Unhinged

by Natasha Knight

  “Armen.” It’s a sob.

  Can you hear a bullet rip through air? Hear it tear flesh?

  I think I scream as blood splatters across my face, against my open mouth, as my brother falls away from me, falls backward off the stage, onto the dirt, at the feet of all those men. All those men, none of whom help him.

  I scream again when I see them kick at him and for a single moment, his eyes catch mine and that’s when I drop to my knees, the jagged stone stage tearing my flesh as they beat his body, breaking him. They only stop when he goes limp like a ragdoll, and no more sound comes from him.

  When I try to get up, to go to him, hands grip me hard, and I look up. Ace stands behind me. His grin is chilling as he tucks his pistol into the waistband of his jeans and grips my shoulder with one hand, bracing me as the other tears my dress apart.

  I gasp, look down at myself, see my brother there, bleeding out on the ground, choke on a scream as Ace’s hands rip my bra in two, tear it away, leave me naked but for my panties. The men scream and cheer and I stumble backward, nearly falling off the broken stage.

  But Ace raises me to my feet, holds me there, laughs as he calls out another number.

  Like two years ago, once I’m fully naked, I search for Zach. I find him. His eyes are wide, locked on mine. Just like that night, but different too.

  Wild.

  Feral.

  Savage.

  Ace leans in to say something in my ear but all I feel is his hot breath, his wet mouth. He turns back to the crowd, but it’s all muted now, muted and blurred. Men are screaming out numbers. Ridiculous numbers. And Zach, he’s screaming too. I can’t hear what he’s saying though. Can’t hear his warning. It’s all happening so fast.

  Air rushes past me, the sound drawing my gaze from Zach’s to Ace’s. His expression changes. He stops. Blinks. Stumbles. I look behind me and see Hassan stepping out of the woods, his face strange, hands somehow steady. He fires another shot and this time when I stumble, I fall. I fall backward off the stage with a thud onto the ground. That’s when all hell breaks loose around me, an exact reenactment of that deadly night two years ago.

  22

  Zach

  I saw Hassan before anyone else did. Watched him step out from the thick cover of trees. Screamed for Eve to drop to the ground. To take cover. But she wasn’t hearing me.

  A second bullet sends Ace to the ground. Sends Eve falling off the stage. Hassan is still approaching but guards have seen him now, not the crazed men bidding on Eve’s naked body, but the men beside me. The men by Malik. It’s the moment I need. They should have tied my hands behind my back, not in front of me. Now they’ll pay.

  The soldier who raises his machine gun first has my attention. I lunge, throwing my weight against the length of it. He’s not expecting this, not expecting me, and I use surprise to my advantage, relieving him of the weapon, knocking him out with the butt of it before whirling around, using the gun like a baseball bat to knock the knees out from under the second soldier by my side. He screams in pain, falling as I shatter one of his kneecaps. I don’t care about him though.

  I stand. Eve’s still on the ground, but she’s moving, watching me. She’s not hurt. Hassan’s been hit, but he’s still walking, and I turn the weapon on the room and open fire and it’s like that night is happening all over again. The sounds, the screams, the tearing flesh and the blood. The past grabs hold of me, ink burning into my back, but I can’t let it have me. Not yet. Not now. I have to stay here for her.

  My body vibrates in time to the machine gun I’m emptying. Men drop before they’ve reached for weapons, but bullets are flying toward me as I walk, making my way through the downed men, stepping on bodies, feeling flesh beneath my boots.

  I have one target in my sights. One man who, two years ago, escaped. Walked away.

  Tonight though, things will go differently.

  He’s not walking away. None of them are.

  Pain in my left arm momentarily stops me. I look at the circle of blood forming, and turn in the direction from where the bullet came and I mow down the men standing there. I don’t feel a goddamn thing when I do it either. No remorse. Nothing.

  Maybe I’ve become like him too. Like Malik.

  Ruthless. Insane.

  A monster.

