by B. B. Hamel
I shook my head. “This is nuts, Dad.”
“I know. But we can’t miss this chance. You understand, don’t you?”
I wanted to get up and scream. I couldn’t move away from Ashertown. All of my friends were there, everyone I knew, everything I was. I couldn’t leave.
I couldn’t leave Gage.
It hit me just then. I was going to move across the country, as far away from Gage as possible.
“You can’t make me go,” I said softly.
“I’m sorry, sweetie. We have to go as a family.”
“You’re doing this to get me away from him,” I said.
He looked confused. “What?”
“Gage. I know you hate him. That’s why you’re doing this.”
He looked sad, truly sad. “No, honey. I’m trying to save your mother’s life.”
I stood up. “I won’t go. I won’t.”
“I’m sorry. You’re going whether I have to drag you there or not.”
I stormed away, sixteen and angry. I thought that my life was coming to an end, that my parents were unreasonable. I stormed up into my room and slammed the door, jumping into bed and burying my face in the pillow.
I cried for an hour. When I finally got myself under control, I called and told Gage what was happening.
He didn’t seem angry. He said he understood.
I didn’t understand. Not back then, not when I was just a kid. I wanted to be with Gage forever, wanted to grow old with him, wanted to get him away from his awful family and save him from a life I knew he didn’t want.
Instead, the next morning I got onto a plane and I flew with my family out to Seattle.
I had no other choice. I was sixteen and emotional, but I wasn’t a monster. I would do anything for my mother, and if the clinical trial was supposed to save her, well then I was willing to give it a try.
But the whole plane ride I just kept thinking about that meadow, about being there with Gage, his hands between my legs, his mouth against mine.
That moment felt perfect, incredible, and I wished I could live inside of it forever.
1
Sadie
Ten Years Later
The weather was hot, oppressively hot, and had that famous Ashertown humidity. I’d only been back for a few hours at most and already I was sweating through my nice white work blouse, annoyed and tired. My heels made a clacking sound as I made my way up the concrete steps toward the main courthouse and its modernist design.
Cool air-conditioning slammed me in the face as I stepped into the lobby. I’d never actually been in the courthouse before, but it was surprisingly nice. The outside looked like it hadn’t been updated since the seventies, but the inside suggested major renovations. It was all glass and modern lines, plus the ubiquitous metal detectors.
We had to be kept safe somehow, I figured, and a courthouse was the kind of place you really wanted to be careful in.
I hurried over to the front desk. The man sitting there smiled up at me as I approached.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see . . . “ I pulled up my phone, embarrassed that I forgot my new boss’s name already. “Rick Shakeman.”
“Ah, yes, of course. One second.” He made a quick call while I waited. He nodded and smiled at me before hanging up the phone. “Go on up to the third floor, make a left. He’s in room 322.”
“Thank you,” I said. I turned and went through the metal detector while my briefcase went through a scanner, just like at the airport. When I was all clear, I quickly climbed the stairs and made my way down the hall.
It was my first day of work, and I was already late. To be fair, it wasn’t my fault. The night before had been a total disaster; my flight was delayed, and then delayed again, and then canceled. I managed to get a red eye, but that meant I wasn’t getting any sleep. As soon as I got to the hotel, I rinsed off, got dressed, and hurried over to the courthouse.
I never expected to come back to Ashertown. I could still remember what it was like to live in a small town, and I vividly remembered the day that my father told me we were moving. I was such a selfish brat back then, but really I was just heartbroken. I knew I’d never see Gage again, my bad boy high school boyfriend.
I was right. He stopped calling about a month after I left and I couldn’t really blame him. There was no way that we could have a relationship beyond video chatting on our computers and phone calls. I was too young to buy plane tickets out to see him, and he couldn’t afford it either. There was just no future for us.
It still hurt. I could remember crying for days when I realized that he wasn’t going to call me again. I tried to get in touch with him, but his grandmother basically gently told me not to call anymore.
My poor little teenage heart was broken into a million pieces.
Maybe it was stupid, but I never got over that. I had other boyfriends since Gage, some of them great and some of them pretty lousy, but I always thought fondly about him. I always remembered him as the one that got away, the one that could have been special.
Now, I was single and racing down a hallway to meet with my boss, and I was incredibly late. That was a pretty bad look for a new Assistant District Attorney.
I found the door marked “Shakeman” and knocked twice.
“Come in!”
I opened the door and stepped inside. Rick Shakeman was an old-school District Attorney. He was larger, heavy-set with thick dark hair and a smile on his face.
“Well now, you made it,” he said.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Shakeman. I had a nightmare trip.”
“I know, I know. Call me Rick. It’s okay.” He shook my hand and gestured at the chair in front of him. “Go ahead and sit down.”
I smiled and sat down. “Really, I’m terribly sorry.”
“It’s fine, quit apologizing. I’m just glad you’re here.”
“Me too, Rick. I’m really excited to get started.”
He leaned back in his chair. “I hear you’re from these parts?”
