Delicate Monsters
Page 17
Nothing more.
After, Sadie had been brought up on criminal charges, but without his testimony against her, she got off with probation, expulsion from school, and an agreement for her mother to send her to the therapeutic wilderness camp. And after, Roman, who suffered serious medical complications as well as a severe mental breakdown, had gone home to his family and, as far as she knew, hadn’t left his house to go outside in over eight months. Not once.
It took a while for him to reply. But he finally did.
*
That’s the thing about after, Sadie. It’s still happening, and there’s no one answer to what you want to know. I’m living after. Every second. Every minute. Every day. But I’m living, and there’s that. So here are a few of my immediate afters. Moments I’m not proud of:
After …
I wanted to die.
I wanted to kill myself.
I wanted to kill you.
Clearly, I didn’t do any of those things, although I can see how for someone else, it would be easy to get stuck in one of those afters and not let go. But I moved on, because that’s who I am. I realize this now, and I’m starting to be okay with it. For one, I’m a pacifist. I’m also afraid of death. But more than anything, what keeps me here on this earth and lets me live with my failures is the knowledge that I am a lamb among wolves.
I am not you.
*
Sadie clenched her jaw. She wrote back:
*
I did it to make you not want me. I did it to make you leave me the fuck alone.
*
He didn’t respond. Sadie puffed harder on her cigarette and stared down into the narrow courtyard. Her heart stopped.
There, alone in the shadows beneath her, stood Dumpster Boy. She recognized his thin body and the way he hunched his back and his floppy blond hair that hung in his eyes and reached past the collar of his shirt. She couldn’t believe he was actually here, but he was real, definitely real, and her instinct was to lean over and call to him with a lazy “hey, asshole” or something to let him know where she was, but in a way that didn’t tell him how thrilled she was to see him. And she was, wasn’t she?
Thrilled.
But Sadie stopped mid-lean. Miles had something gripped in his hands, an object long and dark. A gun, she realized with quick-rising horror. He’s got a goddamn gun. Then something cold and awful wriggled through her, because when Sadie thought about the broken birds and the words he’d left in the abandoned cellar, and how close to her house he must have been hiding, all this time, it was clear he’d stolen one of her father’s rifles. Right off the wall from his prized gun collection that he kept unlocked in his study. Of course Miles would know the guns were there. Of course Miles had seen them before.
riposte
thrust
touché
Miles the fencer, planning his attack.
All this time.
Of course.
Sadie threw her cigarette on the ground and glanced at her phone.
Five minutes until the bell rang and the courtyard would be flooded. Her own Research Methods class would walk right into his line of fire.
“No,” she muttered. “No, no, no.”
*
Sadie ran as fast as she could, but she wasn’t fast enough. The bell went off just as her foot slammed down on the first floor of the main building. Students crowded into the hall, but she shouted and pushed and shoved people out of the way, then kicked open the door that led into the courtyard.
Miles stood by the wall near a narrow strip of grass and an untended butterfly garden. His back was to her and somehow the saddest thing wasn’t the way the oversized vintage rifle dwarfed his childlike hands or the cord of tension that streaked between his shoulder blades. It was the fact that he was wearing the same goddamn clothes he’d been wearing the last time she’d seen him. He’d sat in her car in that same dopey T-shirt with the picture of a fish on the back. It was also the day he’d told her he could see the future.
Was this what he’d seen?
Sadie bit back a cry. She didn’t know. It didn’t matter. The rifle was on his shoulder now. His finger on the trigger. He was scanning the crowd, looking for someone.
Who?
She sprinted hard. Launched at him from behind, knocking them both to the ground while she grabbed for the gun. He came back at her, swinging wildly. They grappled and rolled.
“Stop it,” she barked. “It’s me, motherfucker! Me! I’m trying to help you. Like you asked me to! You can’t do this. You can’t. They’ll kill you. Don’t you get that?”
But no, Miles didn’t get it, and no, he didn’t stop. He fought Sadie like a treed cat, all fear and claws and fanged desperation. Soon people around them were screaming. About the gun. About her. About him. They realized who he was—the missing boy, the one they’d never cared about. But they cared now, because he was back from the dead.
Sadie reached for Miles again, but he shoved her with the butt of the rifle, slamming her head off the grass and snapping her jaw. Ears ringing, Sadie rolled to her right and scrambled forward into the butterfly garden. Wood chips scraped her hands, her knees, tangled in her hair, but her elbow bumped against something hard—a stake, a metal garden stake, the kind used to hold plants too weak to hold themselves. Sadie yanked it from the dirt. The stake was surprisingly heavy. She nearly dropped it. Held on. Had just gotten a good grip when Miles lunged for her. He grabbed her wrist. And twisted.