  I turn to Malik again, find Hassan standing a few feet from him. Hassan’s face is strange. Blood is smeared across it and his pallor is…wrong. But he’s standing. And I realize it’s quiet. I look around me and see only downed bodies. Only one headlight hasn’t been shot out, and that’s the one illuminating Hassan and Malik.

  “He’s mine,” I say, my eyes locked on Malik.

  Both men turn to me, but Malik is the only one grinning.

  I know why in the next second. I know it when he draws the blade out of Hassan’s belly and Hassan stumbles backward, catches the half-wall, falls.

  “Mine,” he says, clutching his gut, his hand searching for the wall, finding it, pulling himself up again.

  Malik looks behind him and, realizing he’s alone, that grin falters. But only for a moment.

  “It’s a good night, isn’t it?” he asks, and I realize he’s holding a pistol in his hand when I hear him cock it. He raises it, but instead of aiming it at me, he aims it behind me to where I know Eve is standing. He returns his gaze to mine. “What do you think, loaded or not?”

  But before he can pull the trigger, a shot rings out and Malik stumbles backward, the gun in his hand flying to the ground, lost in the darkness and the overgrowth. I look to find Eve naked, smeared in blood, camouflaged by it almost, and holding a pistol. She takes a step toward us.

  “Eve,” I say.

  Like before, she doesn’t hear me. I move, but when I do, she looks to me and aims the weapon at me, blinks, then returns her attention to Malik.

  He laughs. Clutching his side, he actually laughs.

  “Where are my brothers?” Eve asks, her voice stronger than I expect, even as it trembles.

  When he doesn’t reply, she fires another bullet, but this one misses him.

  “Eve, put the gun down.” I’m walking toward her slowly, my weapon pointing to the ground.

  “Where are they?” She cocks it again.

  It takes three more steps for me to be beside her. “He’s not going to tell you,” I say, touching her hands, covering them with one of mine, lowering the pistol.

  She looks at me, and I see the loss in her eyes. The pain of watching someone you love brutalized before you.

  “He’s not worth it,” I say.

  A tear slides down her face.

  “He’s a monster.”

  I take the gun from her and tuck it into the waistband of my jeans before hugging her to me. She’s shivering, even though it’s a warm night. Shock. She’s going into shock.

  “Armen,” she says into my chest. “They shot him in the back like cowards.”

  “He’s still alive.” Turning us, I hold her so I’m watching the half-brothers on the ground, one nearly dead, the other not close enough to it. She’s looking at Armen. I look at Eve, pull my shirt over my head and slip it over her. “Go to him. Go to Armen,” I say. “And whatever you do, don’t look back.”

  She draws away, studies me.

  “Understand?”

  She nods. She understands. And a moment later, she’s walking across this twice-bloodied field to her brother. I go to where Malik and Hassan lie on the ground.

  I take the stained blade, the one Hassan has his hand around. He’s moments from death and he doesn’t fight me for it.

  “He destroyed my family,” Hassan says. “I never meant—” There’s a gurgling sound. A sound of dying.

  “Shh. Don’t talk now. It’s done.”

  “Julia.” It’s barely a whisper.

  “I’ll take care of Julia and the baby. Close your eyes, Hassan.”

  A chuckle from Malik has me turning, but his wound is worse than I thought. He’ll bleed out. I don’t have to do this
. But I want to.

  I shift my full attention to him.

  “Why all this?” I ask.

  “Because you were always too good to waste.”

  “You thought I’d come to work for you? After everything you did?”

  He tries to shrug.

  “You’re stupid too, then.” I hold up the knife. “I can make it quick,” I say. “Tell me where her brothers are.”

  One corner of his mouth curves upward. “Hell?”

  My eyes narrow. I spare one glance behind me, but Eve’s good. She’s not watching.

  When I look back at Malik, it’s me who smiles.

  “Then don’t tell me, bastard.”

  I tear open his shirt. He grunts, and I glimpse the fear in his eyes now.

