The Triangle (Shape of Love Book 1)

by JA Huss

  He doesn’t hold Christine in front of him like a shield in the way I would expect. He pushes her behind him.

  He shields her.

  Christ.

  My stomach sinks. He was never going to kill Christine. Because they’re together. They’re together. And again, I ask myself: How the fuck did we wind up here?

  The realization has me laying off the trigger. Stunned. And suddenly… More gunfire. Not from Lars’ gun, from another weapon’s barrel. One of Lars’ gunmen is still alive. He’s not wearing a mask for some reason. Young guy. A goddamn baby. Dark skin and scared eyes.

  Lars pushes Christine in his direction and yells, “Go!” The young guy drags her along. She resists initially, but then Lars yells at her, “Christine! Go!” And she does. Confusion plastered all over her face.

  “Solomon!” Alec shouts. The young kid dragging Christine along looks back. He hesitates. He looks torn about what he should do.

  They know each other. Alec knows him. One of his men. Or one of what Alec thought was his men.

  Christine set us up? Christine set us up. She and Lars. Why? And why did she—?

  “Solomon!” Alec screams it now, holding his own weapon up and aiming it. But he doesn’t pull the trigger. He doesn’t shoot. He just holds it there, screaming the kid’s name over and over again.

  Fuck it. If he’s not going to shoot somebody, I will. But before I can, a fresh round of bullets has both me and Alec darting for cover. Lars again. Reloaded. Our uncharacteristic hesitancy has us pinned down once more.

  “Lars!” Alec bellows.

  Lars doesn’t respond. Just keeps firing at the tree behind which Alec has hidden himself. I poke my head around the side of my own sorry excuse for cover, seeing if I can get a shot. But Lars is backing up, firing wildly, and then he turns and starts running in the direction of the kid and Christine.

  I could nail him. Could shoot him right in the back. But I don’t. Because when I look at him, I see Alec. I mean I see Alec reflected in him, but I also literally see Alec. He’s crouched down, hugging his body and rocking back and forth. I’ve never seen him like this.

  “Fok!” he lets out, still rocking back and forth. “Fok, fok, fok!”

  And so I hesitate. I don’t fire. Just one more mistake to add to the long list I’m writing. Because I want to go after Christine. I want to save her. Be her knight. Be her hero.

  And I can’t. Because…

  Because Alec.

  I want to save him too. Be his hero.

  And by the time I sort that all out, everyone is gone.

  Christine is gone. Lars is gone. Alec is holding his head in his hands and I’m not sure if he was hit, or he’s just as confused as I am.

  Dead bodies are scattered around us.

  We are in the middle of nowhere, miles and miles from hope.

  I’m left alone with Alec. Alec who I was going to betray.

  Lars has Christine. Christine, who may have betrayed us both.

  We are not a triangle. If we ever were. I don’t know anything anymore. Except that we are not joined in some deep way. Not now. Now, we are just three broken lines scattered by the fucking wind. As helpless and lost as the fallen leaves blowing in aimlessly through the shattered glass of the shelter where just moments before, Christine, Alec and I thought we had maybe found a home.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN - ALEC

  In a semi-meditative state, the world slows. In a semi-meditative state, events become clearer, less confusing, more precise. In a semi-meditative state, one maintains control even as life spins out.

  I am not in a semi-meditative state.

  The events whirl around me in a stumbling jumble. We are nowhere. Everywhere is somewhere, but in a much more significant way, we are nowhere right now.

  Lars…

  I’ve never known my younger brother all that well. I was already well on my way to becoming the sociopathic deviant I pride myself on being when Lars was born. I was eight. It always struck me that Lars wasn’t actually an accident. I think Mom and Dad looked into my eyes, saw a terrible goddamn mistake and figured, “Let’s try again.”

  Lars was thirteen when they died. I was twenty-one. I didn’t know shit about how to raise a child. I was proper stunned when I discovered that I had been left as Lars’ legal guardian. I have to assume it was some paperwork mistake that never got sorted.