The pain was bright and shattering. Sadie writhed like a rattler, bucking this way and that. Finally wrenching free, she lashed out with the stake, thrusting as hard as she could until the sharpened tip made contact. It struck his cheek and sank deep.
Like a nightmare, blood exploded, spraying everywhere, onto the ground, on her. Miles cried out, the horrible anguish of a hurt boy, and grabbed for his face. There were tears in his eyes. The rifle tumbled to the ground.
Sadie picked it up and ran.
There was more screaming, more crowds, more people scattering in every direction. Sadie saw kids and teachers alike dropping to the ground, ducking for cover. And she heard voices shrieking at her to stop!
To put it the hell down!
To give herself up before she got hurt!
Oh shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. They thought the gun was hers. They thought Miles had been trying to wrestle it away from her. That’s what it looked like. There was blood all over her. His blood. Maybe they even thought she’d abducted him or something horrible, and now, like some God-given miracle, he was finally free.
Sadie ran faster. Fine. Good. Whatever. Let those fuckers think that. Let them believe in her badness and not in his. It was the truth, after all. She headed for her car on pure adrenaline instinct. Once there, she heaved the rifle onto the passenger’s seat and slid behind the wheel. She started the engine. Threw the car in reverse. The tires squealed and left black marks. She gunned it out of there.
What the hell else was she going to do?
chapter forty-five
Was it possible to fall so far from greatness?
Was this, then, his destiny?
Emerson woke late Tuesday morning. He swung his feet to the floor and looked at the clock. It was ten thirty. That meant he was missing Research Methods, which was fine by him. He hadn’t set his alarm on purpose, because he didn’t plan on going to school today. In fact, the dreams Emerson had been having of late meant he didn’t plan on doing anything anyone might expect from him.
What he did do, however, was take a long shower, his mind filling with steam as the hot spray peppered his body like sniper fire. After, he dressed in clean clothes taken from the laundry and kissed his still-sleeping mother on the cheek. Then he got into his dead father’s ’64 dynasty green Mustang and drove it out toward the highway.
He felt the sun on his face.
He felt the breeze in his hair.
He felt so very, very guilty.
Despite the guilt, or maybe because of it, Emer
son kept driving, kept picking up speed. He absorbed the thrum of the engine and bump-press-roll of the pavement beneath his tires. A song came on the radio that made him feel sad, but in his sadness he also found a rich sense of satisfaction, one that ran both deep and profound.
This, he thought, this was the way a good-bye should be for someone like him.
Solitary.
Secretive.
Shameful.
Maybe a little bit liberating, too.
And it really was a good-bye. A cowardly one, sure, seeing as he was running with his tail between his legs, unwilling to answer for the things he’d done and the pain he’d caused. But the way Emerson saw it was like this: his family, his friends, they deserved better than him. Only better wasn’t something he was willing or able to give. It never had been.
It never would be.
So he wouldn’t be back. Not to Sonoma or the apartment. Not ever. He’d known that yesterday when he’d been with May. He’d known even before her eyes turned cold and hard, and she asked him to leave before she called the goddamn police and told them what he’d done.
But maybe he’d always known. Maybe the cool winds of fate and the flag-snap flutter of destiny had always been there, tickling his spine, whispering in his ear it’s gonna catch up with you boy one of these days the truth’ll come back so you’d better go go go, until finally, Emerson couldn’t help but listen. There was only so much ruin the mind could rationalize. There was only so much badness that could be suppressed for so long. His guilt, on its own, was utterly meaningless—just a showy type of magic that changed nothing because changing nothing was the endgame all along. Words like absolution and forgiveness and redemption would never apply to someone like him. Those terms were just abstractions.
Names for what other people called the moments between darkness.
In the end it was simple: May was a good person. He was not. The way he’d fallen for her that day at the poolside party when she’d played badminton in the sun and he’d watched her breasts move and her brown skin glisten, that wasn’t love. That was desperation, a sad last gasp at something he would never find.
Like Miles, Emerson could see the future, too.
Like Miles, it both awed and frightened him.
The Mustang raced out of town.
He never once looked back.
chapter forty-six
Oh, Miles, you dumb kid. You told me.
I should’ve known.
Sadie squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. Everything in her field of vision was shimmery and distant, the landscape whipping by in a hot blur. This moment was too surreal not to be real. City cops were riding right on her ass, a long train of them. The Doppler wail of their sirens filled her car and rattled her mind.
