’t gone to my birth mother’s funeral, not that it would have been anything like mine. Child services asked if I wanted to go, but I said no. It was the first time I’d ever asserted myself, the first time I’d ever let on that something was wrong with the way we had lived.
Years later I still hadn’t visited her gravesite. She’d pushed me out her cunt and that was the end of that. I was sent to live with the Walls, who were now also dead. Not many get to say they were lucky enough to be orphaned twice in their life.
Now I was dead.
You could say my funeral began the day I was plucked from my unit in Afghanistan. Or I could go back further, to my junkie mother who forced me into foster care the day she overdosed and left me to die…which then forced me to the Walls, a lovely abusive couple that then forced me out on my own at the ripe age of seventeen. Either way, my funeral song was being written long before the fire.
It was past the time to point fingers though. I was dead and buried, and the only reason I was sticking around was to make sure the dirt didn’t get kicked up. It was nearly impossible to get information, though. I couldn’t use any of the channels I’d used before without alerting someone I was still alive. All my old aliases, codes, and usual backdoors had died with Vic Wall.
“Christ on a motherfucking Sunday cracker Vic.” Seven lit a cigarette while the fire blazed around us. Fifteen minutes had passed since Lenny left. I was beginning to accept my end, then that asshole showed up.
“You said to make it look real,” I coughed, blood smearing across my hand.
“Well, let’s go get you that Oscar.” Seven bent down and with a great heave, pushed aside the beam that kept me pinned. He stuck out his hand. I didn’t have time to wonder what it meant to lean on a Boogieman, because without him I would have burned, and so would my loved ones.
Parking my stolen car, I watched the group walk into a bar. Lenny was already leaning on Zoe. Either she was already drunk or she was hurting too badly. Maybe both. And, yeah, it killed that I couldn’t know which.
Seven had said I was going to need his help, but I hadn’t realized how much. About an hour after I received the black card, Seven sent me a message. All it read was, “Make it look real and your ass might still get saved. PS: Put some Cocoroons in the pantry.”
It was just as vague and infuriating as the man, but it gave me a small sliver of hope. There was no plan attached to the message, so I continued with my own.
When I’d first talked to Seven and he hinted he would help me out of my shit, I never attached much hope to it. That would have been like being low on rent and buying a lottery ticket. At the time, I wasn’t just behind on payments, my loans were defaulting and the sharks were swimming at my heels. Then Seven came down at hour twelve like some dark angel.
Without Seven I would have been dead and, yeah, maybe that would have been better. Still, it wasn’t my family’s fault they’d hitched their wagon to a broken horse. I was back from the dead now, and I was going to fix my fucking mistakes.
I sat in the corner watching Lissie, Zoe, and Lenny drink. Lissie and Zoe had water, but Lenny drank enough for the both of them. They weren’t at the usual bar, the one we’d been coming to since the beginning. Maybe it was too hard, held too many memories. Or maybe Joe just wanted the day off. They were at some shitty, hipster-techno mess. Loud dubstep played and strobe lights threatened to give me a seizure.
Still, I watched them.
Lennox was well past her limit. Her funeral dress was riding up past her thighs in a way that normally would have driven me crazy, but now just made me sorrowful. She was hurting and she was trying to drown her soul in alcohol. Lissie attempted to take the drink from her but she cradled it to her chest like a newborn.
Against better judgment, I moved closer.
“Nox you’ve had enough,” Lissie said.
“I can still feel my toes,” Lenny replied. “So no, I haven’t.” At their collective frown, Lenny shouted, but it sounded like whispers against the loud dubstep. “You don’t know! Okay? You don’t know! I’m not a widow.”
“You basically are, Nox,” Zoe said, voice soothing.
“No, I mean, even if he was my husband, I wouldn’t be a widow. I’m…dirty.” Lenny’s face shadowed as the past fell on her cheeks like clouds across a plain. “You don’t call the woman who murders her husband a widow. I did bad things, okay? I called him bad things. I used the fact that he was in an abusive home and that he went to war as a dagger to cut him. I knew he was hurting, but instead of getting him help I just…I fucking…” Lenny signaled for a drink; when the bartender ignored her, she climbed over the ledge. Zoe and Lissie exchanged looks but Lenny had already topped herself off and returned to her stool.
“I’m the reason he’s dead, okay? You wouldn’t call me a widow. He said I was always safe with him, but he was never safe with me.”
“Come on, Nox,” Zoe attempted. “Let’s go home.”