“I am,” I said. “That’s why I wanted to get transferred here from Seattle. I guess I wanted to come home.”
“The promotion didn’t hurt, though.”
I laughed. “No, it didn’t.”
“Well, Sadie, we’re glad to have you. I’ve heard great things from your boss out in Seattle.”
“Thanks. I’m looking forward to getting started.”
He nodded and grabbed a file from his desk. “Well, if you’re so excited, why don’t we dive in?”
I blinked, surprised. I assumed we’d walk around the office, maybe make some light chitchat, that sort of thing. The usual first day at the office. I didn’t even have a laptop or a computer yet and he was already handing me a case file.
I took it, curious, and opened up the front. Smiling out at me was a few different mug shots of hard looking men, plus their rap sheets underneath. I whistled.
“Tough guys,” I said.
“That’s the Petrov case.” Rick leaned back in his chair. “It’s the reason you’re here, incidentally.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Is it?”
“You’re the only candidate we saw with any organized crime experience.”
I laughed. “I would hardly call what I did ‘experience,’ but thanks.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. Not even young ADA manages to put a few wise guys behind bars.”
I sighed and shook my head. Rick was talking about a case I prosecuted about a year back. It was a pretty straightforward case about some breaking and entering charges against some mob-affiliated guys. Nobody else wanted to touch it, and I was stupid enough to dive right in.
One witness was scared off, but I managed to find a second at the last minute. I put those assholes behind bars, despite the threatening phone calls I got. I never felt safe in the city afterward, and so I eventually pushed for a promotion and a transfer.
That was how I ended up in Ashertown again. I wanted to get as f
ar away from the Seattle mob as I could.
And of course, now I was getting assigned to another mob case.
“I’m not sure about this, Rick,” I said. “Truth is, the last mob case didn’t go well.”
“Sure it did. You got the conviction.”
“I also got the threatening calls at three in the morning.”
“Well, now,” he said, smiling. “We’ll keep you safe, I can promise that.”
I sighed. That was what my old boss said.
“Come on,” Rick said, standing up. “Let’s show you around the office. You can bring that file with you, look at it on your time, decide if you want the case. I won’t force you.”
“That’s fair,” I said, standing. I took the file and tucked it into my case. “Thanks.”
“Come on.” He led me out into the main office.
The rest of the day was spent exactly how I figured it would. I was shown to my office, or really my corner cubicle, and spent the afternoon getting myself acquainted with the systems.
As I went through the tedious process of setting up my computer and getting situated, I couldn’t help but look at the case file. Three men, all killers and thieves, were arrested for trespassing. They were caught with drugs as well, and the office wanted to pin a few other charges on them from some old cases as well.
It was fascinating. For such a small town, Ashertown had some seriously hard criminals. By the end of the day, I was fully engrossed in the case.
“Good night,” Rick said, stopping by my cubicle door.
“Good night, Rick,” I said, standing up.
“Hope you had a second to look at that case.”
“I glanced at it,” I hedged.
“Good. Tell me what you think tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
He nodded and walked away.
I already knew what I thought about it, but I was having a hard time admitting it to myself. I gathered my things and quickly left the building, walking slowly out toward my rental car.
I could head back to the hotel or I could go somewhere to kill a few hours. There wasn’t a good option, and as I sat behind the steering wheel, I suddenly felt a little nostalgic.
I turned on the engine and began to drive. Familiar sights came back to me as memories flooded into my mind.
I remembered getting in a fight with Gage at the movie theater I drove past. I remembered going to soccer games at the field on my right. I remembered Gage’s hand between my legs as he drove down the road I was driving down.
Finally, I found what I was looking for, and laughed out loud as I stood in the parking lot.
Ralph’s was an old dive bar that had been in Ashertown for as long as I could remember. Gage and I went there together a few times, since his cousin was the bouncer. He let us in and we’d drink cheap beers and laugh for hours together. I never felt so alive and so free.
Ralph’s hadn’t changed one bit. I walked over and stepped inside.
The whole place felt like home. It was dark and sticky, just like I remembered, with an old crappy bar on the left and tables scattered throughout the main room. A small stage was set up in the far corner, the only change they’d made in ten years.
I walked over to the bar and sat down at one end. I placed the file on the bar top and ordered a glass of wine from the bartender.
I shook my head, smiling to myself. It was almost as if the same people were still there, sitting in the same spots. The place was crowded, though not too crowded. Everyone was a regular, and I probably stood out like a sore thumb.
I scanned the faces, trying to find one that I recognized.
And then I froze. I couldn’t move. Too many memories were rushing back.
Those eyes. That jaw. Ten years older, harder, more handsome, but it was him. He was sitting with a group of men at a table in the corner of the room and he hadn’t spotted me yet.
I wanted to get up and run. I wanted to go over and slap him in the face.
Gage laughed at something one of the guys said, and I could hear every note, even across the room. I clenched the file in front of me and tried to decide if I wanted to get the hell out of there or risk seeing someone I never thought I’d see again.