But she kept going. And going. She had no other choice. After peeling out of the school lot, she’d just about reached the main road when the first patrol car came up from behind, lights flashing, voice on the loudspeaker shouting at her to pull over. Should she have stopped then? Probably. Was it too late now? Definitely. Instead she’d hit the gas and run a red light, throwing her middle finger out the window with trademark defiance. Stupid. What a stupid thing to do. Now a whole fucking SWAT team was after her.
Well, if it’s me, it’s not you, lamb.
I know I hurt you, but you’re still alive.
Try and stay that way.
Sadie reached the Sonoma city limit and headed north, winding her way through the vineyard valleys and tiny towns like a damn tourist. The wide river was on her left, and rays of the rising sun shot out from behind the clouds to cast a red-pink glow off the water. This day would bring more heat for the dying vines.
More decay.
More loss.
Sadie squared her shoulders and gritted her teeth. The highway wasn’t far. She could make it, she thought. She could lose them. From there, she didn’t know where she’d go—to the sea, to the mountains—but maybe she didn’t need to know. Maybe for once she could take things as they came to her. React. Not act.
Not seek to destroy.
Another glance in the rearview mirror. The police cars were still there, as close as ever, a whole goddamn cop parade, like it was a national holiday or something.
“Fuck you,” Sadie snarled. Didn’t they have anything better to do? The stoplight ahead of her turned yellow, but as always, Sadie and caution were like oil and water.
She went for it, blowing through the intersection amid a blare of horns and screeching tires. Only the vehicles behind her didn’t stop. They just followed with terrible persistence.
They kept following.
Sadie slammed her hand on the dash in frustration. The highway was visible in the distance now. She sped toward it, but the closer she got, the better she was able to see the streaks of squad cars, dozens of them, that were peeling down it, from both directions. All heading straight for the road she was on.
There was no escape.
None.
Sadie’s chest ached and heaved. She looked around, at the gun, the blood, and she understood the inevitability of the situation. The direness. Some actions you couldn’t take back. Some events you were powerless to stop. There was only one way this would end, and in the pounding of her pulse and the sweat dripping down her brow, Sadie was beginning to feel things she’d never felt before.
Like fear.
Like despair.
But also hope, a tiny, sparkling glimmer of it.
Is this love?
Is that what this is?
Her eyes stung, but Sadie kept going. Another mile. Then another. She pushed it and pushed it and pushed it, until there was nothing left to push. The oncoming police vehicles were in front of her now, the distance between them closing fast. With a ragged gasp, she yanked the steering wheel as hard as she could, twisting it to the right as she hit the brakes. The car wobbled, then fishtailed, revolving nose around nose, before skidding onto the shoulder and coming to a shuddering stop. She grabbed for the gun beside her.
Dust from the roadside swirled up and over the Jetta, clouding the windows with something hazy and thick, reminding Sadie of the way morning mist might swirl over a moat that led to the most impenetrable of castles—a fortress built of stone and faith that was meant to endure for the ages.
As the haze settled, cops scrambled from their cars, both in front and behind her. They had their sirens on, their lights still going. They shouted at her. They crouched down low. They drew their weapons.
This was it, then. Her time was up. Over. Done.
There would be no more chasing peace. No more boredom.
The world would move on without her.
A small sob escaped Sadie’s lips. She wasn’t scared, not really—she’d never been one to surrender. But she hadn’t known how much the end would hurt.
It was all the more sweet for the pain, though. That was the last thing Sadie thought before shoving the car door open and launching herself into the dust and the heat, with the rosewood butt of her father’s gleaming rifle hooked over one shoulder. What she had, and what Miles would because of her, why that was the point of it all.
Wasn’t that a brilliant thing?
She’d had her shine.
And now, somewhere, somehow, for a heart she’d never know, to light a sky she’d never see, someone else was preparing for theirs.
About the Author
STEPHANIE KUEHN is the William C. Morris Award–winning author of Charm & Strange. She holds degrees in linguistics and sport psychology, and is currently working toward a doctorate in clinical psychology. She lives in Northern California with her husband, their three children, and a joyful abundance of pets. When she’s not writing, she’s running. Or reading. Or dreaming. Visit her online at stephaniekuehn.com or sign up for email updates here.
Also by Stephanie Kuehn
Charm & Strange
Complicit
Thank you for buying this
St. Martin’s Press ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
I. Ennui
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
II. Little Lamb
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
III. The Hunter
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37