  I did my best. I made sure that he stayed in school. Made sure he had caretakers looking after him. Made sure that I saw him at least once a year, on Christmas. But I had no idea who he was becoming. Who he was turning into.

  Some would call it selfish, yeah? I suppose. I might argue in return that because I saw no place for him in the world that was mine, Danny’s, and Christine’s, that I was being righteous by keeping him at a distance.

  It wasn’t until a few years later when Lars kept getting kicked out of upper school after upper school that it began dawning on me that nature is perhaps more powerful than nurture. That you can try to protect a child, shield them from the evils of the world, but—at the end of the long day—they are who they are.

  Maybe it’s because our bloodline traces back to our great-grandfather and great-grandmother. Two fearless people who followed their hearts. Hearts that had to be filled with so much passion that they spit directly in the world’s face and said, “Ek gie nie ’n fok nie.” I don’t give a fuck. Fok your rules. Fok your system. Fok your world. We will do as we like.

  Maybe it’s because our father was a heartless naaier who left a trail of hurt and pain wherever he went on his way to achieving his own brand of power.

  And that’s what birthed us. That combination of passion and ruthlessness is bred into us.

  Or maybe we’re just fokken insane.

  It’s probably a mixture of all of it.

  Regardless, after a while it became clear that Lars wasn’t meant for civil society. So I brought him along with me. I am Captain Hook, after all. Collecting lost boys—and girls—and helping them learn to be pirates. Like that laaitie, Solomon. Dear Solomon, who seemed so nervous and grateful when he approached me on the plane. Dear Solomon, whose life I saved back in the warehouse in Cape Town. Dear Solomon, who seems to have picked the wrong side in this fight and who I’m going to take great pleasure in watching die.

  Eish. That’s just rage talking. Izit? Probably. No place for rage. No time for it. One must assume that he was just following orders. I feel quite confident that Lars, whatever this plan of his is, didn’t tell anyone the details. Didn’t tell them who they were being dispatched to handle. As my number two, Lars is expected to be listened to when I’m not around.

  To be clear, the distance between number one and number two in my organization is a great length to travel indeed. But still… Lars is the rightful heir. Looks like maybe my bae bru has grown tired of waiting his turn though.

  But that still doesn’t explain a few things.

  Things like: Christine. The tumble she took. The shot she took. Why she’s been taken rather than killed.

  Although I assume I know the last one. And it makes me sick to my fokken stomach.

  What is also unexplained though is: Why? I know power is intoxicating. I understand that better than most. But these are some extraordinary fokken lengths, man. This is an awfully elaborate set of circumstances into which one must put one’s energy just to seize something like power.

  There has to be another reason that this is playing out the way it is. There must be.

  The only thing I’m sure of is that this is my fault. I did this. I started this all in motion. Not when I arrived here. Not even when I called Danny. I set it in motion a decade ago when I pummeled that unfortunate naaier in that boxing club. When I decided that I wanted Danny Fortnight to love me.

  I have all the money anyone could ever need, but none of it could’ve bought me the glimpse into the future that I needed to keep this nightmare from happening.

  This is my fault.

  “Let’s fuckin�
�� go!” Danny’s voice. Shaking me from my stupor.

  He stands above me, bare chest sweaty and glistening in the chilly moonlit night. He’s reaching down for me. I stare at it a moment before ignoring his reach and standing. We’re looking each other in the eye.

  “What?” he says. “Let’s fuckin’ move!” I keep staring. “Dude, come on!” he shouts. “What?” he asks again when I don’t respond. “Fuckin’ what? The Brasil thing? Fuck. It’s not… I wasn’t going to… I’ll explain it later, but we gotta fuckin’ go!”

  I don’t know who to believe. Who not to believe. Ironic, since I’m usually the one not to believe. Maybe I’ve just told so many lies that I can’t keep track anymore. Maybe some of these lies are mine and, like Christine, I just don’t remember.

  Danny was setting me up. Christine was setting both of us up. Or not. It don’t matter. Only one thing matters right now.