“Home?” Lenny replied, her voice high and almost hysterical. “I don’t have a home! My home is in ashes—literally.” At that Lenny took another gulp of her drink. “I used to think Vic and I would burn up. I used to think we would fall to ashes…” Lennox took another sip.
“You could take a break from Moore Events,” Zoe said, clearly trying to change the subject. “No one would fault you. You just lost…”
Lenny shot her a look. “I don’t need a break.”
“Maybe you should take one anyway.” Lissie gave Lenny a p
ointed look.
Taking a quick shot, Lenny returned Lissie’s pointed look. “It doesn’t matter, my mind won’t give me a break. I wake up, parties on my brain; I fall asleep, parties on my brain. I dream parties. Vic’s… Vic’s…” Lenny struggled with the word, eventually giving up. “Well it just made it worse.”
“Sounds…festive.” Lissie gave Zoe a look, but I don’t think Lenny saw; she was too busy climbing over the bar to top herself off again. When the bartender returned, she shooed him away.
“Well it’s not exactly that…” Lenny cradled her now overflowing drink to her chest. “It’s like, I dream these magical worlds. I have since I was little. Obviously now I know it’s that bipolar shit, right? Parties were the outlet I chose. I guess I could have been a writer, but I was never very good a stringing along a sentence.” Lenny dropped the drink, the glass shattering to the ground. It was so loud in the bar that no one save Zoe and Lissie noticed.
“That’s it, we’re going to get you an Uber.” They both stood and Lennox attempted to stumble after them, her protest dying in her slurs. She grappled with the barstool, nearly falling down. I stood up from the shadows, instinct overcoming sense. Just as I was about to help her, another intervened.
“Woah, there, are you all right?” A man who couldn’t have been older than twenty grabbed Lennox by the hips. He had sun-bleached hair and a tan face with teeth whiter than natural; they glowed under the blacklight. I glared from the shadows.
“I’m fine,” Lenny said, attempting to shrug him off.
“It looks like you could use some help.” Lenny didn’t respond, her eyes glassy and fogged. I knew that look. She was way beyond her limit; she was blacked out. I’d seen it before a few years back when she went out drinking with Lissie and Zoe. Lennox had no idea where she was any more.
It appeared the man knew that as well.
“Well, let’s get you out of here.” He grinned. I stepped forward from the shadows and placed my hand on his shoulder.
“What the fuck do you want?” He sneered.
I placed my hand on his chest. “Let her go.”
“Look man, I found her.”
I glared, clenching my jaw. “A woman is not a dollar to pick up off the floor.”
“Whatever bro.” Ignoring me, he grasped Lennox harder and started to walk away. I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him back. Angling my right arm I threw a punch. All I needed was one correct hit to the jaw and he fell to the floor. No one noticed our altercation, either because of the pumping lights, the delirious beats, or because they were all simply too far gone in their drugs and alcohol.
Lennox fell into my arms. I lifted her up and proceeded to carry her out of the bar.
You’re always safe with me.
“Vic?” She slurred her words. “Have I died at last?” I ignored her question, stepping out into the cool Santa Barbara night. I set her down on her wobbly feet and she leaned against me. I wasn’t worried about her remembering me; her brain was blacked out.
My worries lay beyond the night, to what would become of Lennox now that I was “dead”. I’d thought I was doing everyone a favor by faking my death. I’d thought they would be safer.
“I told you to put Cocoroons in your pantry.” Seven thumbed his lower lip, displeased. “When I got there, the pantry was on fire. Tell me the truth, did you even bother to buy the Cocoroons?”
“Are you serious?” I asked, refusing the shot Seven bought for me. We sat at a motel bar. Seven had paid for the room and I was trying to stop the rising debt toll.
“Have you tried a Cocoroon, Vic?” Seven dropped his shot, signaling for the next. “They’re delicious.”
“I owe you my life,” I said, getting to the point. My leg wasn’t infected and that was largely due to Seven carrying me out of the building and washing it out. “I owe you the lives of my loved ones, and I imagine that’s a pretty big fucking debt for The Boogieman.”
Seven grinned, his pearly whites looking more like canines. “I only have one thing I want from you.”
“That’s it?”
“No one said it was small.”
I saw the outlines of Lissie and Zoe just as a car pulled up outside the club. I settled Lenny against the wall and melted into the shadows, waiting for them to notice her. When they put her into the car, I watched it disappear around the corner and a thought crystalized itself in my being. I could never leave Santa Barbara, not as long as Lenny lived and breathed.
Shrouded by bushes, I sat beneath the window of Lissie and Zoe’s apartment. It was early but winter had shortened the night so the moon was out. This had become my weekly routine, stalking Lenny like some peeping tom.
