“She...she said she needed to get supplies,” the woman stammered, reaching for the little girl Bentham held in his arms.
And then it happened.
Before another word could be said.
Before another second could pass.
The building exploded.
I fell to my knees. I’d lost her. She was dead. I left my partner alone. The girl who had been abandoned by the whole damn world. My throat tightened. I tried to force down the sob that wanted to break free. I didn’t care if the others saw me cry. I just knew she wouldn’t want me to. She’d want me to finish the mission.
“Hey! Start the car!”
I jumped up and spun around to see Jo running towards us.
I pushed off with all the strength I had and ran to meet her. The minute she was close enough, I grabbed her and wrapped my arms around her. I crushed her to me.
Thank God.
There was still time to save her.
Jo pulled away and looked up at me. She smiled. “It’s good to see you too.”
“How?” I asked.
“I ran out the back. I had to get supplies,” she explained.
“We sure were worried about you,” Randall remarked, the group had now crowded around us.
“The supplies weren’t worth the risk,” Bentham added, a little pissed as he bent down to pick up the gauze and bandages Jo had dropped when I hugged her.
“I’ll remember you said that when you ask for a band aide,” Jo replied, running her fingers through his hair.
I looked away.
“Lookout!” Jo’s brother yelled.
Before I knew what was happening, I was falling to the ground. Someone had shoved me out of the way. I looked up just in time to see it happen. An arrow flew into Randall’s throat. As his blood squirted down onto me, I realized he had just saved my life.
Chapter 36
One moment of silence.
Before all hell broke lose.
“NO!” Bentham yelled from the very core of his being.
Randall’s body dropped down next to me on the ground. His trembling hands moved to his throat. Bright, red blood gushed everywhere. I never knew blood could be so bright.
The woman with the child started screaming.
Jo aimed her gun in the direction of the arrow and fired.
“We have to get out of here! Now!” Jett yelled.
“An arrow? Who uses a an arrow?” Jo’s brother asked, pulling at his hair and backing away from Randall’s body, which had begun to twitch.
I didn’t do anything. I just sat there. I felt nothing. I carelessly brought my hand up to my face and wiped off the blood. Bentham crouched down next Randall, his face streaked with tears. I looked up at Jo who was pointing her gun everywhere trying to figure out how much trouble we were in.
I didn’t feel the need to stop her.
I was surprised how calm I did feel.
Whatever was going to happen was going to happen.
I looked over at Randall. He seemed to be trying to talk. Bentham reached out his hand toward the arrow, perhaps contemplating taking it out, when Randall grabbed it. He gave the smallest shake of his head. His free hand moved to his shirt and it began to move. He pointed down to his shirt and then looked back at Bentham. Begging him. He had painted the word WIFE in his own blood. Bentham choked back another sob and nodded.
“Everyone in the car,” Bentham yelled out suddenly.
We didn’t wait to be told again.
We left him there. Randall. Dying.
I wondered if the survivors would eat him.
Would we come back one day to see his body hanging from some light pole?
And then we started to drive.
No one talked.
What was there to say?
The little girl started to sing from the backseat.
“Ring around the Rosie...”
Chapter 37
I heard the door to the bathroom open. I still didn’t move from the sink. Jo leaned across me and turned on the water. She took my hands in hers and moved them under the water. I couldn’t even feel the touch of her skin against mine as she washed them. I wondered if something had happened to me. Maybe the explosion had made my nerves go all haywire.
Maybe they were dead.
A strange, strangled noise came from Jo. I looked up to see that she was crying. She ran a hand under her nose and went over to the paper towel dispenser. She returned with a wad of the stiff, brown paper. She wet the end of a towel and began to wipe Randall’s blood from my face. Then she dried it. She unzipped her hoodie and handed it to me. I didn’t even feel weird putting it on. Her hoodie was always big on her, so it actually fit me. It covered the blood that now stained my shirt.
Not my blood of course.
The blood of the man who thought my life was worth more than his.
Did he even know me?
I wasn’t a man.
I was a bully.
I was a cheater.
I was a liar.
And I should feel bad about all of these things. But I just couldn’t.
I didn’t feel anything.