  I lift my gun and point it in Danny’s direction.

  He flinches, shock on his face, and he ducks as he lifts his weapon in return. Which is helpful, because it leaves me an open shot to take out the remaining naaier who had his stupid fokken laser sight pointed at the back of Danny’s head.

  You don’t need a laser sight if you know how to aim well.

  A spray of blood from a lanced jugular vein arcs up into the black night as my bullet finds the lone exposed bit of flesh on the gunman’s neck. His faceplate comes flying off and I realize I recognize him.

  Gerry.

  Gerry who had an unsecured mobile as I was flying here to wander unknowingly into something resembling End of Days. Ah, well. As I thought when he loaned me his phone, normally an infraction like having an unsecured mobile would be grounds for dismissal. This is a much greater disregard for the rules. Much greater.

  So… You’re dismissed, Gerry, my china.

  Danny looks behind him at Gerry’s fallen body, a startled expression in his eyes.

  I lower my gun. Danny turns back to look at me. I nod.

  “Sure, bru. Let’s fokken go.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT - DANNY

  Alec van den Berg doesn’t scare me.

  We have… done things together. And at no point while doing any of those things did he ever act like anyone other than who he is.

  A self-absorbed asshole who thinks he owns the world.

  A guy who has no fear of anyone or anything, and that kind of shit is contagious when you’re on the same side.

  He’s not afraid of me. I’m not afraid of him.

  We have no fear of anyone.

  But the truth is—Alec and I have never been on opposite sides. Not really. I left, did my thing. He stayed, did his thing. Paths didn’t cross again. So I’ve never actually seen him the way I see him now.

  He stares at the man on the ground behind me. The glint of confidence and occasional mischief that usually lights his eyes is gone. They are hollow and dead.

  In this moment I am afraid for less than a second. It actually takes a beat of my heart to remember we’re on the same side.

  “Brasil Lynch, then, eh?” he says, still not looking at me.

  And then I remember… we’re actually not.

  I run my fingers through my hair, giving myself a moment to practice picking my way through the minefield I’m gonna cross. “Yes, I sold you out. But bru”—and I smile here. Not to disarm him or anything, just to be a dick—“it was a half-hearted attempt. Trust me. There was no scenario where I actually took you back to that asshole.”

  He turns to glare at me finally. Nostrils flaring. Amber eyes not as hollow as I thought. They’re actually burning with hate.

  And in that moment, I know how other people see him. People who are not me. Not Christine.

  But the way I know him is just… the way I know him. So that version fades, if it was ever there to begin with.

  “This really how you wanna spend this time?”

  Another beat of hate as he continues to glare. And I know him so well, have seen him in every scenario imaginable, that I can read his mind.

  He’s ticked off ten ways to kill me. Maybe three ways to torture me before that happens. Where he’ll leave my body, what curse he’ll mutter as he stands over me, how he’ll justify it to Christine, how he’ll go on when it’s over.

  And then he’s back.

  Just Alec.

  I shrug again. Consider all the things I should probably say to him. Things like… I knew you’d come. I just needed a way out of Brasil’s office so I could get back to Christine and be there when you did. I love you, you know I fucking love you. Shit like that. True shit.

  “We can dissect it later. But right now…”

  “They’re gone, man,” he says, looking around at the carnage. “Lost in the forest like fokken Red Riding Hood.”

  “Yeah, but…” I kinda laugh. It’s so inappropriate, but I can’t help it. I’m just Danny. And then I dig into my pocket, pull out my phone again, and tab an icon. “I know where she is, bru.” I wave the phone at him. “Do you think I was worried about the fucking GPS signal the whole drive up here because my Boy Scout sensibilities were being violated? No. Asshole. I have a tracker on her.”

  There’s a long moment before he says, “Say again?”

  “The sweatpants she has on. I have a beacon tacked into the leg.”

  He looks at me like I’m crazy. That’s fair.

  “Why?” he asks.

  “Because. Because I didn’t know what the fuck you were gonna do.”