“What have you eaten this week, Nox?” Zoe’s voice drifted through the shutters and down to me.
“Chocolate chips and soda.” Zoe didn’t respond, but from Lenny’s next response, I could guess her facial expression. “What, Zoe? Are you gonna tell me that chocolate chips aren’t nutritionally dense?”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to tell you,” Zoe said, her tone sharp.
“Well, my thighs would disagree with you,” Lenny spat. “They’re feeling pretty dense.”
“If you’re going to stay with us,” Zoe continued, “I’m not going to let you eat yourself into an early death.”
“Why?” Lenny’s voice sounded closer, so I could tell she had stood up. “What the fuck do I have to live for anymore?”
“That is so goddamn selfish, Nox. You have me, you have Lissie, you have Grace, you have your goddaughter, you have the business you built from scratch.”
Every atom, every cell, every goddamn thing in my body wanted to climb up and look through the window. I yearned to see what was going on with Lenny, but I didn’t have the right to do that, not any more. I had forfeited that right. I was only sticking around to make sure nothing mortal befell Lennox.
She was in pain, but she wasn’t dying, and so I had to stay crouched and listen. I heard the sound of shuffling and hard, stomping footsteps.
“Fuck this, I’m going to Grace’s.”
“Nox…”
“It has barely been a month, Zoe.” Lenny sounded on the verge of crying. Her tears would drown me. “I get it. You’re strong and shit. What if Lissie died? Are you telling me you would be eating kale and Brussels sprouts?”
“Of course not. That’s not what I’m saying, and you know I haven’t been making you do that. I’m saying it has been more than a month and you haven’t had any liquid besides whiskey and soda. Your diet is candy and chocolate. You need to start crawling back. You have people who are willing to help pull you up.”
Her words were whispers, but the wind caught them. “Maybe I don’t want to be pulled up.”
I was about to stand up and throw everything I’d done away, just so I could pull Lenny to me, when a face across the street caught my attention. There was nothing entirely remarkable about the person. Maybe that was the point.
“Well how the fuck do I do that?” I exclaimed, limping across the room to get away from Seven.
Seven ran a hand through his long blond hair. Buzzed on the sides, there was something elegant about it, which was a complete fucking contrast with the rest of him. “I don’t want to put ideas in your head.”
I squinted and raised a brow. “Sure you don’t.”
“You’re a ghost, Viccy boy, and there’s nothing more powerful than that.”
I went to a pawn shop and bought the best quality gear I could, considering it was a second hand store and I only had a few grand on me. I was dead now, so that meant money was a little hard to come by.
The gold I’d built with bodies and bullets was resting until I told it where to go. I was dead, though, so that meant someone had to get it. Of course I wanted it to be Lenny, but I’d died saying I couldn’t give a shit about her. That had been the point, the reason for everything. Before I gave it to her, I had to be certain Seven’s plan would work. Otherwise bestowing all of it on Len
ny was a big red flag.
She would be taken care of. She would get it all, eventually.
After getting the gear, I set up shop at an abandoned storefront. I was a ghost now, and like other ghosts before me, I wouldn’t be at peace until I completed my final mission. Seven wasn’t explicit on how he wanted it done, but he was bloody fucking right that it wasn’t small.
“Are you fucking with me right now?” Three days in this fucking motel room and maybe I was going stir crazy. Maybe I hadn’t heard him right.
“Yep, Ashton Kutcher is right behind the shit-stained curtains. This has all been one giant fucking prank.”
“You need to get new material,” I said, rubbing my leg. It was pretty much healed—well, as healed as a man like me in my job could expect.
“Fuck you, my shit is golden.”
“How the goddamn fuck am I supposed to destroy GEM?” I urged.
“There you go, being dramatic.” Seven waved his cigarette back at me and peered out the shit-stained curtains. “I said, I need you to eliminate their wetwork division.”
“Sorry, you’re right, regular fucking day in the park…”
“You might be surprised…”
I turned on my setup, the glow of the old computer lighting up my face. As I started booting up the Stone Age software, I thought back to my plan. There was only one dumbass in the world I could screw over to pull it off.
Dom Weathers.
Lucky for me, he was the same guy that fucked me over, so I wasn’t feeling any particular pangs of loyalty. Dom always had a soft spot for pretty faces. It nearly got him kicked out of the program. At the end of training, every recruit was given “confidential” information and later a beautiful woman would approach us at a bar while we were celebrating. Most of us saw right through it, but some weren’t so astute.
Come To Me (Owned Book 3) Page 13