Jo wiped the tears from her face and closed her eyes. Getting herself together. She intertwined her fingers with mine and pulled me out of the bathroom. When we were out in the hallway, the heart of the place that would never let us be together, that wouldn’t let me be the man she needed me to be, she looked up at me. Her hand pressed against my cheek. She moved in closer to me.
I closed my eyes.
I felt the tiniest bit of something stir within me.
Longing.
The team was waiting for us. Right there in the hallways. They could be anywhere. Privileged. We had a key to the building. I’d almost forgotten about them. The plan. My last act of selfishness. I didn’t agree to this to save her. I agreed to it to save me. To protect the life, the power, I so cherished. I wasn’t half human. Whatever that meant.
There was no humanity anywhere in me.
Jo wrenched her hand from my face. She looked from the team then back up to me. But I had nothing to offer her. I wasn’t going to help her. I was going to ruin her. I had to. Alec stepped up to us. He nodded towards the bathroom. “You are one sick dude, Middleton. One last go, huh?”
Logan,” Jo whispered. She was pleading with me.
Her whisper reached that place that was starting to feel.
I couldn’t let it.
“There’s no point fighting it, Jo. We don’t need to fight anymore,” I said.
As Alec and the others surrounded her she didn’t fight. She didn’t call out.
I’d broken her.
They pushed her to the floor. Two of then bent down and held her arms. They didn’t have to. She wasn’t moving. The rest of them moved in greedily. They pulled out a variety of writing utensils. Pens. Permanent markers. Sharpies. They marked her.
Loser.
Whore.
Witch.
Lesbian.
Freak.
Traitor.
Boyfriend Stealer.
I just watched, pressing my back against the lockers.
They circled every visible scar.
They pulled her up and marched her outside. I followed. Numbly. No matter how much they jeered at her, she didn’t say anything back.
She had no voice anymore.
I’d murdered it.
They took the rope and tied her the flagpole. They wouldn’t wait with her till morning. That wasn’t part of the deal. They’d leave her there shivering in the cold night air. Waiting for the rest of the wolves to descend. They’d all show up. They’d see her. They’d laughed at all the horrible things written over her body, all the things they’d thought about her for years.
All the things I helped them think.
This is what Randall died for.
So, I could become this.
I pulled her cell phone from my pocket. Alec took it from her earlier and gave it to me. Why? I wasn’t sure. I d
ialed Bentham’s number.
I moved into the shadows, still keeping an eye on the girl tied up like some statue of a woman on the mast of a ship. Like that poem. The one where the captain of the ship doesn’t listen when the old man warns of the storm. The captain thinks he can control the elements. When the storm hits the captain ties his daughter to the mast so she doesn’t get knocked around. But then he dies. And she’s left alone. She dies too. Frozen to that damn mast.
I told Bentham Jo needed him. He sounded tired. He told me he’d get there as soon as he could. I wondered if he had told Randall’s wife yet. About how he died for nothing. Nothing important at all.
The darkness turned into dawn. Just as it always does.
But everything had changed.
The crowd gathered. They pointed. They laughed.
Scary Carrie.
Life intimating art and all that crap.
I still never moved.
I did what I did best. I watched.
“Tell me you had nothing to do with this?” Jenna asked me, horrified. But she knew I did. I could tell by the way she looked at me.
I shrugged.
“But why? Why would you do this, Logan?”
I shrugged again.
“You use to stare at her all the time,” she continued, her voice catching with emotion. If I looked back at her again I knew I’d see her crying.
“What are you talking about?”
“When we were little and used to hang out, Jo told me. She said you used to stare at her all the time. So one day, she told her teacher you hit her or something.”
My eyes continued to stare at Jo now. The crowd was becoming larger and larger. Like ants covering a dropped Popsicle in the heat of the summer. Had I always wanted this girl? Even before I knew what want was?
I took a step towards her.
Jenna put her hand on my arm. Stopping me. I turned to her. I saw it all over her face. I’d broken her too. Jenna cleared her throat. “This isn’t you, Logan. How could you let them do this to her?”
“This isn’t me? Yes, it is Jenna! You’ve just wanted to pretend it isn’t me. You don’t want to believe the guy you gave it up to is a complete ass. You want to try and find some excuse for my behavior. It’s what all girls who date jerks do. But you’re wrong. This is me,” I replied bitterly, pointing to Jo.