  He stares at me with a blend of fury and what feels like respect. Then he looks down at my hand,

  “That’s her?” he asks, pointing to the phone.

  I look at the screen. It’s a really nice app. Very clean and simple. So Christine is, predictably, a green dot labeled Christine moving along a cartoon map. “Yeah, that’s her.”

  “Where?”

  I blow out a breath, turn around in a circle, trying to get my bearings, and then point into the woods. “That way. Whatever that way is.”

  He stares at me. Still angry. Lots of questions. But there’s relief too. Good old Danny can always be counted on to be good old Danny.

  And then he changes again. He’s a regular fucking chameleon tonight.

  But it’s fear I see now.

  For the first time in my life I know what Alec van den Berg looks like when he’s afraid of something.

  “I don’t know what’s happening,” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Me neither. Let’s go.”

  He takes a breath. Calms. Then says, “Yeah,” and starts off in the direction I pointed.

  We can’t both be afraid at the same time. We have to take turns. And now that Alec is calmed down, his focus on what comes next… that’s when the fear creeps under my skin. That’s when I remember some words I told Christine a couple days ago. And they begin to repeat, over and over again, like a mantra.

  They won’t kill you, Christine. They’ll rape you first. Torture you until you’re begging for death.

  When I said it, it was a scare tactic. Get her ass moving. Get her thinking clearly. Get her somewhere other than that tinfoil apartment. I believed it, but I never believed it would happen. Not with me there to keep her safe. Not on my watch.

  Yet here we are.

  Lars.

  I don’t know what Lars might do. I don’t know what’s going on with Alec and Lars. I’ve been gone too long. Too many things could’ve happened between then and now. All I know is that we were holding weapons on each other a few minutes ago. That Christine is with him, not me. That this feels like a setup from day one.

  They set us up.

  The blue inside me becomes a deep purple as I pick my way through the leftover weapons in Alec’s cache. And by the time we’re trucking off into the forest, both of us still shirtless and shoeless, like a couple of almost-Rambos or some shit, me staring at that little green dot on the app…

  I’m red.

  Nothing but red.

  CHAPTER FORTY
-NINE - CHRISTINE

  I’m trying to pull free from this guy’s grip on my arm, but he’s stronger than he looks. He also seems even more scared and confused than I probably should be. Which is odd. Theoretically, he’s the one in control. But then again, he is young. Maybe when I was his age I woulda looked that scared too.

  Nah. I wouldn’t. I’m pretty sure I’ve never looked scared.

  “Are you OK?” A voice from behind me. Coming up fast. A voice I know. Alec?

  Not quite. But close.

  I turn to see the person I know is called Lars, but about whom I don’t know much else. Bits and pieces pop into my brain. Fragments of conversations. Hints of a past that I maybe recognize. A Christmas tree and a young man with an angry expression. What do the images mean?

  And his words make no sense to me. “Am I OK?”

  “Are you hurt? I told them to make sure not to hit you. Although I will admit seeing you taking it from both Alec and Danny at once did inspire some feelings I wasn’t quite ready for.”

  I don’t even bother responding to that one. I want to say, Who the fuck are you? I want to say, Why am I with you? I want to say, What are we doing?

  But that we part, oh, God. That we part makes me so sick.

  Because I know who he is. I think. And I understand what just happened. Maybe. I might’ve been kicked out of seventeen or thirty boarding schools in my day, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure this shit out.

  I’m working with him. I did this. I planned this. I’m working with him.

  No.

  No, no, no.

  That isn’t true. It cannot be true.

  “Lars,” I say. But my voice comes out weak and squeaky.

  “It’s fine, nunu,” he says, and I almost throw up. We’re still moving, he’s looking behind us as we jog. He gets beside me and kisses me on the cheek.

  Oh, Jesus.

  This is war, I decide. A civil war between brothers and I’m… I’m collateral damage.

  But that’s not true. I’m not collateral.

  I don’t want to know this stuff. I don’t want to know what this is. I don’t want to know what I did. I don’t want to be here.