2
Gage
Another hot, sweaty night at Ralph’s. The boys were being fucking obnoxious, as always, and I was on my third whisky. Not much was going on and I felt like I was going stir-crazy. Frankly, I was fucking bored.
I wanted to get out there and break some fucking skulls. I was a “debt collector” for the Petrov Family, which meant that it was my job to make sure all the fucking pathetic losers that borrow money from my boss eventually paid up.
Usually, they paid in money. But my favorite jobs were the ones where I had to get creative. I’d break a knee, take some teeth, clip some fucking fingers, that sort of thing. Sometimes, I’d take a daughter or two, if they were hot enough. The daughters rarely complained.
Once in a while, only life could pay back a debt. I was a killer, and that was fine by me. These men entered into a contract with my employers knowing full well that they could get their ass killed if the sum they took was too high and they couldn’t pay it back. Nobody forced these pathetic losers to take outrageous loans with insane terms, but they kept coming back.
The idiots made sure that I had a job.
Lately though, there hadn’t been much work. For whatever reason, Ashertown’s finest scum collectively decided that it was better to actually pay up than it was to wait for me to come calling. Plus, there was extra scrutiny on the family from the DA’s office for some fucking reason, probably because of some federal mandate to crack down on organized crime. That shit was above my pay grade and I frankly didn’t care, but it was keeping me from doing what I did best.
Which was how I found myself in Ralph’s doing fucking nothing as usual, just watching the ground.
Boris leaned across the table, smirking at me. “You look fucking lost in though there, Gage.”
I glanced at him. Boris was my partner in crime. He was fat, slovenly, ugly, and cruel, which was exactly what I needed from him. We played Good Cop/Bad Cop very well, and Boris was always the Bad Cop.
“Sick of sitting around waiting for work,” I said.
“You eager to get in some trouble?” Alex asked. He was thin with a hawk nose and intense eyes. He was technically above us in the ranks, but barely. He was something of a local boss and scheduler for the debt collectors.
“Something like that. Just sick of sitting around in this damn bar doing nothing.”
“Well, now,” Boris said suddenly. “Look what we have here.”
I followed his gaze toward the door and watched a woman walk in. She glanced around then ended up sitting at the bar.
I felt like I was watching a ghost.
“Boris, your fat ass can’t pull a girl like that even if you had some fucking roofies,” Alex said.
I laughed, but my heart wasn’t really into it.
I was watching her from the corner of my eyes. My heart started beating faster and I couldn’t fucking believe what I was seeing.
It was my past, sitting there at the bar.
Memory came and swallowed me up. I could practically feel her lips against mine again, the way she moaned as my fingers pressed inside of her. We used to steal booze from her parents and fuck out in the woods, getting drunk and laughing together. I was so fucking innocent and stupid back then, I almost thought she actually loved me.
But then she moved away and it nearly broke me. I was just a stupid teenager back then, and part of me wanted to make it work.
I stopped calling her when my uncle asked me if I wanted to do a job for him. That was how I got involved with the Petrov Family, and it turned out that I was pretty fucking good at what I did.
Sadie didn’t want to be involved with a man like me. She made that shit clear before she left, when we were still together. She wanted me to stay far away from my uncles and their work, and I coul
dn’t really blame her.
When she was gone, there was nothing holding me back. I released all my pent-up aggression and anger on the pathetic losers that I was hired to collect from. I realized that I actually enjoyed it when a man begged for my forgiveness.
Sadie was my life ten years ago, when I was a fucking kid, but seeing her again brought back a rush of memories and emotions. I’d been with plenty of women since her, even dated one for a couple weeks until I figured out that I hated being tied down. But I always thought about Sadie as the one that got away late at night when I was drifting off to sleep.
“Did you hear what I said, Gage?” Alex asked.
I blinked. “No. I was ignoring your shrill voice.”
He laughed. “I said, the big boss was asking about you the other day.”
That got my attention. “Vadik?”
“The one and only.”
Vadik was the leader of the Petrov Family and the most dangerous man in the entire state. I was a little surprised that I was on his radar at all.
“What did he have to say?”
“Heard that you were doing a good job from me. He heard about you from some other people too. Apparently you might be getting some more responsibility.”
I nodded, not sure how I felt about that. I liked where I was. The money was fucking good, the women were fucking good, and I wasn’t the type that enjoyed change. I wanted to keep on cracking skulls and getting cash, and I had no interest in being some fucking scumbag boss like Alex.
“Good,” I grunted.
“Good?” Boris asked, amazed. “Fucking Vadik talks about you, and all you say is fucking ‘good’?”
I shrugged. “The fuck you want me to say?”
Boris just shook his head and laughed.
“Maybe you won’t be so bored soon,” Alex said.
“Maybe. I like where I’m at, though.”
“Don’t say that shit.” Alex frowned at me. “Plus, you don’t have much choice. If the big boss wants to promote you, you’re getting promoted.”