Jenna wrapped her arms around her waist. “Then maybe we need a break,” she whispered.
“Breakup, Jenna. You don’t have to be nice when you break up with me. We’re breaking up,” I said, no longer able to look at her. It was too dangerous. I looked over to where Jo was to see the crowd dispersing. I turned my back on Jenna and stalked over to the flag post.
Bentham was pulling her down. Jo crumpled into his arms. He leaned in and whispered something into her ear. Probably some cryptic Let’s End the World thing. But he didn’t know. Jo would never shift again. The crowd stood watching, just at the edge of all things.
Jo looked from Bentham to me. I couldn’t read the expression in her eyes. She said something to him and then began to slowly stumble over to me. Her legs no doubt sore from lack of use. My body tensed as she got closer.
But she didn’t say anything.
“Go ahead,” I started, my voice rough. “Just hit me. It’s what you do best,” I snarled. If I was I was going to ruin this, I’d better make it an apocalypse.
A tear rolled down Jo’s cheek. She didn’t brush it away. She didn’t hide it. Not even from everyone who was watching. A dull ache took over my chest. I found it a little difficult to breath. I was staring so hard at her I didn’t see it coming. Bentham sucker punched me in the nose. The crowd gasped as I fell to the ground.
I scrambled back up on my feet. I wanted to fight him. I wanted to beat the living crap out of him. I did feel something. I felt hate. But when I took a step towards him, I watched as he took off his sweatshirt and handed it to Jo. She pulled it over her head. When her hands moved to pull the hood over her face, Bentham grabbed her wrist. He shook his head. “Why would you ever feel the need to hide from them?” he asked, his eyes filled with so much affection for her it shamed me.
Jo slowly dropped her hands. And then right there in front of me and the entire school, Jo had her first kiss. His hands were on her cheeks. Her hands hesitantly on his chest. It was a gentle kiss. When she pulled away he took her hand in his.
I felt it then. Loss. Everything that could be. A future that could no longer be possible. My ribs still hurt. Randall’s blood still stained my shirt. Jenna was off somewhere crying because we’d broken up. I wouldn’t play in Friday’s game. My nose was probably broken. But nothing compared to the pain of watching Jo walk away.
Nothing.
The Dark Men had made it this way.
I pulled the bottle of pills from my pocket.
I believed in Free Will.
I’d let the others save it all.
If it was even worth saving.
I opened the bottle and popped the pill in my mouth.
Acknowledgements
There’s a lot that got me through this tough and long road to publication with this little tale- copious amounts of coffee at my local shop, Café Moka, way too many bags of hot fries, countless hours of Netflix, and most importantly my friends, family, and students who constantly reminded me how much I love to write…even when it gets really hard to love it.
A special thanks to the Limitless Team for giving my baby a home.
About the Author
Tiffany Truitt was born in Peoria, Illinois. A self-proclaimed Navy brat, Tiffany spent most of her childhood living in Virginia, but don’t call her a Southerner. She also spent a few years living in Cuba. Since her time on the island of one McDonalds and Banana Rats (don’t ask), she has been obsessed with traveling. Tiffany recently added China to her list of travels (hello inspiration for a new book).
Besides traveling, Tiffany has always been an avid reader. The earliest books she remembers reading belong to The Little House on the Prairie Series. First book she read in one day? Little Woman (5th grade). First author she fell in love with? Jane Austen in middle school. Tiffany spent most of her high school and college career as a literary snob. She refused to read anything considered “low brow” or outside the “classics.”
Tiffany began teaching middle school in 2006. Her students introduced her to the wide, wonderful world of Young Adult literature. Today, Tiffany embraces popular Young Adult literature and uses it in her classroom. She currently teaches the following novels: The Outsiders, Speak, Night, Dystopian Literature Circles: The Hunger Games, The Giver, The Uglies, and Matched.
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/pages/Tiffany-Truitt/205025266243934
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/tiffanytruitt
Website:
http://tiffanytruitt.wordpress.com/
Because You Exist (Light in the Dark #1) Page 20