  “This is for my friends. For the lives you took.” And I slice a line from one side of his gut to the other, deep but not too deep. I do this six times, slowly carving each line into him, watching his eyes, seeing his pain as I feel flesh tear beneath my blade. It’s not as satisfying as I thought it would be as life drains out of him. But I never thought it would be that. It just needed to be done. And I needed to be the one to do it.

  “Fuck you, Malik. Fuck you.”

  23

  Eve

  Three months later

  I’ve always heard that coming back to your childhood home, you realize it’s not as big as you thought it was when you were a kid. But to me, this house, this broken, white-walled house, it’s still huge.

  And hollow.

  I know if I make a sound, my voice will bounce against the walls in an echo. But I don’t make a sound. There’s nothing to say. No one to say it to. I’m alone as I close the door behind me and stand in the foyer of the house I grew up in. The tiles beneath my sandaled feet are terracotta. My heels click with my steps, even though I’m trying to be quiet. My heart is beating faster too, just a little. It’s strange being back here. It’s been seven years.

  The narrow corridor of the entrance opens into the large living room. At the far end is the kitchen, and next to that, the dining area. No walls to separate the spaces. Most of the furniture is covered by dust cloths. I pick up the one wooden chair that’s lying on its side, half exposed, and right it before dragging the yellowed cloth off to expose the table and the rest of the dining chairs. I didn’t realize Armen had kept the house as it was.

  I walk into the kitchen. Although buried beneath inches of dust, the tea kettle sits in its place on the back burner of the stove. My mom made tea every morning and every evening. She and I were the only ones who drank it. I touch it, smear my finger through the dust. I don’t know if I expect memories to flood back, but they don’t. I don’t know at all what I feel right now.

  Wiping off my hands, I turn back around and take in the living room. The carpet with the design I loved now looks old and worn. I look up and what I see makes me smile. My father had a fresco painted on the ceiling like it was the Sistine Chapel. He did it for my mom. I was four then and I remember lying on my back and staring up at it, in awe of it. It’s peeling a little now. Time is taking its toll.

  The house was built so the second-floor rooms are situated on the outsides of the large living space of the first floor. Six doors total, three on each side. All the bedroom doors are closed and when I walk to the stairs, I realize I’m holding my breath. My hand closes over the simple metal railing, and I ignore the dust as I climb up. My door is the first one I come to and it takes me a minute to open it.

  That’s when emotion slams into me. It’s when I feel the warmth of tears. It’s not even memories. It’s just loss.

  Light filters in through the slats of the shutters, just enough of it for me to see. My room looks like it did the day we left. My parents had been gone for months by then. I was fifteen. Some of my old posters hang on the walls, but most are on the floor. My bed isn’t made. I never bothered back then, not after they died. Nothing was the same after they died.

  I walk to the window with its broken glass and push the wooden shutters open. Bright sunlight fills the space. I just stand there for a long time, remembering. I have to force my legs to move, but I make my way to the bed, sit on the edge of it, not caring about the cloud of dust that surrounds me as I shift seven years’ worth with my weight. The framed photo of my family is on the nightstand. I pick it up and dust it off. Why didn’t I take this with me when I left? I look at it, touch each of their faces. My parents. My brothers. Me. All of us laughing.

  My heart hurts.

  “You okay?”

  Startled, my gaze snaps to the door where Zach is standing.

  “Armen told me you’d come here,” he says.

  Armen survived that terrible night. The bullet had missed his heart, but just barely, and although he was badly bruised with multiple broken ribs and a broken leg, he’s healing. And he’s home. He and Julia are living in Dr. Hassan’s house with Hope.

  Zach looks around the room before he steps inside. He’s too big for the space and my old bedroom suddenly looks small.

  I put the picture frame down and stand up, wiping off the seat of my jeans. “Zach. When did you get back?”

  He’s been gone for over four weeks. I guess I’m surprised he’s back, although he told me he would be.

  “You look like you didn’t expect to see me.” He gives a little laugh, picks up a poster that’s lying face down on the floor. “Didn’t think I’d come back?” he asks without looking at me.

  I shrug. I guess I don’t know what I expected.

  He looks up when I don’t reply. “Hannah Montana?” he asks, one eyebrow lifting along with a corner of his mouth.

  That’s good. It makes me smile. Helps to turn off the pain, at least for now.

  “It’s old.” I walk to him, make to take the poster, but when my hand touches his, there’s a spark of electricity that makes me draw back, gasp. The blue of his eyes are bright, but his gaze is focused, scrutinizing. Being near him, it makes my belly feel like a hundred butterflies take flight at the same instant. It’s not just physical attraction, either. Maybe it’s circumstances that make me feel the way I do. Make me feel safest when he’s near. I don’t know. I can’t explain it, and I’m not trying to. I know what I want. I just don’t know if it’s what he wants.

  I lick my lips. I’m waiting for him to kiss me, expecting him to, wondering why he hasn’t already.

  But he doesn’t kiss me. Instead, he runs his thumb across my cheek to wipe away a tear. “You okay?” he asks again.

  I shake my head, step backward, focus my attention on setting the old poster on the bed. “It’s just weird being back here.” I’m disappointed he hasn’t kissed me. When I straighten, he’s still watching me.

  “Eve.”

  I know he’s waiting for more, but I’m not sure how to do that without breaking, so instead I just try to keep my eyes on his, even though I know I can’t hide from him. He can see inside my soul. I can’t even control it, stop it. Not with him.

  “Are you okay?”

  “How okay should I be?” It’s like the floodgates open then. Years of pain, of loss, of living in limbo, of not living at all.

  “Not.”

  I’m surprised by his answer and have no reply.

  “You shouldn’t have come here alone. You should have waited for me to bring you.”

  “You left.” He left a few weeks after the night he killed Malik. Once he made sure Armen would be all right, made certain Julia and the baby were safe. That I was safe. He said he needed to take care of old business and disappeared.

  “I told you I’d be back.”

  My gaze falls to the floor and I drop onto the bed. The poster in my hand wrinkles, but I don’t drop it. I need to hold onto something, need to keep my hands busy. My gaze on something—anything—other than him.

  “I don’t know who I am,” I start. I know this, have known it for a long time. But to voice it, it’s almost frightening. Like it’s more real because I do.

  The b
ed strains beneath Zach’s weight as he sits beside me. He doesn’t speak, but I can feel him watching me.

  “I was fifteen when my parents died. That was when my world began to fall apart. It wasn’t long after that Rafi and Seth disappeared, and Armen went to work for Malik. I never even graduated high school,” I say, glancing at him. I don’t think he knew that. “I think I could have survived my parents’ deaths, but then Rafi and Seth, and then after that, Armen… Everything changed. That night two years ago was the final straw. The last thing that broke me. For two years I’ve lived in limbo. Numb. Existing, really, not living.” I wipe my eyes on my sleeve and force myself to face him. “Now that I know they’re gone, Rafi and Seth, now that I know Armen will be all right, that Malik didn’t turn him into a monster. That I have a niece…” That makes me smile. “Hope. It’s appropriate, her name, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is.” His big hand is at my back, rubbing circles.

  “Well, now that I know, I can move on. I just don’t really know how.” My chest heaves with a deep sigh. These are my cards. It’s where I stand.

  “The house is in your name,” Zach says.

  I nod. “Armen did that.” He and Julia are together, trying to heal after her losses. She’s only just started to meet my gaze when we speak, but I know she has a lot to work through, and in spite of everything, my brother loves her and I’m trying to give her a chance.

  “That’s a starting point, isn’t it? The house?” Zach says.

  I look at him.

  “Or do you want to go back to Denver?”

  “Denver? I have nothing to tie me to Denver. Devon is probably the only person who noticed I left.” I chuckle, but it’s not really funny. It’s sad, actually. That day I was packing to outrun Zach, I realized how little of the things around me were even mine. “I talked to him again yesterday. They sold the McKinney property,” I say, teasing.

  “That’s too bad,” he smiles. “But I didn’t have any intention of going back to Denver. I only went looking for you in the first place.”